April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

General

Meal subsidy for the poor

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In a Star story today

Dr. David McKeown and members of Toronto’s board of health want the province to increase social assistance rates to include a “nutrition allowance” to help the poor pay for healthy meals.

Dr. Mckeown points out that a basic food basket for a family of four costs $538.43 a month.

Contrast this with the amount given to MPs to cover four days a week of food expense.

This means MPs in Ottawa four days a week during the time the House of Commons sits can get more than $17,000 a year in the form of meal money to use to pay their mortgages. And it is absolutely, unquestionably and inarguably wrong.*

*Garth Turner:The meals-for-mortgages scam [Read more…] about Meal subsidy for the poor

Top Ten Reasons why Top Ten Lists Suck

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This is more specifically about blogging but really could relate to anything.

10. Top Ten lists are narrow in scope.

There are various points of view, methods of approach, writing styles, etc, to choose ten requires too narrow a focus.

9. Top Ten lists focus on too few issues

There are so many issues (politics, gender issues, aid, policy, parenting) to create a top ten requires ignoring issues

8. Top Ten lists are often made up of friends or sucking up

7. Top Ten lists are like High School Cool Kids Klubs

6. Top Ten lists are boring ( well not this one 😉 ) [Read more…] about Top Ten Reasons why Top Ten Lists Suck

schadenfreude*

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*Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Story speaks for itself…wonder how this will impact their thoughts on fair use…

OTTAWA — Conservative attack ads fired at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion may end up sideswiping the ruling party after questions were raised about possible breach of copyright laws.

The television ads, which began airing Monday, use footage from last fall’s Liberal leadership debates to deliver the message that the new Grit leader is weak, indecisive and an environmental failure. But that footage belongs to a consortium of TV networks which pooled their resources to provide live coverage of the debates. The Cable Public Affairs Channel provided the pool camera for each debate.

The networks are now looking into how the Conservatives obtained the debate footage for their ads.

Medicine VS Forced Care

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The same day I read about surgeries being cancelled, I receive an article from Women’s eNews on the topic of Caesarean birth.

I am not a great proponent of sections, far too many are done unnecessarily and I think it is just another way women are taught to distrust their bodies and their abilities.

It is also interesting that there is space to do so many of these unnecessary surgeries yet cancer surgeries are being cancelled.

From the eNews article

At 30 percent of all deliveries, the current national Caesarean-section rate in the United States is twice the 15 percent maximum rate recommended by the World Health Organization and three times the preferred rate cited by many researchers.

This article shows the despite the claims that C-sections are better for baby and cause no harm to moms, in fact the opposite is true.

C-section rates are increasing worldwide, with one in four newborns in Canada now being delivered via an incision in its mother’s belly, compared with 17% in the early 1990s.
But a new World Health Organization-led study involving more than 97,000 deliveries in Latin America found that hospitals with the highest rates of Caesareans had higher rates of maternal death and illness — including conditions requiring blood transfusions — and had higher numbers of babies who died or were admitted to intensive care for seven days or more after birth.
The results, published online by the journal The Lancet, “show how a medical intervention or treatment that is effective when applied to sick individuals in emergency situations can do more harm than good when applied to healthy populations.”
While the study involved Latin American hospitals, the researchers believe the findings would hold true “beyond the participating institutions.”

[Read more…] about Medicine VS Forced Care

Digital Inheritance

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Interesting article on AlterNet

According to articles in Forbes and Foreign Policy magazine, estate planners are advising their clients to include emails and online passwords in their wills. Without these provisions, online service providers will not grant family or friends access to digital property, some of which could be valuable.

The Foreign Policy article states that, more and more, these cases are landing in court:

In 2005, a Michigan judge ordered Yahoo! to release the emails of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq to his family after they filed suit. Chris Sprigman, a University of Virginia law professor, says that’s just the beginning. “There will be a flood of these cases cropping up,” he says.

These cases can be sticky because unlike traditional assets, digital property does not have laws to point to, only agreements.

[Read more…] about Digital Inheritance

A Girl Like Me

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This is a powerful and disturbing video, especially when the children are asked to choose between a white doll and a black doll and which one is the good doll.

Color is more than skin deep for young African-American women struggling to define themselves

Kiri Davis is a young filmmaker whose high school documentary has left audiences at film festivals across the country stunned — and has re-ignited a powerful debate over race.