Going To Hell In A Handbasket

    While constructing my last post about Trump and the never ending American electioneering, I thought of the figure of speech noted above since, to me, it implies that things are not going well and I think they are not. I didn't use it, however, because I knew that, once again, the post was likely to be too long and it was.
   I looked up the phrase I didn't use and if you do, you will probably be satisfied with the Wikipedia entry, which is a good one. One possible origin has been traced "to the baskets used to catch guillotined heads in the eighteenth century." The Bosch painting above was also found in the Wikipedia essay and it supposedly illustrates a large cart of hay being drawn by "infernal beings that drag everyone to hell."
  I also found a handbasket column by William Safire and you know that has to be worth reading. It was written back in 1990 and apparently things weren't going well back then either. The wife of Harry Reasoner, who you will remember from 60 Minutes, asked Safire about "going to hell in a handbasket" which they had heard "in conversation five times in the past few months."
   The Safire piece is not mentioned among the Wikipedia sources, so I will offer a portion of it here:

   "Lexicographers call this ''old slang'' - a figure of speech used by people who stopped picking up the latest slang about two generations ago. To hell in a handbasket means either ''to one's doom'' or -if used mockingly to describe a small dissipation - merely ''mildly indulgent.''
   The origin is believed to be to heaven in a handbasket, a locution that Dialect Notes spotted in 1913 in Kansas, where it was taken to mean ''to have a sinecure.'' One who was nicely ensconced in an untouchable job was said to be on the way to heaven in a handbasket. When used in Wisconsin a decade later, the term was defined as ''to do something easily.''
   Then the direction changed. The alliteration remained the same, but the first stage of this rocket dropped off and was lost in the sea of archaic phrases; the second stage, with hell substituted for heaven, took us to where we are today: the meaning is ''to degenerate rapidly; to fall apart suddenly.'' The final stage? We cannot tell; down the tubes in a handbasket uses modern surfers' lingo but lacks the alliterative zing.
   What is it about a handbasket - a word rarely used now outside the hellish phrase - that makes it so useful in talk of decadence, degeneration, declension and downfall?
The key quality is portability; the basket is small enough to be carried in one hand, and anything in it is little or light."

Source:
   If you look this up, you will also learn about, "long in the tooth" and "dressed to the nines." "On Language: To Wherever in a Handbasket," William Safire, New York Times, April 29, 1990.
   It was also from Safire that I learned and posted about Genug Shoyn, which is a fitting way to end.

TEOTWAWKI Time for Anti-Trumpers

 

End Time Indeed
   I am spending little time reading about the U.S. election and even less of it reading about Mr. Trump. I admit, however, that a couple of articles about him attracted my attention and I will call them to yours.
   A few of us remain perplexed regarding Trump's continuing and even surging popularity and I am especially puzzled by the fact that he has been embraced by evangelicals and many others who are religious. The two articles are about that and explain the illustration above. I am not religious which puts into context the cartoons below. 

Backward Christian Soldiers
   That the righteous are lining up behind Trump is baffling and, as this article indicates, "The Deification of Donald Trump Poses Some Interesting Questions," Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times, Jan. 17, 2024. (Mr. Edsall's columns are typically very long and he usually asks the opinions of others. Read the entire article since some of the quotes I will use, may not be directly from him.)
  I did not know that "God Made Trump" which is a video on something called "Truth Social."(if you click on that link, it is about three minutes long.) It answers some of the questions, one of them being, "Why Was Trump Chosen?" 

"God had to have someone willing to go into the den of vipers. Call out the fake news for their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s. The poison of vipers is on their lips. So God made Trump....
God said, “I will need someone who will be strong and courageous. Who will not be afraid or terrified of wolves when they attack. A man who cares for the flock. A shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave or forsake them. I need the most diligent worker to follow the path and remain strong in faith. And know the belief in God and country.”

God's choice does make some sense since Eric Trump said that his dad "literally saved Christianity" and there is a "growing chorus of voices saying Trump is the defender of Christians and Christianity." 
   He is now seen by many as a "Jesus-like figure" and "The prosecutions underway against Trump have been easily interpretable as signs of persecution, which can then connect to the suffering Jesus theme in Christianity. Trump has been able to leverage that with lines like, “They’re not persecuting me. They’re persecuting you.” That is, "The multiple criminal charges against Trump serve to strengthen the belief of many evangelicals about his ties to God..." 

  That Mr. Trump is not exactly a fine fellow, doesn't matter much since,  “a savior does not have to be a good person but just needs to fulfill his divinely appointed role.

  Further, in order to rationalize this quasi-deification of Trump — despite “his crassness and vulgarity, divorces, mocking of disabled people, his overt racism and a determination by a court that he sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll” — white evangelicals refer not to Jesus but the Persian King Cyrus from the book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible...Cyrus is the model of an ungodly king who nonetheless frees a group of Jews who are held captive in Babylon. It took white evangelicals themselves a while to settle on an explanation for their support, but this characterization of Trump was solidified in a 2018 film that came out just before the 2018 midterms entitled “The Trump Prophecy,” which portrayed Trump as the only leader who could save America from certain cultural collapse."

There is more, but thanks to God, Trump will save the Christians, and America, from the attacks of the deplorable progressives. 

   The second article is this one and it begins when the author, Tim Alberta, tells about his appearance on a television show during which the moderator asks why, 

"Despite being a lecherous, impenitent scoundrel—the 2016 campaign was marked by his mocking of a disabled man, his xenophobic slander of immigrants, his casual calls to violence against political opponents—Trump had won a historic 81 percent of white evangelical voters. Yet that statistic was just a surface-level indicator of the foundational shifts taking place inside the Church. Polling showed that born-again Christian conservatives, once the president’s softest backers, were now his most unflinching advocates."

 The author notes that, As a believer in Jesus Christ—and as the son of an evangelical minister, raised in a conservative church in a conservative community—I had long struggled with how to answer this question.

   Alberta's search to find out "What's wrong with American evangelicals?" yielded answers that were not acceptable to many in his father's congregation and they did not hesitate to let him know at his father's funeral. His criticisms of Trump, were tantamount to treason—against both God and country—and I should be ashamed of myself. By the time of his death, his father probably would have agreed:
Dad had one great weakness. Pastor Alberta’s kryptonite as a Christian—and I think he knew it, though he never admitted it to me—was his intense love of country....
   What I couldn’t understand was how, over the next couple of years, he became an apologist for Trump’s antics, dismissing criticisms of the president’s conduct as little more than an attempt to marginalize his supporters. Dad really did believe this; he believed that the constant attacks on Trump’s character were ipso facto an attack on the character of people like himself, which I think, on some subconscious level, created a permission structure for him to ignore the president’s depravity.

   Things have only gotten worse:

And then George Floyd was murdered. All of this as Donald Trump campaigned for reelection. Trump had run in 2016 on a promise that “Christianity will have power” if he won the White House; now he was warning that his opponent in the 2020 election, former Vice President Joe Biden, was going to “hurt God” and target Christians for their religious beliefs. Embracing dark rhetoric and violent conspiracy theories, the president enlisted prominent evangelicals to help frame a cosmic spiritual clash between the God-fearing Republicans who supported Trump and the secular leftists who were plotting their conquest of America’s Judeo-Christian ethos.But many of those same people have chosen to idealize a Christian America that puts them at odds with Christianity. They have allowed their national identity to shape their faith identity instead of the other way around.

From: "My Father, My Faith and Donald Trump: Here, In Our House of Worship, People Were Taunting Me About Politics as I Tried to Mourn," Tim Alberta, The Atlantic, Nov. 28, 2023.  The article was adapted from Alberta's new book: The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: America's Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

Post Script:
   I thought of "Backward Christian Soldiers" for obvious reasons. I then googled the phrase and found examples of it. One of its uses is in this, perhaps prescient, book title from forty years ago: Backward, Christian Soldiers?: An Action Manual for Christian Reconstruction, Gary North. [1984!!]
"But if Christians don't control the territory, they can't occupy it. They get tossed out into cultural "outer darkness," which is just exactly what the secular humanists have done to Christians in the 20th century: in education, in the arts, in entertainment, in politics, and certainly in the mainline churches and seminaries. Today, the humanists are "occupying." But they won't be for long. This book shows why." Perhaps a reprint is in order.

  An old friend from out west sent me an email reminding me of long ago and discussions over CARGO CULTS. The subject of the email - Make Melanesia Great Again. He thought the association of  cargo cults and Trump was worth pursuing in Mulcahy's Miscellany and I agreed. But, I took a quick look and the association has already been made. (e.g. "America's Latest "Cargo Cult?", John Edward Terrell, Psychology Today, Aug. 23, 2020.) Plus, undoubtedly a construct like 'cargo cults' has been examined by the neo-colonial historians and any mention of it likely to be frowned upon.

Advice for Anti-Trumpers:

   This will be a useful article as we reach the end: "50 Must-Haves for TEOTWAWKI: A Survival List for When SHTF (S*it Hits the Fan), Countryside, Aug. 31, 2021. This portion will be of interest to the readers of MM:

Books of all sorts, in print: A good library will be important for reference, but also entertainment. Long, dark winters will be a misery for those who don’t attend to a decent library. Without electricity, solar power is a good way to recharge de­vices for digital books, but once the device breaks (and you know it will) that power is useless.

The Cartoons:

These cover cartoons are all by the Canadian, Barry Blitt and are from the New Yorker. For more about Blitt see: Canadian Cartoonists. 

For another MM piece that indicates why TEOTWAWTI is a term for our times see:
"It Is Even Worse Than It Looks"

 

Maurice Maeterlinck (Factlet 15)

  On relatively sunny days only short posts are produced, generally in the form of "Factlets." The last one related to Honoré Balzac and this one is about Maurice Maeterlinck. That in itself is amazing in that the producer is barely unilingual and has not read, in English, anything written by either man and would not be able to understand them at all in French.

  Maeterlinck is mentioned here, not because he wrote a book about,The Life of the Bee (an insect of current concern), but because he wrote one about termites. The interesting thing about The Life of Termites is that Maeterlinck produced the book although he may never have met one.

    Since I said this would be short, the point is that this post is really about plagiarism, a subject now even more concerning than bees. The Life of Termites has been described as  "a classic example of academic plagiarism". Living during "The Plagiarism Wars" raging on this continent, you have likely read many articles on the subject, but I doubt that any mention Maeterlinck who purloined most of The Soul of the White Ant, which was really written by the Afrikaner, Eugène Marais, and is really about termites. It is because of bespoke information such as this, that you visit Mulcahy's Miscellany. 

Post Script (often the useful part)
   This is the section that allows me to go on. You will know about the dismissal of an ivy league university president and the charges of plagiarism, and that combatants on either side in the other war (the culture one), are combing through the works of the enemies, who now may be nervous, even if they only copied something written in Afrikaans.
   If you are now thinking about subjecting the writing of your opponent or ex-spouse to the scrutiny of a commercial service like Turnitin, read first, this article: "The Plagiarism War Has Begun: Claudine Gay Was Taken Down by a Politically Motivated Investigation. Would the Same Approach Work for Any Academic?" The Atlantic, Jan. 4, 2024. 
  The author, Ian Bogost, attempting to answer the question raised in that title, ran his own dissertation through the plagiarism wringer, which seemed to show that he had copied most of it. That was not at all the case, so you need to be careful before you lay your own charges.
   The linguist, John McWhorter thinks, "We Need a New Word for 'Plagiarism'," (NYT, Jan. 23, 2024.) He argues that perhaps a distinction needs to be made between stealing ideas, or sentences from a fictional work, both of which are more problematic than cutting and pasting the basic boilerplate statements borrowed from non-fiction academic works. He concludes:
  "Cutting and pasting is not the same as stealing ideas. “Plagiarism,” as a term, should be restricted to the latter. That means we need a new term for the former. There is no reason the new term has to be a formal one derived from Latin like “plagiarism” — or “duplicative language” for that matter. And in fact perhaps it should not be. Latinate words tend to look and feel more intimidating, handy for things you get in trouble for. Our new term could be less menacing, in line with referring to something that should be sanctioned less, if at all. Perhaps we already have the term: “cutting and pasting” — as distinct from, rather than a form of, plagiarism."

Sources:
 For Maeterlinck, Wikipedia will do. For another example from the Factlet genre,  "Match Making" will do.

A Fact: Maeterlinck won The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911.

See this for information about the winners of the Ig Nobel Prize.

Beyond the Palewall (8)

 

Coming Soon Next to the Shawarma Shop Near You: A Private Clinic

   If you need a knee or hip replaced, you may be able to soon hobble down the street and get one, or two, or even four. Our government announced that more private options were being made available and that news was nicely conveyed by the Canadian correspondent for the New York Times: The Growing Private-Sector Involvement in Canadian Public Health Care Systems," Canada Letter, Ian Austen,

January 20, 2024.

This week, the provincial government in Ontario announced that it was expanding the number of private clinics providing medical services.

Right now, Ontario has about 900 such clinics, and they mostly offer medical imaging and cataract surgeries. Sylvia Jones, the province’s health minister, said this week that the government was expanding its program to include hip and knee replacements.

The province is being careful not to violate the Canada Health Act by requiring people to pay for medically necessary procedures. That would jeopardize the 20 billion Canadian dollars the province will receive this year from the federal government for health care. While the clinics will be privately operated, their procedures will be covered under the provincial health care plan as if they had been performed in public hospitals.

Ms. Jones said that the expansion would allow more such procedures to be performed and that doing so would cut wait times for patients. Her critics say it will further undermine the public system, that it may actually increase wait times and that it is a step toward full privatization of health care.

   You may not be able to read the NYT article, but you can read this 36 page report which has just been released: "The Scope and Nature of Private Healthcare in Canada," by Katherine Fierlbeck. It is published by the C.D. Howe Institute.
 A serious subject which I should not treat so lightly.

Boil Water Advisory in the Nation's Capital

   Not in Ottawa, but Washington. I mentioned in "Water Woes" that, soon we are all likely to  be very thirsty.  A recent headline indicated that it is true, even in D.C., where a great deal of water is needed for the scotches. In this article, one learns that even the citizens in the ritzy areas (Chevy Chase, Bethesda) were likely to experience problems. Apparently these city dwellers need advice that is much clearer than the water: “Do not drink the water without boiling it first,” the D.C. Water said in an alert issued Friday evening. (The water should be allowed to cool before drinking it.) ("Many Residents of Northern D.C. Are Asked to Boil Water," Martin Weil, Washington Post, Jan. 19, 2024.)

  Some related CANCON: A Canadian Press headline: "Long-Term Prairie Drought Raises Concerns Over Groundwater Levels," Bob Weber, Jan.20, 2024.

“The lowest water levels are all in the last seven years and the levels are much lower now than they were in the ’70s and ’80s,” Pomeroy said. “It'll be a climate signal that we’re seeing....” “It’s something we need to keep an eye on.”

Don't Bet On It

   At the end of last year, I suggested in "On Betting" that perhaps we should be as worried about the gambling situation as we are tired over watching all the ads promoting it. I did offer one source suggesting that money was being made and people are getting jobs in the gambling sector. If you think you can find better statistics related to Ontario, Don't bet on it.  
   Read, if you can, this good article: “Got Questions About Ontario’s Online Gambling Industry” Don’t Bet on Getting the Answers,” Simon Houpt, Globe and Mail, Jan. 19, 2024. He begins by noting that this gambling thing is supposed to be great and he attempts to find out how great from iGaming Ontario. He wasn't able to get much information from them, but it was easy to find out from the folks in New York and Massachusetts.

  

When Ontario announced a few years ago that it was giving the green light to online gambling, politicians made familiar promises about the scheme. It would be great for consumers. Great for the province’s tax revenue. Great for jobs, great for the local innovation economy. (They didn’t say anything about how great it might be for our blood pressure to be subjected to the ensuing flood of sportsbook ads.)

Since then, most of the talk about online gambling has focused on its downsides: the volume of ads; the disappointment in seeing heroes such as Wayne Gretzky or Auston Matthews encouraging fans to get into the betting game; the cautionary tales about addicts losing their homes, their jobs, their families, their lives.

Would the conversation be different if the government actually trusted the public enough to give them real information about the state of the industry?

For almost two years, iGaming Ontario (or iGO), which oversees online gambling in the province on behalf of the Alcohol Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), has followed a policy of saying as little as possible. It releases quarterly snapshots that contain a handful of data to show things are going swimmingly.

Which they might be. Who knows.

For the first year of those quarterly reports, iGO revealed almost nothing. It published the total amount of money that had been wagered, but refused to outline how much came from the different types of betting: casino, sports, or online poker. It was hardly a vote of confidence in a promising industry.

It’s finally begun breaking out those figures. Still, it evidently believes most information is like thrash metal or direct democracy: potentially dangerous if released onto an unsuspecting public. And so it withholds data that might help Ontarians grapple with the emerging place of online betting in the province.

He then made a few phone calls and it seems our southern neighbours were rather chatty.

Other jurisdictions seem to recognize the benefits in giving the public access to timely, comprehensive information....

A quick scan of the information published by Massachusetts and New York may give you some idea of the warts that Ontario might be trying to hide.

Last month, mobile sportsbooks in New York State took in US$2.04-billion in total wagers. Of that amount, the market goliath FanDuel handled US$835-million, or about 41 per cent of all wagers. DraftKings handled US$773-million (about 38 per cent), and Caesars handled US$202-million (or almost 10 per cent)....

The Massachusetts numbers for December echo the winners-take-all landscape in New York. Of US$643-million wagered on online sportsbooks, DraftKings handled US$316-million, or 49 per cent. FanDuel handled US$187-million (29 per cent). ESPN Bet, newly rebranded from Penn Sports Interactive, handled US$50-million and saw its market share jump to almost 8 per cent from 6 per cent. The other five licenced operators handled the remaining 14 per cent of the action.

All of which is to say the industry looks a little like America itself: a few fat cats at the top, with everyone else scrambling to survive.

And what does the landscape look like in Ontario, where there were an astonishing 49 licensees operating 72 gambling websites – including, by my count, 30 sports-betting operations – as of Dec. 31, 2023? Are two or three foreign juggernauts dominating an industry the government had hoped would become a central player in the province’s innovation economy, as people suspect? Are Canadian-based companies, which have much smaller marketing budgets than the global behemoths, connecting with consumers? Are they barely keeping their heads above water? Are they targets for the industry consolidation that so many observers believe is inevitable? Will the jobs that the province trumpeted as a major reason to greenlight gambling never materialize, or evaporate? Will online gambling be yet another branch-plant economy of foreign giants?

The questions were not answered.

Dementia RISING

Think About It While You Can

   The MAID acronym is a simple one which Canadians will understand, but it is a label for a very complex subject. A large number of ethical issues arise when one discusses medical assistance in dying and the legislation addressing them is constantly changing. A “Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying” is looking into the matter (again) as I type. 
  The broad and basic argument over MAID puts in one corner those who think it should be a personal choice, while the combatants in the other bring up all kinds of philosophical and religious objections suggesting the state must be involved. The former say that those suffering horribly should be allowed the right to exit, while the latter feel that the granting of such a right will put us all on a slippery slope, along which legislative guardrails must be put. I am not an ethicist, but will admit that I am liberal about MAID and take a libertarian stance on this issue. If I was an ethicist, here is the narrower question I would address: “Should those fearing dementia be allowed to make an Advance Request for MAID before they become demented?” Given my stance, the answer is an easy one: “Sure.”  I think many, even those in the other corner who have seen someone with dementia, have said, “Please don’t let that happen to me.”
   One of the many problems related to "Advance Requests" is that having arrived at decision time the requestor may have changed his mind (or, lost it.) Fearing such an outcome, does one have to make such a decision early, while one can? Or do you figure that those who knew of your advance wish, will fulfil it for you even if you seem to be happy wandering about talking to people who aren’t there? Who pulls the plug if you can’t? Will the potential plug-pullers be in agreement about what is to be done?
   Before I provide you with sound advice, I will say that I am in favour of MAID and "Advance Requests." Having said clearly in advance that I want to go, you should not listen to me later. Just pull the plug. Christopher Hitchens expressed such a sentiment to those who suggested that even though he was an atheist, he would likely make a death-bed conversion. I was able to find a couple of his rebuttals:
And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)
And:
"Down the road, if you ever hear me say there is a God, it won’t be me talking, but some hollowed out, terrified shell of who I used to be.”

Although I am not an ethicist, I do recognize that the answer is not that simple and that I cannot offer one to you. As a former librarian, however, I can help you look for it. Sources are provided below.

 A Conundrum

   This chart appeared in the Globe and Mail on Jan. 12, 2024."Decision Time"

Frances Woolley, Professor of Economics, Carleton University

"About one-third of women over age 90, and a quarter of men, are living with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. These diseases create immense suffering for people who gradually lose their minds, and for caregivers who gradually lose their loved ones. The diseases are expensive, too, costing billions in long-term care."

"There is no cure for dementia, but there is an escape route: medical assistance in dying. Yet just 1 per cent of people who chose MAID in 2022 had some form of dementia. Although many of us would, given the choice, prefer a painless and dignified early exit, we often do not have the choice: The dementia diagnosis comes after we have lost our ability to make informed decisions.

For this reason, every province needs to implement regular dementia screening immediately. We might not be able to cure Alzheimer’s any time soon. But with early diagnosis, we do have a way of ending suffering."

Pay Attention While You Can

Sources:

   "Medical Assistance in Dying," Alzheimer Society.
"Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is a complex and very personal issue. The information presented here is intended to assist and support people living with dementia – together with their families and caregivers – in making informed decisions about their care.

Is the Alzheimer Society supporting advance requests for MAID?

The Alzheimer Society of Canada supports the right of people living with dementia to make an advance request for a medically assisted death.

The Alzheimer Society recognizes that people living with dementia are individuals – first and foremost. They have the same rights as everyone else, including the right to participate in decisions about their life and care. We respect the rights of all people with dementia to advocate for their individual best interests, including advocating for access to MAID through advance requests."

   “Most Canadians Want the Right to Plan Ahead for an Assisted Death if they get Dementia. So Why is it so Complicated?”, Erin Anderssen, Globe & Mail, Feb. 18, 2023. This is a very useful article, which may not be behind a paywall.

   "In a late January survey, conducted for The Globe and Mail by Nanos Research, 80 per cent of respondents agreed, or somewhat agreed, that Canadians should be able to make advance requests outlining their conditions for assisted death, for when they can no longer legally give consent....

   Canada’s current legislation requires people to clearly consent to medical assistance in dying, known as MAID, on the day it is provided – with a limited exception. A patient whose natural death is deemed to be “reasonably foreseeable,” and who is suffering intolerably and has been approved for MAID, may waive final consent if they are at risk of losing capacity before their scheduled date. That could be up to six months away, in certain cases, if the MAID provider agrees....

   Canada’s MAID laws give priority to the patient’s voice. Patients say when their suffering has grown intolerable, and when their treatment is at an end. But at the later stage of dementia, a patient’s voice is silent. If advance requests are allowed, a doctor or nurse practitioner, ideally working with a trusted caregiver, would have to assess suffering and decide death’s timing by interpreting instructions from the past.

   The Dutch experience highlights the difficulty of following advance directives that are vaguely worded, or may not fully reflect the future their authors imagined. And it also makes clear the importance of informed third parties who can advocate for patients. A person might say they want euthanasia when they can no longer recognize their family. But which family members, and what level of recognition? (What if, for instance, they are still delighted to see the friendly strangers who keep visiting?)...

   "Why shouldn’t the values of a person’s capable self trump the version that can’t communicate or care for themselves? Ms. Demontigny said she suffers now, not knowing how long her healthy body might last while her mind crumbles and what that will mean for her children.

  An advance directive, she said, would allow her to live today, free from worry about what happens at the end. If that is not allowed, she will have to ask for MAID before she is truly ready, just to guarantee her wishes are respected. “I will lose time,” she said, “but I don’t want to take the risk.”

Geriatric Gems (a useful 2pp. pdf.)
 "Medical Assistance in Dying and Older Adults," Casey, et al

Canadian Family Physician, Vol.68, July, 2022.

Clinical question

"How do changes in legislation pertaining to medical assistance in dying (MAID) affect my patients with frailty or dementia? Are advance requests allowed?

Bottom line:
Given their long-term, trusting relationships with patients and their families, 

family physicians can play a critical role in discussions about MAID.The eligibility for MAID has expanded, albeit with qualifiers to protect vulnerable individuals. This article highlights these changes, which are reviewed in greater depth in an article published in the Canadian Geriatrics Society Journal of CME in 2022."

   “Dementia and Assistance in Dying: A Catch 22,” George Szaz, British Columbia Medical Journal, Vol.65, No.7, Sept. 2023. A very sad case.

"Persons suffering from dementia are not eligible for medical assistance in dying, and this is inhumane."

   "For People with Dementia, Changes in MAiD Law Offer New Hope: For People with Dementia, Changes in MAiD Law Offer New Hope, Jocelyn Downie, Policy Options, April 21, 2021.

"People with dementia have been caught in a cruel trap under Canada’s medical assistance in dying law (MAiD) – until now. As their suffering advanced, their decision-making capacity receded, but the capacity to make their own health-care decisions was required at the moment of MAiD itself. Access to MAiD balanced on the knife-edge of reaching an intolerable state of suffering prior to completely losing capacity. People were forced to choose to end their lives earlier than they wanted. With the passage of legislation amending Canada’s MAiD law (Bill C-7), this dilemma will be over for many."

A Headline Today - Jan. 22, 2024:

Health System Urged to Brace For Major Shift in Dementia Demographics," Kelly Grant, Globe & Mail.

"In a study released Monday, the Alzheimer Society of Canada predicts there will be more than 1.7 million people in Canada living with dementia in 2050, nearly three times the estimated 650,000 today. One in four will be Asian, a broad category that includes people with roots in China, Vietnam, Korea, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other countries."

McIntosh Gallery in the Winter

   A couple of days ago, I did a post about "Stratford in the Winter" and I am lazingly using the title again for this one. It is still winter after all and I am again recommending something local which you should have a look at and, in this case, also listen to. McIntosh is closer than Stratford since it is on the campus up at Western and it too welcomes the general public and is open all year.

The Sound of Music in the Mountains
  The exhibition, "Glacial Resonance" opened on Friday, Jan. 19, with an "artist-led exhibition tour," which we missed, but the exhibition will be around until March 16.
I learned of it, too late, from Western News and it is to that publication you should turn since Ms. Ferguson's description in it is a good one and I would start with it, rather than the formal exhibition notice that follows. Be sure to listen to the audio.

“Melting Glaciers Main Muse for McIntosh Installation by Paul Walde: Works by Former London Artist and Western Grad Explore Impact of Global Warming," Keri Ferguson, Western News, Jan. 16, 2024.

   The description of the exhibition offered by McIntosh is here: "Paul Walde: Glacial Resonance." Mr. Walde is a northern Ontario boy who went to Western and is now at the University of Victoria. Here is part of the description:

Raising environmental awareness through art

"Glacial Resonance" brings together Paul Walde’s iconic 2013 project Requiem for a Glacier with his newest video and sound installation Glacial. Both address concerns about land use and the impacts of the climate crisis, 10 years apart, with glaciers as the primary focus and an urgent sign of the Earth’s tipping point to an irrevocably changed climate....

Glacial is a meditative durational experience, sharing distant vistas and extreme details of the Coleman Glacier at Mount Baker (Kulshan), in Washington State, along with the sounds of the glacier melting, modified through musical instruments used as speakers. Over the course of five hours violin, viola, cello, double bass, bass drum, and a cymbal fitted with sonic transducers transform field recordings into tones which form the basis of the composition and act as conduits for the glacier to communicate resonant frequencies."

A New Director at the McIntosh Gallery

  I also learned from Ms. Ferguson, who seems to write a lot for Western News, that Lisa Daniels becomes the new director on March 4th. 

   I was talking with another Western retiree the other day and he mentioned missing the old printed Western News, where such items are found. The link to the current issues is provided and if you click on "All News" you will find over 860 of them dating back to 2008. Additional backfiles of the publication and the University of Western Ontario News and the Western Times are found on The Western News Archive.  (While I am at it, here is The Gazette.)

Post Script:

   On the website of the McIntosh Gallery you will also find a list of the publications produced and of the past exhibitions. A couple of years ago, I commented about one of them - "Lepidoptera in London." As a ""Bonus" I offered for us oldsters a guide related to gender terminology and lavatories. 

   Back in 2018 I wrote about a controversy involving The McIntosh in the early 1980s. See this post: Jasper Cropsey. Skip the long part about "The Chagall Conundrum" and go directly to "The Cropsey Controversy" where you will learn that the sale of this painting caused quite a ruckus. Let us hope that Western doesn't have to sell Brescia.

If you want to see the "Backwoods of America,"  you now have to go all the way to the backwoods of America in Arkansas and visit Crystal Bridges. I did, a few years back, see: "Amazing Accomplishments."

Stratford in the Winter

    I am not a live theatre buff, nor do I know much about the streaming service about which I am about to post. I will keep this short because who needs more subscriptions, either streaming or printed. I do, however, have theatre buff friends and Stratford is something local to promote. If you go there much, you may already know this. My friends are now in Comox for the winter and being far away and not digitally-inclined, they may be unaware that Richard III can be watched from the couch.
    Barry Hertz of the Globe and Mail yesterday offered his weekend streaming suggestions. Here is one of them:

Richard III [and much more]
"Not that you need yet another streamer to add to your monthly subscription fees, but those interested in something that Netflix and Co. cannot possibly hope to offer should check out the Stratford Festival’s nascent digital service, Stratfest@Home, which has just added a filmed version of 2022′s Richard III starring Colm Feore. Directed for the stage by Stratford’s artistic director Antoni Cimolino, and for film by Barry Avrich, the production gets about as close as anyone can hope for to capturing the live-wire energy of Stratford at its peak. For adventurous viewers, it costs $7.99 a month to gain access to the service (whose catalogue contains a true wealth of Canadian stage-to-screen treasures), or you can rent Richard III as a one-off for $4.99."

Streaming and Shopping

   The link he provided above, I will put here. That website provides a lot of information, but it looks like it is about to move to: stratford.vhx.tv, where you will also find the information you need. Plus, you can buy merchandise, such as the Shakespeare Magnetic Finger Puppet which one of my Comox friends will appreciate. 

Sources:
   "Stratford Festival adds Richard III Production to Streaming Service:

The Stratford Festival's 2022 production of Richard III featuring Colm Feore in the title role is coming to Stratfest@Home, the Festival's subscription streaming service, for national and international viewing." Cory Smith, Stratford, The Beacon Herald, Jan. 12, 2024.

Stratford Festival: Stratford on Film.    

The Bonus:

It is not all Shakespeare.

The wait is finally over. Leer Estates is back and more outrageous than ever! Dan Chameroy stars in a one-actor series with two cameras, nine episodes, 12 characters, 14 wigs and a whole lot of shenanigans. Join the Leer family on a hilarious journey of glamour, loyalty and debauchery, as they continue to fight against the tide threatening to tear the bonds between members apart.

Toronto the Carbuncle (Update)

Toronto the "Gridlocked Carcass"

   Almost five years ago, I wrote a post with the title at the top. Whenever I chance upon it, I think it a bit harsh. Perhaps not. A better one would be "Toronto the CARbuncle." There is an article in the Globe and Mail today, with the following title, and you should read it: "If Toronto Can't Improve its World-Class Traffic, It Will Decay Into a Gridlocked Carcass," by Andrew Clark. At least Toronto is "world-class" in something.

   Here is the interesting part:

   TomTom, provider of GPS-based navigation systems, analyzed data from more than 600 million in-car navigation systems and smartphones to identify trends in 387 cities across 55 countries throughout 2023.

   TomTom found that Toronto had the third-worst traffic in the world – not in Canada, not in North America, in the world. Only London and Dublin ranked higher. Think of a city with legendarily bad traffic. They all ranked lower (better) than Toronto. Los Angeles (233); New York (20); New Delhi (44); Vancouver (32). It took the average Toronto driver 29 minutes to travel 10 kilometres. Top runners can cover this distance faster. The pace would also be considered slow for most cyclists on a road bike. Drivers in Toronto spent 255 hours a year driving (98 of those caused by congestion). TomTom also offers real-time traffic analysis. As I write this, the average speed in Toronto is 16 kilometres an hour and there are 387 reported traffic jams spanning 371 kilometres.

   There are also other interesting comments. Mr. Clark notes that the transit problem is being ignored while "the mayor and the media squabble about a patch of pavement that is an embarrassing tribute to ugliness."  He solves that problem for them by suggesting new names for Dundas Square, one of which is "William Hogarth Presents". For those who like illustrations, more than words, a link is provided. 

   In the article, this question is raised: "Why should anyone outside Toronto care if no one in the city cares enough to do anything about it?" (The congestion, not "Dundas," who very few, even in Toronto, care about.) The answer to that question is found in "Toronto the Carbuncle."  Those of us who live far outside of Toronto, in either direction, care simply because it stands in the way of those of us who are trying to get somewhere nicer. The only other reason used to be because we were trying to get to Pearson to go somewhere nicer, but no one wants to go there now and not just because of the traffic.

Source: 
  Apart from the article and my post which indicated congestion was a problem at the beginning of this century, see the : TOMTOM Traffic Index.

Reading Time (A Painful 5 MIN)

The Long and Short of It 

  I have noticed that articles available on the Internet are often accompanied by an estimate of the time it will take to read them. Why are they there? The producers must put them there for a reason. Is it because they know our time is valuable and that we want to be careful about how quickly we spend it? Or is it simply because from the link or the display we often cannot tell how long the article will be. In a print newspaper one can quickly see if the piece is a couple of paragraphs or a complete page.
   Such time notices can be useful. If we are in a hurry we only have a few minutes, but if we are looking for a diversion on a rainy day, the more minutes the better.

Words & Minutes
   Writing is generally measured by words and pages and how long it takes to produce them, not how long it takes to read them. We have all struggled to write that 5,000 word essay which we double spaced to make it look more substantial. The production of one for me, always took a long time and it likely took the professor longer to read than others, especially if it rambled like this one. Reading for grading surely takes longer than normal and a normal reading rate is assumed to be between 250-300 words per minute. The two essays above about Trump, which it takes about 20 minutes to read, probably total around 5,000 words. Too much time has been wasted on Trump.

Reading Time is Not New
   I thought that being told how long it was going to take you to read something was a new thing, like being warned about the content it contained. Such is not the case. A couple of months ago, I did a post about the Canadian version of Liberty, a popular magazine in both the U.S. and Canada (see, "Periodical Ramblings (14)." The American version informed readers of the time it would take to finish an article. This is from the Wikipedia entry for the magazine:

"A memorable feature was the "reading time," provided on the first page of each article so readers could know how long it should take to read an article, such as "No More Glitter: A Searching Tale of Hollywood and a Woman's Heart," Reading Time: 18 minutes, 45 seconds." This was calculated by a member of the editorial staff who would carefully time himself while reading an article at his usual pace; then he would take that time and double it."

From the entry you will learn that someone tested Liberty's calculations and noted that  "Liberty magazine existed in a world without television and the Internet. Time pressures on readers and potential readers change with the times."

"

                              Longform"
  Lately there are also often alerts to let us know if an article is going to be long, either to warn us or to let us know we about to get something special or a lengthy investigative piece. "Long Form" or "Longform" is the new long and it also appears as "Longread" or a "Big Read". The latter is produced by the Financial Times and the former is found in Wired on Sundays and it consists of "Our deepest dives and cutting edge features that will leave you smarter and sharper." The Guardian now has a new "Long Read magazine [which] brings together the very best longform journalism, with immersive stories on everything from world affairs to philosophy, from food to crime." GQ's Long Reads are where they put their "in-depth investigative features and profiles."
   Even our 'local' London Free Press is going long on occasion, although it is short of both local stories and local reporters:
   We have good news for you if you enjoy the pleasure of savouring a weekend newspaper.
It's called Long Story. It's a new section in your newspaper, designed to get lost in.
Every Saturday, we'll print in-depth stories you won't find anywhere else. Spread over four pages with great visuals and design, you'll want to settle in and stay awhile.This week's long read is about the Canadian battle to outlaw “normalizing” genital surgeries on babies and children born intersex, meaning with bodies that aren't clearly female or male."
(Joe Ruscitti, LFP, Nov. 11, 2023.)

Exactly how long, long is, is not clear. Let us say that something longform should be over 2000 words and take you over 8 minutes to read. The "culture wars" article above would qualify, but I admit that I skipped it.

Tracking What is Read
   In the old days a newspaper publisher didn't know if you actually read it, or just used it for wrapping fish. Now our screens typically tell us how many are reading the article along with us and how popular it is. At the end of the year, Maclean's  knew which of their longform stories were most read during the year. "The End of Homeownership" was number one and it was followed by a story about Fortnite, a video game, "They Lost Their Kids to Fortnite." Knowing such metrics is not necessarily a good thing, in that the most popular is likely not the most profound.



   The publications you subscribe to probably know your reading habits. The Washington Post provided me with the statistic above and others, such as, I had read over 565 different authors and about 79 countries and what the top five were. I learned that the columnist I read most was George Will. Don't tell my friends. I read him because of the way he writes, not the way he thinks.

Sources:
   If you really want to know about reading time try: "How Many Words Do We Read Per Minute? A Review and Meta-analysis of Reading Rate," Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language, Vol.109, Dec. 2019.
"Based on the analysis of 190 studies (18,573 participants), we estimate that the average silent reading rate for adults in English is 238 words per minute (wpm) for non-fiction and 260 wpm for fiction. The difference can be predicted by taking into account the length of the words, with longer words in non-fiction than in fiction. The estimates are lower than the numbers often cited in scientific and popular writings. The reasons for the overestimates are reviewed. …". 
   Have a look at this tool: "The Read Time" . It is a "Words To Time Converter" which allows you to "Accurately Estimate Talk Time For Presentations, Speeches and Voice-Over Scripts".  According to it, you probably spent about 5 minutes reading this. 

The Bonus: 

  This reminded me of "Speed Reading" and Evelyn Wood and "The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamic Institute." Speed reading was almost a craze back in the early 1960's. Those who had not been diligent in their reading were attracted to classes which would teach you how to read thousands of words per minute and retain what was read. For more see: Evelyn Wood.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

 

The 50th Anniversary of WLU Press - 1974-2024

   University presses are often overlooked by book lovers. They shouldn't be as I have illustrated in this series of posts about "University Presses." My tenth one will be about WLU Press which has been around since 1974.

   WLU Press publishes a few dozen titles annually and there about 700 in print. A variety of subjects are covered, ranging from environmental humanities to international politics and the books are available in print, electronic or audio versions. Some of the audible ones are pictured above. If you go to the Wilfrid Laurier University Press website you can search by subject, read their blog or listen to some podcasts. 

   This Cohen cover can serve as a sample indicating the wide variety of titles available. Here, however, I will focus on the ones about the "Waterloo Region." In the nine other university presses I have written about (all American), you can see that, among a number of academic and arcane titles, there usually will be some about the area in which the university is located. Broader in scope than local histories, regional ones often cover large areas and a variety of subjects within them. For example, Penn State's "Keystone Books" and Wayne State's "Great Lakes Book Series" will be of interest to many living in Ontario. The same is true for WLU.

   There are some about cities, The Battle for Berlin, Ontario: An Historical Drama; Kitchener: An Illustrated History and A History of Kitchener, Ontario and there is even one for Elora, The Early History of Elora and Vicinity. There are also a few about higher education in the area: I Remember Laurier, Recollections of Waterloo College, and Recollections of Waterloo Lutheran University, 1960 - 1973.

    This book about Mennonite cooking is probably one of the best selling books published by a Canadian university press:

   "An updated edition of a bestselling book in the food writing genre from award-winning author and journalist Edna Staebler. In the 1960s, Edna Staebler moved in with an Old Order Mennonite family to absorb their oral history and learn about Mennonite culture and cooking. From this fieldwork came the cookbook Food That Really Schmecks.

   Originally published in 1968, Food That Really Schmecks instantly became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies. Interspersed with practical and memorable recipes are Staebler’s stories and anecdotes about cooking, life with the Mennonites, family, and the Waterloo Region. Described by Edith Fowke as folklore literature, Staebler’s cookbooks have earned her national acclaim. Back in print as part of Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s Life Writing series, a series devoted celebrating life writing as both genre and critical practice, the updated edition of this groundbreaking book includes a foreword by award-winning author Wayson Choy and a new introduction by well-known food writer Rose Murray."

   Readers of MM  will remember that Guelph University close by, has a great culinary collection - see "Food History" for examples of regional cuisine and other food-related collections.

   Sports lovers will even find reading material. This book demonstrates that university presses often produce interesting books for people beyond the shadows of the ivory towers: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars and Black Baseball in Southwestern Ontario, 1915–1958. 

"Although many know about Jackie Robinson’s experiences breaking major league baseball’s colour barrier in 1947, few are familiar with the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, a Black Canadian team from 1930s Ontario who broke racial barriers in baseball even earlier. In 1933, the All-Stars began playing in the primarily white world of organized amateur baseball. The following year, the All-Stars became the first Black team to win a provincial championship.

While exploring the history of Black baseball in one southwestern Ontario community, this book also provides insights into larger themes in Canadian Black history and sport history including gender, class, social justice, and memory and remembrance.

University Presses:
  For your convenience, I will gather here all the posts in MM about this subject in chronological order:

1. Environmental Books - University of Washington - May 13, 2018

2. University Presses - Penn State - Sept. 1, 2018

3. Wayne State -  Sept 21, 2019

4. University of Minnesota Press March 28, 2020

5. Northwestern University Press - Oct. 16, 2021

6. Wolverines, Spartans and Books, (Michigan State) June 10, 2022

7. MIT PRESS - Aug. 10, 2022

8. Princeton University Press - see "Ancient Wisdom..." Dec. 18, 2022.

9. Ohio State University Press - Feb. 20, 2023

10. Wilfrid Laurier Press - Jan. 10, 2024

PADEL

Hustle 

   "Hustle" is a word you will know and either definition of it is appropriate here. About padel, you may not know. Move quickly if you want to pick up padel, and pronounce it properly as "pa-delle" or give it a Spanish inflection, "PAH-del." Either of those sounds better than "paddle" or "pickle" as in "pickleball," the racket (or racquet) sport you are probably already playing.

   Padel is yet another version of tennis/paddle tennis/squash/platform tennis/pickleball. It is played with a soft tennis ball which is struck with a stringlesss padel (Spanish for paddle.) It has been called the "new golf", but I think it is simply the old squash. Padel is for the posh set and you have to admit it sounds better (either way you pronounce it,) than "pickle." 

   The reason I am posting this fairly quickly is that those living around Wortley Village recently lost their tennis courts and swimming pool. The tennis courts are being replaced with new tennis courts and apparently some pickleball courts. Perhaps people in the area will be less upset about the loss of the pool if the pickleball courts are replaced by the more upscale "PAH-del" courts. Those on the City Council should be warned that they will be more expensive. 

   I am suggesting here that the pickleball craze may have peaked and we could be the first in London to be playing padel (in several months) unless we get indoor courts which would be even more expensive. And here is where the other definition of "hustle" applies: "Courts are rising at breakneck speed. Deep-pocketed investors are paying armies of publicists, celebrities and influencers to push the sport." We need to hustle before it stops being a craze. 

  Proof that padel tennis is worth investing in is now offered: "Also in South Florida, an investment group that includes Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake is building Wellington Equestrian and Golf Club: a planned 600-acre private residential resort outside West Palm Beach with 12 prominently featured padel courts." More importantly padel has attracted the attention of the Arabs: "In August, the Qatari government inked a deal to acquire the pro World Padel Tour via its sports investments fund." That should convince you. 

Sources:

   The obvious catalyst for this post is: "Behind the Push for Padel, Pickleball's Posher, Privileged Cousin; Deep-pocketed Investors are Hiring a Flotilla of Publicists, Celebs and Influencers to Promote the Sport in the U.S., Where Its Popularity Has Soared in VIP Circles," Christopher Cameron, Washington Post, Jan.9, 2024.

  If you are now interested in this sport, I would suggest you search for "padel tennis" since there are a lot of people named "Padel" and there will be lots of articles in Spanish since the sport began in Acapulco in the late 60's and spread to Argentina and Spain and then beyond. 

  Most of you will be satisfied with the Wiki entry for "Padel." There is an "International Padel Federation". There is even a Padel Canada which was established back in 1993, but it is Canadian and obviously did not attract enough attention to become a craze. There are apparently a couple of places to play in our area, one in Vaughn and one in "Cherry Beach" which is south of the "Distillery District" in Toronto. The picture above is from T10 Padel in Vaughn. The Pad PadelClub in Cherry Beach is closed for the winter.
  The cartoon is from the New Yorker, to which I subscribe, so don't sue me.