Pie Palace

Have you heard about the folks out in Constance Bay who want to turn their lawn into a wildflower garden?

It looks like improving biodiversity may slow the spread of animal-borne diseases. According to New Scientist researchers in Oregon have discovered that there’s an inverse correlation between the number of species of mammals in an area and the incidence of hantavirus¹. Similarly, the more species of mammals there are in an area, the lower the likelihood that they will be carrying Lyme disease. The paper suggests that an increase in biodiversity limits how wild our little mousy friends run, limiting the spread of disease.

As these diseases are spreading in Canada, perhaps the City should be encouraging people to replace their lawns with something a little more diverse.

1. Hantavirus is spread between deer mice, and can be fatal to humans. (back)

I’ve always voted for hope. Every time I’ve walked into a polling both, I’ve said to myself: “what do I want the future to look like?” I have a soft spot for sustainability and social justice, so I’ve usually given my vote to the Green Party. But thanks to yesterday’s fiasco at Governor General’s, I don’t want to play nice anymore. I want to punish Stephen Harper.

I feel like voting strategically for the first time in my life. I just want to see Stephen Harper fail.

Democracy can only thrive under the rule of law. In the case of a parliamentary democracy, such as Canada’s, the “rule of law” is a set of polite conventions that every parliamentarian is expected to follow. A party cannot govern without the tacit support of 50%+1 of the sitting MPs. If a party loses that support, the Governor General may either choose to trigger an election, or allow a coalition of other parties to take the reigns of power. This week we’ve seen Harper running scared. Instead of losing his minority government he first delayed a non-confidence vote that would have toppled him, then prorogued the House of Commons.

This is not how our Parliament is intended to work. When a politician knows their time is at an end, they should gracefully step aside, regroup, and attempt a come-back. Not take their ball and go home.

From my perspective, it looks like Harper values power more than anything else. He’s hoping that a two month break will be long enough for him to gather enough popular support (by demonizing Quebec) that he will get a majority in a mid-winter election.

In the background, our economy is slowly grinding to a halt as the Canadian dollar falls, tens of thousands of jobs are lost, and the government hemorrhages money due to fiscal mismanagement.

Photo credit: harperdictatorship.ca.

CBC’s Canadian doctors should face regular testing: medical school head is a great example of poor journalism. The gist of the article is simple: a doctor has recommended that Canadian doctors should be periodically recertified. The journalist has found another doctor else who says “No! doctors shouldn’t be retested.” Without talking to the journalist, we can’t tell if that was to create a sense of conflict, or to make the story more “balanced.”

There are three problems here:

1. The No doctor’s statement:
   

   What we do every day is not really a book learning thing, [...] To say, in fact, that because you pass an exam makes you a good physician every 10 years is absolutely wrong.

   is exactly refuted by the CMAJ editorial:
   

   In Quebec, investigators found that family physicians’ scores on their certification examination and Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination were related to provision of quality care after 4–7 years in practice. More recently, Holmboe and colleagues found that physicians’ scores on the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Maintenance of Certification examination was associated with higher rates of performance in care for Medicare patients.

   which goes on to cite the studies in question.
2. The Yes doctor, Wendy Levinson has qualifications as a medical instructor, and appears to study how patients interact with their doctors and is a chair at department of medicine.
3. Meanwhile, the No doctor, Howard Conter does not appear to have any any relevant publications or appointments.

News stories like this are important. They get people to think about how healthcare is delivered in Canada, and how that can be reformed. It’s a pity that the story took the form of “she said, he said” instead of dipping into the empirical studies behind the editorial.

On the off chance you’re interested in the RSS feeds that I read, here’s a quick rundown:

Local

Blogawa.ca

Blog aggregator for Ottawa-related blogs. I wrote the aggregator, so you should read it. =)

Runesmith’s Canadian Content

The rambling of Jennifer Smith. I enjoy her ongoing outrage at the Conservative government.

Ottawa LiveJournal Community

It’s more of a “where can I get X” listing, but it’s sort of interesting to see what the kids are up to.

THE CANADIAN DESIGN RESOURCE

A near daily listing posting of random bits of Canadian design from the past hundred or so years. I have no idea why their name is in ALL CAPS, but that’s the way it’s presented in their feed.

Geekery

Lila’s Dreams Blog

Lila’s Dreams is a dev blog for an upcoming web-based MMOG. The setting is inside the psyche of an 11 year old girl. I’m not sure what the game is going to end up being, but it sounds like gardening should be a large part of game play, which sounds quite neat.

Dubroy.com/blog

I went to school with Pat, and he’s blogging as a grad student, which is a lifestyle that’s dear to my heart. He opines about usability, the evils of hierarchical filesystems, and difficulties installing stuff on Macs. I disagree with most things he says, but he’s well read and he comes at problems from the right angle.

datalibre.ca

Breathless open data zealots who think freely available data is a really good thing. They don’t trouble themselves with the hard questions of data ownership (curation, metadata, dealing with licensing/access restrictions) but approach the problem from a public interest standpoint. I’m not sure why I read this blog.

The Online Photographer (TOP) and Photoborg

I’m not sure why I read these sites. They’re kinda/sorta about photography. I’m looking for something with a few more tips, but I do enjoy the opining.

Funnies: Defective Yeti, xkcd, I Can Has Cheezburger?

A little before Christmas, I started to notice that the IPod Touch had become the fetish object of the season. My fellow Ottawa denizens were wandering around lovingly stroking the screens of their Touches. In the winter. In the cold. Outside. Without gloves. Like idiots.

But it isn’t really their fault, is it? The Touch was developed in Cupertino, California, where the average temperature in January bubbles around 4°C and 15°C. Canadian fetish objects are pretty much the same as those in the United States, but we have a reality that our southern cousins don’t: winter.

Winter plays a huge part of our identity. Canadians snowshow, snowboard, ski, skate, and skidoo. We invented hockey. We dominate the sport of curling. We essentially invented the modern ski resort. In the temperate south of the country, we endure subzero temperatures five to six months of the year.

But our consumer goods, our clothing styles, architectural styles, and fetish objects are designed elsewhere. We use stuff designed in climates where zero is considered cold, and a light dusting of snow will close a city.

Imagine what gadgets would look like if they were designed with winter in mind. When it gets below minus five(ish), you don’t want to expose your skin to the elements for more than a minute or two. If MP3 players were designed by Canadians, they would be easy to control inside a pocket or mitten. They would have controls that are easy to manipulate without being seen. Alternatively, they would have buttons large enough that users would be able to control the volume or navigate tracks without having to remove their frostbite preventing gloves.

When you start to consider the realities of winter, more and more of our society seems like a cargo cult. We’ve imported styles that were created for much warmer places. When you see people walking around in winter, how many people do you see wearing long coats? I don’t mean coats that cover their hips, I mean coats that go to their ankles. When you’re wandering around Ottawa in -20°C weather, wearing a coat that goes to your waist is silly. It means your legs freeze, or you have to wear long-johns¹. But do Canadians wear long coats? No. Because we’re suckers and we import our ideas of style from the south.

The realities of winter hit architecture hard as well. When six months of the year necessitate heavy clothing and heavy boots, our buildings should respect that and provide somewhere to store our sweaters and jackets when inside. Do they? For the most part, no. Malls, libraries, movie theaters, hospitals, and office buildings require us to carry our surplus duds around with us. The few buildings that do feature a coat check tend to be bars or clubs, where being seen is part of the experience.

It would be wonderful if Canadian designers and architects could reverse our fixation on southern climates. Well made Canadian goods that were attractive and designed for our climate would be wonderful. But they seem unlikely to catch on. Too much of our media comes from southern climes, where gloves are a fashion statement, and open air dining is an option year round.

Note: I didn’t notice our tom-foolery myself. It took the first 60 pages of John Ralston Saul’s Refliections of a Siamese Twin to wake me up to our national fixations on warmer climates. Perhaps a solution to our cargo-cultish behaviour was contained in the rest of the book, but JRS didn’t manage to keep my attention past page 61.

1. Woe betide the individual wearing long-johns during their morning commute. When they get to work, that toasty long underwear will be too hot, and they’ll have to find a bathroom for a quick change. (back)

Ottawa Greens is linking to a saccharin sweet campaign ad for the Green Party. The ad is unofficial, and probably shouldn’t be viewed by anyone who has a history of cavities. It’s so darn cute it may rot your entire face off.

It looks like we’re about to go through another election where the Greens are given short shrift by the media. On the off chance our media overlords care about something other than advertising revenue, I’ve signed the petition asking that GPO leader Frank de Jong be allowed onto the all party debates.

I had the misfortune of listening to Ontario Today… umm… today. I say misfortune because (a) I’m home sick, and (b) because they were covering the school funding issue in the Ontario election.

The segment was an hour-long phone in show. Of the 10ish callers, all but two supported the Green Party position: the province should not pay for religious schools. During the call in show, the Ontario Greens were mentioned only a few time in an off-handed manner, even though a vast majority of the callers agreed with the Green position. Their guest was worse, pushing her own view: that all religious schools must be funded.

In a moment of potent middle-crass rage I wrote a strongly worded letter to Ontario Today producers:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was disappointed with your phone-in segment about the proposed changes in Ontario’s funding of religious schools. The coverage all but ignored the Green Party’s stance: that the provincial government should not fund religious schools.

During the opener, when clips from each party were played, the Green Party leader Frank de Jong was not included. Although most callers stated that they wanted to remove provincial funding from religious education, Ms. Celli did not mention that this was the Green Party position. I believe that she did mention the Conservatives by name when asking one of the callers about their position. When your guest repeatedly stated that removing funding for the Catholic system was not possible, she was not challenged.

Ms. Celli did mention the Green Party occasionally, but the Greens were not given the same prominence as the other major parties. Part of your role as media is to report news fairly. By giving the Green Party short shrift, you are making it harder for Ontario’s voters to make an informed decision on October 10.