Human Development and Sexual Health
C3.3 describe how visible differences (e.g., skin, hair, and eye colour, facial features, body size and shape, physical aids or different physical abilities, clothing, possessions) and invisible differences (e.g., learning abilities, skills and talents, personal or cultural values and beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, family background, personal preferences, allergies and sensitivities) make each person unique, and identify ways of showing respect for differences in others

Teacher prompt: “Sometimes we are different in ways you can see. Sometimes we are different in ways you cannot see – such as how we learn, what we think, and what we are able to do. Give me some examples of things that make each person unique.”

Student: “We all come from different families. Some students live with two parents. Some live with one parent. Some have two mothers or two fathers. Some live with grandparents or with caregivers. We may come from different cultures. We also have different talents and abilities and different things that we find difficult to do.”

Teacher: “How can you be a role model and show respect for differences in other people?”

Student: “I can include others in what I am doing, invite them to join a group, be willing to be a partner with anyone for an activity, and be willing to learn about others.”

(Excerpted from the original proposal on the Government of Ontario’s website and mirrored here)

That’s it? Saying that some kids have two moms is “bordering on criminal”? According to the nutbars cited above: “To cause confusion in a young child’s mind about being male or female is evil.” O rly?

This argument strikes me as thinly veiled homophobia.

Instead of overt queer-bashing, the “family values” crowd is now saying that they want to hide homosexuality from their kids. Their homophobia is suddenly a parental right. They don’t want to openly dis queers, they just want to pretend that gays don’t exist. One gentleman from the Sault is quoted as saying “a child is taught to comply, answer the right questions in school, and at home he’s taught this is not right behaviour, [...] Is that fair to the kids?” That’s right. Teaching kids that homosexuality exists is unfair to them. Presumably because they’ll have to rectify their parents’ bigotry with society’s openness.

I’d like to say that this issue does matter. But it does. Some of the “family values” types will have gay kids. And those kids are going to have a rough time growing up. I can’t help but think that a brief admission that homosexuality is okay in Grade 3 might save those kids a measure of hurt growing up.

(Edit: Changed the title)

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.