Police arrest man in White House shooting

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 3:29 PM - 0 Comments

A 21-year old was being held in police custody on Wednesday on suspicions he fired shots at the White House. Federal agents detected two bullets in the U.S. president’s residence, one that struck the exterior of the building and one that broke a window. The suspect, Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, was arrested by Pennsylvania state troopers at a hotel some four hours drive away from Washington, Reuters reports. According to the Secret Service, protective ballistic glass behind the White House’s historic external glass stopped the bullet that struck a window.

Reuters

The CRTC decision on UBB: everybody hurts

By Peter Nowak - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:56 PM - 0 Comments

Codice Internet/Flickr

The CRTC’s usage-based billing decision is in and boy is it a lot to digest, which is perhaps why there were so many conflicting reports in the media as to who the winners and losers are or will be. After reading and digesting the long document and speaking to a number of the small Internet providers that will be affected by it at the ISP Summit dinner on Tuesday night, it’s hard to see how anybody really wins with this decision. Burdened with the impossible task of trying to make everybody happy, perhaps this was the CRTC’s desired outcome.

To understand the ruling, we need to delve past the headlines and the press release. I swore I’d never use the phrase “the devil is in the details,” but the demon certainly is in the fine print. In the case of this decision, it’s in the appendix, way at the end, which is a bunch of prices. I’m not a network guy so I’m sure I’ll get some of this wrong—even the experts will need a few days to digest and crunch the numbers—so feel free to jump in and make corrections in the comments. Continue…

Let the people decide how they want to decide

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

Jonathan McLeod rips the idea of asking the courts to rule against first-past-the-post.

A judgement in favour of pro-PR side would likely spell the doom of the current voting system for not just Quebec, but every province. Here in Upper Canada, we rejected electoral reform by a direct vote. If you’re trying to enhance democracy, you shouldn’t do things that will that will directly thwart the will of the people. If you want PR, get it back on the ballot. Don’t turn to the courts.

Voters in Ontario rejected proportional representation in 2007. Voters in British Columbia rejected similar reform two years later.

Byron Sonne: sacrificial lamb, scapegoat, gadfly

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:23 PM - 0 Comments

The Yiddish language is wonderfully precise when it comes to put-downs. Consider this famous explanation of the difference between a shlemiel and a shlemazl:

“A shlemiel is somebody who often spills his soup; a shlemazl is the person the soup lands on.”

Byron Sonne is a shlemiel and a shlemazl. He is clumsy and unlucky. But he is not a terrorist.

Driven by curiosity, hubris, and a genuine desire for social justice, Sonne poked and prodded the $1.2 billion “security apparatus” of the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto. He wanted to know if it was in fact just “security theater”–an expensive display of pomp and barbed wire that would never thwart an actual terrorist. Simultaneously, he wanted to know if it was too effective, if the heightened atmosphere around the summit meant that police were forgetting people’s rights. And he wanted us to know too, so he documented everything he did. Continue…

Silvio’s horror show

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 12:48 PM - 0 Comments

0

Silvio’s horror show

Prev

Next

January 1996.

One of Italy’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Silvio Berlusconi, who had served an initial, brief term as prime minister in 1994-1995, faces charges of paying $240,000 in bribes to tax officials together with some close associates. The prosecution will also argue that Berlusconi’s holding company, Fininvest, resorted to false accounting and doctored offshore accounts in order to avoid taxes. The charge against Berlusconi will eventually expire under a statute of limitations. By 2009, Berlusconi will have been involved in 2,500 court hearings in different trials, and paid $284 millions in legal fees. (Claudio Papi/Reuters)

1 of 21 Photos

Next June 2000.

Tags

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Olivia Chow has a introduced a private member’s bill that would make side guards mandatory for large trucks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to move the cyclists-pedestrian protection act that would help prevent senseless deaths by being pulled under the back wheels of large trucks. The bill calls for the mandatory installation of side guards on trucks. It is a safety measure used in many other nations.

The bill is too late for Jenna Morrison, a pregnant mom who was tragically killed while riding her bicycle in Toronto last week, but it is not too late for the ones she left behind. It is not too late for Lucas, her five-year-old son.

Asked by Ms. Chow during Question Period this week, Steven Fletcher, the Minister of State for Transport, was not entirely dismissive of the proposal.

Edward Keenan notes how long this idea has been discussed without any action.

Cain’s fall is Gingrich’s lift

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 12:16 PM - 0 Comments

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, soared in the polls on Monday, months after the media had declared his campaign defunct and his staff quit en masse. His approval rating among Republican voters now stands at 22 per cent, according to a survery by CNN/ORC, a mere two points behind former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Gingrich’s miracle rescue is likely the result of egregious stumbles by rivals Herman Cain and Texas Governor Rick Perry, both of whom have plunged in the polls. According to the Financial Times, this reveals widespread unease about Romney in Republican ranks, as the party scrambles to look for a candidate with solid conservative credentials to challenge Barack Obama in 2012.

The Financial Times

U.S. boosts military presence in Australia

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday that the Pentagon will place 2,500 troops in Australia to help fulfill the U.S.’s “leadership role” in the region, the Financial Times reports. Analysts depicted the move as an attempt by Washington to build up its presence in the Pacific amidst concern over China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the oil-rich and strategically important South China Sea. Also on Wednesday, State Department Hillary Clinton promised to boost military support to the Philippines during an official visit to Manila. This comes as China started referring to territorial claims in the South China Sea as a “core” national interest, the same term it uses when referring to Tibet and Taiwan.

The Financial Times

ICC weighing Canada probe

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

The International Criminal Court is weighing whether to start a formal investigation into Canada’s handling of Afghan detainees. “There are serious allegations of crimes committed by different parties,” ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Postmedia News in an interview during a visit at the University of Ottawa on Tuesday, adding that a decision on the matter will be made in the coming weeks. The ICC was first asked to look into Canada’s treatment of Afghan prisoners in 2007, after allegations surfaced that Canadian forces had handed over detainees to Afghan security officials knowing they could face torture.

Postmedia News

Where the clinic hits the road

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Photography by Nayan Sthankiya

At home and in her job, Jodi Spence has to deal with other people’s health problems—major and minor—on a nearly daily basis. She’s the mother of four kids, all under eight, one of whom has a heart rhythm disorder. She’s also director of a daycare centre located inside a Saskatoon high school that watches over the babies of adolescent moms while they’re in class. So, whether it’s a baby’s rash, a teen who needs birth control, or her daughter requiring a medication refill for her heart condition, “I probably [go for medical attention] once a week,” says Spence, 32. Instead of visiting an overcrowded emergency room or her family doctor, who’s often booked solid for the day, Spence goes to the Health Bus—Saskatoon’s walk-in clinic on wheels.

A retrofitted 1976 RV that launched in 2008, the Saskatoon Health Bus parks at different spots around Saskatoon’s inner-city neighbourhoods—outside a Giant Tiger store, the Safeway or a Shell station, for example—seven days a week, year round, seeing an average of 12 to 14 clients a day. A nurse practitioner and paramedic are on the bus, offering medical attention to anyone who stops by, whether they have a health card with them or not. Known as the “Magic Bus,” it’s been so successful that, on Nov. 24, the rickety old RV will be replaced with a new model.

The Health Bus was created as a way to reach out to Saskatoon’s Aboriginal population, newcomers, children, the elderly and others who might not have regular access to a doctor, says Sheila Achilles, director of primary health and chronic disease management at Saskatoon Regional Health, which oversees the program. “There are family physicians in the area, but people aren’t going to see them,” Achilles says. And unlike patients who visit a series of walk-in clinics and emergency rooms, those who come back to the Health Bus get some continuity of care. “People who visit feel very safe,” Achilles says, and because it’s mobile, it can reach different people in different parts of the city.

Continue…

Beijing’s forbidden city is being plundered

By Emma Teitel - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

David Silverman/Getty Images

China’s Forbidden City may be under siege for the first time since 1860, when Anglo-French soldiers occupied it during the Second Opium War. This time, though, the culprits aren’t foreign invaders, but local ones, and even employees of the attraction itself. Recent troubles began for the ancient Beijing palace turned tourist attraction (its 980 palatial structures lure in 80,000 tourists a day) in May, when a 28-year-old migrant worker broke into one of its exhibit halls and carried away “gold and jewel encrusted boxes” valued at $1.5 million. According to reports, the thief escaped in true Indiana Jones fashion, “breaching a vaunted fortress designed to protect the long-ago emperors of China from barbarian invaders.” However, he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off one of the display cases and chose to frequent a nearby Internet café immediately after the heist, where he logged on to a computer under his real name. Suffice it to say, both loot and looter were quickly recovered.

But not all Forbidden City swindlers are so inept. Amid a string of ill-conceived burglaries and embarrassing accidents (in July, a palace researcher broke a 1,000-year-old porcelain dish), it seems the most serious finger-pointing has been aimed at Forbidden City employees themselves. Or as Chen Bingcai, a former state administration official, told the Guardian, “The [Forbidden City] museum is openly taking money from visitors without putting it through the books.” And Chen’s allegation—first made on one of many microblogs credited with publicizing palace scandals—isn’t exactly unfounded. Palace staff members have since been caught on camera pocketing nine-dollar admission fares.

Still, that’s an arguably small offence, in contrast to a slew of others. Of late, palace employees have confessed to misplacing over 100 ancient books, not to mention submerging an antique wooden screen in water during a botched restoration attempt. Most egregious though, especially to the Communist sensibility, was the online accusation made by television host Rui Chenggang that Forbidden City officials were in the process of opening an exclusive palace club for the upper crust of Chinese society—with membership fees beginning at $150,000.

Continue…

Long trip to nowhere

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

Oleg Voloshin/AFP/Getty Images

On Nov. 4, six figures emerged pale and blinking from a windowless module stationed in a Moscow parking lot. These men—three Russians, one Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian—spent 520 days locked up inside, simulating a flight to Mars and back, an experiment run by Russia’s Institute for Biomedical Problems and the European Space Agency. Upon emerging, French crew member Romain Charles said the Earth-based mission proves that “a human journey to the red planet is possible”—or, at least, that surviving the isolation of long-distance space travel could be.

To kill time, the crew performed experiments and stayed in touch with loved ones, although communications were delayed, like on an actual mission. August was the toughest, says a blog post from Charles; family and friends were on holiday, and the best food had been consumed. But the men, who were paid about $100,000 each (China didn’t reveal a price), came out undeterred. As Charles said, “We’re ready to embark on the next spaceship going there.”

Outstanding balance

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

Glen McGregor wonders if the Conservatives will refund the $187,298 they were reimbursed as a result of the In-and-Out scheme.

Elections Canada says none of the 17 have returned their reimbursements.  Asked if it will take steps to recover the money,  Elections Canada spokesperson Diane Benson said, “We would follow the normal administrative process for the recovery of any debt owed to the Crown.”

Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey responded in an email,  ”The question of reimbursements will be dealt with in the ongoing civil proceedings.” By that, he means the case the Tories brought against Elections Canada, which will be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada.

What’s next for opera houses? ‘Cats’?

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photography by Tim Matheson

Opera companies are running out of popular operas to put on the stage. Luckily, there are plenty of popular musicals available to produce instead. Musicals are becoming a bigger part of the operatic repertoire: the Vancouver Opera produced a fully staged version of West Side Story last month, American opera diva Deborah Voigt appeared in a fully staged version of Annie Get Your Gun at the Glimmerglass Opera this past summer, and in early 2012, the Chicago Lyric Opera will present Show Boat. James Wright, general director of the Vancouver Opera, says that opera companies “need to be less rigid than we’ve been in the past.” In some cases, that means putting on a Broadway show instead of another La Bohème.

Leonard Bernstein, the composer of West Side Story, was one of the first to suggest that musicals were the true American opera, and some opera houses have done musicals in previous decades. But the musical temptation has become greater for classically oriented theatres, even overseas: the Théâtre du Châtelet, a house known for operas and operettas, has recently brought material like The Sound of Music to Paris. It helps that these shows sell; West Side Story did well for Vancouver, and Lyric Opera of Chicago general director Anthony Freud says that “when we surveyed our subscribers, almost 70 per cent were very enthusiastic about Show Boat.”

Besides, if a company wants to put on a great work of U.S. music theatre, it may not have much choice but to put on a musical. Except for Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which has just been done as a Broadway musical, the 20th century came and went without producing many beloved American operas. Lawrence Johnson of Chicago Classical Review lamented that Show Boat will “accelerate the disappearance of our own operatic heritage.” But there aren’t a lot of North American opera writers who rank with Show Boat’s Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, either with the public or critics.

Continue…

On Theo Fleury’s drug- and alcohol-addled memories, and the Bob Probert she knew

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photo by Chris Bolin for Macleans Magazine

Her name comes second on the book covers, but there’s little question who leads Canada’s hockey writers. Since 2009, Kirstie McLellan Day has piloted the “autobiographies” of Theo Fleury, the late Bob Probert, and now Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean, to the heights of bestseller lists. She is our unlikely Ice Queen.

Q: You’re now the country’s most successful hockey writer, but as a mother of five with a background in entertainment TV, you don’t exactly fit the profile. Is that part of the secret to your success?

A: I do write about players and those around the game, but they are people stories too. And I sure hope they appeal to a broader audience.

Continue…

Heart in a box

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

How long can a human heart sit in a cooler of ice—thirsty for vein-borne blood, detached from oxygen and lungs—before it becomes useless to the transplant patient who desperately needs it? Not much longer than six hours, and that’s already pushing it, says Dr. Thierry Mesana, chief of cardiac surgery at the Ottawa Heart Institute. “We don’t have so much trouble with anything under four hours,” says Mesana, who has been transplanting hearts for 25 years. “Beyond six hours is certainly too long.”

Those time restrictions lead to some unfortunate limitations for Canadian hospitals holding patients waiting for heart transplants (as of the end of last year, there were 135 of them in Canada). Even when a perfect match becomes available for transplant, it’s sometimes lost due to degradation over time. Mesana says it’s rare to be able to bring hearts to Ottawa from Vancouver, for example, even when a match—by blood type, age, weight—arises. “We basically can’t do it, most of the time,” he explains. If a match doesn’t turn up within a six-hour radius, the heart is lost.

But the makers of a new technology currently undergoing clinical trial in the United States and Europe say the traditional means of transporting hearts could soon be history. In place of the ice-filled cooler, they promise something seemingly out of science fiction: a box-like machine that carries a beating human heart.

Continue…

REVIEW: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

This Bob Woodward-style inside account of President Barack Obama’s economic team is grabbing headlines for one quote. According to Suskind, the warfare between National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers and Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag grew so destructive by mid-2009 that their chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, ordered them to start attending bury-the-hatchet dinners once a week. At the first such meeting, as the pair talked about their Clinton administration pasts, Summers suddenly confided: “We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would have never made these [Obama’s] mistakes.”

The quote is a sort of miniature allegory for the book, to which the Summers-Orszag battle is fundamental. Summers is Suskind’s Satan—an unrelenting sociopath who wins every argument with fencing tricks, testosterone and bluster. Summers gradually runs so far with the traditionally third-rate NEC job that he ends up with almost as much clout as Emanuel. Orszag, by contrast, is portrayed as a naive, data-driven optimist who lacks Summers’s brutality or savvy. One notices, however, that the dinner dialogue was almost certainly leaked to Suskind by Orszag, who left OMB in August 2010. (There were only two people at that table.)

One also notices that Orszag doesn’t seem to have disagreed with Summers. A lot of people, it seems, are leaving the Obama White House disillusioned. Over and over in Suskind’s narrative, Obama dazzles potential hires with his command of detail and his imagination. And over and over he disappoints—failing to rein in rogues like Summers, tolerating unbelievable insubordination, cultivating sexism, and using instinct to tackle problems that require the incisive reasoning one would expect from a celebrated law professor. Suskind’s portrait of the President is so disconcerting that one is almost forced to take another long, hard look at those Onion jokes about Obama being bipolar. It’s essential reading, especially for Obamaphiles.

REVIEW: One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Amid the flood of tributes to the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, it might seem like an unfortunate time to come out with a book about Jeff Bezos and his online retailing giant, Amazon.com. But in some ways, Bezos’s achievements are just as impressive, and perhaps more instructive for would-be entrepreneurs. For one thing, Amazon is one of the few dot-com companies that not only survived the tech crash, but cleverly reinvented themselves over the years. Named for the mighty river, Amazon began in 1995 by selling only books, and quickly expanded to everything from appliances to patio furniture. Amazon was also among the first to achieve success in tablet computers with the 2007 release of its Kindle e-reader, and is becoming a major player in streaming media and cloud computing, taking on companies like Google, Netflix and Apple in the process.

Brandt details Bezos’s early days in the financial services industry, and the entrepreneurial drive that led him to create what he dubbed the “world’s largest bookstore,” even though Amazon initially stocked fewer titles than most neighbourhood shops. Like Jobs, Bezos is frequently described as “brilliant” and maniacally devoted to providing the best possible customer experience (people initially thought he was crazy for allowing negative book reviews on the site), although he comes across as less of a dreamer and more of a methodical empire builder. Bezos chose books because they offered the greatest Internet potential in the mid-1990s, when people were still wary of conducting transactions on the Internet. Books, he reasoned, had widespread appeal, were easy to ship, and lent themselves to being searched on a website (and titles already had a unique ISBN number, making it relatively easy to create a database).

Yet, despite Amazon’s frenetic growth, the company didn’t post a single quarterly profit for its first seven years. Bezos firmly believed that keeping customers happy was ultimately more important to Amazon’s future than satisfying Wall Street, once quipping that Amazon’s reputation was “worth a lot more to us right now than money.” It paid off. Amazon earned US$1.15 billion last year. Bezos may never achieve Jobs’s cultural icon status, but his story will be studied in business schools for years to come.

The end of blood samples?

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

When Virginia Commonwealth University’s first-year students arrived on campus this fall, they received a seemingly bizarre invitation—to “Spit for Science.” A team of researchers at VCU, which is based in Richmond, is looking into whether genes might predispose some individuals to struggle with drug and alcohol use, or emotional problems. To accomplish this, they asked students to take part in a confidential survey: first they had to fill out an online questionnaire about their moods, their behaviour and relationships, and then provide a saliva sample, which is rich in DNA. These samples were collected with a unique device created by DNA Genotek, an Ottawa-based company that corners the market on high-tech spittoons.

As much as 70 per cent of the cells in saliva are white blood cells, which contain DNA, says company president Ian Curry. With this product, “you spit into a tube, and the device releases the DNA from inside the cells,” he says. It’s much less invasive than a blood sample, which makes it popular with scientists: instead of summoning study participants into a clinic to provide blood, health researchers can actually send out these devices by regular mail, have them provide a saliva sample, and then mail it back to the lab for testing. Unsurprisingly, Curry notes that participants in a lab study are much more likely to provide a saliva sample than blood.

“Spit for Science” is just one example of the many ways this sampler is being used. DNA Genotek (which was acquired by Pennsylvania-based OraSure Technologies in August) has thousands of clients around the world, according to Curry, and scientists are using the device to study everything from obesity to tropical disease. “Just two millilitres of saliva,” he says, “gives a researcher enough DNA to study for a decade.”

CP’s railway to riches?

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Todd Korol/Reuters

Canada’s two national railroads are as much a part of the country’s landscape as the Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes. Powered by bright red locomotives, trains operated by Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. snake their way through the green valleys of the B.C. Interior, chug past wheat fields in the Prairies and lumber into yards in the manufacturing heartland of Canada and shipping ports on the East Coast.

But despite their long history in this country (CP was founded in 1881 to physically link Canada’s populous eastern provinces with the West), it’s only been recently that the rails have also been viewed as a vehicle for deep-pocketed investors to make carloads of money. Railroads, which haul everything from grain and iron ore to automobiles and refrigerators, offer exposure to the overall economy, not to mention a rare opportunity to invest in a near-monopoly business (you don’t hear about many new railroads being launched). The largest shareholder of CN, the bigger of Canada’s two railways, is none other than Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates, who owns about 10 per cent of CN’s stock. And two years ago, Warren Buffet paid US$26 billion for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the second largest railroad in the U.S.

Now it’s CP’s turn. New York hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP recently revealed that it had taken a 12.2 per cent stake in CP, which has lagged other North American railroads’ performances in recent years—particularly CN. Led by Bill Ackman, Pershing has a reputation for taking stakes in underperforming companies and working with their management teams to bring about changes. Pershing, which pressured Wendy’s to spin off Tim Hortons in 2006, said in its filings that it intends to “engage in discussions” with CP’s management, board and other stockholders about the railroad’s business and its future.

Continue…

Your Chia pet is good for you

By Joanne Latimer - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

“Who knew, 30 years ago, that chia had all these wonderful health properties?” exclaims Joseph Pedott, the entrepreneur who marketed the Chia Pet, the famous terracotta figurine of infomercial fame that’s sold more than 10 million units. “It was the furthest thing from my mind back then. I’d heard something about chia as food for the Aztecs, but I never imagined it was actually true.”

It’s true, and then some. Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) is a seed cultivated since pre-Columbian times in Mexico and Guatemala. “There are four main things to know about chia,” says Edmonton-born Wayne Coates, known as the “father of chia” and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he started studying the seed in 1991. “It’s the highest plant source of omega-3 fatty acids. It’s an antioxidant on par with wild blueberries. It has over 20 per cent protein, which is higher than wheat, and it’s a great source of soluble and insoluble fibre.”

Compared to flaxseed, chia has three times the calcium and half the sodium, says Coates. “I don’t like to run down flax, especially since Canada is the largest maker of flaxseed, but chia is just easier to use and it has no flavour or known allergens. The calories sound high, at 525 per 100 g, but they’re good calories, from chia’s 30 per cent oil, which has the omega-3s we need.” The gluten-free chia seeds absorb up to 10 times their weight in water, which helps make people feel full faster and longer. “When people ask me the difference between the black and white seeds,” notes Coates, author of Chia: Rediscovering a Forgotten Crop of the Aztecs, “I explain that the darker seeds contain more antioxidants, just like darker fruits and vegetables. But the white seeds are less noticeable when they get stuck in your teeth.”

Continue…

Using avatars to assess mental health

By Emma Teitel - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

University of Manitoba

Pediatric nursing and video game development don’t usually appear in the same sentence. But University of Manitoba professor Roberta Woodgate has brought them together in the same laboratory. A seasoned nurse and professor, Woodgate teamed up with Winnipeg tech company Complex Games five years ago to create a “virtual computer environment” (she is hesitant to call it a game) that gauges the psychological moods of child cancer patients. EMÜD—pronounced “e-mood”—is an online adventure that allows young people with cancer to create their own avatars and explore up to seven virtual fantasy worlds—complete with bridges, mazes and imaginary pets—while at the same time answering specially engineered questions about their psychological state. Woodgate says her motive is to assess the mental health of patients in an interactive and diversionary way, rather than subject them to a series of questions in a doctor’s office. Or as she puts it, “Assigning a number [from one to 10] to how you feel doesn’t give the whole picture.” Her ultimate goal is for kids “to communicate how they’re feeling in a fun way.” EMÜD will undergo a pilot test in the new year. If all goes well, Woodgate hopes it will become a tool used by people suffering from “any life-changing event.”

Mounties get new chief

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:01 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Paulson, a long-time Mountie who rose through the ranks by investigating biker gangs and terrorists, became RCMP commissioner on Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reports. Paulson, the Globe notes, cuts a starkly different figure from his predecessor, career bureaucrat William Elliott, and Last year, he avoided becoming involved in an attempt by senior commanders to get Elliott ousted over his rough management style. Upon taking the reins of the RCMP, Paulson pledged to get to the bottom of the recent sexual harassment scandal that has tarnished the force’s reputation.

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

Zombie lit: The undead go highbrow

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images: Photo Illustration by Sarah MacKinnon

If you want to understand the current wave of genre-flecked, highbrow American fiction writers—the Colson Whiteheads and Jonathan Lethems erecting literary skyscrapers around pulpy frames—you could do worse than reading the first line of an essay Lethem wrote for The New Yorker in 2002: “In the summer of 1977, I saw Star Wars 21 times,” Lethem started, “mostly by myself.”

Lethem has serious sci-fi chops. His first novel, Gun, With Occasional Music, was set in a dystopian future where kangaroo gangsters coexist with classic American gumshoes. But he became famous in mainstream circles first for Motherless Brooklyn, a detective novel whose hero has Tourette’s syndrome, and later Fortress of Solitude, a coming-of-age tale that blends comic books and soul music with more traditional literary fare.

Along with Michael Chabon, who wrote a speculative detective novel of his own, Lethem is often cited as a leader in a new class of genre-blending novelists—writers unafraid to borrow from fantasy, horror or comic books in their so-called serious fiction. The newest entry in that field is Whitehead’s Zone One, a post-apocalyptic zombie novel, out this month. Zone One is at once true to its genre—there are moments of legitimate horror in this book—and something entirely new. A meditation on loneliness and mediocrity, it is funny and strange and wholly relevant to the world we live in now.

Continue…