Are exhibitionist births dangerous?

By Shanda Deziel - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Johannes Kroemer/Getty Images

It may have been the year’s most anticipated birth—and it certainly was the most sensational. On Oct. 25, New York performance artist Marni Kotak delivered a baby boy in a Brooklyn gallery in front of an audience of 20. As worldwide press inundated the gallery for information, Kotak retreated from the spotlight. But a week later she and baby Ajax were back in the gallery talking to visitors and finishing the exhibit she called “The Birth of Baby X”—now complete with the placenta, the bloody pillow and sheets and, of course, the video. Canada had its own public childbirth in October, when Ottawa chiropractor Nancy Salgueiro live-streamed the home birth of her third child over the Internet and 2,500 people watched. Nothing, it seems, is sacred anymore, not even the once very private act of pushing out a baby. And now a retired French obstetrician says stunts like these have not only perverted the idea of natural childbirth, but are actually setting women up for dangerous births.

“We are at the present time—in regard to the history of childbirth—at the bottom of the abyss,” says Michel Odent, who’s been a part of over 15,000 hospital births and is widely considered to be one of the fathers of the natural childbirth movement, having introduced water births in the 1970s. And he blames it on all the people in the room—medical staff, partners, family members, doulas and especially cameras. “People look at [birth] videos and miss the important point—that during childbirth the most basic need of a labouring woman is not to feel observed.”

The 81-year-old doctor describes birth as an “involuntary process” that cannot be helped. So all the support people are making it more difficult for the labouring woman to do it on her own. Fetal monitors, cameras, people talking and other stimuli engage the thinking part of her brain, the neocortex, which needs to be shut off in order for the woman to produce the hormones needed to have a baby quickly and easily. Instead, the majority of women experience long, painful labours and are fed synthetic forms of the “love hormone” oxytocin.

Continue…

Best employers: Public sector jobs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8:03 AM - 1 Comment

Great pay, gold-plated pensions and ironclad job security, aren’t, it turns out, as hot as they sound. Canada’s public servants are more dissatisfied, on a long list of criteria—among them, motivation, recognition, career opportunities and leadership—than all other employment sectors, including the private sector, not-for-profit organizations and publicly traded companies, according to Aon-Hewitt. “It doesn’t surprise me,” says David Eaves, a Vancouver public policy expert and consultant on issues concerning the civil service. “You can be making good money, but if you feel you are making good money filling a hole you had to dig—that can actually be really frustrating.”

Only 40 per cent of public servants, for example, agree with the statement: “The way we manage performance here enables me to contribute as much as possible to our organization’s success,” compared to 58 per cent for private sector workers; and just 46 per cent believe “work processes in place allow me to be as productive as possible,” compared to 59 per cent for the not-for-profit sector. It’s a networked world now, says Eaves, but public servants are stuck in a rigid, hierarchal structure, requiring three levels of approvals for a single meeting. And when it comes to resources, he adds, the tools many use for sharing information in the private sector—Google Docs, Twitter, SurveyMonkey—are blocked. “You have an entire generation of public servants who are now more effective at accomplishing jobs in their personal life than in their professional life.”

Eaves believes that pay, benefits and pension end up handcuffing public servants to careers where they lack impact and recognition. “If you were the mail person in a law firm or newspaper and you had a killer idea,” says Eaves, it takes one to five days to share that idea with the managing partner, or editor. “But for a policy analyst to get his killer idea to the deputy minister or the minister,” he says, it takes “months to never.”

'Biutiful'

By Shanda Deziel - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 2:43 PM - 0 Comments

If you’re looking for subtlety, you won’t find it the films of Mexican filmmaker director Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams, Babel). But you probably won’t find a more powerful performance by an actor this year than the one given by Javier Bardem, who won the Best Actor award in Cannes for his bravura turn in this visceral melodrama. On the page, the narrative might seem over-ripe, but the cinematography and editing are so breathtakingly good it comes across as pure verité. Bardem stars as a former drug dealer in Barcelona who brokers black-market jobs for illegal Chinese immigrants while struggling to contain his bi-polar prostitute girlfriend and come to terms with his own life-threatening illness. Us usual, Iñárritu loads up the plot and pathos, which may aggravate the sensibilities of more refined cinephiles, but Bardem’s brilliance and the raw frisson of the filmmaking make Biutiful a must-see.

Biutiful premieres at TIFF on September 10, with an additional screening September 11

Joan Rivers has the last laugh

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, August 13, 2010 at 8:41 AM - 0 Comments

Michael Edwards/ Redux

“I’m hot again,” says Joan Rivers. That explains her recent guest appearance on David Letterman, after a self-described ban from late night television since the late ’80s. It’s why the current comedy issue of GQ celebrates her jokes alongside A-list comics Tracy Morgan and Zach Galifianakis. And it’s why people are approaching her on the streets of New York and treating her like a movie star—rather than a C-list TV personality. “I feel like Angelina Jolie,” quips the 77-year-old. “I want to hire six kids.”

It’s all thanks to a new, critically acclaimed documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, which opens in Toronto and Montreal Aug. 13 and Vancouver Aug. 20. Two filmmakers, better known for tackling subjects like genocide and wrongful convictions, followed the hard-working comedian for just over a year, as she pounded the pavement with comedy club gigs, home-shopping-channel duties, and any reality show that would have her—all with the hopes of clawing back the career she once had.

Continue…

Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky hitched in Rhinebeck

By Shanda Deziel - Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

At 7:23 pm on Saturday, Bill and Hillary Clinton released an email stating: “Ms. Clinton was now married to Marc Mezvinsky. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate the beginning of their life together, and we are so happy to welcome Marc into our family.” The town of Rhinebeck, N.Y., had been taken over with security, reporters and onlookers, but not as many bold names as expected—no Seinfeld, Oprah or Barbra Streisand, as expected. The teens in town were left to chase former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for an autograph. And Ted Danson apologized for being the most recognizable face. The ceremony itself was interfaith, as Clinton is Methodist and Mezvinsky is Jewish. And the cake was gluten-free.

New York Times

Green Party looks to the NHL

By Shanda Deziel - Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 11:19 AM - 0 Comments

Former Montreal Canadiens enforcer Georges Laraque was named one of two Green Party deputy leaders this weekend (the other is Adriane Carr). After being let go from the team earlier this year, the 33-year-old has focused on drumming up aid for his homeland of Haiti and environmental causes—he’s a dedicated vegan and animal rights activist. But his work with the Green Party will only go so far, as Laraque says he has no plans to run for federal office at the moment.

Ottawa Citizen

Young people trust Google too much

By Shanda Deziel - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 12:12 PM - 0 Comments

In a new study, 102 students from the University of Illinois in Chicago sat at computers and performed information-retrieving tasks, while videos recorded their activity on screen. Researchers found that what matters to students when tracking down info isn’t the quality of the site, but where it ranks on a brand-name search engines page, like Google or Yahoo or AOL. “Just because younger people grew up with the Web doesn’t mean they’re universally savvy with it,” said Eszter Hargittai, one of the study’s researchers from Northwestern University. “Educators should show specific websites in class and talk about why a source is or isn’t credible.”

Science Daily

Final report on Dziekanski death released

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, June 18, 2010 at 2:15 PM - 10 Comments

The public inquiry into the 2007 death by Tasering of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski was released today. Commissioner Thomas Braidwood detailed the circumstances of Dziekanski’s death in his second report on the incident, and found that the Mountie who Tasered Dziekanski was not justified in using his weapon and that the two other officers involved offered “unbelievable after-the-fact rationalizations” to explain the incident. Braidwood described the situation as “the story of shameful conduct by a few officers”, which should not reflect on thousands of other Mounties. The inquiry was called following the October 2007 death of Dziekanski, 40, who was stunned five times at the Vancouver International Airport. Someone in the crowd filmed the incident, prompting an international outcry. Since the death, the RCMP changed its Taser policies. The inquiry report makes eight recommendations, including an independent body to investigate the B.C. Police.

The Globe and Mail

National Post

Did NASA find life on Jupiter’s moon?

By Shanda Deziel - Monday, June 7, 2010 at 12:26 PM - 2 Comments

Researchers from the NASA space agency say that data from their Cassini probe suggest primitive aliens could be living on Titan, the only moon around Jupiter with a dense atmosphere, the Telegraph reports. Data suggests life forms are breathing in this atmosphere and feeding on fuel on the surface, although the moon is too cold to support liquid water. In one study, researchers show that hydrogen gas in the atmosphere disappears from the surface, suggesting alien forms could be breathing it in. The second paper concludes there’s a lack of the chemical on the moon’s surface, concluding it may have been consumed by life. While there could be other explanations for the findings, “We suggested hydrogen consumption because it’s the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,” said lead researcher Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at Nasa Ames Research Centre.

Telegraph

Hostage situation at Calgary school

By Shanda Deziel - Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 6:03 PM - 3 Comments

A man has been taken into custody after holding a woman hostage at the Calgary school he used to attend. According to police, the secretary of A.E. Cross School, “a woman in her mid-’40s,” was taken hostage in an office by a 25 year-old man who used to be a student at the school, and was demanding to see the principal about an injury he supposedly suffered when he attended the school. There was one other person in the office, a 13 year-old boy who currently attends the school; he managed to call the police and take refuge in an interior office, without being seen by the hostage-taker.

Calgary Herald

Tom Brokaw explains Canada to the U.S.

By Shanda Deziel - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:05 PM - 1 Comment

Ashleigh McIvor

By Shanda Deziel - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 9:41 PM - 2 Comments

Ice Dance

By Shanda Deziel - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

Jon Montgomery

By Shanda Deziel - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 12:58 AM - 0 Comments

Canadian skeleton racer Jon Montgomery wins gold

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 11:57 PM - 1 Comment

Jon Montgomery, 30, a car salesman and auctioneer from Russell, Man., won the men’s skeleton in a tight battle against Latvia’s Martins Dukurs, who took silver. Canada’s other medal hopeful Jeff Pain placed 9th, racing with a torn oblique muscle. Another Canadian athlete, Mike Douglas, missed the deadline for having his sled’s runner blades exposed 45 minutes before competition—and he was disqualified from the race before his third run.

CTV

And the torchbearers were . . .

By Shanda Deziel - Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 12:46 AM - 3 Comments

In the end, the Olympic cauldron was [meant to be] lit by five of Canada’s most acclaimed athletes. Rick Hansen brought it into the building, passed it to Catriona LeMay Doan, who passed it to Steve Nash, who passed it to Nancy Greene Raine who ran it to Wayne Gretzky. The culmination of the torch’s 106-day pan-Canadian journey was not without its hitches, as one of the cauldron pieces in BC Place didn’t rise up from the floor, leaving LeMay Doane with nothing to light. After the indoor ceremony, Gretzky ran the torch outside and was driven in the back of a pickup truck to the outdoor cauldron on the waterfront. In the pouring rain, Gretzky smiled at the screaming pedestrians running alongside his ride through the Vancouver streets.

CTV

New York Times

Toronto Sun

Opening ceremonies both sombre and joyous

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 10:18 PM - 15 Comments

The opening ceremonies started with a snowboard jump and a welcome from Canada’s First Nations. But the most moving moment so far was the arrival of the Georgia team, wearing black armbands. They walked through stadium but then left the building, choosing not to celebrate. Organizers say the ceremonies are dedicated to 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died in a luge accident early Friday morning.

Toronto Star

CBC

Got raw milk!

By Shanda Deziel - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 1:55 PM - 5 Comments

After a dramatic legal and food ethics battle, dairy farm Michael Schmidt triumphed today when a Newmarket, Ont., judge ruled that he can continue distributing raw milk through his cow-share program, which does not break the law against selling unpasteurized milk. Schmidt, of Durham, Ont., runs a cow-share program that is exempted from the province’s health protection and promotion act and the milk act. People pay a portion to cover the cost of cow, which provides the farmer with a loophole to offer the owners milk without having to sell it to them. Schmidt, who was found not guilty of 19 charges, celebrated his victory with a cold glass of raw milk outside the courthouse.

Health Zone

Full-body scanners pose no problem for Canadians

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, January 8, 2010 at 1:23 PM - 11 Comments

The choice leaves those concerned with privacy on the horns of a dilemma but, given the option, more Canadians would opt for a full-body scan over a pat-down when boarding a plane. According to a newly released Angus Reid poll, 67 per cent of Canadians would take the scan, compared to just 18 per cent who would prefer a pat-down. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of Canadians support the use of the scanners, which produces a three-dimensional image of the contours of a person’s body: 44 per cent of respondents strongly support their implementation at Canadian airports, while an additional 30 per cent of respondents moderately support relying on them. The scanners are due to appear at major airports in the coming weeks and will, at least at first, target only travellers bound for the U.S.

Angus Reid

Rizutto clan weakened by mob hit

By Shanda Deziel - Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 11:13 AM - 0 Comments

Nick Rizzuto, son of Montreal’s alleged (and currently incarcerated) mafia kingpin Vito Rizzuto, was shot to death in Montreal on Monday. Rizzuto, known for his ties in the city’s construction industry, was reportedly en route to his girlfriend’s house in the middle of the day when a suspect shot him between four and six times before fleeing. The shooting has further weakened the Rizutto clan’s alleged grip on the city; the majority of its key members are behind bars or, in the case of Nick’s grandfather Nicolo, subject to probation conditions that effectively amount to house arrest. “The poor guy. He tries to do something in his life and, because of his family’s past history, every time he turns around he gets hit with something,” Antonio Magi, Rizzuto’s business partner, told the Montreal Gazette earlier this month.

Montreal Gazette

How to say, 'I'm a thug' in a tattooed world?

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, December 18, 2009 at 1:12 PM - 3 Comments

Since tattoos have become so mainstream, criminals are finding it harder to signal their criminality with body ink. These days, even art on your neck, collarbone, and wrists isn’t really enough. Facial tatoos remain a pretty hard-core gesture, particularly on the eyelids. Also, according to this article, “the homespun variety created with a shard of a ballpoint pen during long hours behind bars” retains some menace. But if mere skin art doesn’t do the trick, there’s always the Japanese gangster gesture—amputate all or part of a pinky finger. Up to 70 percent of the so-called yakuza have sacrificed a digit.

Reason Online

Whodunnit?

By Shanda Deziel - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 2:32 PM - 6 Comments

The so-called “Climategate” emails somehow liberated from the digital vaults of the University of East Anglia not long ago have predictably—by design, you say?—turned ideological football, one that threatens to to hinder international climate change talks now going on in Copenhagen. We know all that. What we don’t know is who unleashed the emails in the first place—and how. “Speculation over just how the 3,500-odd documents came to be publicly released is growing anew,” writes Keith Johnson on the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog. “A top IPCC official recently blamed ‘malicious hackers’ and pointed toward Russia. The idea of Russian ‘hackers for hire’ is gaining traction in some parts of the British press.” But Johnson goes on to note that, while the documents were placed on a Russian server sometime mid last month, they also appeared on a Turkish server. Nobody’s business but the Turks, maybe, but no smoking gun there. Or anywhere. In fact, the simplest explanation, Johnson suggests, quoting the blogger Watts Up With That, is a leak from inside the university—”not because of some hacker but because of a leak from UEA by a person with scruples.”

Wall Street Journal

At least 118 dead in Baghdad

By Shanda Deziel - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:51 AM - 2 Comments

Three explosions were detonated next to government buildings in a coordinated attack on central Baghdad today. At least 118 people were killed with another 261  wounded, and a smaller, possibly accidental blast near a school has killed seven children. The attacks, which targeted a courthouse and the labour and finance ministry buildings, are the worst since bombs killed at least 155 people on October 25, and come as the Iraqi government is poised to announce the date for next year’s parliamentary elections. Officials say the blasts are meant to discredit Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, which the insurgency considers to be too pro-West.

MSNBC

Twenty years later

By Shanda Deziel - Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 1:08 PM - 24 Comments

Private and public ceremonies were held in Montreal and Toronto Sunday to mark the 20th anniversary of the École Polytechnique shootings. On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine opened fire on the female members of an engineering class, in a self-proclaimed attack against feminists, taking the lives of 14 women and himself. For Family members and survivors, who after the Montreal Massacre pushed for tougher gun laws, this anniversary comes with more frustration and sadness as last month the government voted to scrap the long-gun registry. Also, marking the anniversary is an article in the Ottawa Citizen, in which engineering professor Monique Frize talks about the shadow the shooting has cast on her field, where female enrollment continues to dwindle.

CBC

Ottawa Citizen