Category: health & fitness

What the Bleep!?

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, movies, philosophyLeave a comment

Rich urged me to see this 2006 film. And I finally have.

It’s a unique, thought provoking, unusual film. I’m glad I saw it — though it didn’t change my life.

The quantum physics is interesting. More emphatic is the concept that what you think affects you at the cellular level. True, I understand.

Deaf actress Marlee Matlin is the lead, and very good.

That’s it. None of the ideas in the film were new to me. Likely I’ll not remember this film after a week or two.

What the Bleep!? - Down the Rabbit Hole (QUANTUM Three-Disc Special Edition)

What the Bleep!?

What the Bleep Do We Know!? – Wikipedia

Identify Stroke – Three Simple Questions

On By Rick McIn health & fitnessLeave a comment

From email:

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters…. S.T.R.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

S * Ask the individual to SMILE.

T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE

R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

stroke.jpg

As usual, I checked to see if it was valid:

America’s National Stroke Association lists the following as common symptoms of stroke:

* Sudden numbness or weakness of face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
* Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
* Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
* Sudden trouble walking, dizziness,
* loss of balance or coordination Sudden severe headache with no known cause

Given this list of symptoms, it is easy to see how the simple three-question test could help identify a stroke.

However, there is an important point that needs to be considered. While the central information in the email is true, the absence of these symptoms does not necessarily indicate that a person is NOT having a stroke. It could be extremely dangerous to reach the conclusion that a person did not require medical attention just because he or she could successfully carry out the three steps outlined in the test. …

Identify Stroke Email – Three Simple Questions

to friends in Saskatoon

On By Rick McIn health & fitnessLeave a comment

I lived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for 10yrs.

It’s a great city.

Sadly, I only seem to get back about once a year, usually over New Year’s Eve.

I missed the big bonfire on Emma Lake this time, landing in the Toon Town on January 1st.

For 3 days I was busy with a gymnastics clinic. But still had some time to catch up with good, old friends.

alexanders.jpg

Also drank with some good old rogues (above) at Alexander’s.

All the best in 2008 to everyone in Saskatchewan. Also Billy Bentley who is loafing at some sort of resort in Washington State. Fight Billy!

War on Pot: $42 Billion Annual USA Boondoggle

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

This is likely somewhat hyperbolic.

Still, the USA is nuttier than any other civilized country when it comes to soft drugs.

war-on-drugs.jpgWhat would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost — and there’d still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you’d hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what’s left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country — $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that’s what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. — $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

AlterNet: DrugReporter: The War on Pot: America’s $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle

If spending money fighting a “War on Drugs” is a good idea, why is it not working?

Reefer Madness (Restored Edition)

Reefer Madness – the movie

Compelling Calgarian – Maureen Bell

On By Rick McIn good news, health & fitnessLeave a comment

Congratulations Maureen!

In our local paper today:

Water diverts lawyer’s attention

Corporate lawyer questions our entitlement to water

There is perhaps nothing more innocuous than water.

It’s what we drink, what we cook with, what we wash with . . . it’s always there.
Question is: will it be?

Maureen Bell is a lawyer by profession and it’s that job that drives her day. But the quest for the preservation of one of our most cherished resources takes up much of her time and passion, as well.

Bell is a principal of Water Rights Inc., which is focused on finding pioneering solutions to issues that arise from or are related to water and water rights in Alberta. The hope is that these efforts will lead to the reconsideration of Alberta’s water strategy to overuse the rivers.

“I wanted to explore the entitlement of water,” she says. “My goal was to understand water well enough so that we weren’t fighting for nothing.”

Bell lobbied to create a water trust that sets aside licences to keep a healthy supply in the rivers; in other words, keeping water in trust for recreation, water management and fish habitat.

It’s a challenging task, considering that communities and industries are competing tooth-and-nail for an apparently dwindling supply.

“There are other trusts in other jurisdictions, but because Alberta’s different, we had to make appropriate changes to fit our jurisdiction,” she says.

“We created the trust working with the government of Alberta to garner their support. There is a lot of support, but we haven’t received our first water

“We’ve approached the city and we know that citizens are conserving water . . . so where’s that conserved water going? We asked, ‘Can you donate it to the trust?’ The answer was no.”
Bell has been practising law for more than 30 years, specializing in corporate and commercial law.

Her interest in this particular subject grew after she “decided I wanted to understand water from a legal perspective.”

Bell is in the process of completing her master’s degree at the University of Calgary, in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Resource Law, with a focus on the water issue.

© Calgary Hearld 2008

bell-cal1214-jsa3.jpg

20 Compelling Calgarians

Thanks Rocco.

send smokers to Singapore

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I was in healthier-than-thou Vancouver, Canada recently. They still allow smoking in public places indoors.

YUCK.

One of the proofs that we may not be doomed — that the world is getting better — is a reduced smoking rate.

According to Torontoist: “An American study showed that, worldwide, smokers toss at least 4.5 trillion butts on the ground every year, and that’s not only revolting to look at, but causes significant environmental damage. Cigarette filters are made of non-biodegradable polymer acetate (read: plastic), and discarded butts start fires, kill small animals, and are the most common item washing up on beaches. A 2006 City of Toronto litter audit found that cigarette butts were the fourth most common small litter item, after chewing gum, paper, and glass pieces.”

2007-12-31_125941-treehugger-resolutionbutts.jpg

What?

I thought smoking litterbugs were lashed in Singapore. This doesn’t go far enough:

“To maintain the clean and green city, there are strict laws against littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. For repeat offenders–it’s a fine of up to S$2,000 and a Corrective Work Order (CWO). The CWO requires litterbugs to spend a few hours cleaning a public place, for example, picking up litter in a park. The litterbugs are made to wear bright jackets, and sometimes, the local media are invited to cover the public spectacle. Naturally, the authorities hope that public shame will make diehard litterbugs think twice about tossing their scrap paper or cigarette butt on the roadside.”

Resolution: Ban the Butt : TreeHugger

things I care about MORE than global warming

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, bad news, education, health & fitness3 Comments

• nuclear war
• civil wars worldwide
• potential pandemics
• child hunger
• overweight and obesity
• increasing gap between richest and poorest

I would spend time and money NOT on solving global warming, but rather:

• education of girls and women
• population control in those parts of the world that need it
• making available safe water to those who need it
• youth work experiences in the developing countries
• anti-smoking measures (those proven to work)
• protecting wilderness
• promoting “voluntary simplicity” and “reduced consumption”
• improving migration of workers to parts of the world that need workers

My main motivation in writing this post is:

“the hypocrisy of western concerns over future global warming disasters, while ignoring the extreme misery and suffering being endured right now in developing countries.”

This guy agrees: Priorities – Can you worry about global warming while your children are dying? » Celsias

Global warming may or may not exist. May or may not have been caused by industrialization. May or may not be changed by future technology.

Don’t talk to me about it until these greater, more urgent global needs are getting more attention.

I’m especially ticked off with those making MONEY by being global warming alarmists.

Those are just a few of the issues more important than global warming to me. Leave a comment if you want to add to the list. Or refute me with hard, reputable scientific evidence that I am wrong. (Don’t mention Dr. Suzuki, please.)

Banff Mountain Film Festival WORLD TOUR

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, hiking, kayaking, movies, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

I love this event.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is on the road across North America and around the world. Whether you are an experienced mountaineer or an armchair adventurer, this event is for everyone. Don’t miss the excitement!

The Tour Schedule is linked from the home page – World Tour: Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre

The event sponsors are prominently mentioned — OK, it’s a commercial — in the second half of the video. But it’s still worth watching. This is the kind of TV commercial I like.

Click PLAY or watch the promo trailer on YouTube.

Frequently Asked Questions

Calgary: January 15 – 20, 2008 and April 5 & 6, 2008

(via besthike.com)

I have eco-fatigue

On By Rick McIn health & fitnessLeave a comment

“Enough already!” is what you’ll increasingly hear from consumers around the world when faced with yet another corporate ‘eco’ vision or must-buy green product. In fact, serious ECO-FATIGUE is upon us, as independent and experienced consumers are fed up with being told what to do, or, more specifically, told what not to do. Treated like unruly infants by Al Gore and his ilk, the ECO-FATIGUED increasingly rebel against the green movement’s obsession with ‘no’.

GENERATION Z, ECO-FATIGUE, BLANDTASTIC, PETS PASSE, TURQUOISE TRIUMPH

This beach is not that bad …

ijmuiden.jpg
Netherlands

(via Treehugger)

dangerous NOT to ride your bike

On By Rick McIn cycling, health & fitnessLeave a comment

My bike is in the shop for a regular service warranty tune-up.

And I’m at RISK while not sitting on that saddle. That’s what the statistics say:

… bicyling is just about the safest activity you can do.

2007-10-31_113555.jpg

bikeautonm.jpg
photo from Biking Toronto

Carectomy notes that the chart is based per hour. If we look at the data per mile, cars in the U.S. start looking better. Ten drivers and passengers die per billion miles in a car; this number goes up to 100 for cyclists.

However Grist points out also that riding a bike is actually safer than doing nothing at all.

“Pedalling Health, an Australian study published in 1996, concluded that an hour of biking a day — normal for a regular bike commuter — prevents four times as much heart attack risk as it adds in collision risk. The iconoclastic British transport researcher Mayer Hillman did a study for the British Medical Association in 1992 reportedly showing that for every year of life lost to a bike crash, twenty years of life are gained from stress reduction, greater cardiovascular fitness, and improved mental health. As I’ve noted, the time you spend in moderate exercise is added to your life, with interest.”

It’s More Dangerous NOT To Ride a Bike (TreeHugger)