911 Children

Last night I listened to the children who lost a parent or both parents talk about their feeling about 911.  These children were quite mature for their age. They spoke with such wisdom, I was impressed. It also brought home the fact that while 911 for most of us is a day in the year, for these children, (as they clearly articulated), it’s a life sentence. 911 happens everyday and at every significant event in their lives.  They also said that September 11 is a hard time for them because everything is re-hashed in the media and everywhere and the pain of their loss deepens.  The day is difficult for them.

A few of them said that time does not lessen the pain but the pain morphs into a different kind of pain.  The pain of realization that this is how life will be for them forever. Dad or mom will never be at their wedding, neither their graduation, neither at the birth of their first child. The pain settles in the place within them that allows them to move on with their lives.  We have to be sensitive to those who lost personally. We cannot ask them to rehash their stories all of the time or whenever 911 comes around.  We have to let them take the lead and talk if and when they are ready.

“There’s not a morning when I put on my shoes, there’s not a morning when I get dressed, there’s not a morning I don’t think about it,” Oprah says. “Every one of them did the same thing that I’m doing right now. Every one of them. And they never came home.”

Try Yoga for your chronic pain

Yoga is good  antidote for chronic pain  which occurs in up to 50% of older adults, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburg. Researchers reviewed 20 clinical trials involving eight mind-body therapies for adults who suffered from chronic, non-malignant pain, to assess their feasibility, effectiveness in pain management and safety.The findings are published in Volume 8 of the journal Pain Medicine.The therapies reviewed included biofeedback (learning to control body functions) , progressive muscle relaxation (tensing and releasing muscles), meditation, guided imagery (visualization techniques), hypnosis, tai chi chuan (a Chinese martial art consisting of sequences of very slow, controlled movements) qi gong (movements that include elements of meditation, relaxation and physical movement), and yoga.All eight treatments were found to be feasible for older adults, and no adverse effects or safety concerns were reported. Researchers found that progressive muscle relaxation may be particularly effective for older people with osteoarthritis pain, while meditation and tai chi appear to improve function and coping with low back pain and osteoarthritis.

When was the last time you had colorectal screening?

Not enough Canadians are taking advantage of  colorectal cancer screening claims a recent research.   The Canadian Association of Gastroenterology recommends that healthy people over 50 receive a fecal blood test every two years or a colonoscopy every 10 years. The proportion of people who reported up-to-date colorectal cancer screening was highest in Ontario, at 20 per cent, and lowest in Newfoundland and Labrador, at 12.6 per cent, according to the study.“The proportion of patients screened for colorectal cancer has been extraordinarily low in Canada,” the study’s authors write. “It is abundantly clear that to stay the present course of inaction will continue to cost thousands of lives.”The Canadian Cancer Society estimates 20,800 Canadians will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year and 8,700 will die from it. Caught in the early stages, colorectal cancer has a high cure rate.Two main factors underlie the failure to maximize screening, researchers say: a lack of provincial screening programs across the country and a reluctance on the part of Canadians to discuss their bowel habits.Though colorectal cancer screening has been proven to save lives, it’s being underused in Canada, according to a new study published in T Canadian Medical Association Journal.I think that’s one important fact. Another one is that this is a really uneasy part of the body to talk about. And a lot of people don’t want to go to their family doctor and talk about their rectum and bleeding from their anus and their bowel habits. That’s difficult to say in conversation.”An editorial by Dr. Ken Flegel, senior associate editor of the journal, concurs. He argues that the country’s death rate from colorectal cancer could be halved if a “robust and coherent” approach to early detection were put in place.

Russia Pimps couples to increase its population

Russians are paying couples to hit the sack and make babies to boost the Russian populations which is considered to be critically low. The Governor Sergei Morozov  decreed September 12 as the Day  of Conception. Dig this, couples get time off from work to stay home and procreate.  How cool is that?  Last year Irina and Andrei Kartuzov  were winners because their child was born on Russia’s Independence Day.  Winners win big, they get money, cars, refrigerations and other prizes.

Although Russia is  the world’s largest country in terms of land mass, it has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled.

In 2005,  311 women signed up to take part in the first competition. The following June, 46 more babies were born in Ulyanovsk’s 25 hospitals compared with the previous June, including 28 born on June 12, officials said.

More than 500 women signed up for the second contest, in 2006 – resulting nine months later in 78 babies, or more than triple the region’s daily average. So far this year, the region’s birth rate is up 4.5 per cent compared with the same period last year.”

Andrei Kartuzov, who won the last “make a baby” grand prize along with his wife, Irina, said they had been planning to have another child anyway when they heard about the contest.

Not everyone find this in good taste. Some Russians make fun of it and advise the government to distribute viagara and porn movies to help couples along.

Whatever they say, the population is growing and more couples are participating each years since the program started three years ago.

Kennedy Centre Honorees

Steve Martin, 62, Dianna Ross, 63, are two of the five 2007 John F. Kennedy Centre honorees that recognizes a lifetime of contribution to American culture through the performing arts.. “With their extraordinary talent, creativity and perseverance, the five 2007 honourees have transformed the way we, as Americans, see, hear and feel the performing arts,” Kennedy Center chair Stephen A. Schwarzman.  Schwarzman called the 62-year-old Martin, who also writes essays and books, a “renaissance comic whose talents wipe out the boundaries between artistic disciplines.”Last year’s honourees were Zubin Mehta, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dolly Parton and Smokey Robinson.This year’s honourees will be celebrated on Dec. 2 at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.   

Another student stabbed by another

Another student is stabbed to death near the Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute and parents are again left to mourn another senseless death of a 16 year old days after school reopened.  What is going on?  While it is not uncommon for students to fight at school, it is a new phenomena that so many young people are dying at the hands of violent student-attacker.  The mother of the dead child said that the child was her life.  Could you imagine that happening to someone close to you?  What needs to happen here to ensure that communities are safe again.A Canadian woman told another woman recently that she  did not like Singapore because it was too “good”.  There are serious consequences for even minor infraction in Singapore. You can walk the streets at any time without fear of being attacked by a mugger.  I remember a few years ago an American boy was held in jailed in Singapore, to be whipped after he was caught defacing a building as kids do in North America – using public buildings to paint pictures or write gang  signs.  There was a frenzy of protests from the American public calling for diplomatic intervention.  The parents of the boy were outraged.  Strangely, the very next year, I read in the paper that that very boy was sentenced to jail because be had beaten up his father so badly.  The moral of the story?  Don’t spare the rod and spoil the child.  There aught to be stiffer penalties for children who commit serious and not so serious offences, so that they learn that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.