Rebuttal to the "Grow some balls" solution to bullying

This isn't really a blog post, per say, it's a rebuttal to an ill-reasoned argument that the anti-bullying campaigns have had almost no effect on teen suicide rates over the last 30 years.

Using Canadian statistics, from 1980 to 2008, the rate of male child and teen suicides (10-19) decreased yearly from a high of 249 in 1980 to 156 in 2008. That's almost 100 less dead boys. Even after factoring in differences in birthrates, this is still a significant win. Unfortunately, girls are seeing the opposite. In 1980, 50 female children and teens (10-19) committed suicide. Those numbers have increased yearly with 77 dead girls in 2008. *

When it comes to teen suicide, things are not "pretty much exactly the same" as they were 30 years ago. Statistically, there are significantly fewer dead boys and significantly more dead girls.

Now I'm not going to strictly attribute the decrease in boys to all of them watching Karate Kid and becoming martial arts masters, the beat the bully fantasy, any more than I would attribute it strictly to anti-bullying campaigns. Complex social issues, like suicide, are rarely ever pared down to one cause, unfortunately.

For the decrease in boys, it could be a lot of things. Better mental health diagnoses and treatment, greater acceptance of homosexuality, stronger emphasis on open communication. Hell, it's a lot less socially acceptable to get drunk and beat your kids and spouse than it was 30 years ago too, so lives at home may be better.

As for the increase in the girls, we need to find out why we have more dead girls. Period. Fobbing off the issue with a bullshit "grow some balls" attitude ain't the way to solve it. Rehtaeh Parsons was a teen who killed herself last year after being bullied relentlessly by boys who allegedly sexually assaulted her earlier at a house party. Using your two proffered solutions for bullying, Parson's could have A) severely beaten those (much bigger and stronger) boys, or, B) become their BFFs.

Now ask yourself this, if you were Parson's dad, which of your two options would you tell her to use?

* Suicide among children and adolescents in Canada: trends and sex differences, 1980-2008.  http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2012/04/02/cmaj.111867.full.pdf+html

A post for mothers

Mother's Day was yesterday, and as usual, I'm day late, but hopefully not a dollar shy.

I'm at an age where most of my friends have reproduced or are currently reproducing. There's a lot of little ones on the go. I am most proud of the parents I know, because they are excellent parents. And parenting is really hard work, that's why I have dogs.

Now all of my parent friends will tell me that the hard work is more than offset by the love of being a parent. I know this has to be true. When I was thinking about what to write about mothers and children, my thoughts turned to all the ways mothers make you feel wonderful, and as a child, you in turn, give them a reason to favour tubal ligation.

I settled on the middle-of-the-night bathroom run. The middle-of-the-night run happens long after your parents have tucked you into bed and gone to bed themselves. While you felt fine at bedtime, now it's the middle of the night and the contents of your stomach have reformulated from harmless bedtime snack to toxic upwardly projectile substance.

I don't know about you as a child, but I don't ever remember making it all the way to the toilet. No, I remember making it to the bathroom door and in a spray reminiscent of the Exorcist, coating everything lower than three and a half feet in vomit. This is of course, very upsetting, so cue the waterworks.

Your mother, awakened by your frantic dash, gets there just in time for the aftermath if she's lucky, and by lucky, I mean spared watching you coat the baseboards with partially digested Cheerios, because you were never making it to the toilet, even if she was there.

No, she is presented with a hot, sweaty, bawling child standing in a pool of stinky puke. For the child, the cavalry has arrived. Your mom cleans you up, puts you in fresh pajamas, and tucks you back into bed. It's the best feeling in the world: you are safe, cherished, and loved. Then she goes to the bathroom to clean up ground zero, after which, she can hopefully fall asleep for a few hours before you wake up and continue puking. Or feel perfectly fine. Kids are tricky like that.

So my belated wish for Mother's Day is that all of you mothers feel safe, cherished, and loved, the same way you make your kids feel when you clean them up and tuck them back in bed after a middle-of-the-night run.

PS Other animal species are known to eat their young when under stress. Thanks for taking the high road.

Dear Service Canada

Dear Service Canada,

 

As I continue to wade through the disability application process on behalf of my sibling, I once again have to commend you on your ability to continue to "kick it old school" in providing services to the disabled.  

In an age where technology, especially computers and the internet, has done so much to make the world accessible for disabled people, it is almost laudable that you continue to see them in terms of bathroom size, elevators, and door widths. To that end, I am confident that every building in which a Service Canada office resides is fully compliant with government regulations for public buildings.

"But what about the website?" you might ask. Yes, you do have a website. It's 2014. Everybody has a website. "But all the forms are on there". Yes they are, and herein lies your problem. And by problem, I mean ignorance of the first order.

Your forms are in field-less, non-accessible portable document format, otherwise known as a PDF. It is the 21st century equivalent of a printed piece of paper.

Bravo, you've posted paper to the internet.

Here's a few things these PDF forms could do if you folks could pull your fully able heads out of your fully able asses:

Not only can they be programmed to read aloud, but all those boxes and lines can be programmed to populate by speech. Imagine that, a person who's vision impaired (I hear that's a disability), could still fill out the forms by themselves rather than rely on someone to do it for them. Likewise for someone who can't use their hands. There is more to technology than Teledec and Teleprinters. Speaking of which, the prefix "tele"means "telephony". If that term sounds antiquated to you, it's because it is.

I'm not sure if anyone has told you this before, but disabled people treasure independence as much as the able bodied. However, unlike the able-bodied, they've had to surrender up much of their independence to their disability. As such, it is important to give them every opportunity to exercise independence. Even if it's filling out a form. 

Electronic signature software exists and its popularity and use is growing exponentially. You know what would be cooler for a person whose disability prevents them from marking anything more meaningful than an X because they can't grasp a pen? An electronic signature, which requires one working finger and lets them type their own name. It would also be helpful for the folks who are helping those folks, because if you haven't seen a map recently, not everyone in Canada lives in the same town.

 

Speaking of the helper folks, providing a form that the helper, the disabled person and their doctor could all sign would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than obtaining a power of attorney from a lawyer. There is a reason these forms are filled out in the first place. It's called being unable to work because of "severe and prolonged" medical conditions, your words not mine. No work means no pay and lawyers are expensive.

But for the most disabled, all of this is moot. With rare exception, there is no WiFi in hospitals for patients and tray tables don't come with built in inkjet printers. They don't just need help, they need all the help.

As a society, we fail if we don't help those among us who need it the most, and on this, we, and by we I mean you, Service Canada, are failing.

Signed,

Peggy, an able-bodied person who learned from her beautiful and inspiring sister about what it's like to be disabled.

Reflections on Home Ownership

When Shawn and I bought our house 10 years ago, we had enough money to buy a house or a car. We decided the house would be an investment, whereas a car would depreciate as soon as we drove it off the lot. All we needed was a house on bus route that was within our price range.

Turns out. You don't get much with those requirements.

We took possession of the house in March, 2004. Since then, we've experienced burst pipes, rainy rooms, mystery wiring, and even more mysterious framing. We replaced the roof shingles, assorted plumbing, the entire front and back of our house including the bulk of the wall studs, all windows and doors, the siding, and the fences.

We hired a company to tear down the old garage that listed 15 degrees off center and build us a new one.

We also moved the stairs from the center of our house to the side and re-framed large portions of the floors.

Then there was the oil spill of 2011. We got new sewer and water lines and part of our basement floor lowered, and it only took the predicted four weeks, plus another five months to clean up.

Throw in landscaping, some finished carpentry, a lot of drywall, plaster, paint; the bashed thumbs, banged shins, Band aids, and sore body parts; the swearing and crying; the defeats and victories; and you have our homeowner experience.

So when I look back on our initial decision as a house as an investment, I can't help but think we should have considered some other more practical options.

Like a Cessna or maybe a racehorse.

The Deck Song, Friends and Babies

So my friends who inspired this blog are expecting. To celebrate the occasion, I finished The Deck Song, an Adam and Peggy collaboration*. For years the song ended at "The days grew short".

The Deck Song**

Do you remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

We were happy
We were gorgeous
And the days they
Seemed to last so very long

But autumn came
The days grew short
A house got sold and
Our friends moved out

The sun came back
but it wasn't okay
Till they brought their girl
Over for the day

And we will remember
The day we spent
Laughing in the sun

Because she's so happy
She's so gorgeous
And her days they have
Really just begun

Then more happy news
A new heart beats
Soon a baby boy* will
Grace this street

And we will remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

Because they are happy
They are gorgeous
And these days are going to
Last so very long

The days may grow short
The winds may grow cold
But your family and friends
Will be your home

And you will remember
The days we spent
Laughing in the sun

We are happy
We are gorgeous
And these days they
Seemed to last so very long

*Adam and I are not songwriters.

** I am never singing this song. Ever. See *.

*** I'm going with an early prediction. I'm not entirely sure babies have a gender at this point.

Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask about lobsters

So as you all know, I spent the bulk of my formative years working in seafood restaurants. So here's what you need to know about lobsters:

1. Pick the dirtiest, meanest, most barnacled lobsters in the tank. Lobsters get bigger by growing a new shell under their old one. When there's no more room, the old one lets go and the new shell puffs up with water and hardens. The older the shell, the more wear it shows and the fuller it will be on the inside. The body also has an ever deepening line from nose to end (it hinges when it comes off) as it ages, look for a line. The pretty, clean lobsters have new shells and are full of water and not much meat.
2. True to gender stereotype, boys have big claws and a narrow tail (and two hard feelers at the base of the tail that touch to form a point). Girls have small claws and a wide tail (and soft feelers under the tail.
3. The green stuff is liver, also called tomalley. It is also green when raw, but runnier. The red stuff is roe. It is black when raw. Both are edible either way, though only my Asian customers showed any gusto for it raw. ("You can bring it to the table when it's done twitching.")
4. There is nothing poisonous in the body of a lobster. That is a myth. However, the stomach is in the body and it should be avoided (like all other pre-chewed food), so don't eat the opaque plastic-looking sack behind the eyeballs. Also don't eat the lungs, they are the feathery looking bits. Not toxic, but not good.
5. Despite this other enduring myth, dairy and lobster are fine to consume together. Lobster chowder, anyone? Well unless you're eating kosher, and then mixing dairy and flesh should be less of a concern than the fact that lobster is not kosher, period. 
6. Lobsters don't scream. Whoever says that is f*cking with you.
7. Lobsters will hang on to anything that ends up in their claw. If it's your body part, rip that arm off the lobster (you're killing it momentarily). One claw is very sharp and the other claw is very strong and no good comes of the panicked struggle to pry either off. Unless you count the amusement of your coworkers, and they're @ssholes who can find their own amusement. Especially when they tell you to rip the arm off after the fact.
8. Cook lobsters in salt water. Ocean water is best, but iodized salt and tap water will do fine. Just make sure it tastes like the ocean. Yes it's high in sodium, but if you're going there, it's also high in cholesterol and you're going dip it in melted butter and eat it with a side of potato salad. 
9. Bring a big pot of salt water to a rolling boil, take the elastics of a lobster, throw it in the pot head first. Repeat. When the water returns to boil, time 8 minutes a pound.

I'll make a video on how to crack a lobster with a knife next time I have lobster. Till then, carry on carry on with crackers or a hammer. Food you work for tastes best.

The phlebotomist - a KD story

I'm not saying there will be a post a day, but I feel some kind of persistence is warranted at this age.

The year-long process leading up to being a kidney donor is surreal; a cross between being a hero – the treatment by technicians who perform the tests; and undergoing an alien probe – the tests themselves.

One I won't forget was a blood test at Dartmouth General. It was the first, and perhaps not by chance, the last time I had blood taken at Dartmouth General.

The phlebotomist, that's what they're called, commented on both the volume of things I was being tested for, and the rarity of some of the things I was being tested for.

I explained I was donating a kidney.

Needle in and rubber hose off, she looks up at me and asks "Is this the first time you've donated a kidney?"

Dumbstruck is recognizable; the phlebotomist caught it right away.

"I can't believe I just said that," she said.

"Well," I said, "It's not something I've been asked before."