(b.1) that a person operating or riding as a passenger on a cycle on a path or way designated under paragraph (b.3) must properly wear a bicycle safety helmet
I got my bike on Thursday and finally, the vile flu that laid me low for a week has decided to sink slowly back into a tuberculotic cough. Blogging should get back to normal speed and topics as I unpack, start biking, and can live life again without being racked by chills and bad dreams.
Figured I should get back on my bike ASAP, but I decided to first check if BC had any bicycle helmet laws, because we’re like that, we have a lot of what would be considered “paternalistic” laws south of the border. And, it does, and guess what, the project evaluating the law was performed by UNC’s Highway Safety Research Center, small world, ai!
Apropos nothing, here’s the US list of states and their various bicycle/motorbike laws. Note that only 20 states (and DC) require the use of helmets for motorcyclists, quite insane. Fall on your bare head at 50 miles an hour and you are dead, vegetable, or both. In contrast, All of Canada is under universal motorbike helmet laws. Of course, no U.S state has bicycle helmet laws that cover adults. In contrast, four Canadian provinces have mandatory bicycle helmet laws.
Canada’s long and sorry saga of exporting death (asbestos) and defending it loudly and proudly in international fora is over and I needed to mark this happy day on the blog. The newly elected provincial government in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois have followed through on their campaign promise to finally end this small “industry” employing a few workers. Canada will no longer produce asbestos, or fight the listing of asbestos as a toxic substance.
It is going to take $50 million in government funds, a fraction of the cost of one fighter jet, to transition the workers away (if they get the money, not the mine owners). That’s it, why were we exporting death to India and other countries for this, I don’t know.
Canada’s many conservative and liberal governments fought hard for years to preserve the industry, using techniques lifted from tobacco propaganda, or today’s climate change challenges. I leave you with the ruling Canadian government’s response: Finely tuned to appeal to everyone who likes mesothelioma, cancer and death.
“Mrs. Marois’s decision to prohibit chrysotile mining in Quebec will have a negative impact on the future prosperity of the area,” (Industry Minister) Mr. Paradis said in a statement.
That about sums it up. But, it is a good day for public health, nevertheless.
A post I wrote quite a while back on circumcision and AIDS remains my most commented post ever. In it (if you’re too lazy to click) I said that while research indicating a reduction in HIV infection in circumcised men was promising, there were a couple of concerns. One, that this could be a distraction from the single most effective prevention measure (no, not abstinence!), condom use. And two, that in certain cultures, especially among Hindus, this would be an absolute no no because circumcision is identified with being Muslim.
Anyway, in a review article, the Cochrane Centre in South Africa summarizes results from a meta analysis of a number of trials indicating a 50% reduction in HIV incidence among circumcised males. At this point in time, it is clear that circumcision is effective in reducing HIV incidence among heterosexual males. Based on this, the institute encourages the widespread use of circumcision as an AIDS prevention strategy.
So, am I still circumspect? Absolutely. I am still concerned that this research will be misinterpreted in a way that discourages condom use. In fact, the authors note that circumcised men indulged in more risky behaviour. Also, the incidence of HIV in the women these men were sleeping with increased from 9.6% to 13.8%, a 40% uptick. This increase was not statistically significant. No arguing with that, though the study was stopped early once it was clear that the men were helped, never mind the women, or reaching statistical significance in their case.
Given that it is very unclear what the effects of circumcision are on anything other than circumcised penises, which are only one half of the equation (or less!), I don’t think it is responsible to call for widespread use of circumcision as a public health strategy for the prevention of HIV until its effects on the other parties are known. While people are aware of this issue, I don’t think the science or the cultural landscape promote the use of circumcision as a HIV prevention strategy until its proven that women are not at risk from increased HIV incidence either biologically from a yet unknown mechanism, or socially from increased risk taking.
Men have more power in most societies to demand and receive sex on their terms. So the male centric nature of this research, and the conclusions drawn are disturbing. How irresponsible is it to encourage a public health strategy that appears to increase risk taking behaviour among men when the effects on the women are yet unknown, with only a statistically “insignificant” 40% increase in HIV incidence among women being observed?
I am. for very good reason, still circumspect on circumcision.
Whisky flavoured condoms courtesy bruno girin’s photostream used under a creative commons license. Now how’s that for a turn on, whisky!
If you knew me as a kid, the notion that I could sit still for even a minute without fidgeting unless focusing on some very interesting activity would be laughable. Even when focused, the fidget was always there and given my neurodiversity was (is) undiagnosed and not treated as such, my fidgets were ruined pens and pencils, books with edges torn off, every item within range chewed to some extent, the same doodle over and over on every page, so many other stims and coping mechanisms.
As I grew older, I learned to manage my (presumed) neurodiversity better. But the neurodivergent challenges are always present. Before this retreat, I would have identified as internet dependent, phone addict, whatever you call it. For me, it predates cellphones and started the minute I had access to reasonably “unlimited” internet. Phones made it worse, but it was still the same underlying issue. What I came to realize as retreating to a comfortable companion when faced with even the slightest bit of discomfort, difficulty or challenge needing procrastinaton. I needed that hit, whether it was mindless browsing, discussion forums, the news, social media, endless YouTube videos, whatever.
Anyway, my partner alerted me to a 3 day mindfulness retreat, mostly silent, called “Resting into mindfulness” organized by Stephanie Curran, someone she has taken courses from in the past and whose energy and approach she was sure would work for me. I had been wanting to do a retreat for a few years now, but something or the other got in the way. Not this time!
I am atheist. While I use Buddhist principles of mindfulness, presence, loving kindness (and Karuna, Muditha and Upekka!) and other precepts, and I appreciate some minor rituals (bells, symbolic objects), I am not comfortable with most major religions. I find the authoritarianism, directiveness, and patriarchy that all religions inevitably bring unpalatable and avoid them. So I have avoided a lot of structured retreats. This one was perfect.
Location Location Location
We were at the Bethlehem Centre, a beautiful retreat centre on the banks of the Westwood Lake in Nanaimo. You could see the lake from my room and you could walk out to the lake from the centre in seconds. This itself had such an impact on my overall experience! The centre was spacious and there was no one else there except us and the people volunteering/working there for the most part. The retreat included 3 meals a day, and your choice of shared or single accommodation. It was such a comfortable space to retreat. There were so many birds by the lake as well, which makes it a happy place for me.
Structure (and Unstructure)
Stephanie is trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which uses the principles of mindfulness to help with mental health. MBSR leans on the Vipassana (insight meditation) version of Buddhism while being explicitly secular in practice.
I showed up Thursday afternoon, settled in, turned off my phone and the retreat got started after dinner. Then two full, mostly structured days followed. Sunday morning continued the retreat with a gradual return to reality for lunch and packing up to go home. It was mostly silent except for a 15 minute daily check in with the facilitator.
The retreat structure was based around these principles and consisted of the following activities
Guided meditation
Gentle yoga
Body scans
Walking meditation
DIY unstructured time
A short daily check
All of this was screen and internet free, and Stephanie did 98% of the talking J
We would wake up in the morning with a guided meditation, eat a lovely quiet breakfast followed by a mix of the activities over the course of the day. The time after lunch was unstructured, 2 hours of be by yourself activity, followed by more time when others were doing their check ins. Then, we got back together to do more of the activities, capped off by an evening ending guided meditation. I think it went from approx 730 AM – 9 PM (I could be off a bit here, it’s been 6 weeks!), but the ample unstructured time meant it did not feel like camp. I did not feel like I was rushing from activity to activity.
Facilitation
The facilitation is obviously a huge part of why this retreat really worked for me. Stephanie held us together so beautifully and provided a calm, non-judgmental and confident space for us to expand into. She always provided options, was gentle enough that you had to really pay attention to appreciate the planning and structure she put together. She skilfully weaved teachings, anecdotes, personal experience and fact through the sessions. The skill and the setup were big factors in why this retreat really worked for me. I expect very structured retreats based on more explicitly religious principles to not work for me.
How did I feel during?
Calm, present and centered is how I would describe it. I expected anxiety from being away from my phone, I expected actual physical withdrawal from not getting bits of dopamine every few minutes or even feeling my device in my pocket as a charm object. That never happened! How? I don’t want to examine it too much, but it turns out when you build the right container and structure, you can ease into being present even if it is hours at a time. I did not expect it to be that simple, but for me, it mostly was. I clearly needed the structure because I did find myself becoming a bit unsteady in the afternoon. Nothing a walk along the lake looking at birds mindfully did not solve! I did have to think about my unstructured time a bit to structure it in a way to keep me centered, would have been great to have a nap LOL, but I’m not a napper.
For me, sitting in meditation is often the hardest, I have used movement to calm and centre all my life. But the simple techniques Stephanie focused on, breath, sound, body awareness and being in “open” awareness really helped me through all of it. There’s never a one size fits all method. So, knowing there are a multiplicity of tools to pull out was helpful. Not everything was effortless, but knowing that’s part of the experience really helped (and we were reminded constantly). One key to me was that it did not feel like work, aspirational, effort filled, striving to a goal. It felt like flowing, you were doing (or not doing) something and if you felt discomfort, a barrier, you acknowledged it, examined it and let it pass.
Wow!
The silence
I am pretty comfortable with silence. I can sit with someone and not talk for a while. So that part was not hard. Being mostly silent was one more way to stay present. It wasn’t as if we were ritually silent, there was the occasional thank you, or “there’s a beautiful heron around the corner”. The point was to not use conversation as a distraction.
The after
I wrote about how I felt afterwards soon after I came back when it was fresh on my mind. Now, almost 6 weeks later, I feel substantially the same. Yes, 6 weeks is not a long time, but the retreat changed me in a meaningful way. And importantly, I know now the mental and physical state I want to be at most of the time. I did not know this before the retreat, nor did I think it was possible for someone like me. Knowing that state gives me so much confidence and strength, that if (when) I start moving away from this “new” homeostasis, I have the tools to recognize, acknowledge and respond with the many techniques this retreat taught me. I am blessed to start new habits and have them stick relatively easily. And I will try and go again!
My biggest insights
Skills, techniques aside, it’s awareness. I appear to now be more adept at recognizing when I have encountered a barrier, a challenge, a difficult situation, and then taking that small moment to acknowledge it instead of distracting away. Not all the time, not even close, but it’s a journey! So, that means I don’t always need the crutches, the phone, internet to cope. I do something else, a few deep breaths, a different activity, a stretch, change positions, whatever it is. For me, recognizing and pausing into presence is what I learned the most in the retreat and what I want to keep practicing for as long as I live. Also, as I mentioned, it’s the understanding of what mental and physical state I want to be in, I see that so much more clearly now, which makes it easier to get back to.
Warning: Personal post ahead, don’t read if you don’t know me!
Well, since life’s changing quite a bit, what with moving from Chapel Hill to Victoria and all, I haven’t been thinking of bloggable issues, which means this blog has been rotting away to almost nothingness. But, what the hell, mostly friends and the occasional person searching for sea turtles and/or India find me out in the far hinterlands of the ‘net. So, I will cater to my friends and post a personal update!
Made it to Victoria safe and sound, though not without all kinds of adventures in the security line at RDU, place was a zoo of unprecedented (for me) proportions. But, a beautiful and sunny day in Victoria greeted me, and if I had not left my camera behind and simultaneously misplaced the SD micro card on my cellphone (its memory is full up), maybe I would have taken some pictures! I am staying at this place that is half hotel half hostel. The room’s tiny and spare, the place has a homely feel to it, the kitchen serves excellent food for four bucks, and has nice beer on tap. The place is alive and has character in a way a hotel would never have.
Apartment hunting starts in earnest tomorrow. My very friendly bartender informs me that finding a place takes time, and that May 1 is a great time because a lot of students (it is a town with a decent sized university) leave then. But can I stay here for a month? hmm, don’t know about that.
Jet lag hits, so I am going to take it easy. Tomorrow’s a crazy busy day with apartment hunting, applying for all kinds of government cards, etc, luckily, I am a few blocks away from city hall (this ho(s)tel’s location is impeccable.
Adios, my brain’s fried and my eyes can’t focus any more, I’ve been up for 20 hours, time to wind down!
A friend’s post on facebook triggered some thoughts on religion, so I expanded my comment (not science/policy related, so feel free to glaze over).
I grew up Hindu, or shall we say, Tamil Brahmin. In India, each community’s practice of Hinduism is very different, informed by place, caste, class and more, so calling yourself a Hindu is not very illuminating. I went to the temples with my parents, and felt a connection with something (in hindsight, it was the architecture, grandeur more than Ganapathy) I prayed (after a fashion), more for specific things like “Oh god, let me do well in this test” rather than anything. I participated in the ritual and festivals, like any good kid. All this ritualistic practice aside, my single greatest spiritual memory as a young adult (and to this day) is a 5 minute meditation experience I had with my uncle sitting in a simple Ramakrishna Mission hall. I remember losing connection with my usually racing brain and reaching what I perceived as a meaningful connection with God, but what I would now associate with a particularly successful mindfulness practice. I still haven’t quite achieved that sense of “levitation” since.
I remember being about 15, going to a really crowded temple (I think it was this one) and jostling with thousands of other people to get a fleeting glimpse of a stone (or gold plated? super rich temple!) idol, I lost my faith in one moment (at least, that’s how I perceive it). I persisted in going to temples and participating in ritual for a bit, hell, even going back to the same temple a couple of years later, but there was nothing there.
Into my late teens and twenties, I tuned much more into the powers of organized religion to oppress, deny freedom and restrict behaviour. At that age, I perceived the community around me using religion (in hindsight, it’s much more complicated) to restrict my activities and censure them (oh privileged male!). I was very likely to lump the people with their religion. I did not believe religion to be a force of anything other than restriction and censure, and I judged the people around me who still practiced their religion in spite of “ought to know better”. I very plainly refused to practice any rituals, or go to temples. Leaving India helped as well, since I had no community pressure to practice anything.
Those years were ritual free (after a fashion), and I would call myself a primarily analytical person, using logic to solve problems (oh, so simple!). But, I did find ritual missing in my life. Into my thirties, I sub-consciously (at first) started to incorporate some ritualistic practices like morning coffee, regular gym workouts, and many other time based ritual activities as a substitute. My health and well-being definitely improved, though you could say the fact that I chose gym workouts as a ritual rather than bar hopping did not hurt! But, that’s really the point of ritual, isn’t it, to find the ones that centre you?
As I grow older, I am less militantly anti-religious and more likely to incorporate yoga, mindfulness, meditation and other behaviours that could be associated with spirituality into my life. But I see them as healthy behaviours, almost like exercise rather than connecting me to something greater. I went through a phase wishing I could believe in a god again, it would be a lot easier than having to figure it out for yourself, but that passed. I am still as atheist as I’ve ever been, just a lot more tolerant of other people’s paths and processes. I understand that everyone’s well being depends on connection, whether it is social, or spiritual or physical. If their practice of “religion” or their belief helps them achieve that connection, that’s just lovely (The last few times I’ve visited India, I’ve even let my parents drag me on temple excursions!) That is, as long as they do not end up supporting oppressive homophobic, racist or misogynist behaviour based on religion. I still believe that most organized religion is a tool of patriarchy and control, and cynically uses people’s need for connection to achieve political power and money, so no support there.
The style of writing is quite familiar to me. Did you write guest posts for other blogs?
I am writing this review based up on my real life experience on 3/14/10. My husband is a lifelong cyclist. Together we have worn bike helmets our entire adult lives. Friends joked about how we looked wearing our helmets in the past. They don’t joke anymore. My husband was riding solo at about 18-20 MPH and became startled by an unleashed dog that appeared out of nowhere. Expecting to be nipped at the heel, the dog instead crashed into the front bicycle wheel, sending him over the handlebars onto a paved street. His 1 year old Schwinn Thrasher helmet took the fist impact, destroying itself in order to save his skull and brain. Reconstructive orthopedic surgery was required for his shattered left collarbone. He is still healing – but he is able share his experience with others today. I spent a mere $20 bucks at a discount store. The Schwinn Thrasher helmet saved my husband’s life. Thank you Schwinn.
A shout out to the 
The style of writing is quite familiar to me. Did you write guest posts for other blogs?
I am writing this review based up on my real life experience on 3/14/10. My husband is a lifelong cyclist. Together we have worn bike helmets our entire adult lives. Friends joked about how we looked wearing our helmets in the past. They don’t joke anymore. My husband was riding solo at about 18-20 MPH and became startled by an unleashed dog that appeared out of nowhere. Expecting to be nipped at the heel, the dog instead crashed into the front bicycle wheel, sending him over the handlebars onto a paved street. His 1 year old Schwinn Thrasher helmet took the fist impact, destroying itself in order to save his skull and brain. Reconstructive orthopedic surgery was required for his shattered left collarbone. He is still healing – but he is able share his experience with others today. I spent a mere $20 bucks at a discount store. The Schwinn Thrasher helmet saved my husband’s life. Thank you Schwinn.