Trump's Fox & Friends interview is a priceless exercise in postmodernism

That man Donald Trump, he's such a character. He's a journalist's gift from heaven. He has given the world many bizarre interviews and speeches. But his phone-in yesterday to his favourite TV show, Fox and Friends, was among the wildest and most unhinged. The stream-of-consciousness style, the non-sequiturs, the complete lack of anger management and sense of propriety: all were at their peak in this one interview.
A quick analysis of 53 of the biggest howlers in the President's responses by "Fake News CNN", give at least something of the flavour of the event, but there is no substitute for actually watching/listening. It's a doozy. And check out the interviewers' faces during some of the wilder moments - priceless!

Ibuprofen helps me sleep, but is it safe to take regularly?

I am a bad sleeper. I do have excellent sleep hygeine, and am pretty careful about things like caffeine, alcohol, late meals, screen time, etc; it's just a genetic thing, and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it. I have tried all the ususal safe remedies - melatonin, various herbal teas, etc - and nothing much seems to help.
I don't want to get into prescription sleep medications if I can help it, although I do take an antihystamine product called Sleep-Eze (or its generic equivalent) from time to time when I get desperate, and that usually works for me, even if it leaves me a bit groggy and hungover in the morning.
Recently, though, I have been taking an extra strength Advil (or the generic equivalent: ibuprofen) pretty much every evening, mainly because I'm recovering from an ankle sprain and Advil/ibuprofen is supposed to be a good anti-inflammatory (along with other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, like Aleve, Motrin, Celebrex and other brands). Now, I don't know what it's doing for my ankle, but I do know that I have been sleeping until 5am or 6am, which is a good long sleep in my world, and I am tempted to continue taking it for that reaons alone. But, knowing that there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to medications, and to health in general, I figured I should check whether there is any good reason why I should not be taking it so regularly. For example, I know that it is no longer recommended, as it was for decades, that aspirin be consumed on a daily basis, because it tends to rip your stomach lining to shreds over time. And I had heard that regular consumption of Tylenol/acetaminophen can kead to liver damage. But surely Advil is pretty benign, isn't it?
Well, apparently not. The US Food & Drug Administration concludes that NSAIDs in general can increase the risk of heart attacks or strokes: "NSAIDs can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke in patients with or without heart disease or risk factors for heart disease". Well, that's me, so I guess it's back to the drawing board. **sigh**

Incels, fakecels and other mystifying concepts

Media coverage of the horrendous incident in north Toronto a couple of days ago, in which a seriously disturbed man ran a white rented van for over two kilometers down a busy city sidewalk, killing ten and injuring many more, has opened up to me a whole hidden world of internet hate groups I knew nothing about (and which I dearly wish was still ignorant of).

The perpetrator of this particular enormity, Alek Minassian, was a contributing member of an online sub-culture of rabid misogynists known as "incels", or involuntary celibates. They are mainly frustrated, self-loathing and lonely white males in their late teens and early twenties, who are having trouble adjusting to adult life, i.e. young guys seriously pissed off that they can't get laid. Sharing their bitter tirades and violent fantasies on those online message boards of websites that just don't care what content they publish (principally, Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan, as well as dedicated websites like incels.me), these people vent their sexual frustrations in racist, misogynistic and often violent rants against women.

The group utilizes its own specialized vocabulary and buzzwords, including "Chads" (good-looking men, i.e. not incels) and "Stacys" (women who find Chads attractive), "black pill" (the realization that a women will never have sex with an individual), "fakecel" (a guy who is too good-looking to qualify as a genuine incel, or one who claims to be an incel but who has actually recently had sex with a woman), etc.

It's a strange and disturbing world that thrives on its hatred of what it sees as unattainable women, and that idolizes violent woman-haters like Elliot Rodger (the California man who killed six in 2014), George Sodini (who killed four woman in Pittsburgh in 2009), and, now, of course, Mr. Minassian himself.

And what is really scary is that this whole "community" is just one of many dark corners of the internet - not to mention the even darker corners of the so-called "dark net" - about which I know (and want to know) absolutely nothing. It's difficult for me to fathom how a person can get so twisted up as to openly advocate and glorify the raping and killing of women, but there seem to be plenty of them out there. And how it can be legal for such individuals to spread their poison to the world at large (even in the interests of freedom of speech) is even more mystifying.

When is anxiety a mental illness (and when is it not)?

Just before a performance of Crystal Pite's wonderful dance/theatre piece Betroffenheit the other night, we attended a pre-show talk about how the arts can help mental illnesses. It sounded like an interesting topic, but I have to confess, we both walked out before the end. We felt a bit shame-faced in leaving, but we felt we couldn't stay.

I think that what we both found difficult was some of the terminology and buzz-words and -phrases that kept coming up, words like "victim" and "survivor", and hackneyed phrases like "I didn't see anyone like me when I was growing up". Maybe it's just a generational thing - young people just didn't seem to have mental health problems when we were growing up (well, I'm sure they did, but it wasn't talked about, and people were just expected to "deal with it", and did). Which might be something to with our lack of patience with young people today, even though we know intellectually that there is a lot more mental illness around than there might appear, and that we should be patient, supportive and empathetic with those who suffer from it.

The two earnest young women at the pre-show talk both talked about their anxiety issues, something that seems to have reached almost epidemic proportions recently, particularly among millennials. My daughter (as well as most of her friends at university) also has anxiety issues, so I have tried to understand it, but I'm still not quite there.

Part of the problem is getting my head around the difference between anxiety (which everyone experiences from time to time, some more than others) and an anxiety disorder. Most people get anxious before exams or interviews, and are stressed when faced with what seems like an overwhelming workload or an impractical deadline. This is not a mental illness, and people do just need to "deal with it" or "get over it", although they can be helped and supported through it to some extent. However, that is the last thing that one should say to a person who suffers from a bona fide anxiety disorder. What anxious or depressed people do apparently want to hear are things like: "It's OK not to be OK", "I'm here for you", "You're doing really well", "You have the strength to beat this", or just "I love you".

If someone has an anxiety disorder, there are a bunch of other considerations and misconceptions to take into account, including: it's not possible to just "snap out if it"; there isn't always an obvious reason or catalyst for an anxiety attack; it often comes with physical effects such as nausea, stomach ache, headache, heart palpitations, etc.; therapy and/or medications may help, but equally they may not.

Obviously, there is a big grey area between and around normal anxiety and an anxiety disorder. There are some general indications of a true anxiety disorder (e.g. the intensity and length of the anxiety; associated physical symptoms and a feeling of disconnection from reality; impairment or avoidance of everyday activities; etc). But there is also the problem of self-diagnosis (otherwise known as Google), and the possibility that some of the symptoms are actually psychosomatic and (dare I say it?) not real. It's a minefield.

I often find myself pussyfooting around my daughter, not wanting to sound callous, and keen to give her the benefit of the doubt, while inside I am probably thinking along the lines of, "Oh, come on, get over yourself, I did exams too, you know, they're stressful but you can cope with them". Certainly, using the "mental health card" is a failsafe way of closing down an argument or an uncomfortable conversation.
I do sometimes wonder whether we are not condoning and enabling a kind of victim culture. But I'm way too polite and sensitive to say so. Ooh, di I just say that out loud?

UPDATE
Interestingly, the Globe and Mail's respected health columnist André Picard dealt with this very same subject just a month after I wrote this piece, and came to largely the same conclusions.
Picard was commenting on a Sun Life Financial poll that concluded that 49% of Canadians have experienced a "mental health issue" at some time in their lives, including 63% of millennials, 50% of Gen X'ers, and 41% of late boomers. The preponderance of younger people reflects the fact that recent generations are more willing to talk about or admit to mental health issues, which is surely not a bad thing. But the bald statistics do need unpacking a little.
For example, what is a "mental health issue" and is it the same as a "mental illness"? Probably not - 63% of millennials have probably not been clinically diagnosed with a mental illness. However, 63% (and probably nore) may well have been stressed, anxious or depressed at some point. This is a normal part of modern life, and having feelings and emotions is not in itself problemmatic.
As Mr. Picard says, "What the poll tells us, more than anything else, is that we are pathologizing normal emotions ... It's normal to be anxious in certain situations ... It's normal to be depressed sometimes ... It's normal to be stressed sometimes ... There can sometimes be a fine line between being anxious and suffering from anxiety, and between sadness and depression."
Quite. I couldn't have put it better myself, and indeed I didn't.

Marvel at the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Somebody has gone to an incredible amount of trouble to sketch out the whole history of the Marvel Cimematic Universe, from the Big Bang to the present (i.e. Avengers: Infinity War). It's all I can do to "marvel" at it, and to share it. Put aside some time - it's pretty long.

It is based on the 19 - and counting -  MCU films to date, rather than the original comics (now THAT would be a project!) But I am a big fan of both the films and the comics, so I must confess I find it fascinating, and it neatly sets up the new Avengers film, which no doubt will have an incredibly complex plot, and be heavily reliant on "the story so far". It does a good job of tying in the links between Wakanda and Asgard and S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark industries, and gives the derivation of the various primorial Infinity Stones that crop up in the movies from time to time.

Anyway, sit back and enjoy it. I did.

Rogers email's new terms of service eliciting many oaths

Rogers email users in Canada are being subjected to a full court press aimed at getting them to hand over email addresses and other personal information of their friends and neighbours so that they can be inundated with yet more advertising.

Rogers has for years outsourced its email service to Yahoo, which after a series of take-overs and mergers is now part of a Verizon/AOL media brand called Oath. In an unprecedented move (and a badly-timed one, given all the concern at the moment about unappropriate uses of online data), Rogers/Oath is requiring its customer base to agree to a new 27-page Terms of Service document which assumes that they have "obtained the consent of your friends and contacts to provide their personal information (for example: their email address or telephone number) to Oath or a third party", so that they can "send messages on your behalf to make the services available to your friends and contacts". So, broadly speaking, Rogers is saying that, if you want to continue as a Rogers customer, you need to hand over all your friends' contact information, so that they (or "third parties") can advertise their wares to them.

Another contentious clause in the new ToS allows Oath to "analyze" users' emails, photos and attachments with a view to delivering, personalizing and developing "relevant features, content, advertising and services". Technically, users could opt out of this tracking-for-advertising-purposes, except that there does not seem to be any obvious way to do this.

Unsurprisingly, many people are up in arms about all of this - there are certainly a good many oaths being bandied around online right now - and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has promised to look into it. An Oath spokesperson, in typical corporate Doublespeak, maintains that it is all meant to increase transparency and user control. Another way of looking at it, though, is that Rogers, and Oath, have its customers' balls in a vice.

Smelling salts use popular among hockey players

Well, who knew? Apparently a lot of professional hockey players regularly take a hit of good old-fashioned smelling salts before a game, to get them well and truly woken up and ready to go.

Smelling salts are basically ammonia, with a few other minor added ingredients, and are traditionally most often applied to someone who has fainted or been knocked out, in order to bring them round. I remember having some in our medicine cabinet when I was a kid. The sharp head-snapping feeling has, however, been used as a quick "adrenaline hit" among the already-awake as far back as Roman times. Nowadays, you can buy handy single-dose snap-to-open capsules from Amazon for $5.99.

The practice is apparently particularly popular among some of the younger NHL players, and some may take a dose before the start of each period. Even some hoary old team coaches take it before a game. And, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), it is both safe and non-performance-enhancing, and it does not appear on the List of Prohibired Substances and Methods for the purposes of international sports competitions.

But there's the rub: it does not enhance performance in any way, so all those hockey players are just kidding themselves that it is helping their game in some way. Still, given that it is medically harmless (or at least not yet proven medically harmful - personally, I would be very surprised if repeated use did not have some kind of deleterious effect on the body, or at least on the nose), I say: knock yourself out!

Looks like we are stuck with inter-provincial trade restrictions

New Brunswicker Gérard Comeau is something of a folk hero for many Canadians. Mr. Comeau was fined $292 some six years ago for crossing the border from Quebec with 14 cases of beer and 3 bottles of spirits. Like many of us, he thought the rules on the inter-provincial movement of alcohol were ridiculous and probably even unconstitutional. Unlike most of us, though, Mr. Comeau was willing to stick up for what he saw as his rights by taking his case to the New Brunswick Provincial Court, where he won. When the case hit the Supreme Court of Canada this week, though, that decision was overruled, and many of us still don't really understand why.
S.121 of the Canadian Constitution clearly states that goods moving from one province to another must be "admitted free", i.e. the country is effectively just one big free trade zone. That seems pretty clear and unequivocal, but the Supreme Court - probably worried about the political, economic and legal fallout from admitting that - ruled that the phrase is "ambiguous" (how, exactly?), and that it must be interpreted in light of the "principle of federalism", which allows for the reflection of regional diversity and local concerns. That would mean that the country is not a free trade zone at all, and is therefore subject to all the ridiculous restrictions on the movement of crops, livestock, cigarettes, alcohol, etc, etc, that we are currently saddled with. The way the Court gets around what is clearly the letter of the law is by saying that, although a province cannot set out to impose trade barriers, it can regulate the movement of goods for a different purpose, which may just look like a trade barrier. Calling it by its real name, this is in fact protectionism, something we are supposed to be against in this country, inter-provincial protectionism by means of what is known in trade policy circles as "disguised barriers to trade".
Some are describing the decision as a "classic Canadian compromise", and are lauding it for its function in stymying inter-provincial cigarette and medications smuggling, and preventing the transportation of other hazardous materials across provincial borders. Others see it as a victory for government monopolies at the expense of the man and woman in the street. Me, I'm more of that mind, and see it as a woolly and mealy-mouthed decision, designed to merely protect the status quo and not the interests of the Canadian citizens. I'm sure that Gérard Comeau is not pleased either.