… Obama would win.

8 major newspapers conducted a worldwide(ish) poll testing the waters of who would win the vote, if we all had a say. Obama was the favoured candidate in all countries, with Canada chiming in with a 70% Obama vote. 75% of Canadians also indicated, in a follow-up question, that troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.

There is also an online poll, not connected with the above results, that is still ongoing at IfTheWorldCouldVote.com. As of the time of this post, Obama was the favoured candidate in most countries, with Canada chiming in with 88.5%

More on this story from CTV or the ITWCV FAQ.

Follow the full election coverage on http://election.twitter.com/ – yes, both Obama and McCain are on twitter.

There are three mascots and one sidekick:

• Miga — a snowboarding sea-bear inspired by the First Nations’ legends of the Pacific Northwest. Miga, described as mischievous and outgoing, is part sea-bear and part orca whale.
• Quatchi — a shy and gentle Sasquatch with a long brown beard and blue earmuffs meant to conjure the mystery and wonder associated with the Canada’s wilderness.
• Sumi — an animal guardian spirit, who flies with the wings of the thunderbird, is described as “a natural born leader with a passion for protecting the environment.”
• Mukmuk — a Vancouver Island marmot sidekick considered an honorary member of the mascot team.

A video introduction to these characters is available in the official 2010 Olympics website.

I’ve been talking to a few friends and their reactions have been mixed. Some of the comments I’ve heard are:

• Sumi sounds like “Sue Me!”
• They look like Japanase cartoon characters
• Quatchi reminds me of the Kokanee Sasquatch
• A fat sasquatch, a one-eyed teddy and a green alien looking thing!
• looks like they were designed by a big committee and crammed all the ideas in, and rejected none

More opinions: Darren, Miss604

What do you think?

Freud once said that life is love and work. But if you do bad work, it can’t provide the meaning in your life that you need from it. I feel most critical of myself when I notice any trace of slovenliness in my work. My work is me, and I try my damnedest to take very good care of me… [pg 161]

I think that’s an amazing way to put it. I think that whatever you do, and however much you like what you do, you should always put yourself into it. Whether you work at McDonald’s or some Fortune 500, you should feel proud at the end of the day that you lived up to your own expectations.

Sidney Poitier mentions how, in the end, our legacies are our love, our work, and our families. I’d rather know that I gave something of myself in my work, and feel proud of my contributions, than to end any day with the personal dissatisfaction of slacking off.

I consider it a great honor to have the opportunities I do. I feel very lucky. I believe I have a huge obligation to fulfill this role I’ve been given, and to do what I can to pass on knowledge to others. I don’t believe in hoarding knowledge, and think that the biggest contribution one can make on the world is to give of oneself – in work as well as in life.

Tags: sidney poitier, work and life, measure of a man

ART is a massage technique which focuses on the soft tissue system: muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. All the things that I have problems with.

My chronic pain has been quite a burden for the past 6 months. Although I was making some progress healing from the second whiplash injury in January, the muscle tension and scarring were still a major problem, and in some ways were getting worse as the muscles grew weaker. I had been having sporradic success with the NUCCA treatment in completely alleviating my TOS (pinched nerve in arm), but it was not consistent. When the back of my neck became very tender from the tension – about 3 months ago – I started to have even greater issues because my neck would simply get tired holding up my head.

After I recovered from the Norwalk virus, I decided to switch to a new chiropractor in a clinic that also has physio, massage and other therapies in a hope that a team would have better success in treating my problems. The chiropractor introduced me to ART, hoping it would have some success in breaking up the massive amounts of scar tissue and fibrosis. The scar tissue was making my muscles tense (shorter) and weak, and trapping the nerve in my arm.

My ART treatment is fast – just a couple of minutes, plus an adjustment. Right now my body can’t take really long treatments since my overall pain level is too high – if it flared up more, it would be too much for me to handle. So, we focus on smaller areas at a time.

ART involves pressing on certain parts of my muscles and having me move in certain ways. The treatments are aggressive – the pressure is hard, and the muscles are stretched far. Sometimes it hurts, but the effects are immediate.

The first few treatments were focused on the sides of my neck and the scar tissue along the left side of my neck/shoulder/arm. 90% of my problems lie on the left side, and much of the pain on the right is referred.

The first few treatments were hard. I saw noticable improvement in my posture, but with ups and downs of tenderness and swelling. About two weeks ago we switched focus to the back of my head/neck. This is where most of my pain is located – it’s what gets sore first, gets tired first, and causes the most pain when it gets bad. The area is not as badly scarred or tight as the sides of my neck, but focusing on the pain centre has been helpful in my overall well being.

Each treatment (2-3 times per week) has had very noticable improvement in decreasing my pain level. The tension is dissipating in the area and some of the problems that were surfacing from the treatment as I flared up – headaches, jaw ache – are dissipating now as well. I have not had more than some minor pain in my arm in 4 weeks – and no longer take medication for nerve pain.

My only current frustration is that after a treatment I feel amazing. But I do swell. And when it comes time to go to sleep, just putting my head on the pillow – foam or down – is horrid. The act of trying to go to sleep causes me pain and some of the tension returns. It’s rather frustrating. I hesitate to take medication to sleep but may have to. Any other day I sleep like a baby – just that first day with the swelling is difficult. And the tension, at this stage in my recovery, does not dissipate on its own, so I end up being tense and in pain again until another treatment. I use a lot of ice, as well as painkillers, anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants, but it doesn’t seem to remove the sensitivity from the treatment that first night.

I am still too early in my recovery to begin any type of physiotherapy. Getting to that stage is my first goal – once the pain is down to a 3 or 4 out of 10 (I’m usually 6-10) then I am well enough to build up the lost strength. It will take a few months.

I plan to have 3 treatments next week in the hope that I can make enough progress so that my week in Chicago will be tolerable – I expect there will be a lot of pain, but making it manageable is my top priority.

It’s been a long year – this time last year was the beginning of my neck pain journey, and it’s been a very tough one. I have gone through more pain than I thought possible, have been very stressed as a result, have had to give up almost all activities, and have had to bear the financial burden of all the treatments. The medical system has frustrated me extensively, and I find it hard as a patient to know whom to trust and what is right for me. I didn’t always get the right advice, and have suffered and deteriorated as a result. Most doctors and therapists are insular, or biased, and sometimes what you need is a well-rounded approach. Someone to give you options. But, without landing on it yourself by chance, you can wander from one option to the next as I have done.

I am truly thankful that the issues with my arm can be treated without medication or other invasive means, and that I can expect to recover from that. I will probably always have some issues with my neck, but with many months of work, I hope to regain a more normal lifestyle. My goal is to be able to hike again next summer.

For anyone out there with chronic pain, I understand what a hard journey it is, and what a confusing one. Most people will tell you that nothing can be done to help you, or will give you empty promises. Only you can know what is best for you, but it can be hard to find the right path. My suggestion is to keep going and to talk to as many people as possible. If I could redo this past year (or 3, for my arm), I would have taken it upon myself to get more opinions from therapists, chiropractors and other physicians before deciding upon any one treatment. Your health is more important to you than it is to any doctor, so only you can push to learn about it and to understand what you can do.

Tags: art, chronic pain, active release, tos, active release technique, chiropractor, chiro, massage, active release therapy, thoracic outlet syndrome, pain, medical system, therapy

Designed by Philippe Starck, it’s called the TeddyBearBand. Cute name and perhaps cute concept. But I think it would freak me out as a kid to see a bear with a bunny for a hand and a dog for a foot.

Philippe Starck: “In my opinion, an overabundance of toys fosters infidelity. Instead of forming a lasting attachment to one toy, the child flits ever faster from one to another, the greater the number of toys, the more frantic the pace. There is no reason that, later on, he or she should treat people, a friend or a lover any differently. As an advocate of the one-true-love approach, I dreamt of a single toy that would serve as an apprenticeship for the lasting human relationships that await our children. A surreal toy, TeddyBearBand stimulates the imagination, considerabily more than any mere plush bear. It removes love and friendship from the realm of disposable emotions”.

That’s all very good and dandy. But this is more a social commentary and if reductionism is the key, simply buy one far less creepy bear. The bear is not the solution in an of itself. No?

Via cribcandy ; Tags: starck, philippe starck, teddy bear, teddybearband

“It’s about how technology changes the way we view social problems,” says Doctorow. “Older mechanical technologies make us see the world as deterministic, knowable and manipulable. New emergent technologies like the Internet teach us that control is an illusion, the universe is out of control and laughing at us, and that the more we watch and control, the more problems we have.”

He talked about things like DRM, privacy, Copyright and how this all comes together to change the way we live now and what the future may hold if we let governments and corporations do as they like, unchecked. More control is not always better.

I recorded the lecture and you can download download an mp3 from the Internet Archive

Today, he found his video on the MSN Video website, with no attribution and ads displayed alongside it. See for yourself. And the video is now tagged “StupidVideos.com” and is available here, uploaded by “Anonymous”.

I think MSN’s editors need to do a better job of checking where a video is coming from before they decide it is in the public domain. Is it hard to figure out if a video is not in the public domain? Yes. Is that an excuse to not do it? Of course not.

Or check out this one comparing science with faith:

Here are the following ‘dramatic’ shows on tv right now, based on tv.com, organized into subject category.

Crime Investigation
shows that investigate or are otherwise legally involved in death or violent crime

• CSI (Miami, Vegas & NY)
• Law & Order SVU
• Bones
• Criminal Minds
• Missing
• Medium
• Ghost Whisperer
• Monk
• Justice
• Crossing Jordan
• Boston Legal

Hospital
shows that deal with the sick/dying and the hospital environment

• House
• ER
• Scrubs (comedy/drama)
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Nip/Tuck

Political
shows that are about politics, or situations highly political, with death imminent to many

• Jericho (nuclear bombs)
• 24 (nuclear bombs and political assassination)
• Prison Break (death row)
• Vanished
• The Nine (bank robbery)
• The Unit (undercover operations)

Supernatural
shows that infuse characters with special abilities and/or are sci fi dramatic in nature

• Heroes (avoiding nuclear disaster)
• Lost (plane crash, threat of death from ‘Others’, island)
• Supernatural

Comedy drama (non death)
shows which focus on comedy

• Gilmore Girls (only recently repositioned from Comedy)
• Studio 60 (to be canned)
• Ugly Betty
• Men in Trees
• The Office

Place based drama (non death)
shows with a focus based on a specific set of people in one area

• Smallville (supernatural, but not specifically about death, minus Lex Luther of course)
• One Tree Hill
• The OC (cancelled)
• Desperate Housewives (although there is a fair amount of killing)
• 7th Heaven (cancelled)
• Six Degrees
• Veronica Mars
• Brothers & Sisters

Of the 40 Dramatic Television shows currently identified to be on tv, as above, 27 of them are concerned with, as primary subject matter, death & killing. That’s a 60% focus on death. Of those shows focused on death, 13 of them, in fact, are connected with investigations of severe crimes & murders. As disturbing are the shows that deal not just with individual deaths but widespread disaster – Jericho, 24.

I would previously define a dramatic television show as one which focuses on the daily lives of a certain set of people. However, now I would say that it’s not just about the lives of those people anymore, but also their involvement in serious crimes and/or environments of the sick & dying. If we did an analysis of blockbuster dramatic movies, I think we would see the same results.

Although our connection to the subject matter – death – may not be surface to our mind because of the characters involved, it is clear from above that characters who deal with death are more interesting to us. Whether we are aware of it, our culture prizes the entertainment factor of death.

Jericho image ; Grey’s image ; Tags: drama, dramatic television, dramatic tv, opinion, culture, obsessed with death, death obsessed, culture of fear, death, death on tv, movies, drama movies

This year, a lot of the ‘hot’ shows have been following the same schedule for Winter/Spring, almost week for week. So, it shouldn’t be altogether surprising that they go for the death meme at the same time.

From what I know of the tv spoilers to come, we’ve not seen the last of it for the season on these shows and many others.

I have not paid over much attention in the past to dramatic tv’s use of character death. It seems that the anticipation of a death, or of multiple deaths, is crucial to many shows on right now, and perhaps that’s a little disturbing. We wait weeks or months to know ‘who will die’ and are excited by who will die next.

Is this anticipation of death the norm on dramatic tv now? Any insight from previous dramas?

Tags: tv, death, drama, dramatic television