AGREED

OPINION
Medical psilocybin use should be decided by a patient and their doctor, not the government

BRUCE TOBIN
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 12, 2021

Bruce Tobin is a registered clinical counsellor in Victoria. He is the founder and president of TheraPsil, a humanitarian non-profit organization advocating for patient rights to access psilocybin for medical purposes.

In 2017, I applied for Canada’s first class-action exemption to criminal drug laws on behalf of all terminally ill cancer patients so they could receive medical psilocybin to treat their end-of-life emotional distress. Psilocybin – the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms” – promises an array of medical benefits for thousands of Canadians suffering from anxiety, addictions, depression, PTSD and perhaps even chronic pain.

Although Health Canada denied my application after three years of negotiation, it did begin to approve individual patient applications in August, 2020 – at least 38 by now – under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This section provides exemptions on compassionate grounds. Indeed, clinical research now shows that psilocybin is a reasonable medical choice for many patients requiring compassionate treatment: the provision of an encouraging although still-in-development medicine to those for whom other treatments are unsuccessful.

In fall of 2020, I provided psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to Canada’s first six patients allowed to receive it legally for end-of-life anxiety and depression. All six treatments were dramatically successful. My patients shared their desperation, demoralization and hopelessness with me. But I also witnessed their deliverance from emotional misery, their gains in quality of life, and their finding of peace, optimism and spiritual comfort in their final days.

But there remains a challenge: The current route to this compassionate treatment itself badly lacks compassion. Patients must go cap-in-hand through a cumbersome and unfriendly process of clearance from federal civil servants. Dying people now must wait, suffering for weeks or months, never knowing if or when they will ever receive a treatment that has been endorsed by their medical doctor.

It’s time to end a growing regulatory fiasco and get help to patients.

Fortunately, the medical cannabis story points a way forward. Early on, all cannabis patients had to use the Section 56 route. But as applicant numbers rose, the government wisely brought in the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. Under this new regime, the decision to use medical cannabis became solely between patient and doctor; the government butted out. Patient care is no longer hostage to bureaucratic inaction.

It’s time to do the same with psilocybin: to bring in regulations for access for medical purposes. Let’s make the rules for compassionate access themselves more compassionate.

According to a TheraPsil poll from June, 2021, 66 per cent of Canadians support changes to medical psilocybin regulations. They understand that the science supports the compassionate use of psilocybin. Since Canadians now have a legally acknowledged right to die, they must surely also have the right to try psilocybin to improve the quality of their remaining life.

And Canada’s courts appear to have affirmed that patients do have this right.

Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms affirms that everyone has the right to “life, liberty and security of the person.” The Supreme Court of Canada (R. v Smith) ruled in 2015 that the prohibition of cannabis for a medical purpose deprives users of their liberty by imposing a threat of imprisonment upon conviction. It also ruled that by forcing people to choose between a legal but inadequate treatment and an illegal but more effective one, the law also infringes on the security of the person.

What applies for medical cannabis surely should hold true for medical psilocybin.

Some will recall that it was prime minister Pierre Trudeau who, in 1982, brought the Charter, Canada’s primary human rights document, into effect. Alas, nearly 40 years later, Mr. Trudeau’s son, Justin, presides over a government that maintains a legal regime regarding psilocybin that plainly violates his father’s Charter.

So, patients suffer every day as our Health Canada bureaucracy drags its feet on psilocybin applications. It’s time for the son to complete his father’s human rights agenda and fully open the door to medical psilocybin

Related articles
Psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, therapy approved to help some facing end-of-life care
AUGUST 13, 2020

Iqaluit water emergency enters second month

Water still deemed unsafe to drink, mayor announces special council meeting Nov. 15

An Iqaluit resident fills a water jug at a filling station in October. The city’s water emergency has entered its second month. (File photo by Mélanie Ritchot)

By Nunatsiaq News

 HEALTH  NOV 12, 2021 –

As Iqaluit’s water emergency entering its second month, Mayor Kenny Bell has called a special council meeting for Monday to “release a timeline of events and test results on the water situation to the public.”

The timeline will start with the first complaint the city received about the smell of fuel in the city’s tap water and explain the city’s plan moving forward, Bell told Nunatsiaq News.

Although city staff started hearing complaints about the smell on Oct. 2, it wasn’t until Oct. 12 that council declared a local state of emergency and Nunavut’s Health Department imposed a “do-not-consume” order on water from the municipal system.

Since then, Iqaluit’s 8,300 residents have been forced to buy bottled water, turn to city-run filling stations or draw their own water from the Sylvia Grinnell River.

Both the city and GN extended those state of emergency declarations on Tuesday.

At a Nov. 2 emergency council meeting, chief administrative officer Amy Elgersma said it had provided a report to Nunavut’s Health Department, certifying the city’s treated water meets Canadian guidelines for clean drinking water.

The Government of Nunavut has assigned a third party to review the city’s report. The third party will also do a site investigation of the water treatment plant, where it is now believed a historic diesel fuel leak infiltrated a water tank, as well as a risk assessment.

“Once complete, the [chief public health officer] will be able to determine if the do-not-consume order can be lifted or should remain in place until additional issues are addressed,” Elgersma told council.

Ultimately, it’s up to Nunavut’s Health Department to lift the do-not-consume order it imposed on Iqaluit’s municipal drinking water on Oct. 12.

The Canadian Armed Forces is scheduled to operate the water purification system it set up on the bank of the Sylvia Grinnell River until Nov. 17, but has a contingency plan to extend that operation for another two weeks.

Iqaluit’s arctic temperatures hamper military efforts to fix water crisis
By Emma Tranter The Canadian Press
Posted November 11, 2021

WATCH: Contaminated Iqaluit water tank isolated following initial inspection – Oct 22, 2021

A flowing river that turns to solid ice in October, freezing pipes and frosty arctic temperatures are all routine for Nunavummiut.

But those issues were a first for a water treatment system previously used by the Canadian Armed Forces in places, including Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and the Philippines.

Iqaluit has been under a state of emergency since Oct. 12 when fuel was found in the water at the city’s treatment plant. Residents have not been able to drink tap water since then.

The city has said that fuel from an old underground spill near the treatment plant may have leaked into the water system

READ MORE: Underground fuel spill likely responsible for Iqaluit water contamination: officials

Twenty-four members of the military arrived in Iqaluit on Oct. 23 at the request of the Nunavut government, but the military’s water treatment system only started running on Tuesday.

Sgt. Matthew Dimma said it’s the first time it’s been used so far north.

“From hoses freezing, to pumps freezing, to valves freezing, everything just is severely affected by the cold,” he said in an interview during a tour of the site Wednesday.

The system uses reverse osmosis to remove contaminants. It draws water from the Sylvia Grinnell River, just outside Iqaluit, and pumps it into treatment machines where it’s pressurized and sent through a series of progressively smaller filters.

2:48 Nunavut chief public health officer on Iqaluit water contamination – Oct 16, 2021

The water is then stored in heated tents in 11,000-litre bladders, which look like giant waterbeds, before it is pumped into the city’s water trucks.

“We’ve had to break the ice. We’ve had to pump water into these bladders, heat these bladders, then … process it into clean drinking water,” Dimma explained.

He said the water is safe to drink right away and doesn’t need to be boiled. On Tuesday, the military distributed 22,000 litres in Iqaluit.

Until recently, residents collected river water, which needed to be boiled, or picked up bottled water flown in by the Nunavut government and other organizations.

READ MORE: Canadian military arrives in Iqaluit to assist with clean drinking water crisis

Dimma said the system was originally designed to be used in temperatures above four degrees Celsius. Temperatures in Iqaluit are hovering around -15 C these days.

“As you can probably imagine, the water temperature is significantly colder than four degrees,” Dimma said as he pointed to the frozen river.

The team, he said, has had to break the ice on the river and switch out hoses because they keep freezing.

“We have to find the deepest spot to draw the water.”

Once it is up and running, the system can pump 500 litres of water per minute into a truck. It takes about half an hour to fill one truck.

Water stations have been set up at two spots in the city for residents to collect what they need.

2:30 Tap water contaminated in Nunavut’s capital, triggering state-of-emergency – Oct 13, 2021

Dimma said access to equipment has made the military’s operations in Iqaluit difficult. Most tools and replacement parts need to be flown up, which has caused delays.

He said there are lessons to be learned from the military using a system in Iqaluit that was not designed for cold weather.

“Hopefully we can further develop our Arctic capabilities in regards to (this) operation.”

The military is scheduled to stay in Iqaluit and run the system until Wednesday, but Dimma said members would stay longer if needed.

The city has said that its testing of Iqaluit’s water is now coming back clean. A report on the water quality has been submitted to Nunavut’s Department of Health.

The department has hired a third party to review the report and a final assessment will be made on whether the water is safe to drink again.

Falling temperatures won’t deter Iqaluit water purification, military says

Operation scheduled until Nov. 17 but can be extended another 2 weeks

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces connects the hose delivering water from the military’s reverse osmosis water purification unit into a city truck, which will deliver the water to filling stations in the city. (Photo credit David Lochead)

By David Lochead


The Canadian military is confident it can continue to operate its water purification units in Iqaluit as temperatures remain below freezing, multiple members said in a tour of the operation set up along the Sylvia Grinnell River.

Since Tuesday, members of the Canadian Armed Forces have been pumping water from the river, purifying it using specialized portable equipment, then giving it to city workers to truck it to city-run filling stations. It’s part of the response to the water emergency that began in October, when diesel fuel was discovered in the city’s water supply.

The water purification exercise is known as Operation Lentus by the military. Maj. Scott Purcell, the department commander in Iqaluit, said the operation is scheduled until Nov. 17 and can be extended for two weeks. Purcell added the Government of Nunavut and federal government are discussing whether to move forward with an extension.

“If there remains a need of water, it is likely they will extend [the operation],” Maj. Susan Magill said of the territorial and federal government’s extension decision.

She added that she believes the military will be able to operate in colder conditions if its operations continue beyond Nov. 17.

Currently the water purification units are delivering around 44,000 litres a day, said Sgt. Matthew Dimma. In ideal circumstances, the water purification units can put out 5,250 litres an hour, but in Iqaluit the operation is challenged by working in a small space at the river and the amount of water the city is able to distribute, Dimma said.

To operate the water purification units, the military has broken through a layer of ice at the river to pump the water below. That water is pumped into large containers called bladders. It’s then run through the water purification unit and then transferred into separate bladders that hold the potable water.

The bladders for the unpurified water hold 11,000 litres, Dimma said. When a city truck arrives, the water from the bladders is pumped into the truck. Master Cpl. Adam Johnston said the purified water bladders hold around 13,000 litres while a city truck can hold 11,000 litres.

The operation’s big challenge is ensuring that the equipment and the water itself doesn’t freeze, Dimma said.

“Mainly the freezing of everything we have here has been a big issue,” Dimma said.

The reverse osmosis water purification unit in action. The purification unit operates under a heating tent to stay warm enough to function (Photo by David Lochead)

Heating tents are being used to ensure equipment stays warm enough to function.

This is the first time the military’s water purification units have operated this far north, Magill said in a previous interview with Nunatsiaq News.

To continue extracting water at the same rate in colder temperatures, the military will go further down the river, where the water is deeper, he said.

Potable water is available at AWG arena and the library filling station from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Iqaluit’s new hydrocarbon monitoring system ‘unusual’ but ‘proactive,’ expert says

City installed real-time system in response to ongoing water emergency in Iqaluit

In response to the ongoing water emergency in Iqaluit, the s::can water monitoring system was brought in to help detect hydrocarbons in the city’s water supply in October. The city is currently renting the system. (Photo by Mélanie Ritchot)

By  Madalyn Howitt
HEALTH NOV 10, 2021 – 

The City of Iqaluit has installed an online system made by engineers in Austria to monitor for hydrocarbons in its treated water.

It’s a move heralded by one expert, although questions remain about who at the city is making sure the new technology is properly maintained and that the massive amounts of data it spits out is fully interpreted.

People in Iqaluit haven’t been able to drink their tap water for almost a month, after fuel was found to be contaminating a holding tank in the city’s water treatment plant.

Along with an investigation and cleanup process, the city has rented a monitoring system manufactured by a company called s::can, Geoffrey Byrne, a spokesperson for the city, confirmed. It was installed Oct. 22.

The system uses light to detect contaminants, says Benoit Barbeau, a professor in the civil mining and geological engineering department at Polytechnique Montréal.

Barbeau specializes in drinking water treatment and is familiar with the s::can system.

“If you have a light going across water, black light will interact with the compounds which are in the water and a portion of the light will be absorbed. It will not go through … the water sample,” he said. “Therefore, the more you absorb, the more there’s [a] presence of different compounds.”

Depending on what wavelength of light is being absorbed, the system can correlate it to the presence of different types of contaminants, he said.

“For example, if you have a contamination with gasoline, the light interference will be different than if it’s diesel [or] if it’s wastewater coming through.… So we can [see] we have a signal that’s abnormal,” he said.

When it comes to diesel, the contaminant suspected to have infiltrated Iqaluit’s water treatment plant last month, that signal would come through well below the threshold set by the federal government’s Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.

That threshold for diesel, which is is classified as an F2 hydrocarbon, is 390 mg/l.

“We have tested eight companies selling oil sensors in water (including s::can),” said Barbeau. “Diesel was detectable at 0.025-0.05 mg/l … so in short, yes, 390 mg/l would be detected for sure.”

Barbeau said it’s a “big deal” that technology like the one used by the s::can system can analyze water in real time without samples needing to be sent to a lab.

In October, the City of Iqaluit installed the s::can drinking water “micro::station”, which is designed for online monitoring of water quality. It uses light to detect potential contaminants like hydrocarbons in water supplies. (Photo courtesy of s::can GmbH)

While he said it’s unusual for a city to use a real-time monitoring system for its water supply, due in large part to the cost of the system and it being a relatively new product, he thinks the City of Iqaluit made a good choice in bringing it in.

“They were proactive,” he said. “It’s the future of monitoring water treatment.”

However, the city must properly maintain the system and figure out a way to make the most of its technology.

“When you put that system in place, you need someone to take care of it. It’s like a car — you need to put gasoline in it, you need to change a tire, so there’s a cost of operation,” Barbeau said.

“Another challenge is that they generate a lot of data.”

The s::can system will generate not only one measurement, but an entire “absorbance profile” Barbeau explained, a signal measured in real time.

“Every second you have information, so after a year of operation, that’s a lot of information. We need to develop artificial intelligence in order to [monitor] all that information that we’re generating, because it’s overwhelming,” he said.

City staff did not respond to questions from Nunatsiaq News about the cost of renting the system, how long it plans to rent it or who is responsible for maintaining it and interpreting the data it generates.

City council’s Nov. 5 agenda package, however, lists a $29,000 line item described as an s::can rental. It is unclear if this amount includes all costs associated with the system, such as installation, shipping or tutorial fees.

City of Iqaluit chief administrative officer Amy Elgersma told city council on Nov. 2 that the plan is to publish results from the real-time monitoring system on the city’s website on a weekly basis.

She also told council that day that the city had submitted a report to Dr. Michael Patterson, Nunavut’s chief public health officer, to certify the city’s water quality now meets Canadian health standards. Patterson will be responsible for deciding whether to lift the order to not consume Iqaluit’s drinking water.

It’s not clear whether the s::can hydrocarbon monitoring data is included in the report.

On Nov. 6, the Department of Health announced it hired a third party to review the report. Health officials expect that review to be complete late this week.

New ocean buoy off Victoria could help harness wind power for coastal B.C. communities


Measuring nine metres tall and six metres long, the big yellow buoy is equipped with a wind turbine and various data-gathering instruments. (CTV News)


Updated Nov. 10, 2021

VICTORIA -

A new research project at the University of Victoria will harness the power of ocean winds in an effort to get remote coastal communities in British Columbia off diesel power.

Later this month, the university will launch a five-and-a-half-tonne ocean buoy that will measure offshore winds near the Trial Islands of Victoria.

The university says the wind buoy is the first of its kind in B.C. and will help off-grid communities that rely on diesel generators for electricity to transition to renewable wind power.

Measuring nine metres tall and six metres long, the big yellow buoy is equipped with a wind turbine and various data-gathering instruments.

The buoy will gather oceanographic and meteorological data in the Trial Islands area for six months, transmitting the data to researchers in real-time to measure wind speeds and patterns.

"The data is critical in helping address a significant knowledge gap that has prevented offshore wind energy produced by floating turbines from being used more widely," said researcher Brad Buckham in a statement Wednesday.

Buckham leads the university's Pacific Regional Institute for Marine Energy Discovery (PRIMED) alongside fellow researcher Curran Crawford.

"While land-based wind turbines still account for a small percentage of global energy needs, they have become an increasingly popular source of renewable energy," Buckham said. "By contrast, wind energy produced by turbines located in the ocean hasn’t been exploited to the same extent, mostly because of the lack of data needed by industry to develop accurate, certifiable, insurable technologies."

The buoy was constructed by AXYS Technologies in Sidney, B.C. Later this month, a tugboat will pull a barge carrying the wind buoy to the Trial Islands, near Oak Bay, B.C., where the device will be deployed.

“The group has been working on this for several years, so everyone is excited to see the buoy deployed and start seeing the data,” said researcher and deployment manager Chloe Immonen.

The university hopes the buoy will not only benefit remote communities hoping to ditch diesel fuel but will also contribute to a better understanding of the way wind can be harnessed to create sustainable electric power.

"We work with a lot of coastal First Nations communities, as well as fishing lodges and marines to look at their wind, wave and tidal resource to look at how we could displace diesel," Crawford said. "What the data this is going to give us is wind resource potentials.

Canadian conservation group makes US$100-million biodiversity pledge

IVAN SEMENIUK

SCIENCE REPORTER

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 7, 2021
The International Conservation Fund of Canada's US$100-million pledge marks the latest addition to the U.S.-based Protecting Our Planet Challenge, which aims to direct US$5-billion in private donations toward protecting some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems.

CRISTINA MITTERMEIER/INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION FUND OF CANADA


A Canadian philanthropic organization that specializes in conservation abroad has made a US$100-million pledge to increase its global impact – a fourfold expansion over its previous efforts, which the organization says is needed to help counter a growing biodiversity crisis.

The commitment by the International Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC) marks the latest addition to the “Protecting Our Planet Challenge.” The U.S.-based initiative aims to direct US$5-billion in private donations toward preserving some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Partners in the coalition have stressed the urgent need for more resources to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.

That target – also known as 30x30 – has been gaining momentum among conservation advocates and is likely to be at the centre of talks at the next United Nations conference on biodiversity, set to take place in the spring in Kunming, China.

Greta Thunberg blasts COP26 as a ‘greenwash festival’ for wealthy countries

Canada commits 20 per cent of climate finance pledge at COP26 to tackle biodiversity loss

Molly Bartlett, executive director of the Nova Scotia-based ICFC, said that she hoped her organization’s pledge, announced this past week, would prompt individuals and policy-makers alike in Canada to think more about conservation beyond the country’s borders.

“We really want it to be a catalyst,” Ms. Bartlett said of the new pledge, which would fund the organization’s projects over the next 10 years. “We have a core group of very committed donors who can donate at this level but we’re hoping to do better than that.”

The pledge was welcomed by Cristian Samper, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York-based conservation group that was involved in the development and launch of the Protecting Our Planet Challenge. He said that the original coalition, made up of nine U.S.-based philanthropic groups, was expanding to include donors in other countries, including Canada.

“We need to mobilize additional finance to support the implementation of 30x30 globally and to promote collaboration and coherence between donors and implementers to have great impact on the ground,” he said.

Founded in 2007, the ICFC has supported projects in 35 countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This past year, the organization issued a report that found Canada spends nearly 150 times more on domestic conservation programs than it does internationally, in contrast to several European countries that have a more balanced record. Between 2016 and 2018, Norway on its own spent 30 times more than Canada on international conservation. The Scandinavian country is often cited as having had a measurable impact on protecting tropical forests, which benefits species while helping to slow global warming.

As a conduit for private conservation dollars, the ICFC has similarly focused on tropical biodiversity. Its flagship project supports the Kayapo, an Indigenous group living in a large territory in the southeastern Amazon in Brazil that is equivalent in size to the island of Newfoundland. The goal of the project is to help the Kayapo protect their territory from loggers and others seeking to exploit the region, which includes millions of hectares of intact rain forest hemmed in on three sides by land that has been cleared of forest and is now cattle pasture.

“The conservation community recognized that if it were not for the Kayapo people, that forest would be long gone,” said Canadian ecologist Barbara Zimmerman, who has directed the project since she founded it in the early 1990s

Despite success at helping maintain the region’s ecological bounty, Dr. Zimmerman said that the project is now facing a loosening of restrictions and lax enforcement of environmental protections under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. She added that prior to Mr. Bolsonaro’s coming to power in January, 2019, there was more help from officials in dealing with illegal logging and mining activities.

“It wasn’t adequate, but the government was trying to enforce protected areas.” she said. “Now it’s much harder.”

Brazil and Canada are among the countries that pledged to end deforestation by 2030 in a statement signed this past week during UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. But biodiversity experts say that many of the world’s most ecologically sensitive regions don’t have that much time. Norway, which also signed the deforestation pledge, has separately indicated that it wants to see a more concrete commitment from Brazil before restoring funding that it suspended in 2019.

Catherine Potvin, a tropical forest ecologist at McGill University, said that while private donations such as those directed by the ICFC can play a positive role, it is imperative that national governments pursue a collective and concerted approach to protecting biodiversity at next year’s UN meeting.

“As citizens of the planet we are very interconnected,” she said. “Any environmental disaster that happens anywhere in the world has ripple effects for everyone.”

The country’s agriculture ministers agree on the ‘Guelph Statement’

Farmland in the fall (CKINXNewsToday.ca stock photo by John Chippa)

By Adam BellNovember 11, 2021 

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and her fellow Ag Ministers from across the country have agreed on what they’re calling the “Guelph Statement”, which sets the direction for the next Canadian agriculture policy framework set to launch in the Spring of 2023.

Bibeau co-chaired the Ministers of Agriculture meeting this week in Guelph with Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs and Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson, where they discussed how the industry will look coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid increasing climate change and growing concerns surrounding African Swine Fever.

The Guelph Declaration is, as Bibeau puts it, a unanimous vision of an even more sustainable agriculture, and commits Canada to investing and collaborating in the fight against climate change, labour shortages and risk management.

“We have agreed on a vision that Canada is recognized as a world leader in sustainable agriculture and agri-food production, and drives forward from a solid foundation of regional trends in diversity, as well as the strong leadership of the provinces and territories in order to rise to the climate change challenge, to expand new markets in trade, while meeting the expectations of consumers, and feed Canadians in a growing global population,” said Bibeau.

Thompson added there was a consensus.

“A priority that we all reached consensus around this week, is that the flexibility to respect regional diversity is paramount, and that needs to be reflected as we look to improve our suite of Business Risk Management products,” said Thompson.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture responded to the comments by officials through a tweet.

The agreement will be the final five-year framework that takes place prior to the the 2030 Paris Agreement deadline.

FOX NEWS ANCHORS ARE DEFENDING “GOOD KID” KYLE RITTENHOUSE

Host Greg Gutfeld said Rittenhouse, who’s on trial for charges including first-degree intentional homicide, “did the right thing” by making “sure these violent, disgusting dirtbags weren’t roaming the streets.”

BY CALEB ECARMA

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

Kyle Rtttenhouse looks back as attorneys argue about the charges that will be presented to the jury during proceedings at the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 12, 2021.

BY SEAN KRAJACIC-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

In a turn of events so familiar it was almost predictable, Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teen who brought an AR-15 to last year’s Kenosha, Wisconsin, Black Lives Matter protests and used it to kill two people and wound a third, is being hailed by Fox News stars as a “good kid” who “did the right thing.” Prosecutors have described Rittenhouse—who was 17 at the time of the shootings, and is currently on trial for various criminal charges, including first-degree intentional homicide—as a vigilante killer, though Rittenhouse himself took the stand this week to claim he had acted in self-defense.

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld seemed inclined to believe the vigilante argument, but said in this case, vigilantism was justified. “He did the right thing,” Gutfeld said. “He did what the government should have done, which was to make sure these dirtbags—these violent, disgusting dirtbags—weren’t roaming the streets.”

Amazingly, at least one person on the network has compared Rittenhouse to George Floyd. “I have a problem with the inconsistency that I see from the left and people that claim…to fight for the rights of the people,” said Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones. “If you agree that the state shouldn’t have the knee on someone’s neck and kill them, then how could you support the state intentionally targeting a young man that it shows in the video, that it’s self-defense?”

Rittenhouse, who drove from his home in Illinois to attend the Kenosha protests, has insisted he was there to defend property owners and act as a field medic. Jeanine Pirro, a former New York state judge turned Fox News host, is doing her best to advance Rittenhouse’s version of events. “He was a good kid, he went there to clean up the graffiti on the buildings,” she said, adding that his showing on the witness stand “exemplified” what a defendant should do. During the segment, Geraldo Rivera rejected Pirro’s description, saying that Rittenhouse is a “dopey kid with a hero complex” and had no reason to be at the protests. Pirro shot back: “First of all, I don’t think he’s a dopey kid. Just because he isn’t Mr. Cool from New York City doesn’t make him a dopey kid, okay? This kid practiced CPR training, he was a police explorer, he was a fire cadet.… That’s a good kid. That is the kind of kid who can grow up and have a moral core.”

On Thursday night, Sean Hannity attempted to gin up more sympathy for the teenage shooter by airing a softball interview with his mother, Wendy Rittenhouse. At one point, Hannity asked how it impacted her and her son when Joe Biden supposedly depicted Rittenhouse as a white supremacist during the 2020 election. (When Rittenhouse was released on bail prior to the trial, he publicly appeared with members of the Proud Boys—a far-right group that has drawn headlines for instigating violent brawls at leftist protests—and was spotted flashing the “okay” sign, a hand signal that can be code for “white power.” A close acquaintance of the Rittenhouses told The New Yorker that neither he nor Rittenhouse knew the men were Proud Boys, or the significance of the “okay” gesture.) “President Biden don’t know my son whatsoever, and he’s not a white supremacist. He’s not a racist. And he did that for the votes…. He defamed him,” Wendy Rittenhouse said after Hannity asserted that he has not seen “any evidence whatsoever that he is such a person.”

Rex Huppke: Guilty or innocent, Kyle Rittenhouse should disgust us all

What if the Kyle Rittenhouse character is cast as a Black 17-year-old, and the scene is an area outside one of former President Donald Trump’s rallies?

Rex Huppke

Nov 12, 2021
 KENOSHA NEWS

We should — all of us — be disgusted with Kyle Rittenhouse. That all of us aren’t is a problem. A profound one.

Set aside for now Rittenhouse’s legal guilt or innocence in the killing of two men and the injuring of a third during a night of protests and chaos in Kenosha. We now wait for Monday’s closing arguments in his murder trial, and then we’ll wait for the jury’s verdict, and there will be time to approve or disapprove of the outcome.

For now, let’s consider the bigger issues, the elements of this case that reflect where America stands as a society. Let’s consider what the very idea of a “Kyle Rittenhouse” means, and how our divided reaction to him reveals a far deeper and far more dangerous problem than one armed person in a Midwestern town on a hot August night of civil unrest.

We have to consider these things because there are not just disagreements over Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence. There are people — many — on the right who consider the now 18 year old not just innocent, but heroic. He has been hailed by them as an All-American patriot who did what the police or the government wasn’t willing to do. Some say he should one day run for public office. Some have compared his prosecution to child abuse.

Not long after the night Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz in 2020, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin tweeted: “ALL THE BEST PEOPLE #StandWithKyle. It’s now or never ... and, yes, it’s war.”

In a recent piece on Fox News’ website, host Tucker Carlson wrote: “Kyle Rittenhouse went to Kenosha to clean up the filth left by the rioting Biden voters.”

Rittenhouse, then 17, traveled from his home in Antioch, Illinois, with an illegally purchased AR-15 style rifle to the scene of widespread protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer. Let me state that more generally: A 17-year-old armed with a powerful rifle crossed state lines and placed himself smack-dab in a chaotic and potentially violent scene.

Is our common sense so eroded by political divisions and tragically twisted concepts of masculinity that we can’t all agree that no 17-year-old should be traipsing around any city at any time of day with a weapon like that?

Are we ready to start heroizing teen vigilantism? Do we want untrained youth whose prefrontal cortexes, the part of the brain responsible for controlling impulses, aren’t fully developed, patrolling streets with deadly weapons?

Does anyone really think that’s going to end well? It certainly didn’t in Kenosha.

The bottom line is this: The people hailing Rittenhouse as a good ol’ American boy who had the guts to stand up to lawbreakers are only doing so because they’re OK with the type of people he killed. In the Rittenhouse-as-hero narrative, the three men he gunned down were not people on the opposite side of the ideological fence — they were the enemy. They were either supportive of or consorting with groups protesting the police. They were, as Carlson wrote, “filth.”

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, recounting the criminal records of two of Rittenhouse’s victims — records Rittenhouse couldn’t possibly have known about when he shot them — said Thursday that the teenager “did the right thing.”

Gutfeld went on: “He did what the government should have done, which was to make sure these dirtbags, these violent disgusting dirtbags, weren’t roaming the streets!”

By Gutfeld’s logic, we should stand up and applaud any 17-year-old who takes up an illegally purchased Smith & Wesson M&P 15, a military style rifle, and guns down people with criminal histories.

Is that something we all agree on? Is that where we’re at in America these days?

More importantly, is everyone fine with all this if the Kyle Rittenhouse character is cast as a Black 17-year-old, and the scene is an area outside one of former President Donald Trump’s rallies? If that teen with a still-developing prefrontal cortex feels his life is threatened by someone outside that rally, and the teen opens fire, is he going to get the same hero treatment? Will the criminal backgrounds of his victims make them “disgusting dirtbags” who got what was coming to them thanks to a righteous youth vigilante?

What we’re missing by focusing intently on Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence, on the verdict soon to come, is just how messed up a country we are if we don’t feel collective disgust over a dumb teen slinging a rifle across his chest and heading into an out-of-control situation.

What we’re missing is the overt racism of cheering a teenager like Rittenhouse in those circumstances while saying a teenager like Chicago’s Adam Toledo — a 13 year old shot and killed by a police office after dropping a handgun and starting to raise his hands — got what was coming to him.

This is all wrong. This is all wildly, fundamentally wrong. We can disagree over the individual circumstances of these or any other cases. But we can’t ignore the vastly different ways a white teen and a teenager of color are treated when they’re armed. And we can’t, for the love of God, encourage, revere or in any way normalize armed young people acting like judge, jury and executioner.

Rittenhouse’s presence in Kenosha was as abnormal as it was unnecessary. We should be disgusted by it. We should be disgusted by him and by anyone cheering him, no matter the jury’s verdict.

If we can’t agree on that, if we can’t see what’s happening here and recognize it as a profound problem, we’ve lost our center, our sense of decency and our minds.

Leonard Cohen graphic novel a tour of the legend's music, women, life and legacy

Daniel J. Rowe

CTVNewsMontreal.ca Digital Reporter
Saturday, November 13, 2021

MONTREAL -- Five women, five songs, and five objects in five decades of Leonard Cohen's life.

The five star points as chapters in his life is the concept author and artist Philippe Girard's uses in the graphic novel "Leonard Cohen: On a Wire" recently released in English.

"I decided that each tip of the star would be dedicated to a decade," said Girard. "I put Leonard's death in the centre of the star, and then started by the death, [then the] first decade. It was a process almost driving the whole book all by itself."

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The graphic novel was originally published in French (Leonard Cohen: Sur un fil) with Helge Dascher and Karen Houle doing the translation for the English version.

Girard said he started writing after five months of studying biographies, interviews, concerts and anything else he could get his hands on related to Cohen's life.

The graphic novel was published, you guessed it, five years after Cohen's death.



Philippe Girard's 'Leonard Cohen: On a Wire' is a finely illustrated graphic novel that captures the essence of the Montreal singer-songwriter and man of the people's life. (SOURCE: Drawn & Quarterly)

It is the first time the iconic Montreal singer-songwriter and poet has appeared in comic form and part of the challenge for Girard was creating an engaging biography that wasn't 1,000 pages to match the 1,000 lives Cohen lived in Montreal, London, Greece, California and elsewhere meeting the likes of Janis Joplin, Lou Reed, Phil Spector, Joni Mitchell and, of course, Suzanne and Marianne.

"It's been a challenge," said Girard. "I didn't want to make a book that was too thick because books are already expensive. And I kind of like the idea that you don't have to say too much to be understood. So my goal was to have approximately 100 pages and, I ended up with 120, which is pretty close."

The result is a finely illustrated, well-told history of drugs, women, music, poetry, faith, and heartache.

The Quebec City author published his first comic when he was eight and has more than 20 titles to his name.

Cohen as a subject is one Girard embraced in exploring, and he was surprised as years went on that no biographies were published.

"I felt like it was a beautiful subject," said Girard. "I saw it as a beautiful flower and a part that was only waiting for someone to pick it, and nobody seemed to be willing to do it. So I said, 'All right, I'll do it. And I'll do it my way, and I'm going to do it in a way that I feel is respectful, and is up to my standards and his standards because his standards were really high.'"

Being a French-speaking Quebecer, Girard said his point of view may be different from an English-speaking fan, but that he sees in Cohen a Quebecer looking for affection much like the majority of people in the province.

"He is a fantastic Montreal poet, someone that I liked, and I see in him a mirror image of every Quebecer's life," he said. "He was someone who felt different than was reaching out. When I look at him, I see something that's universal, and that's the thing that I really liked."

Philippe Girard's 'Leonard Cohen: On a Wire' is a finely illustrated graphic novel that captures the essence of the Montreal singer-songwriter and man of the people's life. SOURCE: Drawn & Quarterly

Quebec City artist and author Philippe Girard's graphic novel 'Leonard Cohen: On a Wire' explores five decades of Cohen's life with one woman, one song and one object per decade highlighted. SOURCE: Drawn & Quarterly

The Fantastic Four Will Never Escape The Cold War

Marvel fans just don't like the Fantastic Four anymore, but the team has been losing popularity ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.

BY JOSHUA ISAAK

PUBLISHED 11 HOURS AGO

Warning: contains spoilers for The Thing #1!

While Marvel's Fantastic Four is undoubtedly the team that started the true Marvel Universe, the team's popularity has faded over the last few decades with no sign of a resurgence any time soon. The Fantastic Four challenged many preconceptions about the superhero genre in comics, and created more than a few tropes of their own. But post-1991, the team simply is not what it used to be.

The creation of the Fantastic Four is as famous as the team itself. Writer Stan Lee was ready to give up on the industry altogether when his wife insisted he create one last comic, and create it the way he wanted. Thus the Fantastic Four was born: a group of superheroes (not one hero and a sidekick) with a variety of powers and no secret identities; they were even seen as celebrities and treated as such by the civilians of the Marvel Universe. Most importantly, the Fantastic Four were a family: Reed Richards and Susan Storm were engaged (later married), Johnny Storm was Sue's brother, and Ben - while not exactly a blood relative - was Reed's best friend and seen as an older brother to Johnny.

RELATED: The Fantastic Four Sequel's Worst Mistake Ruined The Silver Surfer

But the genesis of the Fantastic Four lies firmly in the Cold War. In the first issue, Reed's experiment is considered dangerous by all, but the scientist Susan Storm says the knowledge gained is worth the risk, "...unless we want the commies to beat us to it!" The team faced various Soviet Union-themed villains and in many ways were more patriotic than Captain America in their battles. But with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the team was suddenly aimless.





This is even acknowledged in The Thing #1: Reed Richards bails Ben Grimm out of prison after an incredibly stressful day (after Ben saw his fiancee Alicia Masters walking with another man and assumed she was cheating). Ben is surprised that Reed came to get him, believing that both him and Susan Storm were in the USSR. Reed replies "It's Russia now, Ben." Ben Grimm, as an American pilot, would surely remember the name the country went by when it was the United States' most feared enemy. Times and geopolitical situations change - but the Thing has not. This mirrors his plight with his powers in a way, since Ben is the only member of the Fantastic Four who can't "switch off" his powers.

To many, Ben represents the United States' stubborn worldview and insistence on having one foot in the past - because he is constantly reminded of Reed's experiment that took place during the Cold War. Out of the four Fantastic Four films made, not a single one was received well critically. Perhaps that is because the Fantastic Four are past their time - and have yet to reinvent themselves as a team in the Marvel Universe.

A New Era of Cosmological Discovery: NASA’s Roman Space Telescope To Unravel the Secrets of Dark Energy and Dark Matter

By ASHLEY BALZER, NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER NOVEMBER 13, 2021

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA observatory designed to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore many topics in infrared astrophysics. Credit: NASA

A team of scientists has forecast the scientific impact of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s High Latitude Wide Area Survey on critical questions in cosmology. This observation program will consist of both imaging, which reveals the locations, shapes, sizes, and colors of objects like distant galaxies, and spectroscopy, which involves measuring the intensity of light from those objects at different wavelengths, across the same enormous swath of the universe. Scientists will be able to harness the power of a variety of cross-checking techniques using this rich data set, which promises an unprecedented look into some of cosmology’s most vexing problems.

When it begins work in 2027, Roman will yield results that would be impossible to achieve using existing telescopes. Its impact will be further enhanced by teaming up with other new facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a novel wide-field telescope now being built on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile. Scheduled to begin full operations by 2024, Rubin’s planned 10-year survey extends across Roman’s five-year primary mission.

This illustration compares the relative sizes of the areas of sky covered by two surveys: Roman’s High Latitude Wide Area Survey, outlined in blue, and the largest mosaic led by Hubble, the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS), shown in red. In current plans, the Roman survey will be more than 1,000 times broader than Hubble’s. Roman will also explore more distant realms of space than most other telescopes have probed in previous efforts to study why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

“By predicting Roman’s science return, we hope to help the scientific community develop the best strategy for observing the cosmos,” said Tim Eifler, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “We eagerly await the images and data the mission will send back to help us better understand some of the biggest mysteries in the universe.”

The team’s results are described in two papers led by Eifler and published in the October edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The study is part of an effort by a broader team of world-leading scientists to prepare to analyze Roman’s cosmological data.

“Our study was only possible because of all the expertise, from theorists to observers, that is present in the larger team,” Eifler said.

A multitalented observatory

The Roman mission owes its multifaceted approach to its combination of imaging and spectroscopy across an enormous field of view, which enables two main cosmological techniques: galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing. The first measures the exact positions of hundreds of millions of faint galaxies. Weak lensing measures how the images of galaxies have been distorted by the gravity of intervening matter. With its wide, deep view, Roman will allow scientists to study the structure and evolution of the universe and to explore the concept of cosmic acceleration as never before.

Learning about how the universe evolved to its present state will offer clues about what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion. In addition to weak lensing and galaxy clustering, Roman will study this mystery in several ways, including surveying the sky for a special type of exploding star called a type Ia supernova. The mission will also probe cosmic acceleration by measuring the masses and redshifts of galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe. The number and size of these structures depend on how the speed of the universe’s expansion changes.

“Using several different methods to study the cause behind cosmic acceleration will help astronomers greatly reduce the uncertainty that has plagued expansion measurements,” said Hironao Miyatake, an associate professor at Nagoya University in Japan and a co-author of the papers. “Each method will cross-check the others, which is one reason Roman will be able to provide extremely precise results.”

Combining so many observational methods will allow astronomers to investigate additional mysteries, too, including determining the amount of dark matter – invisible matter that is detectable only through its gravitational effects – and tracking the growth of black holes in the early universe that form the seeds of massive galaxies.

“Roman is designed specifically to solve mysteries such as cosmic acceleration, but its enormous view of the universe will reveal a treasure trove of data that could help explain other puzzles as well,” said Elisabeth Krause, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the papers. “The mission could even help answer questions no one has thought to ask yet.”

Teaming up with Rubin

Roman isn’t the only observatory designed to probe cosmic acceleration. In one paper, the team explored how Roman will work hand-in-hand with another telescope: the Rubin Observatory. Named for American astronomer Vera Rubin, who showed that galaxies are mostly made of dark matter, the Rubin Observatory will use its 8.4-meter (27.4-foot) primary mirror to conduct a truly gigantic survey of the sky, covering about 44% of the sky over 10 years.

“Roman’s observations will begin, in terms of wavelength, where Rubin’s observations end,” Eifler said. “Roman plans to view a smaller area of the sky, but it will see much deeper and generate clearer pictures since it will be located above Earth’s atmosphere.”

The current observing strategy for Roman’s High Latitude Wide Area Survey will enable observations of about 5% of the sky – 2,000 square degrees – over the course of about a year. However, the team illustrated how changing the survey’s design could yield compelling results. The survey could be extended, for example, to cover more of the same area that Rubin will observe. Or it could observe galaxies using a single broad filter, instead of imaging with four separate ones, allowing faster observations while still retaining the survey’s depth.

“It is exciting to consider the benefits we would gain from merging the two telescopes’ observations,” Krause said. “Roman will gain from Rubin’s larger observing field, and Rubin will gain enormously from having some deeper observations with Roman’s better image quality. The missions will greatly enhance each other.”

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

NASA Rover Shares A Photo Of Spooky Mars 'Graveyard' On The Planet

Mars' rocky and dusty environment may not sound exciting, but the planet has repeatedly proven to be a visual treat. This latest photo proves that.

BY JOE MARING

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA rovers find tons of exciting things while exploring Mars, and in this latest example from Curiosity, it stumbled across a spooky 'graveyard' filled with lonely Martian rocks. It's been said before, and it'll be said again: Mars is one of the most visually striking planets in our galaxy. To some people, that may come as a surprise. Mars is a pretty desolate planet consisting of rocks, sand, dust, and freezing temperatures. Although Mars certainly isn't a good place for humans to live, its harsh environment has resulted in some genuinely wondrous sights.

This is something NASA's repeatedly proven with its Martian rovers — specifically, Curiosity and Perseverance. Both rovers are exploring Mars to look for signs of life and learn about its ancient past. They're also equipped with advanced cameras to take incredible pictures of their journies. In the past month alone, the rovers have shared images of layered rock formations, vast and empty landscapes, and even a rock that looks just like a frog. These aren't things most humans will ever be able to see with their own eyes, but with dozens of new photos uploaded every single day, Curiosity and Perseverance make the Mars experience accessible to everyone.

RELATED: Perseverance Just Found A Strange 'Mars Staircase' Made Out Of Rocks

In the latest photo captured by Curiosity, the rover shares one of its spookiest Mars pictures yet. The above image was acquired by NASA on November 10 and taken with Curiosity's Right Navigation Camera. It shows the Martian surface doing what it does best — being filled with rocks, sand, and rolling hills. This particular photo, however, gives the planet a very eerie feeling. For one thing, all of the rocks scattered on the ground below make it look like a small graveyard of sorts. The rocks appear to be fairly big and may be the result of a larger one that broke at some point. The black and white nature of the picture, along with some of the grainy details, also makes the whole thing that much creepier.




Mars Regularly Shows Off Its Spooky Side
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltec

For people who often follow these Mars photos, you'll know this isn't the first time Mars has taken on an eerie appearance. In late October, Perseverance found itself amidst a sea of large rocks while it was especially dark on the planet (seen above). Another photo from earlier in the year showcased the Sun casting a creepy green glow in the Martian sky. Mars may not be filled with green aliens or other monsters, but that's not to say it can't look pretty spooky from time to time.

For every spine-chilling image these rovers share, however, there are plenty of others that paint Mars in a much different light. Other photos have shown the planet's gorgeous dunes, intricate rock shapes, and sections that look like they belong right here on Earth. It's a shame Mars' atmosphere is so hostile to human life, because living on a planet that looks like it does sure would be something.