WHY OMICRON IS NASTY

ONTARIO

Staff are calling in sick by the hundreds during the Omicron wave and hospitals are feeling the strain


JANUARY 3, 2022

One hundred staff members are calling the sick every day at Toronto’s University Health Network hospitals.

More than 150 staff at a London hospital have tested positive for the virus.

Hamilton Health Sciences’ 400 staff members are in isolation due to COVID-19 exposure.

As Omicron rips through Ontario, hospitals in the province say they are seeing a new kind of challenge: a wave of staff absenteeism forcing them to consider canceling scheduled medical treatments, or separating – Calls isolated employees back to work early.

Omicron. Hospital under pressure of staff during

This edition presents a new challenge to Ontario’s health care system


5Percent

Bluewater Health workers in Sarnia are in isolation due to COVID-19


100

Every day staff members are calling the sick to University Health Network hospitals


400

Hamilton Health Sciences staff members isolating due to COVID-19 exposure


0

Days that Ontario health workers are required to isolate without going to work after being exposed to COVID-19 if they take a daily rapid test and have no symptoms


152

The number of employees of the London Health Sciences Center who have tested positive for COVID-19 as of 31 December.


STAR GRAPHIC

University Health Network spokeswoman Gillian Howard said the case is in the Greater Toronto Area, not just UHN.

“We’re seeing a very large number of employees calling in sick — about 100 a day — with either a risk that needs to be assessed by health services or because they’re sick,” Howard told the Star. “We are currently working through the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and Ontario Health on how we will manage through January.”

Howard said the measures they would take would include redeploying staff and reducing scheduled care. UHN has a staff of about 17,200.

Unlike previous COVID waves, it is Omicron’s unprecedented transmittance, rather than its severity, that is affecting the health care system. While hospitals are increasingly filling up with COVID-19 patients, the need for intensive care has been proportionately less than in earlier waves. This means that while there is not yet the same demand on staff to manage large numbers of very ill patients, the sheer number of cases and potential risks force more health care workers into isolation, where they are unable to help. Huh.

Julia Osterman, communications chief at Bluewater Health, said, “Usually we don’t have calls on the weekends, but we should have an all-hands-on-deck because we have six or seven COVID-19 cases in an emergency.” Getting into position.” Sarnia. “From yesterday we started calling employees on leave to see if they can get back to work – it is not a desirable outcome. They really need their leave and they deserve it.”

Osterman said out of a total of 1,800 staff members at Bluewater, 89 are currently in isolation. This is about four times the number of people who get sick in general.

Association President and CEO Anthony Dale wrote, “Due to widespread community transmission of the Omicron version, the Ontario Hospital Association is actively working on contingency plans with health care sector officials in an effort to continue essential hospital operations during this wave. Used to be.” , “Management in the next few months can only be achieved if we continue to function as a health system.”

Omicron’s spread among hospital staff has resulted in policy changes in the hospital network and in other jurisdictions. Granthshala reported last week that some nurses in Ontario were being called back to work during periods of isolation. The province of Quebec has said that some COVID-positive health care workers will be called back to work, a plan its health minister Christian Dubey has called “the best option for not providing care”.

Osterman said he expects there may be some division of staff between jurisdictions, noting that Bluewater took patients from GTA and Manitoba during the first waves of the pandemic and would help again if it had the potential.

In Quebec City, the main hospital network said on Sunday it would postpone half of its surgeries and appointments starting Wednesday. Quebec faced a surge in cases in hospitals, with more than 1,200 hospitalized with COVID as of Sunday, according to The Canadian Press.

In the UK, where Omicron has been circulating for a long time, the situation is similar – with the sheer volume of cases causing serious staffing issues in some areas.

“Right now, the (National Health Service) is facing a potentially urgent emergency for which it needs to be prepared. The alternative could potentially be to leave patients untreated or to create additional temporary capacity,” said Chris Hopson, chief executive officer of NHS Providers, a union representing health care workers. wrote in a Twitter thread on Saturday. “Unlike last January, there are currently very few, critically ill, older people in need of critical care … The problem is therefore the patient acuity, the intensity of care and the low need for length of stay. Normal and acute bedsores The number of patients in need is more.”

An infectious disease specialist at McGill University Health Center, Dr. Donald Vinh says all Canadian provinces may be faced with the choice of whether to allow exposed workers to return to work as the number of sick people and pools of workers rise in the coming days. available for their treatment.

“We have a certain, limited number of health care workers in every province, because there is no reservoir or pool of health care workers that we can depend on to bail us out here,” he told the Canadian Press last week. Told. ,

Hamilton Health Sciences CEO Rob McIsaac said on Friday that the hospital is taking “extraordinary measures” to address its staffing shortfall, including paying premiums to its staff who work on time and are asymptomatic after a negative rapid test. Including the recall of isolating staff. Result.

MacIsaac wrote in December 31, “We are once again facing enormous pressure on hospital stays and staff numbers.” Statement,

As of New Year’s Eve, 152 staff at the London Health Sciences Center had tested positive for COVID, according to Website,

There are additional strains on health care workers at the moment, even if they are not isolated. When a nurse or administrative assistant or paramedic or personal support worker arrives from their leave, they sometimes encounter patients who oppose their care.

“We are working with large groups of unvaccinated people, many of whom do not believe in conventional science,” Osterman said. “So the tone within hospitals, the level of discourse, has changed a lot since the first wave.”

“It’s really unfortunate because the whole team is tired and coming on their leave,” she said. “It’s so different from before.”

With files from the Canadian Press
Alex McKeon is a Vancouver-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @alex_mckeen

Omicron is causing an 'almost a vertical increase' in US COVID-19 infections

The Unites States' top infectious diseases official Dr Anthony Fauci says while the country is experiencing an almost "vertical increase" in COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, the peak may be just weeks away.

Long lines at vaccination centres and mobile COVID-19 testing sites form all over New York City, as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus surges across the US.

 Source: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA

The United States is experiencing "almost a vertical increase" in COVID-19 cases as the Omicron variant sweeps the country, but the peak may be only weeks away, top US pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

"We are definitely in the middle of a very severe surge and an uptick in cases," Dr Fauci said on ABC's This Week, calling the soaring infection rate "really unprecedented".

With the Omicron variant of the virus sweeping around the world, more than 440,000 new cases were reported in the US on Friday, almost exactly 200,000 more than during a peak last February.


Thousands send messages to late Chinese COVID-19 whistleblower doctor two years on

But Dr Fauci said the experience of South Africa - where the strain was first detected in late November and peaked quickly, then subsided almost as quickly - offered some hope.

Evidence is mounting, he added, that Omicron is milder than previous variants.

The US rates of deaths and hospitalisations have been far lower in recent weeks than during previous COVID surges.

Like other countries, it has been struggling to find a balance that will protect public health without gravely damaging the economy or slamming key services like policing and air travel.

With children set to return to school Monday following the year-end break, both Dr Fauci and the US education secretary said they thought in-person instruction can be conducted safely if proper precautions are taken.

Dr Fauci again pleaded with parents to be sure their children are vaccinated, wear masks and get tested if need be.

"I think all those things put together, it's safe enough to get those kids back to school, balanced against the deleterious effects of keeping them out," he said.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a daily briefing at the White House in Washington DC. Source: AP

US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, meanwhile, said the return to the classroom would be challenging, but necessary.

"I do think there will be bumps in the road, especially tomorrow," he told 'Fox News Sunday', with large numbers of teachers and staff calling in sick.

"So we are going to roll up our sleeves, all hands on deck, let's keep our children in the classroom. That should be our default thinking."

And Eric Adams, who was sworn in as New York mayor just minutes into the new year, said there was little choice but for children to return - safely - to school.

"We've lost almost two years of education," he said on ABC. "We can't do it again... The safest place for children is inside a school."

IRAQ

Social stability in the Kurdistan Region: beyond the rhetoric of reform

06-12-2021
Abdurrahman A.Wahab

University students gather near Sulaimani University in the Kurdistan Region during a protest demanding the payment by the government of monthly allowances on November 23, 2021. 

Photo: Shwan Mohammed / AFP

The new round of student protests in the Kurdistan Region show that students and government stakeholders are at a disjuncture when viewing the reform initiatives. Even though students initially demanded that the KRG pay their overdue stipends of about 40-70 USD per month, the violent crackdown of the protesters is far more revealing of what is at stake for both the students and the government.

Underneath the demand for the reinstallation of the financial assistance were calls for more robust reforms in the government and the educational system. The harsh reaction of the security forces to these demands, such as the student arrests that followed, combined with the responses to the events from top government and political officials, show the KRG’s critical position vis-à-vis the economic, political, and educational reforms in the Region.

Such regular protests beg the question: Are the KRG’s policymakers able to meet students’ demands instead of using the educational system to stall social and political dissent?

The KRG’s austerity measures, taken in response to drops in oil prices, the fight against ISIS, and the budget dispute with Baghdad, have hit the educational sector particularly hard. According to a report by the UNICEF, spending on education in the Region for the 2014-2015 academic year was only about 40 USD per student, much lower compared to the 1000 USD spent in the rest of Iraq.

The Region's political duopoly had relied on a bulging public payroll, free education, and the distribution of stipends as a tool for political patronage at the expense of merit. The KRG and political parties have realized, now, that these efforts not only have ceased to bare the desired political and economic fruit but that fiscally they have become too expensive to maintain.

To this day, public universities lack autonomy thanks to micromanaging by the KRG. They await government approval to spend their budget and even hire their staff. University revenues are handed over to the Ministry of Higher Education, then to the Ministry of Finance, which are then thawed into the public budget and spent on other government priorities rather than on the universities’ own development.

Against years of institutional and financial incapacitation, academic fragility, and political tampering, universities have become incapable of carrying out the mediocre political role assigned to them in quenching the KRG leaders’ thirst for social and political stability.

To initiate reform, the KRG leadership has adopted a privatization scheme as the basis for educational restructuring and government downsizing. However, the KRG has put itself in a predicament since, historically, people’s dependency on the government has been its asset for social and political stability.

Privatization in the health, power, and education sectors, as well as public salary and pension cuts, have increased the household bills of citizens across the Region. Many college graduates have also realized that their employment opportunities in the public sector have withered, seeing little hope in finding decent work in the Region's volatile private sector.

The discourse of educational quality and accountability, and private sector invigoration, do not carry much weight in the face of rising unemployment rates and a bulging corruption that is draining the region’s economy. So far, the KRG’s educational reform efforts amidst its downsizing schemes has proven hollow.

As public employment shrinks, the fragile private sector in the Region is unable to compete with, let alone absorb, the armies of university graduates every year. It is even less so when the market is an extension of the state capture of ruling parties and their patronage. These realities have deemed the privatization rhetoric for economic growth a mere façade to sidetrack liability from the powers that have historically subdued the government and swelled its spending.

The KRG leaders and policymakers should take the episodes of unrest among students and teachers protesting these government measures as an opportunity to recognize that their rationalization of reform mismatches the experiences of those who are most affected.

The social groups that are closer to the poverty line, including the out-of-towner students, witness the severity of the austerity measures and budget cuts the most. They do not have the luxury to make sense of the reform policies made by the political elites who control all the means and measures of life in the Region's posher neighborhoods.

Instead of relying on their political will and the vast network of party loyalists, KRG leaders need to approach a progressive policy framework with appropriate tools that are equitable towards the disenfranchised communities.

Policymakers must also understand that, regardless of intent and political will, their reform policies must accommodate for the institutional inertia in the KRG. To implement reform policies, KRG agencies will rely on their stagnated bureaucracy and limited institutional capabilities. This accommodation often contradicts the rationale behind the reform initiatives.

It is necessary that policymakers invite the agencies that implement reform into the policymaking processes so that policy and implementation correspond with each other. Instead of relying on micromanaging as the ultimate policy tool, policymaking should focus on incentives and capacity building as integral components of reform to cut dependency on political meddling.

Unless reform efforts transcend mere rhetoric, the social and political unrest, alongside waves of migrating youth who are willing to face starvation, cold, and even death on foreign borders just to leave the country, will likely continue. Reforming the stagnant culture of dependency on the public sector is also futile unless the regulatory attitudes interlaced with the political competition and maneuvering that currently shape the private sector in the Region are radically addressed.

The KRG's leadership must also realize that educational policy should support reform in the academic institutions even if this reform is at the expense of political loss for those who are currently in power. If political and government leaders are unwilling to pay the students their stipend, their alternative is to bring about a robust educational reform.


Abdurrahman A. Wahab is a policy researcher at the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS), based at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

Iraq pockets over $7 billion in December oil sales: ministry

Layal Shakir@layalshakirr

Workers go about their tasks at the Basra Gas Company in Khor al-Zubair city in southern Iraq on September 22, 2021. Photo: AFP

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq pocketed more than seven billion dollars from oil sales in December, the ministry announced on Saturday, noting a slight fall in revenues compared to the month before.

Iraq exported 101.5 million barrels of oil in December, with an average daily exports of 3.27 million barrels, the oil ministry said.

The exports brought in $7.37 billion, selling at over $72 per barrel, it added.

The Iraqi government is dependent on oil revenues to cover its costs and pay the salaries of civil servants. Record low oil prices during the pandemic last year caused a financial crisis in Iraq, but a recent boost in oil markets and the central bank’s decision in December to devalue the dinar against the dollar have eased the crisis.

A source from the Iraqi Central Bank last month told the country’s state newspaper that the bank’s reserves have increased from $51.9 to $64 billion "due to a rise in the oil markets.”

In November, Iraq exported over 98 million oil barrels, pocketing over $7.59 billion. In October, it increased exports by more than four million compared to the month before.

KRG made $1.7 billion from oil sales in first half of 2021: report
08-12-2021

Karwan Faidhi Dri@KarwanFaidhiDri

Logo of Deloitte (left) and the file photo of an oil field in the Kurdistan Region. 

Credit: Rudaw

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) exported a total of nearly 80 million barrels of crude oil in the first half of 2021, collecting a net $1.7 billion, according to audited data published by the KRG on Wednesday.

The report, which covers January 1 to June 30, shows that the KRG exported 77.35 barrels of crude oil through its pipelines - of these, 76,869 million barrels were lifted by buyers from Ceyhan Export Terminal in Turkey. The average price of each barrel was $53.446.

“The KRG has generated revenues of USD 4.1 billion from crude oil export sales during the first half of 2021. After making payments to oil producers, pipeline operators, and repayments to the buyers, the KRG retained net revenues from crude oil sales of US$ 1.737 billion,” read the report.

The data was audited by Deloitte.

“The KRG has engaged in discussions with international buyers and oil producers in continuing its efforts to maximize sales prices and reduce production costs to maximize value for the people of Kurdistan,” said the government in a statement which accompanied the report, adding that it acknowledges the positive feedback received from domestic and international stakeholders.

There are 52 oil blocks in the Kurdistan Region, 16 of them are in production and 15 are in exploration phases. Over 30 international and local companies are working in the sector. Many of the contracts were signed with prepayment schemes and the Kurdistan Region owes a large amount of money.

In late June, the Council of Ministers Secretary General Amanj Raheem told parliament that the KRG owes around $4.3 billion to oil companies. The government has also said it inherited a $28 billion debt from the previous administration.

Kurdistan Region's Minister of Natural Resources Kamal Atroshi in late June attended a parliamentary session to answer questions about the government's finances. He said at the time that 40 percent of the money from oil sales is spent to cover oil sector costs - 20 percent for production costs, 14 percent in payments to international oil companies, and around six percent for transportation.

The KRG's biggest expense by far is its payroll and it has struggled to pay its employees in full and on time for several years because of several factors including budget disputes with Baghdad and low oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic.

The amount of money that the Kurdistan Region’s finance ministry collects from oil revenues is around a third of what it should be receiving, Rewaz Fayaq, speaker of Kurdistan Parliament, told reporters late last month.

“When you think of oil revenue, the amount that enters the finance ministry is not natural, it is $350 million, but when you calculate it is around $900 million,” she said, adding that “Not everything enters the finance ministry.”

Alberta tech company hopes air decontamination device will help mitigate Omicron variant spread

By Chris Chacon Global News
Posted January 2, 2022 

As the Omicron variant continues to spread in our province, an Alberta-based tech company is hoping its new high tech air decontamination device can help mitigate the transmission of airborne viruses including the Omicron variant. Chris Chacon reports.

As the Omicron variant continues to spread in the province, an Alberta-based tech company is hoping its new high tech air decontamination device can help mitigate the transmission of airborne viruses including the Omicron variant.

The device is called Ti-DOX HydroxylizAire and attaches to a furnace. Circulated air travels through a chamber where it is met with 50 C lamp heat and UVC exposure, creating a chemical reaction cleaning process.

READ MORE: New germ-killing seats installed in 57 Edmonton Transit Service train cars

“Particular pathogens would actually be destroyed as opposed to being captured in a filter, so what we’re doing is we’re purifying the air through a natural process,” Ti-DOX president Dean Neitz said.

“What we’re trying to do with this technology is improve air quality inside of buildings on an ongoing basis,” Neitz said.

Ti-DOX vice president Reinha­­­­rd Schuetz created the device and said the idea was born more than ten years ago, when he was working as a petroleum engineer trying to decontaminate storage tanks from chemical emissions.

“Subsequently, discovering that (the process) actually destroyed things like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, I also realized because of that it can also destroy germs and pathogens,” Schuetz said.

2:01COVID-19: No new restrictions announced in Alberta in wake of rapidly spreading Omicron variantCOVID-19: No new restrictions announced in Alberta in wake of rapidly spreading Omicron variant

While the technology has not been tested for COVID-19, air quality and better ventilation is now top of mind for many people.

“All of COVID has been airborne from the beginning — it’s just never more evident than it is now,” ER doctor Joe Vipond said.

With widespread cases of the Omicron variant in Alberta, there are growing calls from some medical professionals and school boards to improve ventilation in indoor spaces.

READ MORE: Salty solution? ETS partners with bio-tech company on germ-killing pilot project in LRT stations

“The fact that we have acknowledged airborne transmission is a great first step, but now we have to acknowledge the mitigation measures that come along with an airborne virus,” Dr. Vipond said.

Dr. Vipond said ventilation, even if that’s just opening windows in some cases, is one more layer of protection to go along with properly worn masks, vaccines and physical distancing.

As for Schuetz and Neitz, they hope their device can make a difference.

“I think it’s a very timely invention for where we are in the world today,” Neitz said. “I think that our air is becoming a greater concern.”

Solar recycling is broken, but there’s a plan to fix it

Today, most dead solar panels wind up in shredders or landfills

By Maddie Stone Dec 29, 2021

Tang Dehong / Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty Images

A new Department of Energy-funded research project seeks to solve one of the biggest challenges with solar power — what to do with solar panels after they die.

Solar energy is key to solving climate change, but for the technology itself to be sustainable it needs to be recyclable. Unfortunately, when a solar panel dies today, it’s likely to meet one of two fates: a shredder or a landfill.

Arizona State University (ASU) researchers are hoping to change that through a new recycling process that uses chemicals to recover high-value metals and materials, like silver and silicon, making recycling more economically attractive. Earlier this month, the team received a two-year, $485,000 grant from the DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office to further validate the idea, which they hope will lay the groundwork for a pilot recycling plant within the next three years. Matching funds are being provided by ASU and energy company First Solar, which is serving as an industrial adviser on the project.

If all goes well, a cleaner and more cost-effective solar recycling process could reach the market right as the first wave of solar panels hits the waste stream.

“As we’re ramping up clean energy manufacturing, producing more clean energy tech, thinking about recycling at the end of life becomes even more important,” says Diana Bauer, acting deputy director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office at DOE.

While relatively few solar panels have reached the end of their life already, experts suspect most of those that have are winding up in landfills, where valuable metals and materials inside them are lost. Meng Tao, a solar sustainability researcher at ASU who’s leading the new recycling effort, has estimated that the world could face supply shortages of at least one of those metals, silver, long before we’ve built all the solar panels needed to transition off fossil fuels. Solar-grade silicon, meanwhile, takes tremendous amounts of energy to make, and using it more than once is important for keeping the solar industry’s electricity demands — and its carbon footprint — down.

NEW SOLAR RECYCLING PROCESSES COULD IMPROVE THE ECONOMICS CONSIDERABLY

Even when solar panels are recycled today, these materials are rarely recovered. Instead, recyclers typically remove the aluminum frame holding the panel together, strip the copper wiring off the back, and shred the panel itself, creating a solar hash that’s sold as crushed glass. Those three products — aluminum, copper, and crushed glass — might fetch a recycler $3 per panel, Tao says. Companies Tao has spoken with say it costs up to $25 to recycle a panel, after decommissioning and transit costs.

New solar recycling processes that recover more metals and minerals could improve the economics considerably. Tao and his colleagues are proposing one such process, in which the envelope-sized silicon cells inside solar panels are first separated from the sheets of polymers and glass surrounding them using a hot steel blade. A patent pending chemical concoction developed by Tao’s recycling startup TG Companies is then used to extract silver, tin, copper, and lead from the cells, leaving behind silicon.

While the recycling process uses harsh chemicals, Tao says those chemicals can be “regenerated and used again and again,” reducing the amount of waste that’s created — a feature of his recycling method he believes to be unique. Tao adds that by recovering lead, the process also has the potential to eliminate an environmental hazard that would otherwise wind up in recycling waste or landfills.

Tao claims TG Companies has already developed technology to recover 100 percent of the silver, tin, copper, and lead in solar cells. The new DOE grant will allow his team to further optimize the recycling process for solar panels and verify whether silicon can be recovered at a high enough purity to manufacture new cells without going through an energy-intensive purification step known as the Siemens process. If all goes well over the next two years, the next step will be to attract private investors to finance a pilot plant that can use the process to recycle around 100,000 solar panels a year.

Karsten Wambach, the founder of solar panel recycling nonprofit PV CYCLE, says that a “green chemistry approach” like Tao and his colleagues are proposing has a “large potential to recover valuable secondary materials and contribute to protection of the environment.”

THIS HIGH-TECH TRASH COULD BECOME TREASURE

But Wambach notes that recovering all of the silver and other trace metals in solar panels “might not be fully achievable” due to losses during the process of separating silicon cells from polymers and elsewhere. In a commercial version of this process, he says, the amount and quality of recovered metals will be “optimised according to the downstream user’s specifications and cost savings potential in the treatment processes.”

Cost savings will be key. Depending on the price of silver, Tao thinks his process could recover $10-15 of materials per panel. But that could change, Wambach warns, if manufacturers continue using less silver in solar panels over time. And even $15 per panel is unlikely to cover the full cost of decommissioning and recycling the panels, meaning supportive policies may be needed to scale up.

A final hurdle, Wambach says, is that there just aren’t that many solar panels being pulled off rooftops today. But while less than half a million tons of solar waste existed globally in 2016, the International Renewable Energy Agency has projected that by 2030, that figure could rise to 8 million tons. By 2050, we could be throwing out 6 million tons of dead solar panels every year, nearly as many as we’re installing.

Based on those projections and data on the value of metals and minerals inside each panel, Tao and his colleagues have estimated that by 2028, solar e-waste will contain over a billion dollars’ worth of harvestable materials. For anyone who is able to crack the recycling challenge, this high-tech trash could become treasure.

Robots to probe inside Fukushima reactor

Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is planning to conduct robotic probes and collect samples from damaged reactors this year.

The work will be a key step in the effort to decommission the plant.

The No.1, 2 and 3 reactors suffered meltdowns following a major earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Nuclear fuel melted and collapsed into the reactors' containment vessels. It mixed with surrounding metal parts and formed solid fuel debris.

Tokyo Electric Power plans to begin a robotic survey of the No.1 reactor in mid-January. The survey is expected to take about six months.
The robots will use ultrasonic devices to locate and measure the thickness of the deposits.

Utility officials say they also hope to collect samples.

Preparation to retrieve fuel debris from the No.2 reactor is underway with a robotic device that was developed in the UK.

It is now undergoing performance tests in Japan.

Tokyo Electric Power is planning to collect a few grams of debris with the robot by the end of this year. It hopes to gradually increase the amount to be retrieved.

Removal and safe storage of the extremely radioactive debris is thought to be one of the biggest challenges in the decommissioning process.

The Writer's Life

Catherine Price: Taking Fun Seriously

photo: Colin Lenton

Catherine Price is a writer and speaker whose work considers the surprising science behind things we often take for granted, such as vitamins, cell phones and even fun. Price's How to Break Up with Your Phone is the handbook for stepping away from all-consuming devices, and her new book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again (reviewed below), helps readers identify experiences that will harness the power of fun.

Let's start with the question you ask at the start of the book: When was the last time you had fun?

Ah, yes, [laughing] I'm happy to report that I've had a lot of fun and in totally unexpected contexts. I went to the dermatologist this morning, and--

Not typically fun, right?

Not typically fun, no. But my dermatologist is very easy-to-laugh, and we had this fun conversation joking around about my sensitive skin. I recognize that doesn't sound fun, but it was! For a more traditional example of fun, I went to a finger-picking guitar class last night, where the fun came from making music together and interacting with people who have become a real community for me. Both, though very different, were examples of what I call True Fun.

How has your understanding of fun changed through the process of writing this book?

When I first started this project, I was more focused on what I would call Peak Fun experiences, those moments you will remember for years. What I hadn't recognized was that I was having moments of Everyday Fun that I wasn't appreciating or labeling as such. Once I put effort into noticing those smaller moments in my everyday life, I realized I have a lot more micro-moments of fun sprinkled throughout my days than I ever would have thought. I'm not going to remember that dermatology appointment for the rest of my life, but the fun we shared was worth paying attention to.

You define "True Fun" as "the confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow." If you were forced to prioritize only one, which would it be?

Obviously, I love all three states, and each of them is really great on its own. Even if you don't hit all three at once, aiming at playfulness, connection or flow ["a term used in psychology to describe experiences in which you are fully engrossed... to the point that you lose track of the passage of time"] is going to set your life in a better, more engaged direction. But if I had to pick one, I would say flow because you can't really connect or engage in playfulness if you're not in flow with someone. Anything that distracts us is going to pull us out of flow, so I think that flow is the foundation of fun, and our biggest task is to remove the obstacles that keep us from flow. For most of us, that obstacle is our phones.

In the book, you unpack the relationship between time and money, work and consumerism, but the obvious critiques to your argument are often tied to these things: How can I focus on fun if I have to work multiple jobs just to stay afloat? If I can't afford the things I find "fun," does that mean I'm doomed to a life unlived?

There is, firstly, an assumption that your basic needs are met. You're not going to be able to prioritize fun if you don't know where your next meal is coming from, or if you don't know how you're going to pay the rent. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a pyramid structure that outlines steps to reach your full human potential, and the bottom tier is those essential needs: food, shelter, safety and security. Moving up the pyramid, you can focus on emotional connections and a feeling of purpose and then self-actualization, or being your true, authentic self. What my research uncovered was that fun isn't just a side effect of those things; fun is the cause. The more fun you're having, the stronger your relationships are going to be, and the more you're going to feel like your true, authentic self because you'll be fully present in your own life.

We've been manipulated into thinking we need to have a lot of material possessions to have fun. It's just not true. We're encouraged to buy new gadgets that are marketed to us as fun, when in fact, we could have a lot more fun for a lot less money if we took a step back and asked ourselves "what are the people and situations and activities where I find fun the most frequently?" and work to build those into our lives.

Do you think that if today's adults were to embrace fun, they could aid the next generation in choosing a more enriched life?

There is a mental health crisis with America's youth right now. And in large part, that's due to perfectionism and the pressure to perform. Many kids aren't being given the chance to do things just for the sake of enjoyment. If adults can let go of that mentality, we would both enjoy our lives more in the present and also show them a different way to live. I think you'd have people who are happier and more confident and empowered to make positive change in the world. We all have this potential for growth and experience, but we tend to shut ourselves off from it as we get older. When we prioritize fun, we often find ourselves as beginners again, continuing to grow and evolve.

Throughout the book, you encourage your readers to see themselves as unfinished people who still have things to learn and do.

Yes, we're not finished! Why not keep changing and learning? So much of what we do, whether it's throwing ourselves into work or exercising or entertainment, it's to avoid the existential thoughts that come in moments of stillness. True Fun is the antidote to all that.

Your website invites readers to take a Fun Personality quiz, which made me wonder: What's your fun personality?

I'm a Fun Organizer, someone who organizes activities to create fun for other people, which can be great, but the downside is you get so wrapped up in the logistics that you forget to have fun yourself. The other types are the Fun Generator, who bring the fun no matter the situation. And then, the Fun Accelerator--not the source of fun themselves, but their presence accelerates the fun. The Fun Seeker finds fun events or activities to try. Of course, each of us can have more than one personality type, but the quiz gives readers ways to connect or discuss these ideas together.

Though the book has a lightheartedness about it, it could also be therapeutic, especially for those who don't see themselves in any of those personalities. There may be readers who need to be reminded of the power of fun in their lives, and they may just rediscover themselves in the process.

That really is my hope. The first section is "Fun, Seriously" because fun is really powerful and should be taken seriously. It has the power to change people's lives, and the world, for the better. --Sara Beth West, librarian and freelance reviewer

Shelf Awareness for Readers for Tuesday, December 21, 2021 | Shelf Awareness (shelf-awareness.com)

Emily in Paris: Ukraine complains over Kyiv character stereotype

IMAGE SOURCE,STEPHANIE BRANCHU/NETFLIXImage caption,

Emily in Paris follows a young American who travels to Paris to work for a marketing firm

Ukraine's culture minister says he has complained to Netflix over the portrayal of a character from Kyiv in Emily in Paris.

The Netflix show follows a young American, played by Lily Collins, who travels to the French capital for work.

In the latest series, Petra, a Ukrainian, shoplifts during a trip with main character Emily.

Oleksandr Tkachenko described the caricature image of Petra as "insulting".

Petra, who is played by Ukrainian actress Daria Panchenko, is also portrayed to have a poor fashion sense and is afraid of being deported.

"In Emily in Paris, we have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting," Mr Tkachenko wrote on Telegram.

"Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad?" he added.

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According to Ukrainian media, Mr Tkachenko has sent a letter to the streaming service complaining about the portrayal of Petra.

One Ukrainian resident in Paris agreed with his criticism.

"The way you treated the image of Ukrainians in your second season, 4th episode is such a low cost trick, absolute scandal and a shame," Yevheniya Havrylko wrote in an Instagram post, which has had more than 75,000 likes.

Others have chosen to defend the show, like Ukrainian film producer Natalka Yakymovych who said: "So in a TV series, negative characters can be anything but Ukrainian? Obviously, we all would like her to be from Moscow, but you don't always get what you want."

It is not the first time Emily in Paris has been criticised for its portrayal of different nationalities.

When the first season was released, it was criticised, particularly in France, for promoting stereotypical images of the city and its residents.

It portrays the French as rude people who wear berets and frequently cheat on their partners.

The new series of the show features Alfie, a stereotypical Brit who spends his time drinking in pubs and watching football.

Darren Star, creator of the show, previously defended the first series, saying he was "not sorry for looking at Paris through a glamorous lens".

Mr Star said he had drawn on his own experiences of visiting the city.

"I wanted to showcase Paris in a really wonderful way that would encourage people to fall in love with the city in a way that I have," he told the New York Times.

UK

For Labour and the Conservatives, racism is really all about reputation management

New details about the Stephen Lawrence inquiry show No10 has long feared direct change will upset the rightwing press

Stephen Lawrence’s parents, Neville And Doreen Lawrence, following the publication of the Macpherson report, 1999. 

Photograph: Louis Hollingsbee/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

Nesrine Malik

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 2 Jan 2022

It’s rare that the quiet part is said out loud in British politics: the thing that arrives in a chilling soundbite a politician has let slip, or in correspondence leaked many years after those who wrote it leave power. If you have ever, for example, scoffed at the idea that the rightwing press has a hold on British politics, particularly over the Labour party, then an incident that took place 20 years ago may still your rolling eyes.

Last week we learned that after Stephen Lawrence’s murder Tony Blair’s Downing Street initially opposed an inquiry into police relations with minority ethnic communities.

The arguments for the government’s objection formed a checklist of the hesitations, prevarications and cynical cautions that still stalk efforts to confront institutional racism today. In his initial note recommending an inquiry, Jack Straw, then the home secretary, wrote: “There is clear disquiet, not least within the black community, about the issues raised by this case. I believe that the best way to address these, and draw something positive from this tragic case, would be to launch a broader inquiry into police relationships with ethnic minority communities generally.” Then he hedged, preempting what an uncomfortable proposition that was for Downing Street. “I am concerned,” he said, “that this should not be perceived as undermining the police but as an opportunity to identify and promote good practice.”
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But even that was not enough to reassure jittery colleagues. In the margins, an official whose identity was unknown addressed Blair’s policy adviser, Liz Lloyd, asking, “Is this sensible?” “No,” replied Lloyd. Others weighed in, saying “an inquiry would raise expectations” that would be hard to achieve, and “even with good presentation” the inquiry would “look like an attack on the police”.

You will notice that all these concerns were about the optics rather than the substance of the issue, and the priority was protecting the police and not the Lawrence family or the ethnic minorities whose concerns they represented. Still, perhaps there is nothing that surprising about a government trying to tread carefully when it comes to something as profoundly unsettling as an investigation into police bias towards ethnic minorities. Perhaps there is nothing surprising in government officials defaulting to cost-benefit analyses; you hardly expect the ranks of advisers to be staffed with racial justice warriors instead of steely reputation managers. And Sir William Macpherson’s inquiry did eventually go ahead, such was the undeniable stench of it all and the pressure the Lawrence family wielded.

But there is a kicker to the story, and in it we see how the cynicism of self-preservation prevailed at the expense of doing something long-term and substantive about race relations. Shortly before Macpherson published his report, Straw proposed a follow-up – an ambitious strategy that would prioritise race equality considerations in policymaking across government bodies. Yet taking on racial justice in such a direct manner was just too risky, too destabilising to the government. “A regulation nightmare,” said Blair. Angus Lapsley, an official in Blair’s private office, decided not to back a proposal that racist police officers should be dismissed (government was “cool” towards this suggestion, he said), not because the policy would be wrong, but because of how rightwing papers would react to it. Here is where the decibel level rises. “This could easily become a ‘Telegraph cause celebre’ if taken too far,” said Lapsley. Blair agreed, saying: “We do not want to go OTT on this.” The proposal was killed.

There is a sort of sickening relief in seeing those sentiments – expressed behind closed doors – spelled out so matter of factly; in knowing for certain that concerns about racial injustice aren’t taken seriously not because they’re not believed but because they rock the boat. Indeed, the smothering of a broad, progressive race policy 20 years ago tells us much about where we are today, with a government proudly hostile to interrogating the true state of race relations.

On ethnic minority matters, there is far more continuity between the Labour party and the Conservatives than there are material differences. Both parties share a notion that matters of race are merely a government liability and not something for which the government should take direct responsibility. Last year, that notion was manifest in the shape of the widely discredited report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities chaired by Tony Sewell.

The denial and dishonesty in that document about the extent of the country’s institutional racism was just one step away from Blair’s timidity in front of the rightwing gallery. He passively did not want to upset the Telegraph and its reactionary contingent; today’s Tories actively want to please it. But what Labour and Tory leaderships have both exhibited is deference to a status quo that preserves racial hierarchies and refuses by default to acknowledge any criticism that might challenge Britain’s moral sense of self.

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Such is the slippery slope of “moderation”. An unquestioned assumption has developed that the left can prosper in this country only if it sheds “radical” notions of social justice and redistribution that are unrealistic and extreme – that are, in Blair’s words, “OTT”. The best we can hope for is that the good guys go about pursuing change incrementally and surreptitiously.

This is an abdication of responsibility, but ultimately it’s worse than that. Lost opportunities to achieve racial equality don’t just throw ethnic minorities under the bus: they are also missed chances to shape the values of the country.

Labour’s realpolitik on race may have saved a few fights and stabilised careers in the short term, but in the medium term it also has tilted the ground in favour of the right. And it has sent all of us, marginalised minorities and resentful majorities, hurtling down that slope towards an ever more fractious future.


Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Asylum seeker who’s been in Canada for 21 years granted permission to stay

TORSTAR
Published on January 1, 2022

After 21 years in immigration limbo, Samuel Ndesanjo Nyaga is finally free to live the rest of his years in Canada.

The 74-year-old failed refugee and pillar of Toronto’s Kenyan community has been granted permission to stay after the Star and other media outlets reported last week that he was being deported on Jan. 4.

“It means a lot because it is what I know,” said Nyaga, his joy spilling through the phone.

“Toronto I can walk with closing my eyes. I am the GPS of this city … This is home.”

Nyaga came to Canada in 2000 seeking political asylum after he says he was threatened and persecuted by the Kenyan government for advocating for access to water and electricity for the rural poor as a member of the opposition Democratic Party, which he’d joined in the early 1990s

When Nyaga joined the party in the early 1990s after decades working at Barclays Bank, Kenya was on the brink of becoming a multi-party state.

In Canada, it took three years for Nyaga’s refugee case to be heard and he was eventually denied because he could not provide a Democratic Party membership card. After a further seven years being juggled around the system, Canadian border agents determined it’d be safe for Nyaga to return home to Kenya. Since then, for more than a decade, he’s been reporting to the border agency office on Airport Road every week, waiting for the day he’d be forced to leave.

Last month, more than 21 years after Nyaga first landed in Canada, he was told he was being deported on Jan 4.

“I don’t have anything left in Kenya,” Nyaga recently told the Star’s Nicholas Keung.

Last month, Nyaga’s lawyer applied for him to stay based on humanitarian grounds, arguing his client was established in Canada and that he would face significant hardship if removed to Kenya.

“We were very, very hopeful that the (humanitarian and compassionate application) would come through and that someone in higher places would see his case,” said Ariel Hollander of Lewis & Associates refugee and immigration law office.

Since it was first reported in the Star, Nyaga’s story has been covered by other print and TV media.

On Thursday, Hollander was notified that Nyaga’s humanitarian and compassionate application for permanent residence had been approved in principle by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“Effectively, it means he won’t be removed,” Hollander said.

Nyaga was preparing to leave the country Thursday when he was told he had to report to the border office for his final interview, which had been moved up from Jan. 3.

“I was extremely nervous,” he said. “I was suspecting they might arrest me.”

Now, he’s on his path to becoming a permanent resident.

“My conscience now tells me I am settled and now I start a new life,” he said.

Nyaga, who worked as a security guard and concierge at a condo building on Marine Parade Drive until his work permit expired in 2016, is a fixture at the Kenyan church near Davenport and Old Weston roads, where he goes each Sunday to set up chairs, greet congregants and clean. He volunteers in the kitchen and serves snacks and coffee to the homeless.

He’s eager to get back to his old job, where he says, “There is a chair waiting for me.”

Members of Toronto’s Kenyan Community started raising money in October to hire a lawyer for Nyaga and launched an online petition urging the border agency to stop his deportation, which has since gained more than 4,500 signatures.

“You have to remember that Samuel’s story was unique,” Hollander said. His humanitarian application was approved in about a month — but he says many applicants are not so lucky and get deported before they ever hear back.

Nyaga sends his “sincerest thanks” to everyone who has stepped in and helped him. He said he plans on buying a copy of the Star newspaper that this article appears in to mail home to his brother in Kenya.

“I love Toronto,” he said. “It is our city.”

Correction — Dec. 31, 2021: This article was edited to correct a quote by Ariel Hollander, and to include that Nyaga’s story was also reported by other media outlets.

With files from Nicholas Keung

Lex Harvey is a Toronto-based newsletter producer for the Star and author of the First Up newsletter. Follow her on Twitter: @lexharvs