COVID Poetry Corner: “Warn, Threaten, Frighten and Now Inspiration!”

Warn, Threaten, Frighten and Now Inspiration!

So it has been over a year that COVID-19 Virus has held us prisoner
well that’s a neutral statement isn’t it?
or is the jailkeeper the politico-medico cartel

Threatening
warning
frightening
cajoling

Now ladies and gentlemen of the Province of Ontario
Get ready to be inspired to greater heights

As our Ontario Minister of Health Christine Elliott
will get her AZ vaccine in a televised ceremony
to inspire the threatened, cajoled, warned and frightened masses
such bravery
should we then go outside and bang pots and pans to celebrate
an unforgettable moment
like landing on the moon
one small step for the Minister but a giant leap for all citizens of Ontario
we are being shown the road to our salvation
for what they privately think is an ignorant nation
cars, vacations, detergent, ambulance chasers advertise
like Minister Elliott trying to make us wise

Curcumin as an anti-depressant?

Evaluation of antidepressant like activity of curcumin and its combination with fluoxetine and imipramine: an acute and chronic study

Jayesh Sanmukhani¹, Ashish Anovadiya, Chandrabhanu B TripathiAffiliations expand

PMID: 21928724

Free article

Abstract

Curcumin is the active ingredient of commonly used spice Curuma longa Linn. In the present study, the antidepressant like activity of curcumin and its combination with fluoxetine and imipramine was studied in acute model (three doses 24, 5 and 1 h before test) of forced swimming test (FST) in glass jar and tail suspension test (TST) in mice and in chronic model (14 day study) of FST with water wheel in rats. All the tests were carried out in the following seven groups (n = 6 in each group), drugs being given orally (doses for mice): Group 1 (vehicle), group 2 (curcumin 50 mg/kg), group 3 (curcumin 100 mg/kg), group 4 (fluoxetine 20 mg/kg), group 5 (imipramine 15 mg/kg), group 6 (curcumin 100 mg/kg plus fluoxetine 20 mg/kg) and group 7 (curcumin 100 mg/kg plus imipramine 15 mg/kg). Equivalent doses for rats were used. Both the acute model of FST and TST, and the chronic model of FST with water wheel showed significant antidepressant like activity of curcumin in 100 mg/kg dose as compared to vehicle control (p < 0.05). The effect of curcumin (100 mg/kg) was similar to that of fluoxetine and imipramine (p > 0.05) but its addition to fluoxetine and imipramine did not improve their antidepressant activity (p > 0.05). Curcumin increased both the swimming and climbing behavior in FST, thus its antidepressant like activity could be due to an increase in serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine levels in the brain. Curcumin can be a useful antidepressant especially in cases which respond to drugs having mixed effects on serotonin and catecholamines levels in the brain.

Was the EU Pause on the AZ Vaccine a Tragic Mistake?

PAUSING ASTRAZENECA VACCINATIONS IN EUROPE A ‘TRAGIC’ DECISION

Many European nations – including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain – recently paused the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine due to alleged adverse reactions. The nations said they were waiting for the European Medicines Agency to declare the vaccine safe, which it did on Thursday, March 18. But the decision to pause the vaccine’s use over concerns about rare blood clots may severely damage the continent’s vaccination efforts moving forward just as the continent is experiencing a new surge in COVID-19 cases, says William Moss, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center. Pausing, he added, was a “tragic” decision that likely strengthened existing vaccine distrust that will be even harder to diminish.ShareAUTHORS:William Moss, Executive DirectorMarch 19, 2021

Was halting the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine due to safety concerns an appropriate decision?

Pausing vaccinations was an overreaction. It was very tragic because it may lead to many more people dying of COVID-19. Pausing vaccinations would be far less problematic if transmission was low. But cases are on the rise in Europe. So if people are no longer getting vaccinated – or they’re now afraid to get vaccinated – then many more people will become susceptible to getting the virus and perhaps being hospitalized and dying.

Are adverse reactions normal with new vaccines?

Yes. Adverse reactions are normal with all new medications, not just vaccines. Of course we need to be vigilant with watching for rare adverse events that follow vaccinations. Safety monitoring following the licensing of a new vaccine is mandatory. It’s a normal part of the process. That’s how these possible adverse reactions were detected in the first place. When any safety signals are recognized they need to be fully and rigorously evaluated, which they have been. And that, too, is a normal part of the process.

The question here is whether there was enough of a safety signal or concern to pause vaccination.

What other options do these nations have?

It’s a judgment call as for determining how much of a safety concern existed to warrant pausing vaccinations.

The adverse events could have been investigated without pausing. There are countries that continued to move forward with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Britain continued with it and has used the vaccine more than any nation. And India and Australia also did not pause its use.

Outside of a vaccine trial that compares the reactions between people who receive the vaccine and those who do not, it can be very challenging to demonstrate that a particular rare adverse event like clotting is actually caused by the vaccine. You have to be able to show that people who have been vaccinated are more likely to experience those adverse events than a comparison group comprised of people who did not receive the vaccine.

You have to ask: Are the numbers of adverse events greater than would be expected in a population like this? A number of people have done those calculations and found the rate was not higher than these conditions happening in similar populations. And now the European Medicines Agency has also found it to be safe after reviewing millions of cases.

In this case it was not only the number of people who have experienced adverse events but the nature of these people: apparently many were young and may not have had any preexisting health conditions. That’s what’s got people worried and that’s what needs to be investigated.

What other potential harm is there in pausing vaccinations?

What’s potentially more problematic is how the pausing is going to be perceived by the public. The genie has been let out of the bottle. It will be hard to put it back even now that the EMA has declared the vaccine safe. It’s hard to restore confidence in a vaccine after it’s been paused in so many countries.

Each of those countries is going to have their work cut out for them to restore confidence in the vaccine now that the EMA found no causal relationship between the vaccine and bleeding issues.

To restore confidence, they will have to prove they’ve rigorously evaluated its safety and have been transparent about the evidence. And those efforts may not be successful. They may have undermined confidence in the vaccine, fueled anti-vaccine sentiment in Europe, and provided fodder for misinformation and disinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

It may be very difficult to recover. And, again, it’s happening at a terrible time in Europe with this third wave of cases.

The EMA declared the vaccine safe but is adding a warning label about possible rare complication of bleeding in the brain. How will that impact trust in the vaccine?

Let’s say the investigations eventually concludes that one in a million people who get the vaccine may be in danger of developing blood clots. Then what do you do? The vaccine is saving many more lives than it is hurting. But is the public willing to make that tradeoff? This is the interesting aspect of how vaccines are perceived: the public has little or no tolerance for vaccines if they think they’re not safe even if the vaccine could prevent many deaths.

This is very bad. There is already a lot of vaccine hesitancy and skepticism in Europe and this is only going to feed into that.

World Health Organization Says for the Time Being AZ Vaccine Benefits Outweigh the Risks

WHO statement on AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine safety signals

17 March 2021 Statement Reading time: Less than a minute (220 words)العربية 中文 Français Русский Español Português

Some countries in the European Union have temporarily suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as a precautionary measure based on reports of rare blood coagulation disorders in persons who had received the vaccine. Other countries in the EU – having considered the same information – have decided to continue using the vaccine in their immunization programmes.

Vaccination against COVID-19 will not reduce illness or deaths from other causes. Thromboembolic events are known to occur frequently. Venous thromboembolism is the third most common cardiovascular disease globally.

In extensive vaccination campaigns, it is routine for countries to signal potential adverse events following immunization. This does not necessarily mean that the events are linked to vaccination itself, but it is good practice to investigate them. It also shows that the surveillance system works and that effective controls are in place.

WHO is in regular contact with the European Medicines Agency and regulators around the world for the latest information on COVID-19 vaccine safety. The WHO COVID-19 Subcommittee of the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety is carefully assessing the latest available safety data for the AstraZeneca vaccine. Once that review is completed, WHO will immediately communicate the findings to the public.

At this time, WHO considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue.

“Mutantism on the March”: Chapter 25 “The Columbian Manifesto”

“What Should Be Done ? ”

We, the inhabitants of the Columbian Coast, are facing an international menace which threatens our very mode of life and indeed our physical survival. 4 N, a huge Yankee corporation, has announced plans of construction for several large cocaine factories. The output of these factories will be shipped to the USA in the form of finished products. This will leave us without cocaine supplies. Our incomes will plummet and, in some instances, will cease as the gringos experiment with cannabis supplies for the manufacture of racoon resistant garbage bags.

4 N has already begun construction of its monstrous fabrication facilities with the willing assistance of our corrupt central government who have expropriated numerous small peasant landholdings. Yet the large landholders so tied to Bogota’s junta remain undisturbed. You local small landowners have been tilling your property for generations. If your land is expropriated you may then be “lucky” to toil for gringo bosses. Your government has sold you out and will create an enclave of destitution. Stand up and combat this deadly threat. Oppose the construction of these gringo factories. Your Bogotian government will not defend your rights as they have been bribed by the gringos . It will be and must be a fight for our survival.

Already the gringos and their bribed Columbian forces have killed hundreds.

If you have guns oil them well. Have courage.

Common interest will vanquish vested interests.

Harass and kill the Yankee pigs and their lackies.

End foreign domination. Oust Liquita.

JOIN THE STRUGGLE.

“Mutantism on the March” :Chapter 25 “The Columbian Manifesto”

“What Should Be Done ? ”

Already the gringos and their bribed Columbian forces have killed hundreds.

If you have guns oil them well. Have courage.

Common interest will vanquish vested interests.

Harass and kill the Yankee pigs and their lackies.

End foreign domination. Oust Liquita.

JOIN THE STRUGGLE.

10 Steps We Can Take to Never Have a Year Like 2020: #4 Get Quebec Businesses Online

Again the Quebec magazine L’actualitê has an interesting feature article in its April edition dealing with COVID-19 and translated it means what are the steps we can take to ensure we don’t have a year like 2020?

The fourth step is to get more businesses online.

Many businesses in Quebec have now understood getting online to sell products is a strong potential market to increase revenues.

One of the founders of LOOP a company that focuses on juices made from locally grown sources, David Côté, says in three weeks they launched their commerce platform on Shopify. Online sales totally surpassed their expectations.

In March 2020 55% of Quebecois made purchases on the Web and a year earlier it was 43%. For the remainder of 2020 Canadians spent around $4 billion online which was an increase of 11% for the same period in 2019.

Amazon was a huge beneficiary of these online purchases with average increases of 37% globally in each quarter of 2020. In Quebec Amazon added four new centres in which included a sorting centre and three distribution centres creating a thousand new jobs in Quebec.

Drastic action is required as the Federation of Independent Businesses in Canada says that one in three small businesses in Canada will not survive the pandemic.

In April of 2020 the Quebec government launched the “Blue Basket” to promote local online purchases but did not include an ability to make actual purchases an anomaly that should be corrected in the fall of 2021.

If you are going to promote your presence online Jean-François Renaud co-founder of Adviso that advises companies going online notes that delivery is an important element not necessarily about its promptness but its accuracy as consumers appreciate knowing a delivery date.

Renaud says the key is to offer a pleasant purchasing experience online.

A Dirty Little Secret: Greece’s Prison Camps for Women During the Greek Civil War (1946-1949)

I am somewhat tuned in to the American “Pappas Post” which attempts to keep readers apprised of Greek culture to readers in North America so that it is not forgotten.

I have read countless articles about the heroic Greek resistance to Nazi occupation in 1941. The resistance was ferocious and the Greeks paid a very heavy price for resistance. Mass executions and retributions so the last thing I expected was a dirty little secret still not exposed and open for healing in Greece.

The documentary “Beneath the Olive Tree” (2020) directed by Stavroula Toska opens some nasty Greek cultural history largely swept under the carpet by the Greek educational bureaucracy about the Greek Civil War which was fought between 1946-49.

I did not have much of a background in this other than seeing the grenade wounds to his legs suffered by my father-in-law during his participation in the Greek Civil War.

However this description is misleading. I thought the Civil War was waged against Greek Communists but that is not the case.

The Greeks developed a mass resistance movement against the German occupiers that totalled over two million people by the time Greece was liberated from the German occupation in October of 1944. The resistance front was known as the EAM with its military component known as ELAS. The Greek communists were popular and the new Greek government under Premier Papandreou included EAM in his coalition government which was unpalatable to Churchill who demanded ELAS disarm which they did despite a bloody demonstration in Athens where 250,000 protested Churchill’s demands.

Papandreou had to resign and ELAS surrendered its weapons and yet those brave fighters in the resistance were perceived as subversives yet collaborators with the Germans were left untouched and allowed to hold governmental positions. It seemed as those who resisted against the Germans were suddenly communists or subversives not to be trusted.

The Greek government then required all citizens to sign a declaration of repentance pledging loyalty to the government and denouncing communism and leftist movements. This was very convenient and responsive to British and American interests of crushing communism in the emerging Cold War. But it totally denigrated the resistance movement fighting German occupation.

Greeks who refused to sign the declaration of repentance were imprisoned, exiled, or executed. A very dirty and unpatriotic response to Churchill’s anger. So prison camps were established for those who refused to sign the declaration. The purge that followed extended beyond actual resistance members to family members associated with resistance members.

This documentary tells the story from the perspective of Greek-American director Stavroula Toska whose grandmother was one of the many women who were sent to these prison camps for refusing to sign the denunciation. Her grandmother refused to talk about the ordeal so Stavroula flew to Greece to discover the women imprisoned in the island of Trikeri who wrote journals secretly and then one day buried them beneath an olive tree. One of the survivors stated we were deprived of our families, our studies, hopes and dreams. A disassembled camera was smuggled into the camp so there are photos as well. The journals were discovered and published unedited in Greece.

I will let you hear their stories which are not pleasant. However knowing the fierce resistance against the German occupation and the heavy burden of German revenge I must admit I find myself angry that those who helped liberate Greece were treated as enemies. Not only that in the Greek history curriculum in Greek schools there is no mention of the Greek Civil War perhaps because it is so embarrassing politically.

As we hear the former PM of Greece Alexis Tsipras (2015-19) say the history of the Greek Civil War was written by those that won it. The people who fought for the liberation of Greece were punished for it. The people who won the Civil War were those who collaborated with the Nazis. Our children must learn this part of Greek history. We must learn our lessons so we can avoid the mistakes that lead to tragedy says Tsipras.

The 76 minute film is virtually available at the Hellenic Film Society USA’s websitehttps://hellenicfilmusa.org/ and runs from March 19-28^th. It was made in 2020 and is narrated by Olympia Dukakis and director Toska. A saddening film of betrayal and the bestiality of politics.

Surfing The Third Wave in Ontario with a An Excellent Cabernet Franc

It seems with every gain there is a fallback with COVID. I suspect as everyone is so hyped with the various COVID vaccines perhaps a new vaccine resistant strain will emerge and we’ll be tossed on our asses again. So I suppose we sit tight and wait. Hopefully the news will be good and persistently so.

So why not surf the wave the best we can.

We try a Red Tractor 2017 Cabernet Franc from Creekside Estate Winery in Niagara.

Cabernet Franc is perhaps Ontario’s consistently high-quality red grape.

It has a black cherry colour that at times, especially when pouring, almost has a purple tinge to it. It looks like a high-test Cabernet Franc.

On the nose that traditional Ontario Cabernet Franc black cherry, chocolate covered cherry but some rather unexpected high-toned blueberry and fresh picked Ontario raspberries. Rather delightful!

Now on the palate. I am again surprised by its moderate tannins as most Cabernet Franc’s I have tried from Ontario have less tannic composition. But for me this makes the wine more food worthy with its “traction” and perhaps that is why it is called Red Tractor? It has a solid foundation of black cherry with underpinnings of blueberry, cranberry and rhubarb pie.

This wine has character and is full bodied and more expressive of its identity than most Ontario Cabernet Francs. A medium finish. A top-notch Cabernet Franc that will surf right into 2025.

As for food matching a great beef barbeque wine. For vegheads it might do well with a vegetarian chile with organic sweet potatoes from California.

Assuming you are surfing now this wine takes you under the curl of a huge wave. Ah time for that 1959 Gidget movie!

(Red Tractor 2017 Cabernet Franc, VQA Four Mile Creek, Creekside Estate Winery Jordan, Ontario, $25, LCBO # 14429, 750 mL,14%, Robert K. Stephen a little birdie told me so Rating 93/100).

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Full Catastrophe Living”: Trust

“It is impossible to become like somebody else. Your only hope is to become more fully yourself. This is the reason for practicing meditation in the first place. Teachers, books, CD’s and apps can only be guides and offer signposts and suggestions. It is important to be open and receptive to what you can learn from other sources, but ultimately you still have to live your own life, every moment of it. In practicing mindfulness, you are practicing responsibility for being yourself and learning to listen to and trust in your own being. The more you cultivate trust in yourself, the easier you will find it will be to trust other people more and see their basic goodness as well.”