E. Jean Simpson's Blog: A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA, page 4

Sometimes the Portrayal of Reality is Important

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at something that really got to me this past while. It involves a long running show. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I’ve long been a fan of General Hospital and Days of Our Lives. I have watched soaps off and on since my Grandmother and Mother used to sit and watch. It started with The Edge of Night and then moved on to General Hospital and a few others as I grew older. I actually started watching Days of Our Lives off and on around the time Marlena got possessed…the first time (makes me a relative newbie), not when she got repossessed, but watched that too. Have had a few breaks over the years when I had other things going on in my life. But, fast forward from then to now. In one part of my career life, I had worked counselling adults in a college setting and of course, keeping up on professional training goes with that. One of the things that we started to examine at the time was FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders). We did have some clients with FASD. They were not bad people. Often they had the entire psychology lingo down better than I did. They had been to more therapists who tried to help them deal with their issues than many could even remember. Some knew their diagnosis. Others, it was not caught but some of my coworkers were suspicious. So, we went to conferences to get a handle on it. We found out that it was one of the only preventable conditions. It does not belong to one particular type of people, it does not belong to one race, and it does not belong to one socioeconomic status. It can make a difficult future for many people growing up with it. What, in the world does this have to do with the soap opera you say? First, you also need to know; the one thing that is necessary for a child to develop FASD is maternal drinking of alcohol during pregnancy though currently there has been some suggestion it could potentially also be paternal drinking of alcohol. There is NO safe amount or time for the expectant mother to drink alcohol. https://camh.ca/en/health-info/mental... It is not necessary for the mother to be an alcoholic...it’s not a disease of alcoholics. It is simply necessary for the mother not to know, or to forget or be uninformed. It is not a parent blaming thing. It is a fact. Parents don’t try to harm their children for the most part.

So, where does this information come in that made me so very upset? I saw a scene where 3 young women were getting together to celebrate an anniversary with some of their partners. They sit and have champagne. Later the same young woman who said she’d take some after a hesitation told her sisters that she thought she was pregnant. My mouth fell open. They were literally showing a young woman accepting alcohol thinking that she was pregnant. I literally blew a couple of gaskets and freaked out. I was beside myself with upset that they would allow this to go on a show…especially since it is supposed to be about a hospital. The writers could not know. I don’t know if anyone saw the posts, but I was definitely on a rant. Rant I did to anyone who would listen. It is not to say that a child growing into an adult with FASD could not be successful. I’m sure many are, but a great many also struggle. With so many disabilities and so many children that have to struggle growing up, this is the one thing that we can educate people on and save millions of babies and their parents a lot of heartache. I apologize for those who are successful living with FASD, but I was beyond relieved when they made her pregnancy a false alarm and I hope there is a note up on the walls of the writing team to never ever do that again or have a pretty strong story line about FASD…and yes, that is an option. What makes me afraid is that in the process, in that one moment, other women might not know. In fact, I’d be super excited if they wanted to make a story-line of someone planning to be pregnant and inform everyone in some nice sophisticated soap opera way that both spouses were abstaining from alcohol because they wanted to give their baby the best chance at a healthy and happy future. Maybe give a little info on FASD, birth defects and parental drinking. In the show they have a resident student (TJ) and his partner might be a good way to start this difficult conversation. I’m sure they could save millions of babies in so doing and save millions of parents from heart break.

Wait! Back up; did I just say both parents? Why would I say that? There is some connection between fathers drinking and other issues for the baby. https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/eve... To write this part, I honestly had to look it up. Early in my career, it seemed the focus was mostly on maternal drinking. They thought it was just the mother that had to be careful. I had read something about ADHD/ADD more currently about men drinking (this is not the particular article), but the idea came up in a conversation once and I checked it out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30353... does talk a bit about it. So, people were mainly focused on the affects of maternal drinking early on for obvious reasons. Even in the time since I was attending conferences; there has been more research on the topic. So, both maternal and paternal drinking can have affects on the baby.

Sorry, I’m not being judgmental. There just is no good way to protect everyone’s feelings and still get the facts out. It is not about mother and father, it is about giving the baby the best chance they have of being healthy and happy. The article, https://www.healthychildren.org/Engli... does give the good news that there is not a genetic component as such and even a woman who has FASD can have a healthy child without FASD as long as she does not drink alcohol during pregnancy. The reason it is a preventable disorder is because of the lack of genetic factors.

Now, I’m going to bring you to one of the conferences I attended. A woman got up on the stage. They had social workers and other professionals who were involved. She looked very professional. We thought she was a presenter. She got up on stage and started to talk about her child. Her child had FASD. She had gotten drunk in college, gotten pregnant and her child was born with FASD. I still remember this many years later. Yes, she was a presenter, but she was also a mother of a child with FASD. As I say, there are no socioeconomic boundaries etc.; there is nothing but drinking alcohol that can cause FASD. The saying at the time I was taking conferences was…they can talk the talk; they just can’t walk the walk. Often as kids, they can get into situations that are inexplicable. They are not bad kids. Some have trouble with moral judgment and there is where the confusion about consequences and such comes in. It can cause a lot of serious trouble. There may be large discrepancies between what they say and what they do. It all depends on the degree of the disability. They may know what you want to hear. They may not understand some things that you think they should. Sometimes memory is a problem and they can be creative in their explanation of their situations in life (confabulation), in other words, they don’t have a true memory of the event and so they fill it in. This article gives you the more professional definition https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/.... This is different from actual lying as they don’t intend to deceive. If you want more information, the articles in the blog post and podcast will be a starting point for learning more.

Much to my relief, a few days later, she announces to her partner that she is not pregnant. I’m not being cruel…I had worried about the effects on society from the one scene. It might not mean anything particular to much of the world, but it should. I still do find it upsetting because there is so little direct information given to people. I only hope if they make plans to have a baby in their fictional world (because that seems the way it is going) that they find out about what they need to do to have a happy healthy baby. I hope they communicate it and thereby use the reality of their world to make a positive change to the reality of our world. At the same time, as the following article points out, https://preventionconversation.org/20... “We don’t hear about those [people with FASD] that are doing well, have jobs, and are raising children,” “There’s a lot of stigma attached to the disability, so I think once we get past that, we probably will talk about it.” Of course that was a 2017 article and I’m seeing this scene in 2023. I counselled in the late 1990’s. I really think we need to move past the stigma and start talking sooner than later. So, please don’t let stigma, fear, and lack of clear language muddy the waters. We can’t change that there is a connection between alcohol consumption by parents and FASD. Don’t let that blind us to recognizing that we can do something about it. We need to have the tough conversations. As the article also points out, parents don’t usually do things to try to harm their kids. So, if we inform people, many could have a somewhat easier future. Life is hard enough; the world is not always a forgiving place.

The following article shows FASD from the eyes of parents and from the person who has FASD. This might be the best teacher of what the issues can be and how proper supports can make a world of difference. Of course one has to recognize that each and every case is different and different approaches may be needed. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/stori... . If there is any take away from this, it is that there is a connection between drinking and pregnancy. It is not something parents are doing to harm their child. It is something that can nonetheless. Lack of information is not only detrimental to families who want to have a baby, but also if the child has a disability, you do them no service by not understanding the issues. We don’t do them service by placing them in situations which will end in failure or worse. So, whether General Hospital decides to have a story line of children with FASD and show the whole spectrum of issues or if they decide to pass on more information about not drinking during pregnancy, I hope they will choose to continue to help educate people on mental health and health conditions. Until we get the proper information out and help for those who have FASD, then it is best to start with baby steps and get the information out. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...

Blog Posts are available on
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What we Focus on Matters

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at how what we focus on changes how we see things. This leaves with a ‘what comes first, the chicken or the egg’. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I find Twitter is an ever evolving and revolving door of information. You can get two people from the same age range, and you will get different attitudes and opinions. My biggest thrill on Twitter is finding people that I watched when I was a kid. They were the talent of the era and still active. I’m also very interested in the older comedians. I find many of the older comedians tended to avoid using a lot of profanity and were, as a result, I think, funnier than those that let the F-word do their talking. They had to find creative ways to say the same thing. They had to think about what they were saying. Their brilliance is legendary and they share their comedic gold. Of course there are also newer comedians and actors who maintain a fairly clean repertoire. Keeping up with their goings on is interesting and entertaining. Not sure if they appreciate that I comment on their posts. Of course if they totally hate me, they can get rid of my posts or block me. It’s a free internet community. I like the challenge of coming up with something…whether it passes the witty scale or not, I don’t know. It keeps the mind active.

In the following article (https://www.verywellmind.com/attitude...), they point out that “In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviours toward a particular object, person, thing, or event.” Perhaps my interest in actors from my time is because the shows we watched as kids were more positive in focus in some ways and lacked the vulgarity that seems more used today. We also knew that it wasn’t real and that they were actors playing roles. As much as this sounds pretty simplistic, I sometimes wonder if it is always the case now. We didn’t have the steady diet of violent video games. Parents were more concerned about disrespect toward authority that they felt came with some of the actors. As much as people don’t want to look at the violence and vulgarity in the media as contributing factors, children were more in view of their parents and the neighbourhood when I was growing up. So, my focus was developed as the article points out by experience and upbringing. So, these things are actually trained and thus, seems one can train oneself to change their focus. Some of my attitudes changed over time as I grew older and understood more from the world around me. This understanding is useful in areas where the focus is causing oneself harm. The article also contains a lot more information if you are interested in that area of psychology.

Now, this tells us where my interest in actors, comedians, and musicians comes from. Part of it was learned, part of it was experience. In this case, my interests are not harmful to myself so there is not a real need for change…unless all the actors, actresses, musicians, etc were to block me en masse. However, I do have other interests…though this brings me pleasure, and I hope to some who read the comments a bit of a giggle from time to time; it is not something I have to rush to change. On the other hand, my dislike of politics leaves me rather lost in what is going on in current events so I developed just enough knowledge to not be totally oblivious to the political stuff. So, I have reframed the topic into current events so I’m not as annoyed on the topic. I’m not that interested in politics other than as something I comment on in general. My focus is more on finding the issues that are blocking points for political work. I pick out the unrealistic and the absurd because that makes for fodder for my thoughts. They can also be more informed and I know what bothers me about the situations.

So, it does appear that the learning comes before the thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions and may be the creative force behind them. In other words, we create our reality. This is important because it tells us why there are so many different attitudes out there. Our reality isn’t necessarily the same as the reality of the next person. It is something that we can learn in various ways. The good news is that what you can learn, you can replace with new learning if it is maladaptive. This is especially important to someone who finds themselves focused on the negative. This is not to say that things are all great. But too much focus on the negative can create negative stress in your life and you feel out of control. With the huge amount of information out there that is available, one can find what the stumbling blocks are for themselves. What are the thoughts that one spent a lifetime learning that no longer serve you? https://www.verywellmind.com/what-hap... suggests that there are some potential drawbacks to having a negative outlook which can include becoming physically ill. They also give some advice on how to deal with focus or negative thoughts that you don’t want.

As Doc Childre is credited with saying, “Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment based on what you are feeling and thinking. That is what’s real.” This is the crux of the association between feelings and thinking…it is a form of creation. You can’t recreate the exact same moment because you are creating it with the new addition of the reality that you created at the time and the new reality since that time. It is an ever evolving and revolving door of creation and renewal. You can choose to recreate yourself and recreate your understandings at any time. They are a part of your reality and it is possible to change that reality. You can never go back to the past and change a moment. Your only option is to create new moments. After reading this blog post or listening to the podcast, you will never be the same. You will know that you have a reality. You now know that you can create your reality and you can change your reality. Of course, there is some shared reality that overlaps this great process.

If you don’t like your current reality, you can make changes that will give you a chance at a better reality. You have the power to seek the change that you want to live. This does not mean that the reality will be accepted by everyone. It never did. No matter what, you are still responsible for the outcome of your reality. Some people will agree with your thoughts and some will not. Nicholas Sparks is quoted as saying, “Emotions come and go and can’t be controlled so there’s no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions since in the end it was actions that defined everyone.” I see this as pointing out that we will have feelings about things. We may or may not like things…but it isn’t our feelings that will have us judged, it is our actions that will be judged. There is a lot to the whole argument and much more than can be addressed in a blog post and podcast of 10-15 minutes. This gives you a taste and a starting point. A book that has dealt with the idea of feelings and thoughts, in my day was “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy” by Burns. I’m not sure if it is still considered relevant. I’ve been retired for a number of years so there might be better resources nowadays. What I know that is still relevant is that thoughts, feelings and actions are all interconnected as are the reasons I like the old actors, actresses, comedians and musicians. They were my reality and created wonderful memories for me and I enjoy trying to be a small part of theirs. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
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iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

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Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I explore the theme of shooting fish in a barrel as it applies to current events. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes humour is like shooting fish in a barrel. I guess to be fair, where to start nowadays is in giving the definition because I’m not sure who understands these ancient terms. Shooting fish in a barrel is more or less doing something that is an easy task for you. This link goes to an article that gives a fuller definition https://english-grammar-lessons.com/l.... I find that everyday life gives a lot of ammo for shooting fish in a barrel. Almost anything political can fit. There is a lot of back and forth. Some of the political stuff going on gives a fresh playground daily. It’s not that it’s really funny or not; it is more that it’s either laugh or cry at the situation. https://ca.news.yahoo.com/stephen-col... is one version of what can be done with huge political questions. It addressed a bit of the attack on the capitol from Jan 6, 2021 (and yes it is still in the news and being argued over) and the various information shared by the other side. It also covers the ‘stealing of the election’. Quite honestly, it is parallel to the white wash some try to give the calling of the Emergency Act in Canada for the Convoy. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poec.... I saw excuses posted about it being peaceful. However, I know that the emergency act was not called just because someone did something highly disrespectful and disgusting on a monument to the Unknown Soldier. I’m pretty sure it had to do with the threats of violence to some. Being unhappy with some act is one thing, but taking over a town, threatening lives, and then getting caught transporting guns over the boarder seems to me, a relatively good reason to call in the troops.

Now, the Government is a great testing ground for humour. For instance, they have people dying in ER’s in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (not funny). There is a lack of doctors. The one Province trying to open a medical school, they are fighting against it https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/p-e-i-hea.... Though their concerns are valid, there is also the chance that they might start training at least physician assistants which would be a two year program and pick up some of the slack. In other words, short term pain might equal long term gain. The school could move forward with further training including doctors as they get more medical staff trained. No one said they had to run everything for everyone right away…it might have to be one step at a time due to the huge deficit in medically trained staff. It becomes both a political fight and a medical fight and a personal nightmare. Yes, they are right, it could be hard sledding. In the meantime, (and now we get to the sort of funny part) the Premiers in Atlantic Canada https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/atlantic-... have added a physician registry. This is interesting, and potentially useful if they want to recruit teaching doctors. Otherwise, one can see the major problem is that there are not enough doctors and medical personnel to go around. So, making it easy for doctors to move around might increase the doctors in the larger centres, but might not overall fix the problem. It’s like cutting the bottom off a blanket and sewing it on the top of the blanket and deciding that the blanket is longer. We have not created more doctors or medical staff; we’ve just made it easier for them to move around…you know the few we do have. Because we all know that they aren’t busy enough and really want to traffic between Provinces. I know they are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, but without having actual medical personnel increasing, we’re just moving the top of the blanket. We don’t have more blanket. So, if we actually get some extra cloth (doctors) to add to the blanket (health care system) then we can talk about where to move them around. Though, admittedly, some are incredibly pleased because someone can come and fill in for a time https://ca.news.yahoo.com/atlantic-ca.... However, as nice as the convenience is, there are still not enough doctors, so how will this fix the problem? It may help with fill-ins from time to time, but they are searching for doctors in almost every town and city in Atlantic Canada. The rest of Canada isn’t in a hugely better position. So, this does not fix the overall problem.

Of course, even as I write this blog post, the next politician shooting themselves in the foot appears directly in my Yahoo feed. I’m not joking, I sometimes look at my feed to see what I can find to add…and this article popped up at the top https://ca.yahoo.com/news/higgss-comm.... The article more or less states that Higgs (Premier) commented that more people could have family doctors if they took on more patients? Though I guess there is some accuracy to that statement, the logic is somewhat difficult to see. Apparently, we cannot see the forest for the trees. OK, for those out there who totally don’t understand the situation we need more medical professionals. There are not enough doctors to see all the patients…this is why there is a health care crisis. Otherwise, we could rename it the health care slight inconvenience. It seems, and I hate to say this, but there are some Provinces that are so poorly run they want to cut the feet out from under the doctors and have them put on their heads to use the blanket analogy. There is a tone deafness in some political arenas that becomes frightening. There is a medical staff personnel shortage, not a shortage of patients. So, apparently the reason they are so calm about this is a revision of Kipling’s ‘If’, “When you keep your head when everyone about you is losing theirs, maybe you don’t understand the situation” by Bob Rigley. At least that is my hope. They better figure out what the actual situation is and fast or we have a bigger crisis on our hands. People aren’t dying in ER’s because doctors don’t care. They are dying in ER’s and not getting service because there aren’t enough of them in Canada. Either we need to train some medical personnel or we’re going to be in for things getting worse.

Of course, unlike medical staff, the tone deafness isn’t at a premium in the political sphere. Most of it hits the news from the USA, but fear not; here in Canada, we are not immune to it. https://globalnews.ca/news/9479312/in... shows just one more case of politicians putting their foot in their mouth. Albeit Smith has done it on more than one occasion and disappointed First Nations people. Sometimes one just shakes their heads because one wonders what someone was thinking. It is not that they are particularly bad people in some respects I’m sure. But unless they learn to find a way to say what they mean and not alienate whole swatches of people, they will find themselves in thorny situation after thorny situation. It becomes obvious that some really do need to have someone read over their statements before they make them and ask them is this really what they want to put forth…and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they don’t care and it is better to offend a bunch of people to make another bunch happy. I’m never sure when it comes to the political arena.

As Anais Nin is quoted as saying, “When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.” It is this which causes a lot of trouble in both life and politics. Politicians are fixated on their party line and this can cause them to become oblivious to the actual problems of their County, Province or State. They have to toe the party line. If that includes religion, then they have to make both happy. It would be better that each politician had no party and that they had solely to serve their fellow man. But, then there is money, tradition and democracy on their side. How many civilizations crumble because no one understands the problem and only use political speak? Worse, it seems when there is an actual crisis some try to downplay it to the detriment of all.

As Plato is credited with saying, “Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.” And that in a nutshell is why life is hard. It’s also why comedians can make a good living. Just going through the news feed on any given day gives people a taste of the truth of this quote from Plato. It’s been going on for centuries…if even Plato had complaints about it. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
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Eyes in the Skies

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. There are some things in the news that have a different perspective. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

It occurred to me today that all the questions about the weather balloons missed a point. I’m thinking, why are they going on about weather balloons…because really, what does a weather balloon do and where does it go? This can’t be as stupidly simple as it appears. Those cracking jokes must be missing something, but what? My first step was to see what weather balloons normally do. This is a question given little air time. It’s easier to crack jokes. Humour is great; it helps alleviate stress…at least if it doesn’t create harm. On the other hand, I often find that reality is weirder or more explanatory than fiction. Though I do enjoy a healthy dose of humour, I also like a dose of reality from time to time. The following article discusses just that. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/scien... suggests that air balloons do start out 6 ft approximately, but grow to 20 feet. There is also the fact that they are pretty highly regulated. They must “follow strict Federal Aviation Administration protocols” (from the article). They further state that these balloons tend to only go 30-35 miles from their launch site. They have a technical gadget that is attached to it. After the 30-35 miles area, the balloon bursts and the ‘payload’ drops. There is not a weather balloon (official type) that is not tracked. For those who wonder, this was not a hard search. I Googled for the main trajectory for a weather balloon and it popped up (no pun intended but I’m good with getting a laugh out of it too).

Further information can be obtained from other articles. https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-res.... This article also suggests that one needs permissions to float them. There are requirements. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/weath... suggests that the furthest a weather balloon has been recorded is 180 miles and fly above aircraft navigation and yes, also need permissions. So, far this does not seem like the standard weather balloon. The distance between China and Alaska is given to be 3883.4 miles or 6249 KM well beyond the standard weather balloon. (http://distancebetween2.com/alaska/china) . So, I know many think Government run institutions are stupid, but I’m going to make a grand and sweeping assumption that they aren’t that stupid and know about weather balloons and have a general radius in which they would expect to find most of them with neat little markings with known objects I would imagine. However, at the same time, they can’t completely rule out anything until they have the data analyzed from the items. If they speak too quickly and are wrong about what it is, then they will be called out. If they refuse to release information until they are sure, they are called out.

All the online information also brings us to an alternative question. It appears that there are instructions online on how to make weather balloons including approximate costs. I have the metlink (https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-res...) article listing what is needed. It’s not a cheap project, by any means. It does also point out a need for registering it. So, when more than one unidentified object appears over Canada and the United States, all jokes aside, this can be quite disconcerting. This suggests either a lot of accidents or purposeful action. Time does indicated that there are other objects out there including drones which are used for research https://time.com/6255436/balloons-ufo... . Now a quick look up of drone requirements in Canada (for research) https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsi... shows that there are some exemptions, but for the most part, it requires some information about the activity to be filed. This is not the same for non-commercial use, but even that is restricted. Admittedly they are still working on the requirements and restrictions, but it is not a total free for all. There are also regulations for them in USA air space https://www.faa.gov/uas. Could they be errant drones? Anything is possible. However, I would think, since NORAD has been involved in security since 1958 (https://www.canada.ca/en/department-n...) it might be less likely to miss little details. I’m guessing this suggests that they have a little experience in identifying more than just Santa flying over the North Pole.

The Time article (https://time.com/6255436/balloons-ufo...) also suggests that there could be some involvement of private commercial companies to test wifi or broadband (the Government spokesperson has mentioned something of this nature since I started this blog post). This does bring us to the point that most of these flying things need to be in some way recorded unless meeting certain criterion. If not, then the people doing it need to have better research and development teams. It’s going to cost them a lot of money having their stuff shot down over the country. It will also cost tax payers a lot of money blowing them out of air space. Just a hint for any companies that might be considering this method of testing stuff without following proper channels, you could be shot down. If you are a danger to air traffic (which at least was the case on one situation where they shot down something over Canada) and you are not registering your company’s drone, you might be wasting a lot of money…both your company and tax payer money.

There are also satellites and other things in various orbits. https://aerospace.csis.org/aerospace1... and there are also spy balloons. Now, this leaves one wondering if they are going to have spy balloons out there from the USA, would they also be shooting down their own balloons. This does not seem logical. However, there is possibility. It is always possible that between US and Canadian counterparts and NORAD, we blew one of our own balloons up. Not the case with the one from China…and if it was simply a weather balloon as suggested, how did it travelled so far? We need to develop that kind of technology if so. Our weather forecasters need the extra help. The other thing about so many different types of satellites leaves the question as well whether these were simply space debris that was unidentified. Will they get them and find that they were part of an old satellite system. You see, much like garbage from the earth, we have not been all that completely careful at cleaning up after ourselves in outer space either.

Of course that also seems to leave us with a lot more possibilities than we can easily handle in a short blog post and podcast. Time leaves us with the notion that it could even be extraterrestrial. I have to be honest with this. With all the possibilities of what the stuff out there was, with all the explanations of what it could be, and with all the talk in previous generations of extraterrestrial space craft being so fast and well equipped compared to modern human equivalents, I have my doubts that we would have gotten close enough to shoot them down. Maybe we’re just seeing the outcome of our messy existence as human beings or spy crafts or maybe someone advertising their latest blog post. As William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet states, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
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Life a Many Splintered Things or “My Thing of the Week”

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I take a look at some of the current events and their potential messages. I also look at attitudes and where things are falling off the rails…it becomes pretty evident seeing the events and messages in general. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

This week has been a smorgasbord of strange things in my feed. Late in January a balloon flew over parts of Canada and into the USA. People seem to have mixed feelings on it. However, when it comes to tensions between countries, it is nothing to sneeze at when you see things flying over your area. There seems a lack of people actually reading the news coverage because they do speak as to why it wasn’t shot down over Canada…whether or not we like the reason is immaterial. Before jumping to conclusions, it might be a good idea to determine exactly what the purpose of the balloon was. Most often, such things are passed through Government channels and this is why, when things come out of the blue, people tend to become worried. There have been some indications since I last read that it might be a weather balloon, however, there really needs to be confirmation of the purpose. This brings us to why they need to analyze it. I am guessing that nowadays, since you can’t trust much of what comes out of some Governmental mouths, confirmation is a good idea. https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/why-w... gives the reason it was not shot down in Canada. You don’t have to like or agree with it, but they did give one. Often with these sorts of events, it is a darned if you do and darned if you don’t situation. Some will scream about it one way and some the other. But, apparently it didn’t get tweeted and so no one purports to know it. This, if it doesn’t fit in social media or in a Tweet, it is an issue being ignored is rather interesting and shows the move toward bite sized answers and instant gratification that seems to be the norm. Is it healthy is the important question. With all the information being set out, people don’t know what to think and often don’t bother to find out. People need to be less interested in bite sized information and actually look at what is going on. You can’t possibly know everything. It is important for them to find the balloon and figure out was it, indeed as suggested, a weather balloon that went off course. However, it is also interesting that this is not the first one. Time will tell what the resolution will be.

My next thing of the week was the Grammy Awards. I actually don’t watch the awards as I am more old school music and just catch highlights later. This year I found that there was a pretty thin line between some of the best and worst dressed. Adele had a classic number on…classy never gets old for those of you who wonder. What I did notice is that half or more of the artists I didn’t recognize. I’m pretty sure that the Grammy Awards are not something I would watch for fashion tips. https://ca.style.yahoo.com/grammys-20... gives a glimpse of the best and worst dressed. I either no longer understand fashion or Grammy party goers no longer understand fashion. I know that sometimes fashion is about shocking people, but I prefer mine to be wearable. You see, my problem is that I never considered putting on strips of cloth to be a fashion statement. In most of Canada it wouldn’t even be a wise choice. I know in ancient times it may have been top of the line haute couture, but I prefer my clothing to be wearable and in mid-February warm is a plus. Then I also ignore the over 45 should or should not wear or grow their hair this way or that sorts of things. Wearing a nude dress with underwear never hit me as a viable fashion choice. I did however, create a ‘nude’ dress (flower pattered but flimsy) … but I did wear it over actual black t-shirt and shorts in mid-summer to feel cooler and have a dress on.

This brings me to the latest thing which approaches kids giggling over side-boob. This brings me back to the days when the old calculators had 8008…and the kids laughed and laughed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcula... In our defense, we were maybe 12 at the time and this was pretty big stuff. We were just getting into the ‘technical age’ where we had calculators (no computer access then) that we could use in science class. We still were not allowed unfettered use of calculators and had to learn how to do math without one first. Some of the stuff they wore brings that back to mind. Now back to the Grammy Show and my feelings on the ‘fashion’ of today. Don’t get me wrong, I guess you are ‘legally’ entitled to wear whatever you want. The real question is should you? First of all, it’s the middle of February. I know that in some areas of the USA, the weather is less frigid than the -40’s with wind-chill we got late last week. But, just on the practical side of things, one could catch a chill. Now the style of the plaid body suit, it was an unusual choice. Again, if you’ve ever worn a body suit, the practical problem is to use the facilities you pretty much have to disrobe. No one wants that kind of problem. You got to hold the arms up so they don’t drag on the bathroom floor. It could be that bathrooms are less prone to be messy in rich venues than in regular ones…albeit he did reduce that problem by it having limited top to worry about. I have a dress made out of jeans that I wear…but not to town…if I have to use facilities, I don’t want to have to balance the top and complete the … um…transaction and I wear a shirt of some sort under it. This lack of top brings us back to the concern of catching a draft. My Grammy instinct kicks in and I want to say, honey put on a sweater with that. I must be real old as I am not sure the fuss about Madonna, other than the crop her outfit was really pretty decent. I’m not sure if this is more suggestive of the fact that I’m now old and don’t understand fashion or if I missed the point...except that she might have partaken in some rejuvenation stuff or needed treatment with steroids either way, not my business. On the plus side, I don’t have to be seen in public in some of the outfits that hit the red carpet. For that I thank my lack of talents and the academy that I don’t get recognized.

The next event that grabbed my attention was that it appears, at one time, people went to official speeches by people like the President and listened respectfully. They might or might not have liked it. If they had something to say about it after the fact, they would do so to the media or where ever. When did it become acceptable to heckle people loudly in public speeches? It’s one thing to disagree with policy and with people. It is quite another to go and make a ruckus in a crowd. It just cheapens the whole process. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo.... This seems to be something that has become more prevalent in the past few years. It cheapens the credibility of the system that it purports to support by showing people a poor example of behaviour. I cannot say that there is one side or the other that is at fault…they both seem to be displaying this in the US speeches over the past few years. There seems a lack of manners when it comes to different things. I see it daily in some feeds. This lack of thought and manners becomes ever clearer after seeing a question that focuses on someone being forced to interact with a child who is not popular. You think the world would have ended. Everyone seemed to think it was perfectly fine to exclude children based on some characteristic rather than suggesting that someone work with the child and help them fit in carefully. It was an issue when I was a child as well. I don’t think that the school or the kids, and certainly not the parents give much consideration to the damage to the child being excluded. So, if the teacher, the parents and the peers shouldn’t do anything, then who would you suggest should? I’m not saying that they should make the kid their best buddy, but couldn’t they have some kind of interaction that is monitored. Could they not create some sort of potential for some success for the ostracized child? It’s very sad that we nowadays act like it is OK to hate others based on factors they cannot change. That we ‘care’ when it suits us, but not when it doesn’t attitude is what hamstrings chances to deal with issues early.

https://percolately.com/parent-pulls-... gives the story. The focus seems the sad thing. It focuses on whether they were right in making the trip a fight between popular and unpopular kids. The child that is shown as the outcast is further ostracized in the process and all but forgotten by the readers. This should have been dealt with early in the term. If they have buddies, should be everyone having them. If not, no point to it. How it would entail that the child wouldn’t be able to be with her friends as well is a mystery to me. The school handled it poorly, the parents handled it poorly. The child is still stuck in the corner and being ostracized. There was no understanding of the actual issues. It just hit me as sad all the way around. No one thinks about the outcast kid and how this will affect them. Just could have had a different ending. Details come out later on after people started to complain…about it only being their child required this. Not sure what training they give teachers nowadays, but the whole thing seemed rather sad. It shows we’re still fighting the same battles and doing the same things as they did 50 years ago, but with fewer skills.

So, it seems sometimes there is little thought given to others unless it is convenient. When it becomes inconvenient then disrespect to everyone. Respect is used as a battle cry with no consideration for what we are freeing? What are we teaching our kids about caring? Are we teaching them to care selectively about our fellow humans? Are we training them to see only the side of the one that is the loudest and feels most put upon? Are we training people to find bite sized information and if not, then it doesn’t exist? Could we look at such situations from a third or even fourth perspective to give the chance for everyone to be successful rather than good/popular vs. naughty/unpopular? Could the parents have done a better job by getting together and trying to resolve an obvious issue with socializing for a child rather than taking the easy way out and salve their consciences on Reddit? The answers are up to you. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...

Blog Posts, Podcasts, YouTube, & Writing Thoughts

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I look at some of the myths that exist in the area of blogging, podcasting and being an author and/or YouTuber. There seems to be some expectations out there that are unrealistic. Why do I not find myself making money? Why do I keep doing it? If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Some weeks it is easier to come up with a blog post and podcast than others. Last week, something in the news tweaked me. This week…I’ve been kind of searching topics hoping something would appeal to me. There are so many things in the news and in entertainment…but nothing I really feel I could make a whole blog post and podcast of. It might just be my thing and there might be a ton of stuff for someone else. Then I saw a topic that I thought would fit nicely for me. First, I have to admit; I do what I do with the blog post, podcast and the e-books I had written because I loved being productive. I love putting my thoughts down somewhere. It used to be on paper, when I was in my teens. Now it’s via the keyboard onto my word processing program. I then take that and put the typed format onto my various forums. I think there is a difficulty with the reality of blogging podcasting YouTube creating and writing and many start and stop with good reason. It seems that many people start out thinking they will make lots of money at it. At least I knew this wasn’t likely. I’m not writing this to discourage anyone, but rather as a reality check on how important it is to love what you do and start small scale.

My first work was done because I had made some e-books and wanted to enter into the social media world in order to act as publicity for A & J PEI Treasures. It was during the early days of the pandemic. I thought I might be able to make a little money on the side with e-books and I thought to become somewhat known. I also thought it was a good way to showcase my little area of the Province. I had originally wanted to go about and do things with various areas and places and give a glimpse of island life. The pandemic made that unavailable to me. I loved the idea of what I could do. So, that takes care of the reason I do it. Of course there were issues. I ended up having my e-books taken down on Amazon, put up, taken down. Pieces of my e-books got misused. I got frustrated and after many requests for help, finally took them off Amazon and from extension, left Amazon entirely. It was a huge exercise in frustration and nothing was selling anyway. I didn’t go the traditional publishing route because I believed in the new forum…but then there were other issues, during the pandemic including many ‘fake e-books existed and some abused the forum. I still have my e-books on Smashwords, but even that, was a lot of frustration. I have to check them again to make sure they are still there. I got to the point that the frustrations and the problems and hackers made me far less enthusiastic about the forum. That explains why I have not worked too hard on other e-books, though I still have some on the back burner. Now that I have that out of the way, I will divide this blog post and podcast into sections for blog posts, podcasts, e-books and YouTube.

Blog Post
https://raelyntan.com/how-much-do-blo... suggests that over 50% of bloggers make less than $100 per month and many make nothing or next to nothing. Some other surveys show larger numbers that don’t make money on it. One has to be realistic about the fact that you may or may not earn anything doing a blog post no matter what work you put into it. Are you going to want to continue it if it is not profitable? Yes, there are people who make it in the blogsphere. It never hurts to try if it is an interest for you and I continue because I do seem to have some readers and I might find something useful to put out there yet. I would suggest that you don’t go out on a limb and take out loans to do it. Try it out. You can find free accounts to ‘wet your feet’ if this is something you really want to try. I use the WordPress free account. It allows me the freedom to write. I don’t do the ‘pay’ stuff because I have $0 budget to work with. I do all my own work, all my own writing. I don’t make any money, and I keep it a weekly blog post. Would I like to make money from any of my enterprises? Of course I would, I’m not saying it would not be exciting or that I wouldn’t be thrilled if I could, but to be realistic, I’m not a star, I’m not famous and there is no reason anyone would have to read what I put down. So, that gives a short idea of the ability to make it in the ‘blogsphere’.

Podcast
There isn’t a nice graphic to show the percentages of people making nothing or next to nothing in podcasting. https://castos.com/how-much-money-can... is brutally honest and tells you most starting out don’t make anything and buying equipment can be expensive. https://riverside.fm/blog/how-much-do... gives a guess of $300-$500 per 10,000 downloads. Currently, I show, on my Anchor page, I have 10 plays per podcast and 8 listeners. Thank you to my listeners. There is an all time play of 1,674 plays of my podcast via Anchor. I might have more via other forums. Yup, you guessed it, not a huge money maker in fact $0. They suggest that often the ones making money have a sponsor. Now, unless you get 10,000 downloads, it’s probably unlikely you’re going to make a lot of money on podcasting unless you can find a sponsor. I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of sponsors for 8 listeners. I keep it going because it isn’t costing me more…and obviously, I already have the blog post ready. It gives anyone options for viewing or listening. I also embed it into my blog post for anyone who wants both methods available on one platform.

This is another forum that they suggest can break the bank. Let me save you a little money if you want to try it out. I use a desktop computer. It has a plug in for a mic. My husband bought me my first mic in the discount bin at an auction house. I still use it. Sure, you can go into debt and buy all this equipment and hope to make back enough money to keep it going. If you are low budget and want to try it out, then there are cell phones and other implements that you can do it with. I honestly cannot recommend going all in on any of the forums. It is important to test the waters. See if there are people who might be interested in what you have to say. Of course, I come from the old school where you don’t spend a lot of money you don’t have. In the area of Podcasting there are also free forums. The one I use is Anchor. It allows me to do my podcast and distributes to other sites. I again, am one of those podcasters that makes $0. At the same time, the outlay was the price of a second hand mic.

YouTube
With YouTube, you have to have at least 1,000 followers in order to be eligible and 4,000 hours of viewing in the past year to even qualify to make anything. One family member came and saw our videos and was asking about which ones we made money from. Much to their surprise we don’t even meet criterion to be able to and it isn’t based on views of a couple of videos. Some areas it may be easier to do this and some areas have larger potential audiences than others. Some types of videos will appeal to a wider audience. https://mint.intuit.com/blog/relation... gives a rundown of the how much YouTubers make. After running the A & J PEI Treasures website, with weekly Montage videos and the odd craft, DIY etc video, we have yet to reach the required number of followers or views to qualify to monetize. In this, I also suggest caution. I have my old Kodak camera. We have very slow internet speed, so cannot make long videos. I would suggest in this too, it is best to test the waters. Don’t buy expensive equipment to start one. A cell phone, or a camera with video capability and some editing software most of which comes with the computer can be a good start to try out the forum to see if it is for you.

E-books
I have stuck to the e-book method so I cannot really speak for actual publishers. I could not afford to go with a ‘vanity press’ method either. So, I speak from the viewpoint of e-books. It seems that the go to for a goodly proportion of people is Kindle. For this reason, I will go from what I see in other articles. https://publishingperspectives.com/20.... It is not incredibly confusing that my e-books did very little…not only are the number of people doing e-books and books in general overwhelming, but many aspiring authors don’t make a lot of money according to the article. In this, again, I caution that one not go crazy in buying stuff if you’re just getting started. First start out small and if you decide to go e-book, then try out one of the sites that appeal to you. When it came to the e-books, I did all the work for my e-books myself. I got them formatted properly (and still they did not always load perfectly in any forum I used). I have tried several of them. It did not seem to mean anything with respect to the number of e-books I sold. I also caution that they want your SIN and when starting out, if you are aspiring, it seems something excessive to ask given small sales. With the number of sales of my e-books, it was not worth the risk in putting it on the internet. My SIN is something which I am not keen to divulge online and if you aren’t selling large numbers, it does not seem the most necessary information for them to have. Kindle states that it doesn’t even pay out under a certain amount of sales…at least at the time I was with them. My sales never officially met their criterion. It is rather a turn off with regard to the E-book format that they push for sensitive documentation. One could present their work to actual publishers and see how it goes. If you’re determined to be an author, keep working at it. I can tell you from my experience, that e-books are essentially unrecognized and less respected. At this time, I still have some work on the back burner and might pick it up again at another time. I might even decide to try to send to a publisher…but ‘vanity publishing’ is not in my future.

This is just a quick overview of the multiple forums that I continue to use. Often the costs make it difficult for those who wish to work in one of the forums but it is not impossible. The fact that many get an unrealistic view of the forums and their potential causes a lot of broken dreams. If you keep realistic about it you can take the vicissitudes of social media in stride. Not everyone and not everything that is online will get huge views; you may or may not become the next big. The likelihood is more in the might not end of the spectrum. My Twitter has progressed from a forum I seriously tried to put my work in front of people to something that I do for fun, put up the stuff we do at A & J PEI Treasures and my own stuff. I have moved to playing with celebrities that I admired from childhood into adult life. I do make some comments on some political things if I think there is a possibility of helping the Province move forward. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. I mostly use it to view thoughts, ideas, concepts and share them. Of course, you might or might not agree with me, but it’s not a requirement and if I feel the situation is not good for me or the other I’m interacting with, I move on wishing them well. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...

Forerunners, Fluidity of Concepts & Importance of Information

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at blogs, podcasts and concepts of disinformation and misinformation. Are they relevant? I explore it from my own perspective of their historical relevance. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I have seen blogs exploring the relevance of blogs. I found the concept interesting. At the same time, it made me want to consider it from a historical perspective. You see from a historical perspective, blogs are not exactly as new as they seem and if my logic is correct, they could have more future impacts than their writers could have foreseen. First, you must consider that people have been journaling since ancient China and ancient Arabia and before, at least in the written form https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/08/ma.... There have been journals and diaries since written word, though at first, mostly written by famous rich people, religious groups and also by ladies and gentlemen of court. Later as it became more accessible and as that happened there were more of them. Famously, there was the Diary of Anne Frank who died in a concentration camp during the Second World War. Her father found her work and made it available. Her Diary has been, at least when I was in school, explored by kids as part of the accepted reading https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bib... . If one considers that often daily life was depicted in many of these writing forms, then if we look at cave drawings, does that not also show that people have been sharing their stories for as long as man could hold an implement to put their reality down on a surface so people could see it? So, we can go with the concept that putting down one’s thoughts, ideas, concepts and daily life has been around as long as humans have been able to think and record in any possible form.

Now as far as journals and diaries go, there are different uses for the two…whereas blog posts and podcasts can be used for the information that would come from either type. Now they are divided into genres to make things easier for people to find the type they are interested in. In the article, https://feltmagnet.com/drawing/Diary-... they state: “A diary is a book to record events as they happen. A journal is a book used to explore ideas that take shape.” Reading further into their descriptions, I see the topics related to many different blogs that are out there (you can see them in the article I link to above). Of course the podcast is the verbally delivered method of doing the same thing. We now have records of people who have survived the holocaust and soldiers from the WW recorded so that we keep their memories available. This was a precursor to podcasting. It has long been understood that the old journals and diaries in bygone days are now historically important documents as are the recordings to preserve history. Many give us a glimpse of the social and political discourse and thoughts of the time. As Sir Walter Scott is credited (also in the article) with saying, “What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.”

So, it seems that the value of the diary, journal, blog post, podcast may not be its immediate value in some cases, but in its potential value as a historical document to future generations. This is an interesting theoretical concept that gives a background and an idea of the importance of information recorded at the time of events. There is also the problem that goes with it. It is that people only see the viewpoint of the particular person and this may give a slanted view. It goes with the time that it was written and often people of importance would write from the viewpoint of their peers…very much like today. To historians, the diary of Samuel Pepys', (Diary (1660-1669)) gives a glimpse into Britain during the time of the Reformation and Great Fire of London. It is a historically important document now https://www.researchgate.net/publicat.... So, there is historical value to these documents that people had written centuries ago. Historians recognize that often, in the past, the historical information gives the viewpoints that were accepted at the time by the people of the time. There are diaries that were written during the Civil War and depending on which side, there are different viewpoints. The ability to look at the various viewpoints can provide history and modern student alike with a view of different sides of the issues of the time. It can also clarify some things.

These thoughts bring us to the idea that journals and diaries, and even walls of pyramids and earlier cave drawings might have served some purposes that could be historically relevant. People have realized this for some time. What has become more evident in recent history is that some of it might be misinformation and/or disinformation or propaganda as they also call it. Study of the WW’s has recognized this for quite some time by seeing both sides of the propaganda during the war and studying documents. It also occurred in ancient Egypt and one of the better known historic cases is that of the battle of Kadesh and Ramses’s take on it https://www.ingeniahistory.com/post/t.... Until historians looked at more sources, it was believed that he had a huge win against the Hittites; however, after looking at more sources, it is thought to be a draw at best. There is still some controversy over this. This shows the importance of examining different sources of information. It has resulted in such things as British Historians taking a different look at Tudor History, though some of it is through modern eyes which also can muddy the waters. I remember as a child, there is a painting that was agreed to be of Lady Jane Grey (nine days Queen), and more lately, they have changed their minds and think it is Katherine Parr. This too may change if more information reveals something else. So, not only are diaries and journals important to the understanding of history, but also helps us to trace where we have been and where we want to go. History can change as facts are revealed...including finding Richard III in the car park. Sometimes history and new information that is found can cause more controversy and sometimes resolves it.

I had seen something not long ago. It was a picture of a carved sow with people feeding from it, and it opened my eyes to the extent of misinformation and disinformation, though it has come under different names such as propaganda as well. I never really thought about it much, but did have a peripheral understanding that there was much of this going on during the World War II and it caused a lot of deaths. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/op.... It did not occur to me that they had various forms of it over time until I saw a picture and wondered about it. Though I know that there were some forms of it around for a long time, I had not thought about the extent of it. It never occurred to me that it would be carved in stone from the 13th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judensau discusses these forms of misinformation. The stone carved sow was part of a church and a definite proof of misinformation from the 13th Century in Europe. The thing that made this carved item stranger is the fact that it was of a sow and Jewish people drinking from it. This situation is not likely as both Jews and Muslim people tend to avoid pork. Why did I find all this information? I had wondered why a picture was tagged that it might be a ‘sensitive topic’. I didn’t know about this particular form of work and had actually thought it would have made more sense for it to have been a wolf that they were feeding from because of the association with Remus and Romulus and the myth of the founding of Rome. https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk... . Then I got more curious and wanted to know why it might be shown as potentially sensitive as Roman mythology didn’t seem to me anything that sensitive. So, for those who wonder why it might be offensive, now you know and for those who are interested in the form of misinformation, now you know. There is no shame in not knowing something. You can always educate yourself. I ended up doing so. Mostly it is curiosity that drives me to find out why something is or isn’t seen as appropriate when I don’t know.

So, when we look at misinformation, disinformation, journals, diaries blog posts and podcasts as they impact upon present day, we can see that there are potential uses for these far beyond the actual current time. There are also potential pitfalls as misinformation has the ability to carry on negative information well into the future. These things can still create harm in the future as well. It also goes far beyond the actual life of the author and of the forum. It shows an ever changing and ever evolving landscape of ideas, concepts, and movement in the world. It shows an ever evolving understanding of ourselves and of humanity and it shows the potential for misunderstanding that can be created with misinformation/disinformation. I only hope that the movement continues to be forward in nature and we learn from the leaders who speak for tolerance, compassion, care and human dignity. We need to understand the importance of our thinking, the importance of where we’ve been and decide where we want our world to go. We can see the mistakes made by various figures over time. I hope that we use it as a learning experience and tool to work toward moving forward with greater wisdom. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
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E. Jean Simpson

I Have a Dream*

*Respect to Martin Luther King Jr. who started the steps toward freedom … now it’s time for us to continue his walk.

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at how we might make the world a better place. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

I entitled this “I Have a Dream” because I am seeing so much in the media lately suggesting that we respect some people, but it is selective. I also remembered Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday January 16th for 2023. It is interesting to note that this is historically a rather recent addition. “In honor of his birthday, MLK Day is celebrated on the third week of January every year. It was signed into law in 1983 and has been celebrated by all 50 states since 2000.” https://www.google.com/doodles/dr-mar... though they do note that his actual date of birth was January 15, this year it was celebrated on the 16th. Why is his day important? It is not just the celebration of the man, but a celebration of his life’s work which was cut short. His work was the start of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Google article. It is sad to see that we’re still fighting a lot of those same battles in 2023. There is still racial inequality. There is still discrimination based on colour, creed, religion and orientation as we are still seeing anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. Sometimes it feels like some politicians and some religious sorts care more about what is in someone’s pants (to use a sort of rude phrase) than what is in their hearts. This brings us back to Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic speech. When he delivered that speech in 1963, I was a baby in diapers. I’ve read it since. A lot of his speech talked about the freedoms that were not available at the time. One of these is the vote for minorities. There still seems to be a lot of controversy as to the availability of the vote for minority people. There are still other problems. Now, there seems to be a resurgence of problems with minority groups.

The statement from his I Have a Dream speech (which I reference from the article I have a linked to in my podcast write up and my blog post https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701... ) that has always resonated with me and which I found the most inspiring is. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” This has always resonated with me because it talks about people being judged by their character or as I would term it, judged by what is in their hearts. This is the crux of what I see freedom and freedom of speech to be about. People should have the freedom to show that they have a good character. Freedom is to show that you have care for your fellow humans and respect for yourself and others. You do not get to respect some people who are rich and disrespect some who are poor. You don’t get to respect someone who is straight and disrespect someone who is LGBTQ+. You don’t get to choose to disrespect people based on gender, race, religion or orientation. I have found with some politicians and some religious forms, there is a tendency to be more worried about how they present as far as gender and orientation go (or what I term what is in their pants) and less worried about what is in their hearts. What would Martin Luther King Jr. think about this? I don’t know. I would like to think that he would see it as an injustice, but 1963 was a different place and different time. He was arguing for civil rights in a time where people were being murdered for being a particular race, a time where he was murdered because he was standing up for civil rights in a place where they were still using some people as though slaves or worse. Sadly, it seems even these atrocities are still happening in 2023.

Almost 60 years ago, the words that Martin Luther King Jr. said, still ring true today. His words still show people the importance of tolerance and anti-discrimination. We still fight the same fight, though. We still do not have equality and we still have discrimination. Some are still treated as more worthy of life than others. Women are still treated as chattel in some areas. Some people are treated as less worthy because they happen to be different. You know, this was not always the case and not in every culture. This article gives a bit of information about some various cultures that had accepted LGBTQ+ as part of the culture including First Nations people. https://www.buzzfeed.com/claratsacwan... So, there was not always this fear of people who live differently, though it seems throughout the ages to have taken various forms and still does. What created it? Why do people tend to be afraid to accept difference? These sticking points, these fears that people obsessively stick to are destroying our world. They threatened to destroy a whole race of people during the World Wars though Jewish people were not the only ones targeted; they were the race most targeted by the concentration camps. It cost a lot of lives. It cost generations their children, grandchildren, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. The idea that someone is worthy of discrimination or that someone is sinful for having a different lifestyle only pits brother against brother, sister against sister and people against people. We talk about wanting to have a better world. Now the question we need to answer is what do we mean by that and what different world do we want to see? How do we get there? What do we need to change?

As Barack Obama is credited with saying, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” In this, he is correct. This better world that we want to see, it is not going to be changed with protests or with gluing oneself to art work. It will not change with violence and hate. It will only be able to be seen in every one of us taking up the challenge to be better people to improve how we react and act with each other. We cannot say we want a better world and then just sit around and wait for it to happen. It will not be created with violence or with hate for each other or oneself. It will be seen when we decide that there are many different people and that no matter what the religion, race, orientation or gender a person is, they are deserving of respect. It will not successfully be fought with weapons. It will be fought with kindness, respect, acceptance and tolerance and it will have to be fought by every one of us. Not just one group, not just one colour, not just one orientation, not just one gender. I too have a dream that all people no matter the race, colour, religion, orientation, gender, will learn to respect each other and then maybe we can begin to correct the other issues that are present. Until humans can work together, until we see each other as deserving of being able to be the best we can be in the best way that works for us, we are in a stalemate. You see the attitude in politics with the us versus them attitudes. Unless we decide to as John Lennon’s song says, “Give Peace a Chance”, we are never going to be able to move past our petty differences and into a new Golden Age!

As Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” This has been echoed in various forms by many influential people including Psychologist William James who is credited with saying, “The great revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” Toward this end, I argue that we will not be able to move forward productively unless we learn to change our mindset. We need to look at our thinking and examine the need to change our thinking about each other. We need to understand the importance of our thinking and how it is the one weapon we have that will help us to change our world. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
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Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

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How to Herd Cats…It Matters

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I talk about a mistake that many institutions may make. It’s easy to solve…if you are willing to relinquish some long held beliefs. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

Have you ever heard the saying it’s like herding cats? According to Gerald Holton, “Even in the best times, managing science has been compared to herding cats; it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.” The term herding cats means something that may be very difficult to accomplish because cats don’t tend to take well to direction…unless they want to. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dict.... The problem for many institutions is that many of them think they can run every department the exact same way as they run administrative types. This is wrong and causes a lot of problems for the institutions and the people who rely on them. From life experience, I can tell you this is a recipe for failure on a grand scale. I once worked in a college up in Northern community. The Department head was brilliant at running the Counselling Department. He knew how to mingle, how to smooth ruffled feathers. He knew how to take half baked schemes and turn them into success. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of his staff. I could never have run the place half so well. I knew that. When I started to experience some difficulties with negotiating staff demands, I got called into his office. I must have ruffled feathers. I don’t remember what it was about. His talk was not a disciplinary action which I had half expected. All he did was clarify that I worked for the students and if there was anything with staff to let him know, it was his job to make sure things ran smoothly. It was a huge relief. I could focus on my real job of helping the students.

If there were issues, he’d have a whole staff meeting and included Student Services and Head teaching staff as a whole when we needed to get an issue resolved. We discussed the issues, came up with action plans. We all knew what was wanted and needed. We all knew what we needed to accomplish and he somehow managed to herd all those cats into a cohesive working group. He wasn’t totally perfect (no one is you know), but he did keep people from committing disasters. The staff was happy as what they wanted got put together in a cohesive package that was workable. Students got what was needed. Departments were on the same page with other departments. I won’t go into the details of when he left. But, the new management obviously did not understand herding cats. It resulted in chaos and burn out. I won’t describe the details of that either. I lost long time co-workers who were sensitive, artistic and passionate about their work.

I don’t tell this story to make things out to be perfect. I bring this up to illustrate the idea that sometimes you have to take into account the actual professionals who are in the situation and let them know they are stake holders and more importantly make them stake holders by using their ideas and action plans when in reason. They need to feel valued and what might work for example for Finance or Computer or Physical Education types might not work for Counselling or doctors or other more individualistic types. It matters that you understand the way various departments operate or at the very least have people running them that understand it. If you do not, if you insist on herding cats with some departments, you will run into huge issues, people quitting and the like. Remember that no one has the exact qualifications to run everything. You need to make sure that you have the proper management for the various departments and they have an understanding of the groups they are working with. Not everyone is going to want to ‘prove their loyalty’ by following protocols that alien to their nature.

Now, let’s put this into another venue. Governments are having a terrible time with medical care. In New Brunswick, Canada people are dying in the emergency rooms (ERs) https://globalnews.ca/news/9335030/vi... and https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/rise-of-d.... In Nova Scotia, they’ve had a death in their emergency room https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s.... The single cases miss out on the larger picture which shows actual numbers of deaths in ER in the Provinces are higher than reported, whether due to age or some other factor they are not all hitting the news. They are increasing all the time. It is only getting worse according to information in the articles. Though I was unable to find the same in Prince Edward Island ERs, one cannot help but wonder how long this will continue.

I see, from my experience with ER that they have a multi check system on the Island. Is this a protective step or an extra unnecessary step? It’s hard to say. I never had less than 8+ hour wait. The other problem one runs into with this issue is that a lot of the situations could potentially be taken care of before they become life threatening if there was enough medical staff to cover the population. Some things are actual sudden and sad accidents and those are the actual use for emergency. However, any time I was in emergency, there were also children with sniffles, fevers and could have been more safely seen by a medical practitioner of some sort rather than sitting for hours in emergency. Many of them left. Emergency seems to feel like it is being used as a replacement for having a doctor. I must state it is not the fault of the patients because they don’t have a doctor in most cases. So, people likely put off seeing someone unless it is urgent. Computer doctors can only do so much. It’s not easy for them as well I suspect. I must get back to the main point. The administrative end is not the sole issue. It’s a lack of resources definitely. However, is the administrative aspect of the whole thing just creating a worse problem for us? Are doctors and nurses trying to find greener pastures because of the administrative processes? Are there ways that they see that things would be better and they would be more likely to take a small town post? There are likely many factors. One of the things that I have long advocated is that if you want to attract professionals to your area, you are going to have to take your area seriously and take them seriously. That means, not only housing for professionals, but also housing for the workers. You need workers to take their role seriously. I’ve had some awesome customer service, but I’ve also seen some faux pas in how they dealt with customers. To be able to recruit professionals, you have to be able to provide professional and high level customer service. You have to treat each other with respect. You cannot respect some and disrespect others. See, this is something everyone needs to consider. The person at your customer service desk, they might be related to someone in some sort of medical or dental or whatever school. Do you want them to say, come on down and move here…they have awesome customer service and they want to know what you think and how to make things better using your feedback as well as other professionals (dentist, doctor etc.) They want to make this the best town on the planet. Aim high. If you don’t, it is unlikely to create enthusiasm to recruit professionals and workers to your town. The thing about aiming high is that you might not make the goal, but you’ll work at it. The other thing we need is to make sure we respect and appreciate service. We’ve had some customer service that I was so impressed by. Not because they could give us what we wanted, but because they would look into things and if necessary would order in stuff. They were respectful. If they didn’t have something they would say so. It’s one thing to say customer policy is…which should be enough to end the conversation, but quite another to make one feel less because of it. We’ve thankfully had very few of those experiences. We’ve had tons of great service. So, it is great to see so much of the town wanting to meet that goal already. The rest is up to the administrative sorts to start recruiting for specific types of administrators who understand the people that will be working for them. This is the hardest part of herding cats.

So, it is important, not only to have great customer service, but it is also important to understand that there are different temperaments and some people tend to gravitate to certain professions because it fits with their personality type. This means that you can’t run everything exactly the same. You need to recruit management that understands the differences between the groups. You aren’t going to get the same response from everyone and if you know or have someone who knows the different things, someone who is flexible in their running of things, they could make the difference between success and failure. I’ve seen it work both ways at the same place. What you do matters and how you do it matters too.

As Christopher Hitchens has been credited with saying, “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.” So, two different types of temperaments results in two different types of requirements. If you want to succeed with your huge conglomerates, various departments and Government agencies, you need to understand this simple concept. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...

Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures

iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...

Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few

All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

You can also find us on:
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What are you doing for Canadians who suffer Specific Allergies?

Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I look at allergies and most specifically the one that is my worst and most scary one because I have no control over it and it is incurable. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!

It seems that decriminalization of cannabis/marijuana has resulted in some rare opportunities, but also some very real costs. You see, I have mentioned it before and I have looked into it from the viewpoint of trying to find a way to survive it. You see, the reason is that I have an allergy to some chemicals and one of the most serious ones for me is marijuana/cannabis. Unfortunately, there is NO cure for this allergy and according to most articles I can find, such as this one, https://www.nyallergy.com/marijuana-a... there is no cure there is only treatment of the symptoms and often that is less than helpful. The best they can suggest is avoidance. So, I ask as a citizen of Canada, what are we doing to protect those who are most vulnerable to it? What are we doing so that they aren’t sick every time they go in public and a portion of the time when they go for a simple walk in their own area and yes, even in the country! I cannot feel safe. There seems no place that will allow me to be able to reliably breathe. Even in my house, if someone passes, it can be sucked into our heating system. This is worse. I can, in the middle of the night, wake up with an asthma attack. I have to cough it out of my system and am barely able to breathe. It hurts my throat from an hour or more of coughing. So, for those who fancy that it is just a stage or that I just don’t like the smell…WRONG. How wrong…I avoid all forms of it including hemp as I get so sick. I don’t know what exactly in it triggers my allergies and the best strategy is avoidance. Then there are days of feeling sick to my stomach, fatigue that makes it tiring and next to impossible to think straight. To be honest, having had accidental exposure earlier this week and I have no idea…could be someone in a house with windows open or someone driving by, I’ve been sick. I had 4 good hours after some mishap around the end of the year resulting in accidental exposure. Then I had another accidental exposure early in January, 2023. I call it accidental because if I knew it was in the area, I would have avoided it like the plague. Each time the affects are worse and lasts with multi-exposures.

I’m so exhausted after an exposure and it doesn’t take much. For example, the after New Year one, I smelled something strange…I didn’t even hang around to try to figure out if it smelled like skunk and headed for home immediately to get away from it. It didn’t work. By the way, for those of you saying, well, don’t be silly, wear a mask, I can guarantee you it doesn’t work. I’ve been out in public and due to weakened immune system, I literally double mask out in public (one has cotton liner and denim and the other has two layer of cotton I wear simultaneously). Then I smelled the familiar smell…and yup, I was sick. I can’t move away from it fast enough not to be sick. The masks did no good. So, my experience is what I have to go by…mostly because I haven’t been able to find much back up either direction with regard to cannabis. I suspect however that the answer to why farts make it through masks has some relevance to cannabis making it through my double masking. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete... . Now that I looked up the size of the molecules of cannabis smoke, I believe that I have had the right idea about why it doesn’t work. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6086435/ . My training is not in medicine, but I think this more or less spells out the complicating factors. Some articles such as https://no-smoke.org/protecting-nonsm... agree that there are potential pitfalls to second hand smoke. The article further states, “Ventilation and other air filtration technologies cannot eliminate all the health risks caused by secondhand smoke exposure.” So, for those of us who suffer from chemically induced allergic reactions, this is not good news. So far, there is no cure for it, masks don’t protect against it and some of us are made seriously ill from exposure to it.

Science seems to bear out that the allergy can even result in anaphylactic reactions so definitely not a laughing matter. For those who are not aware, this can be deadly for those who experience it. It is best known for occurring with peanut allergies and bee allergies and one needs to carry an epipen. There is a lot of information for those who have peanut allergies and is not in the purview of this blog post, so I won’t provide information on it. This article https://aacijournal.biomedcentral.com... talks more about the cannabis allergy from the scientific viewpoint. It seems treatment falls in the area of avoidance or treat the symptoms…again no cure is known. In my case, the antihistamines that worked so well for other allergies seem to offer little relief.

So, my question to the Canadian Government is, what are you doing to help those of us who suffer and get tired of suffering in silence. I no longer keep it quiet when I’ve been made sick and I’ve started to publish it regularly on Twitter when I do. Most often I’m out of commission for a few days or I have to drag myself through whatever I absolutely feel I must do. I have no energy. I find it hard to breathe, I can take antihistamines, however I still wake in the night with an asthma attack when it is most prevalent. It’s not just uncomfortable, but I feel like I’m not going to live very old when summers hit and the smokers are out. It’s a constant battle and I have no weapons, but it feels to me like they have all the weaponry. For me, going out in public holds little charm because I know there is a chance of being exposed. I go out and I never know from one day to the next if I will be exposed. If it is local, I don’t know from one day to the next if it will be sucked into our heating system and I’ll wake in an asthma attack. I thought moving out of a big city and into a small area would get rid of the problem. I was wrong.

Of course, it isn’t just adults who suffer from the allergy. If a child with allergies or asthma is brought up in a household where Marijuana/cannabis is regularly consumed, this could have bad effects on the child. So, if your child suddenly has hard to handle asthma, then you might want to check into the possibility of an allergy. It could save their lives. There is a need for allergists to check into the family history of this in diagnosing and dealing with a child with poorly controlled asthma. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-he....

Of further interest is the fact the Government of Canada itself provides whole pages on the effects of cannabis. I sometimes wonder if anyone bothers to read it. It is quite clear that it isn’t the miracle that some think it to be. I know that many think that it helps and there are some situations where it does. There are other situations where it makes things worse. The Government of Canada page on the health effects follows. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/hea... It appears to me that they aren’t holding back on the potential issues…however they do leave out either having or developing allergies (yes, that too can happen) that could be quite detrimental to your social activity and your lifestyle. I think the article is well worth the read. Apparently it has a propensity to worsen depression and/or anxiety for some…how do you know which some…good question…you don’t with 100% certainty know until it happens. Though there are some potential sign posts to watch out for in some people. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canad.... That’s not encouraging to those who are using it longer term. I sometimes suspect that the most viewed stuff is the pro-cannabis stuff that leaves out a lot of the potential issues. You might be just fine and you might not. It might be good to have a more balanced view of things. It certainly would help those who suffer from serious allergies to it. We’re left in a no person’s land of mine fields and illnesses without an actual available cure. Avoid or mask the symptoms. A gas mask might help, but I cannot wear one 24/7 no matter the case.

As Clara Chung is quoted as saying, "Every season can be allergy season, depending on what you're allergic to." When you are allergic to cannabis (and I must add it is NOT my only allergy), then every season can be allergy season and you can never be sure that you will be safe or if it’ll be around the next corner. Sound like a Steven King horror story. Well, for those of us that suffer from the allergy, it’s pretty close to one. For me it is the worst one because it’s the hardest to manage. Others are easier because my food sensitivities, I have control over what I eat. Other allergies I have knowledge of and can avoid. This is the only one I cannot avoid and I have NO control over. The reaction is hard to treat and I end up ill for days. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!

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