Jan 16 2023 - Joint Announcement

 

One of the headlines today says that Ontario Premier Ford, Health Minister set to make joint announcement.  My immediate reaction was whether it was about hips or knees.   While it isn't directly about hips and knees, it is about private clinics being publicly funded for surgeries.  The first stage is cataract surgeries, followed by knee and hip replacements.  So I guessed right.  There are 130,000 hip and knee replacements in Canada a year.  Ontario has 24,105 knee replacements and 22,727 hip replacements.  One article gave this indication of cost:  Generally, patients who have hip and joint replacements stay in the hospital for 4.5 days. This amounts to nearly $10,000 per person in inpatient costs, not including physician payments and rehabilitation, and totaling over $1.2 billion year-over-year. Another gave this: "Antoniou and colleagues compared the hospital cost of hip-replacement surgery done in Canada with those in the USA (three hospitals). In Canada, the average total cost for the procedure was $6,766; this included both direct and overhead costs [20]. The total cost in the USA was over $13,000." The $6,800 figure is what is reported most often.

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March 26 2022 - Is there a turquoise blue colour named Paradise?

 

I was still considering  our notions of Paradise yesterday. The original idea from Wikipedia: "In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness." After seeing all the places named Paradise, I realize how expanded the notion is today. Today Paradise is here on earth. A dominant notion is the idea of tropical island vacations - visiting Paradise on earth.  The explorers in the mid-eighteenth century who tagged Tahiti and other tropical islands as the new paradise set off the notion of a possible paradise here on earth now.  An introduction to tropical vacations expresses our longings: "Dreamy beaches, silky warm seas, lush scenery, and endless sunshine – these are some of the top ingredients of the ideal tropical vacation. But each destination offers its own sultry charms. Some dazzle with their natural beauty. Others add cultural attractions to the mix, with exotic customs, architecture, and mouthwatering cuisine. A few offer eco-adventures and wildlife-rich wilderness, and some sleepy islands seem to take you back in time." One author says that the Medieval and Renaissance writers believed that Paradise was a findable place on Earth.  Another author says that the connection between Captain Bligh in Tahiti and the turquoise waters, lush landscapes, fruit on the trees cemented tropical islands as what religious paradise might be like.  And in comparison to most northern hemisphere waters, turquoise water is transfixing and mezmerizing.  Turquoise, the sea-green stone of the ancients, represented wisdom, tranquility, protection, good fortune, and hope. Ancient peoples believed in its profound power to protect, as well as its tranquil energy and its association with enduring love. So maybe it makes sense that humans seek to create paradise here on earth in place names, vacation destinations, songs, novels, all kinds of things.  And that those tropical vacation destinations are the epitome of what we long for and desire.  Why else would there be all those pictures of people doing yoga on the tropical beach shores. The tiny snow crocuses and the iris reticulate are blooming in the garden.  Mind you, these are the larger crocuses that haven't come up yet.

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March 25 2022 - A Place Named Paradise

 

How many places are named Paradise?  Newfoundland has a "Town of Paradise." That's it for all of Canada.   It isn't a surprise that in total there are 27 places named Paradise in the US.   There are 4 in Jamaica, 2 in the Philippines, 2 in Grenada, 2 in Australia, and the 7 other countries have one each.  The total is 44 places in the world named Paradise in 12 countries.   Usually the majority of cities named Paradise can be found above the equator.   There doesn't seem to be a single Paradise in Europe.   Compare that with 65 places in the world named Eden - in 19 countries in total. Not surprising, the US has the highest number of places named Eden. This time there are a few in Europe - even the United Kingdom and Germany. In comparison to Paradise, the US has 32 places named Eden. And if you want to get there sooner than life's traditional journey, there are 22 places in the world named Heaven.  Only 4 countries are represented here.  Of course the US has the most. And what about the opposite - Hell? This turns out to be a problematic name.  While there 562 places in the world named Hell and spread out over 51 countries, are these all the same Hell?   Not at all.  The top country Germany has at least 15 places named Hell.  I've checked that one out and it is a "lost in translation" issue.   Hell and Hellen in German means light.  The same problem occurs for Norway. Hella in Norwegian?  In one place it means "pour", and in another it is "It's so nice having someone visiting." It was my impression that the most popular place name in the world is Santa Maria - 263 places in 38 countries.  But I see that there are 292 places in the world named Santa Cruz in 36 countries.  And the real winner is San Jose - with over 1,700 places in the world.  These are all named after Saint Joseph. And our picture today is the road to Paradise - Plant Paradise Country Gardens in Caledon.  My brother has found some heavenly Hellebores in their perennial catalog this year.

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Feb 1 2020 - On to the Chocolate Month

How about 650 not sure synonyms.  That's a lot of expressions for being vague.  In the same thesaurus - The Power Thesaurus, there are 5,475 synonyms for sure.  But if we go to Thesaurus.com there are about 30 synonyms for not sure, and then about 45 for sure.  Perhaps the difference has to do with the many meanings of sure. Here we are at the first day of February and the things to do in this month divide drastically between embracing our landscape of snow and escaping the same landscape; Party in Quebec City for the Winter Festival or Go South to the beach.  The beach option includes the family favourite: go to a Disney Theme Park.  I am intrigued with the Pandora Park based on the Avatar movie.  It is in the Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando.  This is interesting because Disney prides itself on its landscapes and plant material.  We went a few years ago just to see the landscaping, and I was impressed.  The promotional pictures look like they've succeed again. "What we’re trying to do on Pandora is transport our guests to another planet,” says Zsolt Hormay, Vice President of Creative at Walt Disney Imagineering. “We had to find species that looked like Pandoran plants,” he says. The creative team traveled to Hawaii’s Oahu island to research rainforest plants as well as China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park to research the mountains that inspired Avatar’s floating Hallelujah Mountains." So let's go back to sure vs not sure.  What percentage of Canadians take a winter vs a beach vacation in the winter months?  Expedia says that over 50% of Canadians take a beach vacation in the winter.   Seems like the two pictures below tell the story:  An invitation to stroll through paradise vs a snow-filled yard viewed from inside. I guess that's where the chocolate comes in this month.  Even if you take a beach vacation, there's the return to the winter landscape, where chocolate is on tap.

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