Wary of Mainstream Medicine, Immigrants Seek Remedies From Home – The New York Times

2015/11/16 Leave a comment

Likely similar in Canada and some readers may be more familiar with any comparable initiatives here:

With the help of a $130,000 grant from the Cigna Foundation, the Botanical Garden offers training for doctors to help them better understand their patients’ cultural beliefs. So far, 740 medical students and practicing physicians have gone to the garden’s tropical conservatory to learn about medicinal plants and to participate in role-playing exercises. “It is all about promoting increased trust between health care providers and their patients,” Dr. Vandebroek said.

Issues of trust and culture are not the only things that have made some immigrants leery of mainstream medicine. Doctors’ visits are expensive, and herbs, selling for a few dollars a bag, are cheaper than prescription drugs.

According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, 43 percent of Hispanics in the United States do not have a primary personal care physician or health provider. More than one-third lack health insurance, nearly double the rate for blacks and triple that for white Americans.

High costs and cultural differences have created a troubling disconnect between many Hispanics and the health care system. It is a rift that Dr. Roger Chirurgi, program director for the emergency medicine residency for the New York Medical College at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan, would like to heal.

“There’s a lot of people who we’ll see at repeat visits, and they’ve never taken their medicine,” Dr. Chirurgi said. “That’s why I’ve been taking my residents to the Botanical Garden for the past three years, to try to become more culturally sensitive and to be able to break through that barrier.”

Dr. Chirurgi now routinely asks patients if they are using herbals when he takes their medical history. He worries about the dangers of unregulated remedies that lack dosage guidelines and scientific evidence of their efficacy. “I want to make sure that they are safe, and don’t interact with the drug that I am prescribing,” he said. Still, he conceded that herbals may be helpful, if only as placebos. “If you believe that something will work,” he said, “it may actually work in some cases.”

Source: Wary of Mainstream Medicine, Immigrants Seek Remedies From Home – The New York Times

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Paris

2015/11/14 Leave a comment

  

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Trudeau’s diverse cabinet not a true Canadian portrait – Gagnon

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

While true, commentators sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

Compared to previous federal cabinets, the Trudeau cabinet represents progress. For example, the previous Conservative cabinet was only 30 percent women and the three visible minority members were only in junior positions (multiculturalism, sport, seniors).

I suspect that some of the gaps pointed out will be addressed when parliamentary secretaries appointed.

And Gagnon is also factually wrong: Jim Carr, Minister of Natural Resources is Jewish.

It would be interesting, rather than just carping on the sidelines, to come up with an alternate cabinet that would balance regional, gender, ethnic origin, and experience – not as easy as it sounds:

“A cabinet that looks like Canada!” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exclaimed as he introduced his ministers. But this was false on several counts.

A cabinet that includes no one of Italian or Chinese origin, a cabinet without Jews or Arabs, a cabinet without a single black person – while Sikhs (who comprise about 1.4 per cent of the Canadian population) hold four cabinet posts – is not a true portrait of Canada. Not that I mind. The last thing a modern government needs is a cabinet that would reflect the exact ethnic makeup of the population. That’s because it’s impossible to achieve: Ministers are chosen from a caucus that results from the vagaries of politics and doesn’t correspond to demographic reality. For example, the Liberals have only a handful of black MPs, two MPs of Chinese descent – and 16 Sikhs, reflecting the active interest of Sikhs in politics and of a pattern of block voting in ridings with a significant Sikh minority.

Mr. Trudeau also prides himself on having formed the first federal cabinet with gender parity. False again. It is actually built on gender inequity. The Liberal caucus counts 134 men and 50 women, meaning that at the outset, every female MP had roughly three chances more than her male colleagues to be appointed to cabinet. Shouldn’t gender equity apply to men as well?

Those who want the proportion of female cabinet ministers to reflect the female population should insist that the political parties present many more women in “good” ridings – ridings where they have a real chance of being elected. Then a prime minister would have a larger pool of qualified female MPs to choose from when forming the cabinet.

Source: Trudeau’s diverse cabinet not a true Canadian portrait – The Globe and Mail

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Our Favorite Word — ‘Diversity’ — Is Under The Microscope At Mizzou And Yale 

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

More on some of the US debates on diversity:

The Yale debate plugs directly into the bigger, more meta conversation we’re seeing around “diversity.” One group argues that their right to free speech is infringed upon; another says the school promised them — and they’re paying for — a welcoming, inclusive environment.

As Yale made headlines for these incidents, its officials announced something that received far less attention last week: The school will spend $50 million in the next five years to increase diversity of its faculty. That money will go toward recruitment, implicit bias training for employees involved in faculty searches and tenure decisions, and fellowships for graduate students aimed at expanding the pipeline into academia. It’s a tall order; in the 2014-15 academic year, just 22.5 percent of the university’s 4,410 faculty members were minorities, according to CNN Money, while almost 43 percent of the students enrolled at Yale are minorities.

But the conversation about diversity initiatives in corporate culture and Hollywood — and Holmes’ and Harris’ convincing arguments that existing tactics aren’t working — raises the question: Will a browner, more diverse faculty lead to a better atmosphere for college students hungering for more inclusion?

Part of the problem seems to be that institutions — tech companies, media organizations, TV networks, schools — often frame their pursuit of diversity as an achievement in itself. They unveil breathless new initiatives and pat themselves on the back without investigating how existing internal cultures — and their own attitudes — are getting in the way of authentic inclusion.

As Gene wrote last week, diversity “can’t be productive unless there’s real thought about how to invite and productively metabolize pushback against accepted norms, because that pushback is going to come.”

Yale and Missouri are struggling to find their feet under enormous waves of pushback right now. We’ll have to wait and see whether Yale’s new plan to diversify its staff and the turnover at the top at Mizzou will actually do anything to chip away at the tensions they’re seeing on campus.

Source: Our Favorite Word — ‘Diversity’ — Is Under The Microscope At Mizzou And Yale : Code Switch : NPR

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Some Iranians still dream of citizenship

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

Canada did away with gender distinctions in 1977:

In Iran, lawmakers have acted to vote against a bill that would grant citizenship to the children of Iranian mothers and non-Iranian fathers. This dampens the hopes of hundreds of thousands of people who have been deprived of their social rights because their fathers are not Iranian.

The citizenship bill, put forward by 49 signatories, was first presented to parliament’s presiding board. At an open session Sept. 20, its double urgency was approved, with 140 votes in favor and 36 against. The double urgency designation meant that it had to be put to a final vote in less than a week. The most important part of the 12-article bill was its first article, which states: “The children of marriages between Iranian women and foreign men, or men who have no nationality but have been/will be born in Iran, may be granted citizenship after reaching the age of 18 if they have resided in Iran for five consecutive years prior to making their citizenship request.”

Between 400,000 and 1 million people in Iran are estimated to lack Iranian nationality despite having an Iranian mother. The majority of these individuals were born out of so-called “temporary marriages,” known as mut’ah in Arabic and sigheh in Persian, between Iranian women and Afghan men. These men took refuge in Iran either after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, or following the Afghan civil war in the 1990s or the US-led invasion in 2001.

Mehrangiz Kar, a prominent Iranian lawyer and women’s and children’s rights activist who has faced arrest and imprisonment for her activities, told Al-Monitor: “These children and youths are deprived of educational and health facilities as well as other services that Iranian citizens benefit from, such as subsidies and the like. In a word, they have no civil rights and lack identity documents or a birth certificate.”

…Kar, the recipient of numerous international awards, told Al-Monitor that those opposed to the plan give two reasons for their stance: “It would encourage immigration and pose dangers to the country’s national, political and social security.”

President Hassan Rouhani won the 2013 presidential election thanks to the backing of women, civil society activists and supporters of equal rights. Yet, one of the main opponents of the bill was the Rouhani administration’s deputy interior minister. Voicing his ministry’s opposition to the citizenship bill, Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Ali Amiri even delivered a speech on the day the measure was put to a vote. Amiri emphasized the many difficulties such a law would create for the government if approved, while pointing out the high number of potential migrants from Iran’s neighbors due to the regional situation. “This plan will lead to an increase in immigration and illegal marriages in the country,” he said.

Before Amiri’s speech, Principlist MPs Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar and Nader Ghazipour also spoke in opposition to the plan. Pourmokhtar’s reasoning was that it is not clear whether those who would be granted citizenship under this plan would have any emotional attachment to Iran. Meanwhile, Ghazipour challenged the “political and security” consequences of such a measure, arguing that “Iran should remain Iranian and we should not let a non-Iranian take part in elections. We must preserve Iran’s holiness.”

Kar criticized this kind of mentality and said Iran’s political system and legislative bodies should pay attention to one basic fact: “The human rights of a mother and a child are an independent issue that can only be analyzed through the foundations of human rights, and we cannot punish abandoned mothers and children in order to make up for the long-term mistakes of a political system.”

 

…The rejection of the proposed citizenship plan has not only resulted in the nationality status of hundreds of thousands of Iranian-Afghan children being left in limbo. It has also sparked criticism at a deeper level, in relation to how women are seen and their role in Iranian society. Kar said, “Gender discrimination in citizenship laws becomes evident in places where, as a result of Article 976 in the civil law, blood linkage is only realized through the father, and maternal linkage has no effect.”

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Forcing Jewish hair stylist to take Saturdays off is grounds for rights complaint: Quebec commission

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

Interesting case:

Quebec’s Human Rights Commission has decided there is sufficient evidence to support a complaint by a Jewish hairstylist who claims his employer, the owner of a Snowdon beauty salon who is also Jewish, discriminated against him on the basis of his religion by not letting him work on Saturdays.
The commission has recommended that Spa Orazen and its owner Iris Gressy compensate hair stylist Richard Zilberg $17,500 in damages ($12,500 for loss of income and $5,000 for moral damages) and that Gressy pay an additional $2,500 for punitive damages to Zilberg for intentional violation of his civil rights.

Zilberg worked at Spa Orazen throughout the fall of 2011 and winter of 2012 for about 30 hours a week, including Saturdays. But that spring, he says his boss, Iris Gressy, began to suggest that he should not be working Saturdays because it is Shabbat, the traditional day of rest for observant Jews.

In July 2012, Zilberg says he was told he would no longer be scheduled on Saturdays, the busiest day of his work week, although the salon remained open Saturdays and non-Jewish employees were allowed to work Saturdays. Another Jewish employee was told she could not work on Saturdays, he claims.

I come from a long line of Jewish people and I love my faith but it is 2015 and I can choose how I want to practise

“I come from a long line of Jewish people and I love my faith but it is 2015 and I can choose how I want to practise,” Zilberg said at a news conference called by the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), a civic rights organization that brought the case to the Human Rights Commission on Zilberg’s behalf.

Zilberg told some of his regular Saturday clients that his employer would not let him work on Shabbat because he is Jewish. One of those clients, who is Jewish, complained to the owner of the salon on Aug. 15, 2012 that the policy was “mishegas”, a Yiddish word for “crazy”. An argument ensued and Zilberg was fired on the spot, he said.

He eventually got a job at a nearby salon, Intercoupe Coiffure and Spa on Décarie Blvd., but he worked fewer hours and had to rebuild his clientele from scratch.

In December 2012, Zilberg decided to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, with the help of CRARR.

“I couldn’t let go of it. Every night I would go to bed and I’d be angry,” He said. “They took from me my choice to practise my faith as I see fit.”

A commission investigator examined the complaint, and the Commission determined that the evidence obtained was sufficient to submit the case to a court of law. The Commission recommended that Spa Orazen and Gressy compensate Zilberg, rather than let the case proceed to the Human Rights Tribunal.

The respondents had until Oct. 23, 2015 to compensate Zilberg, to avoid a court case.

“That didn’t happen so we’ve been advised by the Human Rights Commission lawyers that the case will go to the Human Rights Tribunal,” said Fo Niemi, executive director of CRARR.

The Human Rights Tribunal is a specialized tribunal of Court of Quebec judges and assessors which has jurisdiction to hear and rule on complaints concerning discrimination prohibited under the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. A lawyer from the Human Rights Commission will now represent Zilberg at the Tribunal.

Reached at her salon Tuesday, Gressy told the Montreal Gazette she fired Zilberg because he was irresponsible. She claims she did not ban him from working Saturdays because he was Jewish but because he bickered with another employee who worked Saturdays.

“I can’t be racist against this man because I’m Jewish myself,” she said, adding that she herself sometimes works Saturdays.

She said she will not pay the recommended compensation. “Why would I pay for something I am being falsely accused of? I am going to court. I’m going to fight this.”

Zilberg said he may have been late for a shift or two in the ten months he worked at the salon, but said he was not fired for being irresponsible.

“It bothers me that she doesn’t acknowledge that I was forbidden because of being Jewish to be in there on Saturdays to work … I was fired after a client insulted her because of this policy,” he said.

Niemi noted that the case can be resolved out of court at any time. If the Human Rights Tribunal rules that discrimination has occurred, the Tribunal can impose whatever compensation or remedy it sees fit.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/forcing-jewish-hair-stylist-to-take-saturdays-off-is-grounds-for-human-rights-complaint-quebec-commission 

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Allan Richarz: No, a Canadian is not a Canadian. It’s perfectly fine to strip citizenship from terrorists | National Post

2015/11/13 Leave a comment

“Minor expansion?” No, it is not, nor was it communicated (or marketed) as such by the previous government:

Essentially, opposition to Bill C-24 is more political than principled. Accepting the stripping of a fraudster’s citizenship as a legitimate exercise of government power, but viewing the same action against a convicted terrorist as indicative of Harperian fascism, is logically inconsistent. The more accurate position would be that critics of Bill C-24 accept that the government may strip individuals of their citizenship in certain instances, but that they do not believe terrorism or treason should qualify. Polite political disagreement, however, does not make much of a splash, especially during an overheated election campaign.

This is an issue the Trudeau government will have to address. If the incoming prime minister believes citizenship is inviolable, will he then undo decades of law and policy by closing the fraud and crimes against humanity loopholes as well? If he opposes Bill C-24’s expanded powers for political reasons, will he have the temerity to say so directly and risk the political fallout of being “soft on terror”? Such forthrightness would certainly be a welcome change in Canadian politics. One gets the feeling, however, that Trudeau will simply use the issue to get a few more miles out of the Harper boogeyman.

At the end of the day, the government is well within its rights to add to the list of those who may be stripped of citizenship. It is a legitimate exercise in regard to the fraudster, and it is to the terrorist. Bill C-24 is a minor expansion of traditional categories of citizenship revocation and not a radical departure in Canadian politics.

Source: Allan Richarz: No, a Canadian is not a Canadian. It’s perfectly fine to strip citizenship from terrorists | National Post

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Here’s a thought, what if governments weren’t so secret? MacDonald

2015/11/12 Leave a comment

Relevant article by Neil MacDonald given the comments by Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council and Head of the Public Service:

He [Himefarb] says secrecy is essential and, at the same time, greatly overused.

Ministers and officials, he says, need to be able to speak frankly.

HARPER-SWEARING-IN TOPIX

Former Clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himelfarb, right, administers the oath of office to new Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006 as then governor general Michaelle Jean looks on. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Around the cabinet table, he says, it may be that somebody wants to talk back to the prime minister.

“It may be that somebody there wants to say ‘I hate what you’re doing. This is terribly, terribly wrong.’ You want people to be free to say to the PM ‘that’s a pile of garbage’ and know that the opinion will not be leaked and used against the government later,” he says.

“It is important to have zones in which courageous advice can be given freely.”

That said, he acknowledges “we have inappropriately expanded the need for legitimate zones to a massive extent. They now include message control and avoidance of personal responsibility.”

No one actually owns up to that, he says. It’s a deeper, unacknowledged reality, down in the marrow of the culture.

Moreover, he says, the holders of the deepest secrets often become “absolutely convinced that they are not only working for the people, but that they are the best people to judge whether something should be secret.”

Generational shift?

Perhaps surprisingly, though, Himelfarb believes all of that is changing, and government must accommodate and manage what’s coming, or be overwhelmed.

WikiLeaks, social media, the advent of bloggers and citizen journalists determined to root out information, and a relentless 24-hour mass media are now arrayed against the old forces of mutton-chopped secrecy.

Bureaucracies at first react by shifting defences; they respond to WikiLeaks and access-to-information laws by ensuring less is written down, or by becoming even more controlling.

But Himelfarb, for one, believes we are in the midst of a generational attitude shift. Younger people expect — demand, in fact — to be included in the process of government between elections.

Many of Trudeau’s new ministers may well be inclined to grant that, given that so many are unschooled in governing. Their lack of experience is also a lack of baggage.

Some have worked outside government, Himelfarb observes, and may have even been victimized by government.

But ultimately, it’s the prime minister who gets to decide what those oaths taken at Rideau Hall will mean in reality.

If bureaucrats sense that loosening the flow of information to the public is not just OK but actually career enhancing, and that government’s boss of bosses wants more open government, open government will be more likely.

The trick, says Himelfarb, is to ensure that only those secrets that must truly remain secret for the proper functioning of government are shielded.

Perhaps. But again, the journalist’s view: Information is power. Politics is the exercise of power. Secrecy allows information, and therefore power, to be hoarded and preserved.

Source: Here’s a thought, what if governments weren’t so secret? – Politics – CBC News

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Swedish Anti-Nazi Activists Fail to Invite Jews to Kristallnacht Rally – The Daily Beast

2015/11/12 Leave a comment

Disconcerting:
The organizers of an anti-Nazi rally in Umeå face intense scrutiny for not inviting the local Jewish community out of security concerns.

When commemorating the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht with an anti-Nazism rally, you’d think perhaps the most obvious people to invite would be Jewish citizens. Not so for organizers in one Swedish city, where a Monday evening event will transpire without the presence of local Jews.

“Umeå Against Nazism” is set to take place in Umeå’s Town Hall Square, timed to the anniversary of the 1938 violent pogrom largely seen as the start of the Holocaust. The event’s organizer, Jan Hägglund, is a local lawmaker and member of the local socialist Workers’ Party.

The decision not to invite local Jews, he said, was because the rally could “be perceived as unwelcoming or unsafe situation for them.” According to Norrköping Tidningar, previous rallies have included Palestinian flags and banners where the Star of David was equated with the Nazi swastika. Another Workers’ Party official told The Jerusalem Post that, in the past, this rally has been “a narrow affair for ‘leftists.’”

The event’s Facebook pageacknowledged Kristallnacht as the moment when ”Nazis stepped up the violence against the Jewish population in Germany.” Additionally, the page beckoned, “Knowledge of the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews and Roma must be kept alive.”

Noting that Nazi activists marched on Umeå for the first time since World War II two years ago, the page declared that “our rally should be seen as a defense of Umeå as a city of openness towards people with different culture, religion and sexual orientation. As well as support for those forced to flee from war and hopes for a future in Umeå.”

Critics see that latter statement as a hint that the event has ulterior political motives.

 “How much clearer can the anti-Semitism of the left be?” one Facebook commenter wrote. Another person added that not including Jews for a Kristallnacht memorial is like only including whites to take part in a demonstration against South African apartheid.

Source: Swedish Anti-Nazi Activists Fail to Invite Jews to Kristallnacht Rally – The Daily Beast

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Les fonctionnaires saluent le gouvernement Trudeau

2015/11/12 Leave a comment

More on the public service public (and private) reaction to the change in government and approach to the public service:

Mel Cappe, un ancien greffier du Conseil privé (sorte de grand patron de la fonction publique fédérale), accueille lui aussi favorablement la nouvelle, tout en apportant un bémol. Il rappelle que les fonctionnaires ont le devoir de servir leurs maîtres politiques du jour. Si les scientifiques devraient avoir le droit de parler de leurs recherches, cela ne leur donne pas pour autant le droit de critiquer publiquement les choix politiques du gouvernement.

Fonctionnaires partisans ?

Cette annonce vendredi n’est pas le seul événement à avoir ébranlé la bulle fédérale. En après-midi, le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Stéphane Dion, a donné à son ministère un point de presse au cours duquel plusieurs fonctionnaires présents l’ont applaudi à trois reprises : lorsqu’il a parlé de la valeur de tous les fonctionnaires, d’évaluations environnementales et de lutte contre les changements climatiques.

Les critiques ont fusé sur les réseaux sociaux, de nombreux commentateurs y voyant la preuve que la fonction publique fédérale est « rouge » dans l’âme et que Stephen Harper avait raison de s’en méfier.

Debi Daviau y voit plutôt une « réaction complètement naturelle et humaine après neuf ans d’abus complet et absolu ». « Notre fonction publique vit une lune de miel du fait qu’elle peut, après neuf ans, être autorisée à faire son travail correctement. On ne doit pas s’inquiéter que notre fonctionpublique célèbre cela. »

Tom Flanagan, professeur de sciences politiques de Calgary et ancien collaborateur de Stephen Harper, trouve ces applaudissements problématiques. Ils trahissent non pas un biais pro-libéral, mais un biais en faveur d’une vision interventionniste de l’État.« Les fonctionnaires ont intérêt à ce que l’État soit gros. C’est leur industrie. Plus l’État est gros, plus il y a d’emplois, d’occasions de promotions et meilleur est le salaire. C’est pour cela qu’ils sont toujours suspicieux des gouvernements qui prônent la retenue. » Les visions politiques libertariennes véhiculées par les partis politiques de l’Ouest sont donc perçues comme étant étrangères.

« Je vais utiliser cet exemple dans mes cours pour démontrer la dominance du courant de pensée laurentien [du Canada central] à Ottawa et comment l’Ouest est encore perçu comme un outsider ! » reconnaît-il.

Mel Cappe lui donne en partie raison. Les applaudissements soulignaient, à son avis, « la revitalisation et la renaissance du rôle du Canada sur la scène internationale ». En ce sens, dit-il, les fonctionnaires avaient beaucoup aimé le gouvernement de Brian Mulroney, preuve que ce n’est pas la « partisanerie » qui anime les fonctionnaires, mais une certaine vision de l’État.

Source: Les fonctionnaires saluent le gouvernement Trudeau | Le Devoir

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