The Small Things, VII

This post is a bit of a deviation from what you have come to see in this recurring blogpost...but this video brought me a great deal of joy yesterday morning. I could not stop laughing! My brother thought this might be a little low-brow compared to what you have come to expect from Noor...on life! But, I'm not sure I agree. Wherever you can get your kicks, right? #noshame

SWATCHED: New drugstore lippies

After recently replacing an MLBB MAC lipstick in Hug Me, I realized I wanted a pinky-nudey go-to lipstick that would go with all of my makeup looks! Thankfully I did not have to look further than my sister's makeup collection to find just what I was searching for! We had a quick lipstick testing session which involved me trying on each of her lipsticks and getting photographed in them :-)

We visited our local drugstore and picked up a few new shades and I think I am in love. This seems to happen often...

The three products I picked up: Marcelle Rouge Xpression Delight & Sincerity and Revlon Super Lustrous Coralberry. Sincerity is my new fav! The texture, colour and longevity all combine to make a great lipstick! 

 

The Small Things, VI

"Like crowded megacities, busy ant colonies face a high risk of disease outbreaks. New research indicates such "urban ants" also know how to prevent epidemics — when an infected ant enters the colony, its nest mates carefully lick off the infecting fungus.

In nature, ants would pick up a fungal or other infection likely during foraging when they scamper across a cadaver of an infected ant or grasshopper, for instance, Cremer said.

To figure out how Lasius neglectus ants would react to such a diseased nest mate, the researchers infected one individual ant with fluorescent-labeled spores of fungus and let them interact with other members of their colony, tracking where the fluorescent spores ended up.

The researchers found that when this infected ant returned to the colony, its nest mates don't avoid it. Instead of running from the infected and contagious insect, the ants approached their colony mate and licked it, seeming to remove pathogens from the sick ant's body, a social grooming behavior."

#Teamwork

WTF???: The beginning

I have been mulling over this recurring blogpost for a while but haven't been able to fully commit to it until today, as I have not been feeling my usually inspired self!

I present this new feature that will explore shit that just doesn't make sense, shit that shocks and just weird shit in general. I can't guarantee I will be offering much more than some simple commentary, though I do hope it'll be an enjoyable read either way.

This feature will appear in contrast to my Small Things posts, because lets face it no matter how much beauty there is in our world, there is equally as much of the opposite! And there's definite value in exploring and learning about both, I think.

In its first installment, I present a Toronto Star article entitled,

A child is born every hour in the U.S. hooked on opiates, study finds

Lowlights: 

• University of Michigan researchers have made the startling discovery that a baby is born about every hour in the U.S. addicted to opiate drugs.

•  In the research published April 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, physicians found that drug withdrawal syndrome among newborns, almost tripled between 2000 and 2009

•  By 2009, there was an estimated 13,539 newborns with the syndrome, or one born every 40 minutes, according to the study assessing national trends in neonatal abstinence syndrome and mothers using opiate drugs.

• The Canadian Institute for Health Information reported in 2009-10 that there were 1,057 newborns with neonatal withdrawal syndrome, with Ontario recording 491.

Thoughts:

This is just a sad story, isn't it? Drug addiction and withdrawal are one thing in adults, right, but for these phenomenon to be touching newborns...My mind immediately goes to what the medical/psychosocial consequences that may occur be as a result. Good thing these children and their mothers are receiving treatment :-)

Accessible history

For history buffs like myself, this youtube channel find is a real treasure. Charismatically running through thousands of years of world history in short, objective and fun videos...this is not something you should overlook! It almost seems novel- to be able to watch something and not have you IQ lowered as a result! Enjoy!

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illuminates reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity -Cicero

The Small Things, V

In keeping with the theme of previous posts, I bring you yet another nature-inspired post! Nothing really profound to share about this one.

His name is Ruediger, he's about 72 grams, was found in a dung pile :-( and makes his home in a German zoo.

Cue the coo-ing...

On the moral imperative to donate blood

About 2 months ago, I made the decision to visit the blood donor clinic with my sister, who has been donating blood for a number of years.

I had tried in vain a year ago, to donate blood- but my iron levels were not high enough to do so. I was quite disappointed. However, I was determined to avoid a similar fate the next time around. I hit the red meat, spinach & OJ hard for a few days in a row, and it paid off! My iron levels were really high/at a safe level to donate. Needless to say, I felt quite accomplished upon learning I would be eligible to donate blood for the very first time...in my life.

I thought I'd dedicate a post on my blog to the importance of blood donation as I feel quite strongly about the need for us to do so on a regular basis (if we can).

Speaking as someone who considers themselves to be religious/spiritual, who practices a form of meditation daily, I can say that donating blood felt like a deeply spiritual activity. Nothing has quite made me feel as alive. And this is probably an understatement.

According to Canadian Blood Services,

Approximately every minute of every day, someone in Canada needs blood.

According to a recent poll, 52 per cent of Canadians say they, or a family member, have needed blood or blood products for surgery or for medical treatment.

According to the American Red Cross, 

One donation can save up to three lives.

If you began donating blood at age 17 and donated every 56 days until you reached 76, you would have donated 48 gallons of blood, potentially helping save more than 1,000 lives!

Silly for us all to have the expectation that should we be unfortunate enough to find ourselves in a situation where we require blood, that it will just be available, no questions asked. Shockingly, this is not enough to propel more of us to contribute something that our body can easily replace. bloody hell.

This is sure to bring a smile to your face :-)

...unless you're not human.

The Small Things, IV

"Japanese Macaques have found a clever way of beating the winter chill; they bathe in Japan's hot springs. Here a macaque relaxes in Jigokudani."

I am only now realizing my fascination with nature. 

I'm not too sure how anyone can look at some of these creatures and draw the conclusion that we are so very different from them. We have so many limitations and yet we have notions of grandeur relating to our superiority as a species.

Tragedy in Toulouse

By this point, many of you may already have heard about the murders in France. With everything going on in the world, its almost as if we have become accustomed to sick tragedies like this one...or maybe we haven't, when it happens in our own backyards. I don't really know. There just doesn't seem to be anything shocking about people losing their lives in very sad sad ways, nowadays. This certainly can't be a good sign :-(

Before getting up to speed on the specifics of this heinous occurrence, I read an excellent piece by Professor Tariq Ramadan as he attempted to offer some perspective on some of the relevant issues at play.

I wanted to add a few simple thoughts to the discussion, if I may...

My heartfelt condolences go out to all the French families affected by this man's vicious actions. Whether we have become accustomed to senseless violence or not, the loss of any human life is something that should always be considered tragic regardless of who the victims are and reflected upon thoroughly.

France's 'integration' issues are well-known around the world, I think. From my own personal experience, I have met a few young French people who have felt let down in their own society, the lack of opportunity and racism they experience for being ethnically, racially or religiously 'different'. The trend towards conformity and uniformity, in the name of secularism may have isolated people even further I'm afraid. The fiery rhetoric around this faux 'integration' debate (not just in France, but elsewhere) seems to be driving people further apart.

Not just in France alone, but elsewhere, the true promise of equality has failed to materialize. And there are unfortunate consequences to this reality, which makes it all the more important that we all engage civilly with one another and do our part to make our communities more inclusive.

We can sidestep the real issues at play here (exclusionary policies, disenfranchised youth, racism, etc) and focus on hot-button issues that really just serve to distract us from what is seriously wrong in our communities. Opportunistic politicians can blame 'high' immigration, a supposed failure of immigrants and coloured folk to integrate properly, etc etc, but that ends up leaving us nowhere. We don't end up having the right conversations about how to fix some of these problems.

Prof. Ramadan provides some useful insight in this regard.

"Mohamed—how typical the name is!—was a French citizen of immigrant background before becoming a terrorist of immigrant origin. Early on his destiny became tied to the surrounding perceptions of that origin. Now, in a final act of provocation, he has come full circle, has vanished into this constructed and distorted image to become the definitive “other.” For the French of France, there is no longer anything French about Mohamed the Muslim Arab."

"The overwhelming majority of the Mohameds, the Fatimas or the Ahmeds of the suburbs and the banlieues are French; what they seek is equality, dignity, security, a decent job and a place to live. They are culturally and religiously integrated; their problem is overwhelmingly a socio-economic one. The story of Mohamed Merah today holds up to France a mirror in which it sees its face: he ends up a Jihadi without real conviction, after having been a citizen deprived of true dignity."

And then appropriately follows with,

"Once more, this excuses nothing. But therein lies a crucial lesson for us all."