Louise in Ontario🇨🇦
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grammalou.bsky.social
Louise in Ontario🇨🇦
@grammalou.bsky.social
8.9K followers 5.5K following 2.5K posts
Family doctor, end of life care, mom and grandma, native plant gardener, covid conscious, lefty Canadian. #MedSky
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grammalou.bsky.social
It’s that special quiet outdoors now that only happens during and immediately after a big snowfall. The fresh snow acts as a gigantic sound damper
🤫
The oak’s leaves haven’t fallen yet so the branches are bending under the weight of the snow on the leaves. Spruce boughs weighed down by fresh snow.
November 10, 2025 at 1:07 AM
grammalou.bsky.social
Winter ❄️ has definitely arrived in Ottawa today.
Looking along a suburban Ottawa street during heavy evening snowfall. Fresh snow piled on spruce boughs and Japanese maple leaves. Tire tracks visible in the snowy road. Two street lamps lighting up the falling snow.
November 9, 2025 at 11:34 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Ottawa 🇨🇦 receiving its first snowfall of the season today.
Expecting up to 20cm (almost 8 inches)
Small stream bed with moss covered rocks, water gently cascading over flat rocks, yellow maple leaves in the stream and on the rocks. A dusting of fresh snow on the rocks Bright red Japanese maple with a dusting of fresh snow on its leaves. A small Johnny Jump up viola plant with several blooms dusted with snow A yellow annual flower (Biden) dusted with fresh snow.
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Stacey Patton has done an interesting visual analysis of this photo of Trump…
Stacey Patton # 23h • G Y'all know I love doing visual analysis, so couldn't help myself. Look at this photo with me for a minute .... If I had to caption this pic, I would say: Narcissism meets indifference in the Oval Office. Look at Trump standing there front and center, bloated by his own ego while chaos unfolds just behind him. A man literally collapsed to the floor right next to his desk. This is a scene of urgency, concern, and human frailty playing out in real time, and Trump looks ... fucking bored as hell. Annoyed, even. Like somebody interrupted his mirror time. His body language says it all. Everybody else in the room is bending, crouching, reaching. The man on the floor is surrounded by human hands. They're all activated by concern, empathy, and alarm. But not Trump. He's alone. His body is vertical and detached with his arms hanging stiffly like he's posing for a wax museum exhibit titled "Leadership." He doesn't move to help, doesn't look concerned, doesn't even look curious. All we see is the blank, slack-jawed vacancy of a man so self-absorbed that even gravity collapsing another human being can't pierce his personal bubble of performance. Look at the mise en scène. The flags of every branch of the U.S. military draped behind him, the golden curtains glowing like divine validation, the phones stacked neatly on the desk. All symbols of power, order, control. All the trappings of empire. And in front of all that, a leader rendered utterly useless by somebody else's moment of crisis. It's a visual metaphor for the Trump era itself: spectacle at the center, compassion out of frame, and an entire administration that looks away when people suffer and fall. Even the lighting conspires to tell on him. The natural light behind him throws his face into a pale, waxy contrast. Half halo. Half morgue lighting. His tie dangles like a flag at half-mast. The desk in front of him gleams with untouched paperwork, a reminder that his presidency always cares more about optics than action. But maybe Secret Service protocol forbids the president from physically helping someone in distress. M'kay, but nothing forbids human emotion. No one expects Trump to perform CPR. But we do expect some flicker of humanity. Maybe a look of concern, a question, a hand halfway raised, some trace of empathy across his face. Damn. Trump's face doesn't show shock or empathy. It shows irritation that the scene isn't about him. The man behind him may have gone down, but Trump's ego never bends. What we see here is a president for whom detachment comes naturally. Quite frankly, it's haunting and cinematic in its chill. It's like watching that moment in a horror film when you realize the villain isn't the monster chasing people. It's the man calmly watching, unmoved. It all feels like a portrait of moral vacancy.
November 8, 2025 at 2:10 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Reading "Death in the Jungle" by Candace Fleming about the 1978 Jonestown massacre.

Her description of the characteristics of a destructive cult appears to fit the Trump cult.
How can we determine if a group is constructive or destruc-tive? Below are some characteristics of a destructive group. 1. It demands submission to leadership. Leaders claim to be prophets of God, specially anointed apostles, God himself, or simply strongmen who demand submission to their will. In truth, they are highly charismatic, persuasive people with authoritarian and narcissistic streaks. Money, sex, power, or all three typically motivate them. 2. It holds a polarized worldview. The group and its members believe they are the only good thing; everyone and everything outside is bad. Salvation, fulfillment, and happiness (or whatever is being promised) can be found only within the group. 3. It values feelings over facts. Emotions, intuitions, divinations, prophecies, and self-perceptions are considered more important than substantiated evidence or rational conclusion based on fact and logic. 4. It uses tactics to manipulate feelings. Leaders create false narratives and events to stimulate emotions in their followers-fear, mistrust, anger, devotion. They often employ group sessions involving gaslighting, love bombing, overloading of information meant to disorient or confuse, guilt, and physical punishment to control and coerce followers' responses. 5. It denigrates critical thinking. The leader, and ultimately the group, characterize independent thought as selfish, or anti-group. Individual opinions are forbidden. Questioning is not tolerated, and criticism is punishable. Followers must stick to "groupthink, those values and beliefs commonly held by the organization. 6. It believes that the end justifies the means. Both the leader and followers believe any action or behavior is justifiable if it furthers the organization's goals. This includes illegal acts. Since the leader is believed to be absolute and thus above all human-made laws, they may command followers to commit illegal acts for "the good of the group." 7. It values the group over the individual. The group's needs supersede any one person's goals, needs, aspirations, and concerns. Conformity is key. 8. It warns of severe or supernatural consequences for defectors. Leaders use fear, intimidation, and lies to keep followers in the group, warning that bad things will happen if they leave. Those who try to escape are made an example of; those who do get away are often harassed and intimidated. 9. It demands that followers sever from their family, friends, goals, and interests. The group becomes the followers' family-becomes their everything. Followers are discouraged from having anything to do with their former life to keep them from being pulled back into it.
November 1, 2025 at 9:33 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
The extremist "blame the immigrant" strategy is being used to devastating effect in Europe and the United States. And now the polling numbers in Canada are beginning to solidify in disturbing ways. A stunning new poll reveals a serious political cleavage over the issue of immigration. A majority of Canadians (56%) now believe there are too many immigrants in Canada. But when broken down along political lines, it reveals that 82% of Conservative voters are convinced that Canada has an immigration problem. That number has doubled in just five years. Think about that for a moment. Five years ago, the views of Conservative, Liberal and NDP voters on immigration were relatively similar. But in a relatively short time, the gap between Conservative leading voters and other voters has grown into a chasm.
October 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Bottom of the 6th, score 9 blue jays to 2 dodgers.
October 25, 2025 at 2:38 AM
grammalou.bsky.social
To be clear: performative politics exists across the political spectrum, but Poilievre has refined the practice into a governing philosophy, not just a campaign tactic. He is the master of the outrage cycle, performing conflict with total conviction. The line between authenticity and theatre is no longer visible-and that's the point. He's learned that in modern politics, outrage spreads faster than reason, and emotion outpaces empathy.
October 20, 2025 at 2:41 AM
grammalou.bsky.social
Nature is still showing off her colours today in Ottawa 🇨🇦
Looking up through branches of a maple tree with red leaves to see blue sky. Large old maple tree with dark red leaves contrasting with bright blue sky. Three large maple trees against blue sky with some wispy clouds. Foreground right tree orange, middle left tree green, distant right tree deep burgundy. Closeup photo of a sunflower with smaller sunflower bud in foreground and red maples blurry in background.
October 17, 2025 at 10:59 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
"In the future, one of the milestones by which you measure your financial success will be not just now many zeroes you can add to your net worth, but whether you can structure your affairs in a way that enables you to realise full individual autonomy and independence." The main thrust of the book is how to achieve self-ownership and independence from the state. Elements of it could seem cultish if not for the fact that a lot of what Rees-Mogg and Davidson predicted has already come to pass. Ultimately it forecasts the end of nations and nation-states and the birth of a new stage of Western Civilisation.
October 17, 2025 at 9:36 AM
grammalou.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
What is arson, though, is the attempt to skew history to serve a modern-day political narrative. Rejecting an honest account of the past makes it impossible to see accurate patterns. The lessons we learn about how society changes will be false, and the decisions we make based on those false patterns will not be grounded in reality. And a society grounded in fiction, rather than reality, cannot function.
October 13, 2025 at 1:13 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Autumn colours today in Ottawa
🇨🇦🍁
Looking up at the blue sky through branches of a maple tree covered in autumn red leaves. Person in the distance walking on a thin earthen track between fields with hill in the background with trees in autumn colours of red, yellow and orange. A bumblebee feeding on a New England aster flower while another bumblebee flies away from the flower.
October 6, 2025 at 5:25 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
kyivindependent.com/its-a-risky-...
Beyond the escalating rhetoric, experts indicate that the danger at the plant, the largest nuclear power station in Europe, is real. Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom warned that the diesel generators powering the plant are designed only for short-term emergency use and are not meant to sustain the plant’s operational needs for an extended period. A shutdown of these generators could result in a loss of control over the facility’s nuclear safety systems.
October 3, 2025 at 6:12 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
hartmannreport.com/p/twelve-ste...
Instead of letting their leaders turn their nations into permanent autocracies, the people rose up and took the power back for themselves and their democracies. They include Ukraine, the Philippines, Brazil, Poland, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Peru, South Korea, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Gambia, Malawi, Moldova, and South Africa. History shows that any democracy can fall into tyranny if its citizens grow cynical, give up, or look away. The question - the only question that matters now — is whether enough of us will choose to stand up, to act, and to reclaim what generations before us fought and bled to pass along, like the citizens of those countries listed above have done in the past.
October 3, 2025 at 2:57 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Please ensure you and your children are vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella.

SSPE is a complication of measles infection that appears 7-10 years after the person appears fully recovered from measles.

It is always fatal.
arstechnica.com/health/2025/...
SSPE is caused by a persistent measles infection in the central nervous system. Children infected with the virus may go through the standard disease progression-flu-like symptoms, high fever, the telltale rash —and then appear to fully recover. But, for a small few, the virus remains, and SSPE emerges years later, often seven to 10 years after the initial infection. The Los Angeles health department noted that SSPE generally affects about 1 in 10,000 people with measles, but the risk may be much higher-about 1 in 600—for those who get measles as infants, such as the child who recently died.
October 1, 2025 at 11:06 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/iwan...
The Telegraph is a Conservative-biased newspaper in the UK that often distorts the truth. Carney left in June 2020 when inflation rates were at 0.6%. It didn't start shooting up again until almost a year after he left. I don't believe anything but the facts.
October 1, 2025 at 2:19 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
sentientmedia.org/the-study-bi...
In 2019, the medical journal Lancet and the environmental nonprofit EAT collaborated to produce a sweeping meta-study on the connection between dietary trends, personal health and environmental wellbeing. A total of 37 researchers worked for over two years to answer the question: How can food producers feed the world’s growing population in a healthy manner without risking environmental collapse? The report found that if current consumption habits continued unabated, greenhouse emissions would double by 2050. An increase in plant-based diets, meanwhile, could reduce emissions by up to 80 percent. The commission concluded that a global reduction in the consumption of sugar and animal products, along with a commensurate increase in consumption of plant-based proteins, will be necessary to feed the population by the year 2050 while avoiding environmental catastrophe.
October 1, 2025 at 12:13 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/17...
LC affects children, adolescents, and healthy adults and is characterized by over 200 diverse symptoms that persist for months to years after the acute COVID-19 infection is resolved. These symptoms target twelve major organ systems, causing dyspnea, vascular damage, cognitive impairments ("brain fog"), physical and mental fatigue, anxiety, and depression. This heterogeneity of LC symptoms, along with the lack of specific biomarkers and diagnostic tests, presents a significant challenge to the development of LC treatments. While several biological abnormalities have emerged as potential drivers of LC, a causative factor in a large subset of patients with LC, involves reservoirs of virus and/or viral RNA (VRNA) that persist months to years in multiple organs driving chronic inflammation, respiratory, muscular, cognitive, and cardiovascular damages, and provide continuous viral antigenic stimuli that overstimulate and exhaust CD4+ and CD8+ T cells.
September 29, 2025 at 7:31 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Fall colours in the front garden. I can hear the bees buzzing as I work.
Front garden with a variety of asters, brown eyed Susans, goldenrod, cosmos, sedum, marigolds, portulaca, sage, lavender, Swiss chard.
September 27, 2025 at 4:38 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
OZYMANDIAS I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear -- "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away! - Percy Shelly
September 26, 2025 at 2:20 AM
grammalou.bsky.social
Beautiful sunny fall day in Ottawa, Ontario. Leaves are turning colour, bees are feasting at the aster blooms, and a beautiful Chicken of the Woods mushroom spotted!
Large bright yellow clumps of fungus with orange centre (resembles a cauliflower) growing on the trunk base of an old tree. Fungus identified as Chicken of the Woods. New England Aster blooms with a bee on one of the flowers. Mass of small white daisy like flowers with yellow centre. Identified as a symphyotrichium (slender leaf wood aster). Bumble bee feeding on one of the flowers.
September 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
Use of Acetaminophen for Pain and Fever in Pregnancy.

This is the Sept 12, 2025 updated position paper of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC)
SOGC Position Statement on the use of Acetaminophen for Analgesia and Fever in Pregnancy Authors and Affiliations Janine R Hutson, a Graeme N. Smith,b Elisabeth Codsi, c Facundo Garcia-Bournissen, d a Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The University of Western Ontario b Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen’s University c Département d'obstétrique-gynécologie, Université de Montréal d Department of Paediatrics, The University of Western Ontario Consensus In 2021, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) issued a position statement recommending the use of acetaminophen as a first-line therapeutic option for fever and pain in pregnancy when medically indicated at recommended doses for the shortest duration required. Since then, multiple commentaries in scientific journals and reports from previously trustworthy organizations have questioned the safety of acetaminophen in pregnancy, linking, without any new supporting evidence, fetal exposure to acetaminophen to increased risks of some neurodevelopmental, reproductive, and urogenital disorders.1 Early this week, media outlets began reporting that the US Department of Health and Human Services plans to release a new report that definitively links prenatal exposure to acetaminophen to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), even as the data refutes this.2 The SOGC, as well as a number of other international societies,3-5 recognizes that the evidence for this claim of causality is weak and has many fundamental flaws. In light of this, the SOGC revisited the evidence and re-affirmed our recommendation: The SOGC recommends the use of acetaminophen as a first-line therapeutic option for fever and pain in pregnancy when medically indicated at recommended doses for the shortest duration required. The controversy regarding the association between in utero exposure to acetaminophen and adverse neurological outcomes in the child, including ASD and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, is not … Reputable medical organizations, including the European Network of Teratology Information Services® and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology*, have firmly stated that current clinical practice should not be altered and that acetaminophen should continue to be used for managing fever and/or pain in pregnancy, when indicated. The SOGC's current opinion, based on the available evidence, agrees with this recommendation. The benefits of acetaminophen for fever or pain in pregnancy are well recognized, as is the lack of safer alternatives in pregnancy. Untreated fever has been associated with miscarriage, fetal organ malformations, fetal cardiovascular complications, and even Autism Spectrum Disorder. Untreated pain can lead to depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure, which also have adverse effects on pregnancy. Access to effective pain management is considered a human right, which women should not be denied just because they are pregnant. The SOGC is committed to ensuring that its recommendations are grounded in the most current and high-quality evidence, so that pregnant women and their providers can feel secure in their decisions. Opinions based on limited or flawed evidence should not promote unwarranted fear and guilt in pregnant women. Women are encouraged to discuss any concerns regarding therapeutics in pregnancy with their health care provider. References: 1. Bauer AZ, Swan SH, Kriebel D, et al. Paracetamol use during pregnancy — a call for precautionary action. Nature Reviews Endocrinology 2021. 2. Essley Whyte and Subbaraman."RFK Jr., HHS to Link Autism to Tylenol Use in Pregnancy and Folate Deficiencies." The Wall Street Journal. 5 Sept. 2025.https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/rfk-jr-hhs-to-link-autism-to-tylenol-use- in-pregnancy-and-folate-deficiencies-e3acbb4c?msockid=2d909c93c9b1618814148909c8626018 3. The European Network of Teratology Information Services (ENTIS). Position statement on acetaminophen (paracetamol) in pregnancy. 2021. 4. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). ACOG Response to Consensus Statement on Paracetamol Use During Pregnancy. 2021. 5. Prenatal acetaminophen use and outcomes in children. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216:B14-b5. 6. U.S. Food & Drug Administration. FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA has reviewed possible risks of pain medicine use during pregnancy. 2015. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-drug-safety-communication-fda-has-reviewed-possible-risks-pain-medicine-use-during-pregnancy 7. Ahlqvist VH, Sjöqvist H, Dalman C, et al. Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy and Children's Risk of Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability. JAMA. 2024;331(14):1205- 1214. Doi:10.1001/jama.2024.3172 8. Damkier P, Gram EB, Ceulemans M, Panchaud A, Cleary B, Chambers C, Weber-Schoendorfer C, Kennedy D, Hodson K, Grant KS, Diav-Citrin 0, Obican SG, Shechtman S, Alwan S. Acetaminophen in Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Obstet Gynecol. 2025 Feb 1;145(2):168-176. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000005802. 9. Brennan F, Lohman D, Gwyther L. Access to Pain Management as a Human Right. Am J Public Health 2019;109:61-5.
September 24, 2025 at 2:46 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
When trust in the USA is broken, it will be very difficult to regain. Without trust there is no soft power.
1/2
bylinetimes.com/2025/09/17/d...
Even if America’s soft power institutions can be rebuilt, I believe the reputation that once underpinned them has gone. Disillusion is a powerful emotion. Like for a company which has sold a faulty product, or a marriage in which one party has cheated, trust in America will be hard to recover.
September 20, 2025 at 2:18 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
"You know you don't live in a free country any more when comedians can no longer criticize the president." That's a criteria for the end of freedom that everybody understands. Up until the last few days, most Americans didn't think we'd lost our freedoms or are about to. Didn't think that we'd become a tyranny or are on the verge, where the King will come against you no matter who you are, no matter what political party you vote for (just ask registered Republicans Comey, Milley, or Miller), or how obscure you may be (just ask the Columbia students).
September 19, 2025 at 2:57 PM
grammalou.bsky.social
What other reaction would the American Government expect from Canada after threatening to make us their 51st State and putting tariffs on us? 🤦‍♀️

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
The U.S. ambassador to Canada is expressing frustration over the anti-American sentiment he sees in this country, including from politicians, after U.S. President Donald Trump hit most of the world with tariffs. Asked what surprised him about Canada since starting his new role in April, Pete Hoekstra said Thursday that what's most "unexpected" is the country's feelings about the U.S. "I'm disappointed that I came to Canada - a Canada that it is very, very difficult to find Canadians who are passionate about the American-Canadian relationship," Hoekstra said at an event hosted by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce.
September 18, 2025 at 9:56 PM