The Canary Report

Change is coming to The Canary Report

Posted on Feb 14, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

Aloha Dear Readers,

Posts on The Canary Report will be sparse over the next few days. I am taking apart my office, removing all the furniture, cleaning and painting (safe paint!) top to bottom, and then putting it back together in an arrangement that will work much better for me.

This is a precursor to an extreme makeover to The Canary Report itself. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be launching a whole new theme on the website, one that will be easier to use and navigate (I promise!), with capacity to include information pages. This means that The Canary Report will be transforming from a blog about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity to a full service website on MCS that includes a blog component.

After the launch of the new theme, I’ll be packing the site full of information on disability rights, safe housing and construction, healthy living, health care, products, research, mold, chemicals, alternative products and more. Guest bloggers will also be coming on board, including attorneys, medical doctors, architects, specialists in ADA and worker’s rights, and many others. It’s very exciting!

In addition, several adjunct social networking components will be launched, including a presence on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (I hope to be producing MCS videos soon!).

Most exciting, a dedicated social network specially made for The Canary Report community is already launched! I haven’t figured out all the bells and whistles yet myself, but I hope you’ll go check it out and join– you can start your own blog, share your photos and videos, ask questions on the forum, and chat amongst yourselves. You can get a sneak peek at the new logo, too!

Okay, I’m off to start stripping my office. I hope you’ll go play on the new social network site over the weekend. Try not to feel intimidated or confused with the format, just take it slow, poke around, click on everything. Don’t worry about making a mistake, ok? Just play, you can always delete anything you don’t like or just check with me and I can help. It’s going to be really fun– so now, instead of just me posting things for you, we can ALL share with each other!

And hey, all you “lurkers” out there! Come join us in the conversation, come share your wisdom, your worries, your life with MCS. Together, we are stronger!

Before I close, I just want to reassure you that The Canary Report itself will remain pretty much the same. I will continue to search the Interwebs for information and news about which I think you’d be interested. And, if I can ever figure out how to find the time, I’d like to start writing original essays for you on MCS issues. All in due time, my Dear Canaries.

Enjoy your three-day weekend!

Aloha,

Susie xoxo

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Tags: Editor's Notes, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

New category on The Canary Report “Resources” page: Environmental Health

Posted on Oct 21, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

I’ve developed a new category on the Resources page: Environmental Health. Let me know if you’d like to see something added to this new category or any other!

Environmental Health

Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: Your Home & Your Health

EHS Today: Environment

Enviroblog

Environmental Health News

Environmental Health Perspectives

Healthy Child Healthy World

Secret Ingredients

Switchboard: Jennifer Sass’s Blog (National Resources Defense Council)

The Angry Toxicologist

The Center for School Mold Help

The Collaborative on Health and the Environment

The Pump Handle

U.S. Air Now (Current air quality in United States)

Women’s Voices for the Earth News

Thanks, Linda, for suggesting CMHC!

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Tags: Editor's Notes, Environment, Environmental Health

The canary is taking a one day break

Posted on Sep 07, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

No posts today, I’m kicking back, off to bed early. If you want to amuse yourselves, check out the comment section on this Aug 10 post. It’ll make you WILD. Would love to hear your thoughts!

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Tags: Editor's Notes

My apologies to my loyal readers

Posted on Aug 26, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

My bad.

Early this morning at 2 a.m., bleary and exhausted, while trying to figure out how to control the massive amounts of spam comments that were flooding the site, I accidentally deleted ALL the comments of the past few weeks. MAJOR BUMMERS. I got so mad at myself because there was so much information in the comments that loyal visitors had left: info about air filters and kitty litter and childhood trauma from chemical cleansers. I know the commentors took time and thought to write these comments and as host it’s my responsibility to protect and honor your input, a bloggers creed. I’m so sorry!

There’s a possibility that the comments are hiding somewhere in a cache that I don’t know how to access. But I have a bad feeling that the cache function wasn’t activated. The loss of your thoughts is especially annoying because, with the help of a member of the Canary flock, I had improved the comments a bit yesterday by fixing the avatar function so that people with Gravatar accounts have their photo show up with their comments– I was so happy about that.

Anywho, thanks everybody for your patience while I learn how to do this. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement, it means a lot to me. I’m not very geeky, so it’s a steep learning curve. I look at the pages of code and settings and have immediate brain freeze. So please continue leaving comments and I promise not to accidentally check that stupid little box that marks a whole chunk of good comments as spam and sends them to to the ether.

PS I hope to have a link to the comments function under each post on the blog page soon (right now you have to click on the individual post to access the comments). And I have lots of other plans for more user-friendly widgets and information… stay tuned!

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Tags: Editor's Notes

The canary is taking a break

Posted on Jul 18, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

The canary is taking some time off from the website this week to regroup and reconnect with family. Please sign up for email updates (at right, below featured video), and you’ll be notified when the next post is made. Meanwhile you can explore the archives, and check out the new “Resources” page — see tab at the top menu bar — for oodles and oodles of links. More soon!

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Tags: Editor's Notes

The canary is taking a break

Posted on Jul 10, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Editor's Notes, Susie Collins

I’m taking some time away from keyboard, much needed.

Meanwhile, you might have some fun exploring:

• A high fizz blog about living healthy at Eco-Chick

• Some tips on choosing the right water bottle at Enviroblog

• Fresh handmade cosmetics at Lush

• A blog I absolutely adore that has nothing at all to do with MCS (yes, I do have other interests besides my health)

• A total gross out report on Sleep Number beds

• And if that isn’t enough, here’s a vid of a Falling Water Cocktail Making Machine that I snitched from Laughing Squid (also nothing to do with MCS, it’s just a warm up for time off..):

More soon!

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Tags: Editor's Notes