Deep Thoughts

Your thoughts?
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If a person's actions cause good things to happen for their fellow human beings, do that person's underlying motives matter?

One person I posed this question to responded that if you're George W. Bush, and your actions are invading Iraq, the answer is yes.

But what if you're Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto, and your actions are allowing low-income and homeless Hawaiian families to live rent-free in eight of your 22 mansions in Hawaii's ritzy Kahala district?

In addition to the rent-free accommodations, which families may live in for up to 10 years, Kawamoto gave each family 10 $100 bills to assist with moving expenses.

The families themselves, many of them single, working mothers with multiple children, are overjoyed by Kawamoto's generosity. For them, merely to have a home at all is something to be grateful for. And to receive the use of a multi-million-dollar mansion is nothing short of a miracle.

"We prayed so hard and cried so much for God to drop something from the skies," said school clerk and single mother of five Lyn Worley, whose family was one of the recipients of Kawamoto's generous offer, "and He did, He really, really, did."

But some neighbours who also own multi-million-dollar homes along Kahala Avenue are less than thrilled with the new kids on the block, and are quick to discredit Kawamoto's motives for moving them in.

Kawamoto's past real estate dealings have given him the reputation of not being such a nice guy. In at least two instances, Kawamoto served 30-day eviction notices to tenants in his California and Hawaii properties, trying to get residents out fast in order to flip the properties for profit.

And suspicions abound amongst Kawamoto's neighbours that his latest scheme is merely an effort to drive down property values so Kawamoto can pick up some more cheap digs for future resale.

"Everyone's paying homage to him, but in reality, he's the problem," Kahala Avenue resident Mark Blackburn said.

But is it Kawamoto and his alleged financial ulterior motives that are the problem? Or is it folks like Blackburn and their veiled prejudices against their new lower-class neighbours that are the real issue?

Poverty in and of itself has never made anyone a bad person. Worley and the other families moving into Kawamoto's mansions may not be multi-millionaires, but that doesn't automatically make them less desirable than the existing residents.

Blackburn and his buddies should look beyond bank account balances and at least get to know the newcomers and their families as human beings before passing judgment on them.

If they were feeling especially generous, they could even attempt to make the newcomers feel as welcome as possible in a world that is entirely foreign to everything families like the Worleys have previously been exposed to.

But if the existing residents choose instead to leave the neighbourhood now that Kawamoto has "let the riff-raff in," it says much more about their own inexcusable prejudices than it does about Kawamoto's penchant for profits.

And if Kawamoto does make a few bucks from his generosity, I'm willing to chalk it up as the cost of doing a good deed for some human beings who truly deserve a break in life.

I'm sure Lyn Worley would agree.

Cartoons

I go through phases, and right now, I'm going through a cartoon-watching phase. Not the airy fairy cartoons they produce for kids these days. The cartoons from my childhood. The ones that were far too intelligent for me to completely understand when I was a kid (because, come on, I don't care how smart they are - no kid would be able to completely understand all the subtle nuances in Bugs Bunny humour), but are absolutely brilliant as I watch them as an adult. I am enjoying them so much, in fact, that I may even hit Amazon and order a few DVDs...my favourites:

(1) Looney Tunes
(2) Scooby Doo
(3) Flintstones
(4) Popeye
(5) Smurfs

Yours?

I Am Now a Redhead!

Will post pics soon!

I Love Dwight K. Schrute

Okay, love might be too strong a word. Yes, definitely too strong a word. But Dwight K. Schrute is the prime reason I watch The Office. I'm a fan. For sure.

For your reading pleasure, some infamous Dwight K. Schrute quotes:
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"Whenever I’m about to do something, I think 'would an idiot do that?' and if they would, I do not do that thing."

"There’s nothing on my horizon except everything. Everything is on my horizon."

" How would I describe myself? Three words: hard working, alpha male, jackhammer…merciless…insatiable…"

"I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me."

"One of my life goals was to die right here in this desk chair. And today that dream was shattered."

"Here’s my card. It’s got my cell number, my pager number, my home number and my other pager number. I never take vacations, I never get sick and I don’t celebrate any major holidays."

"I never let anyone walk behind me, 7 out of 10 attacks are from the rear."

"I am greatly concerned about having a convict in the office. And I do not care if that convict is white, black, Asian, German or some kind of halfsie. I do not like criminals."

"I am fast. To give you a reference point I am somewhere between a snake and a mongoose…and a panther."

And the coups de grace:

Michael: "Guys - meat, it’s what’s for dinner. Who wants some man meat?"
Dwight: "I want some man meat!"
Jim: "Dwight wants your man meat."
Michael: "Well then, my man meat he shall have."

Dwight: "Just as you have planted your seed in the ground, I am going to plant my seed in you.
Ryan: "I don't think you know what you're saying..."

So, Nobody's Going to Call Me On It?

This week's and last week's columns, I mean. Really? Nobody?

Bringing Sexy Back

Today's offering (and the feature column on the Canoe website today!!)...thoughts?
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Don't want the pitter patter of little feet disrupting your fulfilling adult lifestyle?

Just follow the lead of the Japanese and stop having sex.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, nearly 40% of Japanese aged 16 to 49 reported they hadn't had sex in over a month.

Nothing unusual for most married couples (or so I hear).

But in a country where the average birthrate fell in 2005 to 1.26 births per woman, high celibacy rates are certainly a concern for Japan's family planning policy wonks.

"This is very bad news for the country's birthrate," said Dr. Kunio Kitamura, the Family Planning Association's director, "and something the government needs to look into urgently."

Especially since, as Kitamura's research concluded, "if you don't have sex for a month, you probably won't for a year."

You married folks paying attention yet?

Low birthrates are quickly becoming a major issue in nations across the globe. Here at home, census numbers released this week show that Canada's birthrate has declined to an average of only 1.5 births per woman.

And according to statistics found at www.childfreebychoice.com, one in six American women, or approximately 34.9 million families, were childless in 1993 (an increase from one in 11 women in 1975).

For most folks, it's unlikely that patriotic arguments ("Canadians conceive -- your country needs you!") or government-sponsored incentives to procreate at a more frenetic pace will change their decision to remain child-free.

While a minority of people choose to remain childless for grandiose ideals such as saving the planet from further destruction caused by overpopulation, the majority of the "me generation" shun children for more personal reasons.

Career, travel or romantic partners may take precedence. Or on a basic mundane level, dinner and a movie may sound much more exciting than bath and story time.

Call it selfishness if you want. But in a world where community interests take a backseat to individual freedom of choice, most people view the decision whether to procreate as a strictly individual one that is none of society at large's business.

Sometimes, though, society has to butt in where it isn't wanted. In addition to world population concerns, low birthrates may have other significant impacts of a global nature.

For instance, according to a 2004 study conducted by Douglas Downey, a professor at Ohio State University, children without siblings run an increased risk of developing poor social and conflict resolution skills.

The study of 20,000 kindergarten children showed that only children were less able to "form and maintain friendships, get along with people who are different, comfort and help other children, express feelings in a positive way, and show sensitivity to the feelings of others."

Couple poor social skills and a lack of built-in human contact with society's unprecedented reliance on electronic communication and companionship, and the global nation is hurtling down a path of disconnectedness never before experienced.

It's time to bring a sense of community back to the human race.

The first step might be to bring sexy back to the Japanese.

What Would You Do?

And before you jump to any conclusions, I am not referring to my own personal situation. I'm merely asking a question because I'm curious to get your responses.

What would you do if you really wanted a child, but your partner didn't. Would you leave them to find a partner who did want kids? Or would you stay with them and accept that you would be childless? In other words, would you choose the love you do have with your partner, or the possibility of love you might have with your future children?

Character

Update: For instance, can a person be careful and impulsive at the same time? If anything, I was extremely careful up until I hit 20, at which point I made the shift to impulsive. But do we need to be one extreme or the other? If so, I think I choose careful. Impulsive gets a person into trouble. Frankly, I think the best advice I have ever heard is to count to 10 before you speak or act. I need to remember that more often.

On the flip side, there is such a thing as being too careful. The worst advice I have ever gotten was to hold in feelings, not to talk about certain events, to be too private. Sometimes it's good - and necessary - to share.
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Does every person go through a period in their life (likely late teens/early twenties) when they are trying to define themselves as an adult and do things that may be viewed as completely out of character for them? I know I did (primarily in terms of who I dated and how I behaved in relationships). But that's normal, right?

Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's a mistake to try to define ourselves and our character rigidly, so that departing from a normal course of behaviour is viewed as acting "out of character". Perhaps we're constantly evolving, and what may have seemed "out of character" a day, a week, or a month ago may be perfectly normal in the present. So we're always "in character", because our character is constantly developing.

What have you done that's been completely out of character for you? And are you glad you did it, or was it a growing pain you wish you could take back?

Travel Bug

I am going to start buying lottery tickets again. Because every spring, the travel bug overtakes me and I feel an overwhelming need to get away.

I've been very fortunate to have travelled as much as I have in the past few years.

In 2001 and 2002, I went to Europe (once in 2001, and twice in 2002 - in all, I've been to England, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Monaco, Spain).

Spring of 2003 was a write-off, but I did manage a week at Lake of the Woods in the fall.

In 2004, I went to Calgary/Kelowna/Vancouver, and Chicago.

In 2005, I went to Japan (primarily Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo).

Spring of 2006 was Las Vegas and Calgary/Grande Prairie, and fall of 2006 featured Kelowna/Vancouver.

And this year, in addition to hopefully spending some time on the west coast visiting my boyfriend's father, there are two special trips I really want to take.

It is my mother's 60th birthday in November and my sister's 30th birthday in June. So, I am helping send my mom to Europe (possibly Italy and Greece) with a friend. I've never been to Greece, so if time and money allow, I'd love to join them there for a week. And I am taking my sister to either Chicago or New York for a week.

Sounds crazy, I know. But it's spring, and the travel bug has bitten hard.

Reflections

My dad dropped by unannounced this weekend. Which is no small feat, given that he lives in Kelowna. I've already gone through my feelings on calling first with him (what if we had been out of town, busy, sick, etc.), so I'm not going to rehash that here. The important thing is that we had a really nice visit, and I was really glad to see him, even if for the briefest of moments.

His visit got me thinking about some good childhood memories.

When I was 3 or 4, I would watch Sesame Street every day (it was on from 11 till noon) and wait for my dad to get home from school so we could eat lunch (usually soup and sandwiches) together. It was a very special part of my day.

Sesame Street then triggered the memory of the show that was on the tv when we first got our cable turned on - Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood. My sister's boyfriend's last name is Neighbour. I'm a dork, but I've always thought that if he ever proposed to her, he should do it by singing the Mr. Rogers theme song..."it's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, a beautiful day for a neighbour, would you be mine? could you be mine?" (Kelly, if you're reading this, I'm telling you - it's gold!!).

But I digress. I also remember my dad tucking me in for bed and telling me stories...he had a neat way of doing it, as each story would involve a character moving from place to place (the farmer driving his tractor was a popular one), and he would trace out their movements on my hand.

I remember trips home from Elphinstone and Sandy Lake (visiting my grandparents) in the dark, and we would all sing songs in the car. The only Ukrainian I know are some of the folk songs that my dad taught us during those drives.

I remember evenings downstairs in front of the fireplace my parents built out of stone, eating pizza buns and watching cartoons (these memories are especially vivid around Christmastime, and the cartoon was usually The Grinch or Charlie Brown). One evening that particularly stands out is the Christmas Eve I got a Barbie bubble bath (it blew real bubbles) and played with it in front of the fireplace for hours, waiting for Santa to come.

And there are many more memories like that. It amazes me that I can remember many instances in my childhood quite vividly, but seem to have blocked out most of junior high and high school. Is that normal?

To Procreate or Not to Procreate

Today's offering...
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There are two types of people in this world. Those who have children, and those who don’t.

And radicals of both camps believe the decision whether or not to reproduce is so critical that the very existence of our planet may depend on it.

If anyone would have predicted five years ago that former U.S. vice-president Al Gore would be an Oscar winner, I would have called that person crazy. But the state of the environment is the issue at the top of everyone’s minds these days, from politicians to opinion columnists to Hollywood celebrities.

We’ve all heard the buzzwords — global warming, climate change, the Kyoto Protocol. The future of the planet is a serious issue. But if human beings really want to solve the Earth’s environmental crises, there’s no need to call in the likes of Al Gore or David Suzuki.

According to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, all we need to do to save the planet is stop having children.

Their website, www.vhemt.org, states “when every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s ‘experiments’ have done throughout the eons.”

For anyone who’s seen the futuristic movie Children of Men, where mankind is on the verge of extinction as a result of a reproductive drought, these words are likely sending a shiver up your spine.

A world without babies? To quote the movie’s trailer, “No children, no future, no hope.”

So what’s a poor woman to do? Stay barren and save the planet? Or go forth and multiply, and save the human race?

Kids definitely aren’t for everybody.

Birthrates are falling at an alarming rate in Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe, and statistics show that increasingly more women are making the conscious choice not to have children.

In the U.S., a 1995 National Centre of Health survey listed 4.1 million women as voluntarily childless, an increase of 4.2% since 1982.

The task of parenting is not for the faint of heart, the short of attention span, or the chronically uninterested.

To the utter disgust of my parents’ generation, some young couples prize their careers more than having a child. Some would rather spend their hard-earned money travelling the world than buying diapers.

And still others place more value on maintaining an unencumbered romantic relationship with the love of their life than adding a not-so-joyful little bundle into the mix.

But having children (or not) is a personal choice. It takes a selfless person to decide they would rather not have children at all than subject those children to a parent who is unable or unwilling to give them the time, attention and love they deserve.

So if a man or woman recognizes his or her limitations and decides they are not up to the challenge of raising youngsters, society has no right to criticize or make them feel less-than.

For all you know they might be saving the planet.

So Much To Catch Up On

Again, I've been neglectful in my blogging, and for that I apologize. But I discovered Facebook, and that has been monopolizing my computer time of late. To sum up:

(1) Van Morrison was amazing! He played for exactly an hour and a half (per contractual obligations, so I hear) and put on one heck of a great show! He did all the old favourites (except my longtime favourite, Real Real Gone) and the crowd, though small, was certainly a knowledgable and appreciative one. The entire ensemble was seamless, and his band consisted of some fine musicians (especially the trumpet player). Only negative part of the evening was the fact that I ended up going alone...my boyfriend was trying to get out of work in time to go, but didn't end up making it (which was really too bad, as he's a huge Van fan and would have been in his glory). C'est la vie, I suppose.

(2) My work colleagues and I took an after-work field trip last evening to see The Number 23. Despite the hype, it was not a great movie. I was not on the edge of my seat, I found the plot difficult to follow (though that could have been because I stopped paying attention after awhile), and I am not a big Jim Carrey fan. BUT if you go to the Polo Park theatre on a Tuesday night, you get a free drink and popcorn. So it wasn't a total loss.

(3) My friend Liz and I are going to Ten Spa this weekend for manicures/pedicures. I'm quite excited, as I've heard great things about Ten and am really looking forward to a little pampering. Has anyone tried the hammam?? I'm curious to know what exactly it entails...

That's it for now (I'm in the process of scanning some old pictures to complete some photo albums I'm putting together, and need to focus) but I'll be back!!