HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-02-11, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Are you feeling a little…harried these
days? Overworked? Rushed off your
feet? Not enough hours in the day?
It’s not your imagination – you really are
busier than ever. You are processing about
three times more information every day than
you would have been in 1980.
A study performed by researchers at the San
Diego branch of the University of California
shows that the avalanche of raw data cascading
down upon us has more than tripled in the past
30 years.
I have no trouble believing that. I am a
Certified Old Guy. I actually remember what it
was like in 1980 when there were no
cellphones, no Blackberrys, no blogs or
podcasts.
It was another era. Most families could
actually live on one salary, which usually
meant that one spouse went out to a day job
while the other – most often the wife – got to
stay home and attend to all the other ‘day jobs’
– cooking, cleaning and kid control.
It wasn’t heaven on earth but it was
definitely simpler. The information stream was
pretty basic: Folks listened to the radio news at
breakfast time, read the newspaper after dinner
and maybe caught the 10 o’clock telecast
before they turned in.
The rest of our ‘information’ was gleaned
from gossip around the water cooler and over
the back fence, reading the odd novel or two
plus an occasional phone call from Aunt
Agnes.
Gone, along with Opie shuffling barefoot
down to the fishin’ hole.
That University of California study I
mentioned earlier reckons we now spend about
70 per cent of our waking hours simply
consuming information. That works out to
nearly 12 hours a day listening, watching or,
more and more frequently, reading on-line
‘data’which can range from porn to politics to
a disquisition on Plato.
And frequently these days we’re doing it –
watching, listening, reading and tweeting – all
at once. It’s become fashionable – even
common – to absorb information from a
variety of sources simultaneously.
Kids routinely do their homework sprawled
in front of the TV (or computer screen) while
soundtracks from their MP3 players unspool
in their ears. It’s called multitasking.
Adults do it too, with working lunches,
listening to Vinyl Tap while answering e-mail
or driving with a BlueTooth headset gnawing
at their temple.
One idiot actually tweeted his wedding
ceremony.
So if we’re taking in this ocean of
information that our poor caveman ancestors
back in 1980 didn’t have access to, it follows
that we’re a lot smarter than those ignorant,
unlettered slobs, right?
Not right.
Another study conducted by researchers at
Stanford University discovered that in fact
we’re pretty mediocre when we multitask.
People who do a lot of it end up with weaker
memories and an inability to commit or focus
on individual tasks.
“The shocking discovery of this research,”
says communications researcher Clifford Nash
“is that high-multitaskers are lousy at
everything that’s necessary for multitasking.”
Old-timers had a phrase for this condition.
They called it an inability “to see the forest for
the trees”.
That helps to explain how, despite having
raised global economics to a fine science we
could experience a worldwide financial
meltdown that somehow, no agency, not our
failsafe systems nor our vast array of brilliant
financial wizards and gurus, could see coming.
It also helps to explain how, with the world-
shuddering spectre of climate change looming
over us, the melting icecaps metaphorically
lapping at our toes, we can continue to bicker
and nit-pick like perfumed courtiers during the
French Revolution, as to whether said change
is really happening and whether it is ‘man-
made’ or ‘natural”.
And it helps to explain how an unhinged
Muslim student in Nigeria, already flagged on
a terrorist no-fly list, could buy a ticket and
board a plane – without luggage –and fly
across the Atlantic and half of North America
to a point over the Great Lakes when, as his
plane begins its descent into Detroit he stands
up and tries to blow himself and his fellow
passengers to smithereens.
Perhaps the airport security staff was
‘multitasking’ when Mister Abdulmutallab
slipped through. Maybe they were so fixed on
confiscating bobby pins from a Nebraskan
grandmother or a tube of Colgate toothpaste
from a Winnipeg dry goods salesman that they
failed to notice Mister Abdulmutallab was
walking funny.
You’d walk funny too if your Stanfields
were packed with high explosives.
Reminds me of a previous career I had at a
radio station in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Part of
my job was to read the newscasts at 4:30 and
5:30 p.m. One day, after reading the 4:30 news
I went out and watched firefighters put out a
fire in a building just down the street. When I
read the 5:30 news there was no mention of a
local fire. After I finished reading I went down
to the newsroom to ask how come. The editor
opened the newsroom door, letting out a
bedlam of wire copy chattering, phones
ringing and reporters yelling.
Clearly annoyed at the interruption, the
editor snapped “Fire? We didn’t know there
was a fire. Once we close this newsroom door
we don’t know what’s going on out there.”
Arthur
Black
Other Views Hey there...what’s your hurry?
You close your eyes and feel the tropical
heat washing over you, drenching your
skin. The gentle light kisses and
soothes, while the soft rush of water dances by.
Birds and windchimes sing sweet discord and
you soak up the sensual comfort of this special
place.
Tucked away in a corner of my home is a
newfound haven. On a mission to discover a
drug-free response to the aches, pain and
maladies of an otherwise healthy middle-aged
couple, my husband began researching the pros
and cons of far infrared saunas. One arrived in
our home a year ago.
Whereas a traditional Finnish sauna uses
steam (which heats the air, and thereby the
user) far infrared saunas directly heat the user
with infrared radiant heaters. They produce the
same type of heat as the sun without the
harmful UV rays.
It’s a generally approved notion among both
traditional and alternative medicine
professionals that far infrared does have many
benefits. Studies have proven some, there is
skeptism about others.
I don’t know much about medical studies
and research. What I would say is that if you
can find the means to do so, get an infrared
sauna.
First consider the hedonistic. There is
nothing extravagant about the sauna we chose.
It’s one of the smallest, capable of seating two
people, adequately, but not particularly
comfortably. There is a CD player that has
provided a background of nature sounds, the
Beatles and blues depending on the mood. And
when I step into that little square box I’m miles
away from the cares of the day.
The sauna too has a series of coloured light
settings meant to help one achieve balance and
harmony. Hocus pocus to some, perhaps. Or
opt to open the mind to the possibility and
relax.
Our far infrared sauna will reach a
temperature of 66°C, though we are usually
out, before it hits the high. It is both a pleasant
and unpleasant experience, tucked away in a
private space, with nothing to do but relax,
listen to music, read or talk.
And of course, sweat. Our first evening in
the sauna my husband and I wondered how this
was going to do us any good when neither of us
were known to be, shall we say, perspirers.
Well, it would seem that practise makes perfect
on everything. The floodgates have opened.
And how do we feel? Well... better. Not
perfect, but there is an improvement on several
levels.
Admittedly while testimonials promised
almost immediate results that was not the case.
But within a few short days, we were both
sleeping better, drifting off easier, snoozing
soundly. Skin feels softer and I have dropped
some pounds, nothing significant, but at this
point I’ll take what I can. Energy levels are
enjoying a gradual, but steady, increase and
joint pain is easing.
Perhaps some of this is a result of other
influences. Perhaps not. That may be
something I’ll never know.
So, yes I believe that there are health benefits
to the far infrared sauna. But even if it brought
no relief from physical ailments, there’s a
really good one that hasn’t been noted. For one
hour most evenings my husband and I are
locked away from television and computer.
Besides getting all hot and sweaty together
there is quiet conversation and relaxing.
That’s an investment that’s good for body
and soul.
Not all deserving of awards
Go ahead. Sweat it!
Ontario is giving its highest honour
more to those who deserve it, but
sometimes a name seems to creep on
the list by mistake.
The province has presented 29 new
recipients with the Order of Ontario and they
include more working for causes overseas,
including War Child Canada and Doctors
Without Borders, which both provide much
needed humanitarian aid in conflict zones.
In the early years after the awards were
established in the mid-1980s those helping
distant causes were less noticed, so the
province is growing more outward looking.
Too many early awards also were given
politicians, who already had their rewards.
The exception that can be quibbled with on
some grounds is Paul Godfrey, president and
chief executive officer of the National Post,
who earlier ran the Toronto Sun.
The awards committee says it gave one to
Godfrey because of his leadership in
municipal government (in Toronto) and help
creating the Herbie Fund, which pays for
operations to save the lives of children around
the world.
Godfrey also was a shrewd businessman
who became wealthy and while running the
Sun was a godfather in Ontario’s powerful,
governing Progressive Conservative party and
adviser to its leadership.
Writers on that paper knew of this
relationship and some may have been
encouraged to follow their boss’s lead and be
similarly partisan.
The National Post also is an unceasing
advocate of extreme right politics and Godfrey
would never have won an award for encourag-
ing independence and neutrality in journalism.
This still is not as questionable as an earlier
award of the Order to another media tycoon,
John Bassett, who promoted his political
views, also Conservative, and personal
interests insatiably while running the former
Toronto Telegram and CFTO TV.
As one example, Bassett was part owner of
Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1960s and wanted
to build an overhang above the streets to
accommodate several thousand more
spectators and rake in more money.
An unusually independent Conservative
minister of municipal affairs, Wilfrid Spooner,
refused and took photographs with his box
camera to show it would block out the sun and
Bassett ran a vitriolic campaign against him in
his newspaper that contributed to his defeat
next election.
Godfrey also is in a long line of those in
news media who have been given Ontario
awards over the years, which raises the danger
journalists may curry favour with government
to win one.
This is considerably more likely at the
federal level, where Liberal and Conservative
governments successively have appointed
journalists who wrote about their activities to
the Senate, where they have drawn large
salaries for little work and been able to spend
much of their time basking in warmer climes.
Journalists who write about the Ontario
government are tempted less, because the
Order of Ontario provides no cash, but some
may be generous to government solely for the
prestige.
Ontario has given the vast majority of its
awards to worthy recipients in fields including
philanthropy, medicine, education, law,
business, the arts and sport.
The province appointed someone once by
mistake, at least if you accept the province’s
explanation, which is not easy.
It sent a letter in 2003 to Marguerite Ritchie,
president of the Human Rights Institute of
Canada, notifying she had been awarded the
Order for remarkable achievements that
enriched the province.
Soon after, it wrote again saying the first
letter had been sent by an administrative error
and she had not been awarded the Order.
Dr. Ritchie suspected the province took back
the award because she had written to
Conservative premier Ernie Eves, protesting
policies promoting bilingualism in Ottawa
were hurting its English-speaking residents,
which was not an issue a provincial
government would want to get involved in.
The rights activist had enough status she
already had been awarded an Order of Canada,
so she was the sort of person who might have
been on the list in Ontario, but this is an
exclusive club and not all who deserve it get
in.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk