Beverly Akerman

The Bev Diet (part 5): Long time, no see!

2023-09-20T10:39:00.002-04:00

My goodness, four months with narry a word from me or my diet! How have you survived?

Well, I hope.

I’m doing well, too. Over 60 lbs down! And I even survived a 10-day trip to Italy! Came back three pounds heavier but that was overcome, slowly but surely.

Me with Darling Daughter, (who knows all the good camera angles)

And slowly seems to be the operative adverb, these days. A lot of yo-yoing over the summer, which is too bad but it is what it is.

One big change, I’ve noticed, is that when I my weight DOES go up, I’m no longer terrified that this is THE END. So I guess I’m developing confidence in my ability to find my way back to the groove.

Venice was beautiful. I didn’t really eat all that much. No pizza, for example. We stayed in places where we cooked many of our own meals, so I managed to eat a bit of oatmeal. A couple of times, I ate scallop appetizers as my main course (three scallops). We discovered cicchetti, the Italian equivalent of tapas. One thing I have noticed, I’m now satisfied with a small taste of someone else’s yummy main course, I don’t have to eat a whole whack of (e.g.,) pasta myself. So that’s something.

Breakfast is a cream-filled sweet croissant

(pistachio or Nutella were faves)

End of May was one year on the diet; I’m now in my 16^th month of dieting. In addition to the 60 lbs lost, I now no longer shop in the plus sizes/stores. Which is amazing! I’m not quite ready to order clothes online, but am getting there.

Another welcome change: my energy level is WAY up! I’m now doing my 1hr15min walk in under an hour, and my 45min walk in under 30mins (thank you Sirius Chill channel 53!). So I’m walking much faster and have even recently added a second 30min lap; same amount of time spent exercising (about 2hr walking, 1hr exercycling) but I’m covering more ground (11km instead of 8). One weird thing about this: my diet/exercise app is not really noting the increased activity in the form of higher calories: I think it relies more on time walking than distance (but don’t quote me on that, I’m not 100% certain). If so, it’s a bit disappointing…but nothing I can’t live with. The scale is the ultimate authority, and the news from there is good.

I’m also, as a result of the exercise, sleeping quite well. Knock wood. Ten years after menopause, what a relief!

I’m thinking about joining the gym and trying to build some muscle, which will burn more calories all the time. Or so I’ve heard.

Stay tuned, and best of luck on your weight loss journeys!

The Bev Diet (part 4): Variety? Not as spicy as you might think (or, the virtues of monotony…)

2023-05-18T15:53:00.000-04:00

I have now been "weight loss journeying" for nearly a year and have lost

over 53 lbs!

I don’t think I would have believed it, back when I started. Maybe you feel the same way (“It’s impossible!”), so I’m posting these pointers because they’re things I’ve learned and I hope they help you, too! Remember, IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN, TOO!

1. Repeat after me: repetition, repetition, repe…you get the point

They say variety is the spice of life, but what do they REALLY know about dieting anyway? Let me put this another way: do you think you eat more than usual, the same as usual, or less than usual when confronted with a buffet? Listen, for a congenital fat ass like me, the answer is obvious.

I think a routine helps me keep to a relatively restricted diet, and I’d advise you to try it, too. For one thing, it’s faster to account for on the health app (I just click on what I had yesterday). It also saves time thinking up what I should eat, and researching how many calories it has. It makes for less temptation, too.

So breakfast is usually

A toasted whole grain/whole wheat English muffin (110-130 cals)

2T Philadelphia cream cheese with smoked salmon (70 cals) with 1T wheat bran

A caffe latte

(This week, I’ve been eating actual lox because we had leftovers at our Mother’s Day brunch).

Lunch used to be largely Lean Cuisine Chicken Carbonara

With 1T wheat bran

1c chopped cooked broccoli

More recently, I found that I was losing weight too slowly, so I ditched the regular carbonara and substituted a large salad with roasted (skinless) chicken (usually breast, but I’ve just done some reading and discovered the calorie difference isn’t substantial, and besides, there is a lot more iron in the leg and thigh!). I also usually fortify this with a cup of Brussel sprouts or broccoli. Sometimes I skip the chicken completely and add some avocado (this meatless salad is also a favourite of mine for supper, too).

The chicken is usually home-made:

Truss a small bird (just use some string to tie the legs together). Sprinkle with commercial bbq spice (I like to use A LOT!). Bake at 450 F for 45-60 mins (I check it at 45 mins & often turn it over on its tummy if it needs another 10-15 mins).

Yum! And very fast. And I think the recipe comes from the NYT back in the day.

Supper: usually oatmeal (1/3 cup with ¾ c water, ½ c fat free Greek yogurt., 1T wheat bran. Cooking directions found in earlier post). I now usually consume it with 1/3 c berries.

I’ve found I really like eating light at night. I’m convinced it’s really helpful with the weigh-in next morning. This is probably a big change for most people, but I think our ways of eating are pretty messed up. I know mine were. I was often eating meat twice a day. Not necessary and one of the reasons my weight had ballooned to over 225 lbs…I can’t believe I just told you that!

2. Exercise: this week, I actually went to my first Zumba class in over 3 years (thank you Joyce!!)! It was really fun, and it actually burns twice as many calories per unit time as walking (according to Samsung).

Usually, though, I’m walking 2 hours a day (about 13k-15k steps). And I’m still doing 1hr on the bike every night. So that’s a lot of time put into exercising, though, to be fair, I’m biking through Netflix (or Amazon Prime, or Crave), so does that even count??

3. My Struggle: Chapman’s frozen vanilla yogurt. I sometimes eat way too much. And by way too much, I ate 350 calories of it yesterday, and sometimes as much as 400 calories of it daily! And that’s on a 1200 calorie diet. Yikes! So my tendency to overeat have definitely not been totally defeated. Which is kind of sad to realize after a whole freaking year…

However: I am still losing. I am working on controlling it. I am a work in progress. And you are, too.

So to reiterate:

If I can do it, you can, too.

I (and you) have really been eating WAY WAY too much (that’s the definition of being 75lbs overweight).

The corollary is: you MUST eat much much less to lose weight. If you want to do it slower, you can definitely eat more, but frankly, faster seems better than slower to me.

Eating the same things over and over has a relaxing zen quality.

Exercise can be low impact and as easy as walking out the front door. No commute, no cost.

The Bev Diet (part 3): The Necessary Elements

2023-04-12T13:44:00.003-04:00

1. Weigh yourself daily: Knowledge is power so weigh yourself EVERY DAY!

As someone who went to Weight Watchers numerous times, the idea of weighing myself daily while dieting seemed counter-intuitive. Group leaders there basically warned you against using a scale yourself because your weight is bound to fluctuate and you would just drive yourself crazy with variations due to water retention, bowel habits, etc. But now I look back on that advice and see what it really meant: if you don’t have a scale (and they definitely advised against it), their having one gives them the power of knowledge over you. You (or maybe that should read “I”) had to go to their weekly meetings in order to find out how your weight loss journey was going…maybe all that has changed with the advent of online programming, but whatever: I WEIGH MYSELF EVERY MORNING.

I truly believe it’s the best way to keep myself totally accountable. And I know I’ve spent a lot of my life lying to myself as far as body issues go, so I certainly want to keep as honest in this diet endeavour as possible. And I’d advise you to do the same.

2. Measure what you eat: This means also that you’ll need a small food scale (they’re about $15-$30) and measuring cups and spoons. Because I measure everything (e.g., 2T of smoked salmon Philly cream cheese just about every morning) that isn’t prepackaged/portioned (e.g., Lean Cuisine chicken carbonara). I’d say that after 10 months of this, I know what a tablespoon of cream cheese looks like. But why tempt fate by estimating, when measuring is so easy?

One thing I don’t measure is salad foods (lettuce, cukes, tomatoes, shallots, peppers) because greens are about 9 calories per cup. So I estimate 2.5 to 3 cups in my salads. And I estimate about half a cup of milk (1%) in my lattes (two or three daily).

The great thing about a food scale is that you can eat anything (in moderation!), like challah or even an apple (because the bigger it is, the more calories it has).

And speaking of calories…

3. 1200 daily: I try to keep mine down to 1200 per day. I don't always succeed, and it's important to note that I can get off track one day and come back the next.

Most people, on hearing 1200 calories, say what a woman friend of mine did over Facebook messenger when I finally told her (after a bit of skating around, because I knew how it would be perceived): “WoW (sic), that’s nothing!!!???”

Lulz!

Actually, it’s NOT nothing, and it’s probably a lot more than I used to eat in the bad old dieting days of low carb. Which, as discussed in a previous post, I’ve found unsustainable. I settled on 1200 empirically–which is a fancy way of saying by experimenting. This is what works for me. But I’m happy to find that the Mayo Clinic endorses such a number, even if it sounds awfully low to some of you. See here, for instance, where they mention 1500 to 1200 for women: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20375749

Listen, you might have a different biology, different age, activity level, amount of muscle, sex, etc. You may have to find a number that’s right for you. But I don’t want to have to diet forever (hopefully 18 months will be enough), though I will NEVER be able to go back to the way I was eating before.

4. Monitoring is vital: I use the Samsung Health app to monitor my food consumption, weight, and exercise. It takes seconds to record meals (I will post below images of my daily consumption) and it breaks things down into nutrients, so I can see how I’m doing. And by this measure, I’m doing okay, though I did start adding wheat bran a few months back to increase my fibre intake (recently switched to wheat germ because I can’t find wheat bran!). I occasionally take a vitamin C pill and have been thinking about adding a multivitamin with iron because I hardly ever eat red meat (though since I no longer menstruate, maybe this isn’t as much of a problem as it might be with younger women).

I’m sure there are other apps available for non-Samsung phones.

5. Exercise: I’m now spending about 2.5 hrs daily in low impact exercise. It’s definitely a lot, but it’s mostly walking. I do a morning (1hr) and evening (0.75hr) walks. And I bought a $200 folding bike from Amazon which I use while Netflixing at night…I spend about an hour on it. I’m not trying out for a Peloton commercial, either. I only really break a sweat after about 45 mins. The point is, you are expending a lot more energy than by just sitting on the couch.

I started this diet in June 2022, when I was still covid-sensitive enough to not want to go back to the gym (where I used to love Zumba and aerobics). Actually, I have covid right now (for the first time). I am starting to hanker to do higher intensity exercise so I can spend less time doing it. Maybe when I’m lighter, I’ll try jogging. But right now, since I have the time, I walk (I listen to a lot of podcasts, so if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears).

That’s it for today.

The Bev Diet (part 2): Psychological Preparation (or I heart oatmeal!)

2023-03-27T15:49:00.010-04:00

(Got another phone call today from a friend I haven’t spoken to in awhile. She heard I’d lost 45 lbs and asked what I thought of Noom. I explained I’ve never used Noom, and started trying to explain the Bev diet…so thanks, Monnie, for pushing me into making this next post!)

One of the most important aspects to this weight loss journey I’m on involves changing the way I think about food and me. To be successful, you will likely have to do the same.

First of all, if food is one of your major sources of pleasure in life, you really are going to have to dial that back. Figure out why that is, if there’s any other way to inject pleasure back into your life (sans food!), and go for it! I’ve tried my best to maintain some of my eating pleasures, like creamy pasta and ice cream! But more on these later.

Another distorted idea I needed to confront was this notion that “I didn’t really eat all that much”. Which, on some level, is actually true. I never sat down with a whole rotisserie chicken for dinner, for example. Or ate a dozen eggs and half a loaf of bread for breakfast. But if, like me, you are basically 75 lbs overweight, after a lifetime of on-again off-again dieting, you have to acknowledge the lies you routinely tell yourself. Obviously, as reflected in the gallons of fat stuck to my stomach, hips, thighs, breasts, etc., I CLEARLY AM EATING MUCH TOO MUCH!

The clearest evidence is in those curves and folds I’m always trying to camouflage.

I think I can recall talk about this kind of thing in Weight Watchers back in the day*, how people tell themselves they are “big boned”, etc. Listen, I’m 5ft 5inches (and a half, let’s not forget that half-inch, which may be gone anyway, now that I’m in my sixties, but whatever).

What I had to do was analyze my weak points regarding food and over-eating. And the biggest problem, for me, was dinner. Cooking dinner. Cooking anything, really, but dinner especially. Because I would make dinner from about 5 or 6 pm, and I was making dinner while I was hungry! So what happened was—especially when my kids were young and I was fixing dinner after working a day in the molecular genetics lab—was that I ate dinner twice: once while I was preparing the food, and again when I sat down to the meal with my family (or, as we are empty nesters now, with hubby). So I decided to do something daring:

I GAVE UP COOKING DINNER!

Yup. I told hubby I was trying something new diet-wise and that it would help me immeasurably if I no longer had to cook his meals. I started buying him frozen meals, too. And then I found a great place nearby that makes tasty and reasonably priced fresh meals (Le Maitre Boucher, if you’re a Westend Montreal local). If you’ve ever used a meal service like Hello Fresh (and we did try it, for about 3 weeks: good food, expensive compared to home cooking, high in calories, tremendous amount of shipping waste, not to mention the necessity of being around to get the package of food or having to worry about it being stolen! And then you still have to cook the darn meal!), you already know what you’re willing to spend on dinner. It came to about $25 for the two of us, or $12.50 per meal. And that was using their introductory specials, which seemed to rely on a lot of ground meat…but I digress.

Of course, hubby could have taken up doing the cooking. But he’s really not into that, which is fine (he does a lot of things around the house that I wouldn’t do myself). Hubby seems to enjoy being a sous-chef (occasionally) but not being in charge of the meal. Except for breakfast. But I digress again.

The thing is, I’m sure this would have been a non-starter if my family was still young. Which is why I stress that you must really think about your issues around food/cooking and approach them accordingly. Like, if I still HAD to cook, I’d have figured out some other strategy to confront my snacking during meal prep, such as sucking on Hall’s throat lozenges (or something equally odious) while cooking dinner (something that makes everything taste bad, so you’re not tempted to eat while cooking). Chewing gum might work. Cooking on weekends (never managed to do that when my kids were young, alas). Or eating a meal BEFORE you start cooking, if you have to.

What kind of meal can you prepare in no time to eat before the real meal is cooked, you ask? Let me tell you about my secret weapon, a food I eat several times a week, preferably at dinner-time:

oatmeal.

One-third cup of oatmeal (in ¾ cups of water, add a bit of salt, about 2 mins in the microwave but you have to watch it & stir it down several times when it threatens to overflow the bowl! Then let it cool covered for a minute, add ½ cup zero fat Greek yogurt and a splash of milk. I mostly use artificial sweetener and cinnamon or 1/3 cup of raspberries). This is a full bowl of tummy warming nostalgic goodness. Healthy and filling. And the yellow no-name brand is the best!

So: you have to confront the truth about eating too much. WAAY too much. For years and years.

And then the corollary: you really are going to have to eat much, MUCH less. How much less?

I try to keep my calories below 1200** daily. I also eat three filling meals, and manage to indulge my cravings for creamy pasta and ice cream, too. Well, frozen vanilla yogurt, to be accurate.

I have never felt deprived or starving eating this way. And I’ve been doing it for 10 months now. But I do still struggle with eating too much frozen yogurt, or eating out once in a while. There are weeks when my weight fluctuates, before I finally get my act together and make it work again. I'm still human and fallible, but at least I’m relatively confident now that I can handle these ups and downs.

Psychological preparation and checking in on how I’m doing helps a lot.

Finally, you have to be prepared to change what you think about eating: every meal does not have to be a three course extravaganza. Every lunch or supper does not have to include meat!

You need to eat much less than you think.

~~~

*And I’ve been on WW about four times, including once when I was pregnant, as I thought it would help me keep my weight gain down as my pregnancy advanced. Instead, it was the most depressing thing ever, as my weight continued to climb…

**Of course, this should vary with sex, height, and age. People who are male, taller, and/or younger need more calories. Again, please consult a medical/nutritional specialist, especially if you have health issues.

The Bev Diet (part 1): if I can do it, anybody can!

2023-03-22T15:27:00.005-04:00

I’ve lost 45 lbs over the past 10 months (still going strong!) and am pleased--not to mention surprised--with these results. This is NOT a story involving Ozempic, by the way, but partly an old-fashioned one, involving calorie counting and low impact exercise, leavened with more modern touches: digital scales, the Samsung Health app.

Friends and acquaintances have asked me how I’m doing it, and I thought I would get back into blogging a bit by describing it in full.

The biggest thing, to my mind, is that if I can do it, anybody can. I repeat:

IF I CAN DO IT, ANYBODY CAN!

To explain why I say the above, a bit about me:

I’ve struggled with my weight much of my life: I went on Weight Watchers for the first time at 10 years old. I weighed 130 lbs then, which rose to just over 165 lbs by the next time I hit WW, at the ripe old age of 14 and a half…I managed to keep my weight mostly under control through younger adulthood, lost 30+lbs after my second kid (of three) using UltraSlimFast. And so on.

So I’ve dieted, off and on, much of my life. Which I’d come to believe is really not great for my metabolic rate, which ranges somewhere between slug and sloth…

The past 10-15 years, whenever I’d dieted, I’d used a combination of low carb and lots of aerobic exercise (and, latterly, Zumba). Let me just say here that I think keto is nuts and low carb unsustainable…but maybe that's just me.

But COVID was kind of the end of my dietary self-control, such as it was: “if the world is coming to an end, what does it matter how much Ben & Jerry’s I consume?” was more or less my mindset through much of 2020, 2021, and 2022. COVID was the end of a lot of things...I had NEVER binged ice cream like that before in MY ENTIRE LIFE!!

Dammit.

My weight ballooned to heights I’d never thought possible, significantly BEYOND what I weighed when I was nine months pregnant…unhappy days.

I’m in my early 60s, work freelance and part-time (very!), am short, not very athletic, have three adult kids and one grand-child. My life is relatively secure and low stress (“privileged” is the term du jour, although I think I've paid my dues). So I felt this was as good a time as I’d ever get to do something I’d always wanted to do: lose the weight for good.

So that’s what I’m doing, and in the next several posts, I will describe how. I hope this narrative will help someone who wants to do the same. Remember, if I can do it, anyone can!

Please note: this blog is meant for informational not medical purposes; please consult your healthcare provider as necessary before embarking on any weight loss project.

Ellie Chartier's DIS MON NOM, at Montreal Fringe this weekend

2019-06-14T17:33:00.001-04:00

I went to see my friend Ellie Chartier’s wonderful bilingual Fringe show Dis Mon Nom last week. It’s about Paul Bernardo, Karla Homolka, and their crimes. But in this era of #MeToo and MMIW, it’s really about so much more. I thought I would catch up with Ellie and ask her about the origins of her piece.

Where did the idea for this Bernardo-Homolka piece come from?

From a role that Lucas [Chartier’s son, also featured in this play] got a few years ago, playing Paul Bernardo. I started thinking about what it means to be this terrible person. A psychopath. I wrote a first version, Paper Thin Walls, that really centred on the actor-character relationship, two actors preparing to play Bernardo and Homolka. After getting some feedback, I thought of all the other people affected by the aftermath. Which led me to the Scarborough rapist’s victims, these women who did not get their day in court. All I could find out about them was general descriptions of what he had done to them. Some of these women prepared for months to testify. But because of the nature of the case, he was never confronted by them in court. I was really upset by that.

Does #MeToo come into this?

It’s addressing the choice. The choice to speak openly if YOU choose to.

So you feel the justice system let these women down?

Yes, the system failed those victims in general.

What could be done differently? You understand they charged him with the worst crimes, hoping to put him away for life, and sparing the costs associated with adding and proving "lesser" crimes?

Yeah sparing the cost, as you say. But these women needed that day in court.

Along the lines of those 150 victims of Larry Nasser speaking in court? Confronting their molester?

Something should have been done for them. I don't think plea bargains should be used in this kind of crime.

Would you say you were angry on their behalf?

Yes, I am. And also that she's out.

How important is anger to the creative process? That she and her lawyer played the system? Do you believe she was the real murderer, as he claimed?

It's a mix of anger--and I'll say astonishment, for lack of a better word. I was really amazed when I learned about these other victims. And about her. I was 20 once and had a younger sister and what she did to her sister, I'm sorry but as much you are in love with a guy, this was unforgivable.

The 13 victims he admitted to having raped as the Scarborough rapist? Do you think the police didn't care enough? Or were inept?

I think the police did a really crappy job [on the Scarborough rapes] and also when they searched their house.

Do you buy that she was a victim too?

Her best friend was working in a center for battered wives. She knew exactly how to portray one.

Do you think she hurt herself to pose like a battered wife (like in Gone Girl)? That she is the real murderer, as he alleged?

She knew how to push his buttons. If you read the transcripts of how the murder happened she played an active part in the torturing and murders.

So what is the kernel, here? Why is it important to see your play?

For the victims. To question our justice system. To question our rehabilitation system. To question our reactions when confronted with crime and the mythologizing of criminals like Bundy. Or Charles Mason. To let people know that she played the system. And won.

So what’s next? You mentioned continuing with this piece, taking it further.

In the next version, I want to explore more how she got out.

You’ve to mention the criminals’ names as few times as possible. The title of your piece: to whose name are you referring?

The title is for the victims.

The ones who survived or the ones who were murdered?

The rape survivors. The ones who were murdered, we all know their names.

-----------------

Dis Mon Nom plays Fri June 14 to Sun June 16. Tickets here.

Mise en scène/Directed by: Ellie Chartier

Paysage sonore et lumineux/Set and light design: Alex Gravenstein

Avec (en ordre alphabétique)/ With (in alphabetical order):

Émmanuelle Caron
Lucas Chartier-Dessert
Lizzie Chuprun
Miguel Doucet
Karine Kerr
Boris Kirimidtchiev
Dominique Noël

OÙ/WHERE
Théâtre MainLine (3997 boul St-Laurent)

Destroying SNC-Lavalin because of corruption is like bombing the village to save it

2019-02-28T14:09:00.003-05:00

Millions of pixels have already been spilled on the Jody Wilson-Raybould SNC-Lavalin deferred prosecution brouhaha. Lines are being drawn, flamethrowers are being taken to the place, talking points are being honed to rapier edge, petards are being hoisted…you get the drift.

The essential question, though, is whether SNC-Lavalin deserves to be forced out of business (or out of Canada) for the actions of a corrupt few related to contracts in Libya between 2001 & 2011?

That's 54,000 jobs, 9,000 of them in Canada. The vast, overwhelming majority of these employees (not to mention shareholders) are totally innocent. Given the above, Jody Wilson-Raybould is wrong and Justin Trudeau is right.

Ministers either toe the party line or quit. That's not what she did. She didn't quit when she was being subjected to "pressure," and she still hasn't quit after trying to incinerate her government.

Loyalty is everything in politics. The PMO was only asking her to do what was in her rights to do, by virtue of her position. For the good of the country, she should have.

Spirited conversations are taking place on my Facebook page, and other places. I understand those holding the opposite position. The thing is, this is politics, “the art of the possible,” not abstract morality class.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the individuals who committed wrongs should be punished, just not the entire economy. The PM would be derelict in his duty to let it go under. It's a jewel in Canada's economic life, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world.

I'm actually more concerned that the penalties being handed down to the guilty are too lax.

But what did JWR think she was getting into, in becoming a politician? She should stick to the PTA if she can't handle the big leagues. Why didn't she quit when she was being pressured, if she thought it was so wrong?

Basically, this scorched earth/woman scorned campaign of hers proves (to me, at least) she is not cut out for government.

JRW herself has said “that while she believes she was inappropriately pressured, she doesn’t think any law was broken,” according to Chantal Hebert in the Feb. 28^th Toronto Star ("Trudeau’s waist deep in the big muddy," p.4).

Politics is serious business and no doubt has a steep learning curve. Of course having a deferred prosecution law on the books means the government would want to use it. That is what laws are: tools to goose the art of the possible.

Women deserve better from the CBC than to be told their “bad attitude” can give them cancer

2019-02-04T20:29:00.001-05:00

I rarely catch White Coat, Black Art, but I was intrigued by the subject of the January 19th program “After breast cancer and failed reconstruction, this mom found beauty by going flat”, which I listened to recently.

Like most middle-aged people, I'm no stranger to cancer: in November, I accompanied a close relative to her second lumpectomy (and associated follow-up treatment), my aunt died of breast cancer nearly a decade ago, my mother-in-law died of breast cancer in 1980 (~12 years post-mastectomy, no reconstruction), and a friend who had reconstructive surgery post-mastectomy is experiencing post-surgical infection and necrosis. And that’s just the breast cancer stories.

What surprised me was the program’s attempt to balance the terrible experience of Joanna Rankin, who describes being bullied into reconstructive surgery in Toronto (frankly, needing a double mastectomy at 32 means reconstruction was not her greatest worry) with the pro-reconstruction attitude of the “expert” interviewed by Dr. Brian Goldman on the program, Dr. Angel Arnaout, breast cancer surgeon and Ottawa region director of breast surgical oncology.

Basically, Arnaout said being happy and well-adjusted after breast cancer surgery reduces the chances of cancer recurrence. Which is misinformation, coming from a layman, but flat out shocking when delivered by a breast cancer specialist.

Between approximately 21:23 and 22:25 of the recording. Dr. Arnaout says:

The reason [for encouraging immediate breast reconstruction] is because there is a lot of evidence now, especially in breast cancer, that your psychological emotions and your outlook on life is a very strong predictor of how well you will do from cancer, prognosis-wise. And that linkage of how you feel about yourself and therefore how confident you are and how well you present yourself and integrate yourself back into a normal life, and breast reconstruction is supposed to help with easing you back into a normal life and getting out there and doing exercise and being happy. All of it is linked in a lot of studies to your survivorship and your prognosis from a cancer point of view. There is a lot of evidence to show that if you are happier and you’re exercising, because you’re happier you’re taking care of your body and you’re eating well, all those things reduce your chances of recurrence. And so having the option of breast cancer reconstruction is actually now considered part of cancer treatment.

In this rambling, slightly incoherent paragraph, Dr. Arnaout is actually saying that how a patient/survivor feels about herself will directly influence cancer recurrence and "survivorship". Now, this is a wonderful thing to believe (especially if you’re a cancer patient/survivor or surgeon) but unfortunately, it’s not true. Which makes it gobsmacking to have been uttered on CBC, and by an oncology specialist to boot. That Goldman has no problem accepting this proposition is equally staggering.

Because the corollary is: if you don’t feel good about yourself or you don’t have "a good attitude", you’re bringing the cancer (or recurrence) on yourself.

This is known as blaming the victim.

This isn’t just my opinion. The American Cancer Society website goes to great lengths to dispel these antiquated notions, on their page on “Attitude and Cancer”:

Treatment that deals with our emotions and relationships (sometimes called psychosocial interventions) can help people with cancer feel more upbeat and have a better quality of life. But there’s no good evidence to support the idea that these interventions can reduce the risk of cancer, keep cancer from coming back, or help the person with cancer live longer.

Further down that page, in a section on “Personality Traits and Cancer”, they go on:

For many years there have been those who were convinced that people with certain personality types were more likely to get cancer. The common thought was that neurotic people and introverts were at the highest risk of cancer. Along with that, some believed that personality affected the outcome of cancer – the likelihood that a person with cancer might die….In 2010, the largest and best-designed scientific study to date [on the question] was published. It looked at nearly 60,000 people, who were followed over time for a minimum of 30 years. This careful study controlled for smoking, alcohol use, and other known cancer risk factors. The study showed no link between personality and overall cancer risk. There was also no link between personality traits and cancer survival.

Finally, in a section titled “Does a positive attitude affect cancer?”, they write:

…many people want to believe that the power of the mind can control serious diseases. This is a comforting belief that can make a person feel safer from the risk of serious illness. If it were true, you could use your mind to stop the cancer from growing. But the down side of such beliefs is that when people with cancer don’t do well, they may blame themselves. To learn more about attitude and survival, researchers looked at the emotional well-being of more than 1,000 patients with head and neck cancer to find out whether it affected survival. Over time, those who scored high on emotional well-being showed no differences in cancer growth or length of life when compared with those with low scores. Based on what we know now about how cancer starts and grows, there’s no reason to believe that emotions can cause cancer or help it grow.

At Mayo Clinic.org, one finds, in a section on cancer myth-busting, the following:

Myth: A positive attitude is all you need to beat cancer

Truth: There’s no scientific proof that a positive attitude gives you an advantage in cancer treatment or improves your chance of being cured.

Huge sums are no doubt being spent in the public system to provide reconstruction to mastectomy patients. Joanna Rankin’s story is that some women are bullied into accepting it. Maybe CBC journalists should be investigating that, and whether many/most oncology specialists have confused quality of life issues with the science of recurrence.

CBC Journalistic Practices related to Science and Health read, in part, “In matters of human health we will take particular care to avoid arousing unfounded hopes or fears in persons living with or close to those living with serious illnesses.”

Given the above, I would like Drs. Goldman and/or Arnaout to provide evidence for the notion they are putting forward: that breast reconstruction (and “a good attitude”) results in lower breast cancer recurrence rates.

And, if they cannot, I would expect the program to be corrected or pulled, and an apology to be prominently published on the White Coat, Black Art website.

Because people with cancer, and those who love them, deserve better from the CBC than to be told that their sadness, anger, or other “bad attitude” can give them cancer.

Paintings for sale 1

2018-10-02T15:42:00.000-04:00

I've been working on my abstract acrylics the past year or so and have been meaning to feature the collections on my blog, for the my own edification as well as that of interested collectors (I will post those already sold separately). So after some well-meaning prodding from hubby, here's the first set.

I will organize an online store at some point. Meantime, if anything interests you, please contact me by leaving a comment here or via Facebook Messenger. Or email me: beverly.akerman@gmail.com.

If you'd like to commission a specific size and colour set, I would be thrilled to work with you!

Hope you enjoy!

These are acrylic paintings, 12 x 12 inch canvases, $125 each:

Sea Ice

Crimson 1

Crimson 2

Untitled 1

Untitled 2

Bejewelled

Blue and White

Organized Chaos

Untitled 12

Untitled 13

Untitled 14

Untitled 15

These are 20 x 20 inch canvases, and look wonderful as a triptych, $250 each:

Crimson 3

Crimson 4

Crimson 5

These are 16 x 20 inch canvases, $200 each (without frame):

Untitled 3

Neutral Beauty

Coral Haven

You Can't Take It With You

Untitled 4

Blue Harbour

Untitled 5

Wisterian Wit

Black is Beautiful

Untitled 9

Untitled 10

SOLD!!

This one is 18 x 24 inches, $270:

Untitled 6

These are 24 x 30 inch canvases, $450:

Untitled 7

Untitled 8

Untitled 11

SOLD!!

This is a 30 x 30 inch canvas, $500 :

Sea Curl

This is a 36 x 48 inch canvas: SOLD!! (to come)

Help Sue via GoFundMe / Aidez Sue avec GoFundMe

2018-02-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

My husband, Russell Copeman, has started a GoFundMe campaign for our local dry cleaner, Young Sook Suh, who has had her shop broken into twice within a week recently. Please consider helping meet the $1500 goal to finance the repairs. Neighbours helping neighbours keep NDG great. The details:

[My NDG dry cleaner needs help. A series of unfortunate events happened to her, putting her 15 year business in jeopardy.

Young Sook Suh, or “Sue” as her customers know her, has operated the Sherbrooke West Dry Cleaner and Tailors in western NDG since 2002. Sue is the sole owner and employee and she personally staffs the store for more than 57 hours a week.

She was recently broken into two times in less than a week. There is no money in the store overnight but she had to replace her glass door - twice. She’s insured, but there is a deductible of $500. Sue also needs to install door bars to keep it from happening again. The $1,500 of unexpected expenses is too much for Sue and she needs help.

Sue’s family was from North Korea. They succeeded in crossing into the South during the Korean conflict sometime in the early 1950s. Sue was born and lived in South Korea and eventually had an administrative job with the Hyundai Motor Company. She and her husband wanted a better life for their children - particularly a better education - so Sue, her husband and their two sons immigrated to Montreal from Inchon, South Korea in 1994.

Sue became a single Mom shortly after arriving here. She learned English and some basic French and worked hard at a variety of jobs before opening the dry cleaning store in 2002. Although not trained as a tailor, her mother was a seamstress in North Korea and she learned fast. She has been providing great service with a smile ever since.

Sue’s experience is typical of hard working immigrants who sacrifice a great deal for their children. Her business survives and supports her but the profit margins on dry cleaning are very small and expenses continue to mount.

Some may say that if her dry cleaning operation is so precarious that she can’t absorb unexpected expenses of $1,500 perhaps she should go out of business. I don’t agree. Small local businesses are one of the key elements in a healthy neighbourhood.

Please consider helping us help Sue by making a contribution towards our $1,500 goal. Let’s demonstrate once again how wonderful a place NDG is. Thank you.

Russell Copeman

N.B. Unfortunately no charitable tax receipts can be issued.

Help Sue here!

* * *

Mon nettoyeur à sec dans NDG a besoin d'aide. Une série d'événements malheureux lui est arrivé, avec pour conséquence que ce commerce, qui a pignon sur rue depuis 15 ans, est en difficulté.

Young Sook Suh, ou Sue comme ses clients la connaissent, exploite le « Nettoyeur et tailleur Sherbrooke West » dans l'ouest de NDG depuis 2002. Sue est la seule propriétaire et employée et elle s'occupe personnellement du magasin pendant plus de 57 heures par semaine.

La porte de son magasin a été défoncée deux fois en moins d'une semaine. Malgré le fait que Sue ne dispose pas de liquidités suffisantes, elle a dû remplacer sa porte en verre - deux fois. Elle est assurée, mais il y a une franchise de 500 $. Sue doit également installer des barres de porte pour empêcher que cela ne se reproduise. Les 1 500 $ de dépenses imprévues sont trop pour Sue et elle a besoin d'aide.

La famille de Sue était originaire de Corée du Nord. Ils ont réussi à traverser dans le Sud pendant le conflit coréen au début des années 1950. Sue est née et a vécu en Corée du Sud et a finalement eu un travail administratif avec la Hyundai Motor Company. Elle et son mari voulaient une vie meilleure pour leurs enfants - en particulier une meilleure éducation - alors Sue, son mari et leurs deux fils ont immigré à Montréal d'Inchon, en Corée du Sud en 1994.

Sue est devenue une mère célibataire peu après son arrivée à Montréal. Elle a appris l'anglais et quelques notions de français de base et a travaillé dur à divers emplois avant d'ouvrir le magasin de nettoyage à sec en 2002. Bien qu'elle n'ait pas été formée pour ce métier, sa mère était couturière en Corée du Nord et elle a appris vite. Elle fournit un excellent service depuis, et le sourire est toujours au rendez-vous.

L'expérience de Sue est typique des immigrants qui travaillent dur et qui sacrifient beaucoup pour leurs enfants. Son entreprise lui survit et la soutient, mais les marges bénéficiaires sur le nettoyage à sec sont très faibles et les dépenses continuent d'augmenter.

Certains peuvent dire que si son opération de nettoyage à sec est si précaire qu'elle ne peut pas absorber des dépenses imprévues de 1500 $ peut-être qu'elle devrait faire faillite. Je ne suis pas d'accord. Les petites entreprises locales sont l'un des éléments clés d'un quartier en santé.

Je fais appel à vous, à votre générosité et à votre sens de la communauté, afin d’aider Sue en faisant une contribution vers notre objectif de 1500 $. Montrons encore une fois à quel point NDG est merveilleux.

Je vous remercie.

Russell Copeman

N.B. Malheureusement aucun reçu d'impôt de bienfaisance ne peut être émis.]

Aidez Sue ici!

Vernissage November 15th, Atelier d'art METEQUE

2017-11-08T23:21:00.002-05:00

Pleased to announce some of my paintings included

in

Atelier d'art METEQUE's upcoming Marché D'Art NDG.

Vernissage November 15th, 5pm to 8pm.

Exhibition runs till Dec. 5th.

Atelier d'art METEQUE address: 5442 Côte Saint Luc Rd, Montreal.

This will be my first professional exhibition!

Would love to see you there!

The Father of Reinvention

2017-06-08T17:07:00.001-04:00

I haven't been the most faithful blogger the past year or so. It's been a year of "arts other than literary"... a year with many ups and downs.

For one thing, my father, Max Akerman, died April 6th. He'd had Parkinson's Disease for seven years or so, but his final illness was sudden.

We were shocked...just now coming out of it, I think, the initial part, at least. But so glad he didn't suffer a long, drawn out ordeal.

For another, I've taken up drawing and painting in a pretty big way. I found an amazing portrait teacher, artist Donna Shvil (her website), at Cummings Centre (for people 50 and older).

And, to combine the two, may I present my portrait of my Dad?

The original is pencil on 9 x 12 inch toned paper, which I then laser-jet printed, transferred to watercolour paper, and painted with acrylics...

This isn't my first portrait (I will post more anon), but it is definitely the most meaningful one so far. The expression in his eyes...I feel the love and the slight bemusement. I had him remove his glasses as I was taking the photos, so he's a bit unfocused, but also clearly thinking, "What is she up to now? Well, I love her, I have nothing better to do, it doesn't hurt me to just sit here, so let her do her thing. And we'll see what comes out of it..."

He loved his family in the best possible ways. We miss him...the last of his slew of brothers and sisters.

A few weeks after he died, I helped my Mom empty the apartment of Dad's clothes. Seven large bags...she looked at them, out on the sidewalk as I was about to put them in the car, and said, "A man's life in seven bags."

I said, "No, Mom. Not his life. Just his clothes."

Go in peace, Dad. I'm so glad I followed the urge to draw your portrait. It's been a year of lost and found that will resonate for a long, long time.

Next time, I hope to show you what else I've been doing in the drawing, painting, and abstracting department. But here's a taste of my other portrait work, and my abstracts.

Galloway's fitness for UBC position questionable by 2015

2016-12-04T17:30:00.000-05:00

Much of CanLit has been in a tizzy the past couple of weeks, fulminating over issues surrounding Steven Galloway's suspension—later dismissal, without severance--from his post as head of creative writing at the University of British Columbia.* According to media reports, complainants accused Galloway of sexual assault, sexual harassment, inappropriate behaviour, threats, favouritism, and bullying.

The dismissal followed a months-long investigation by former BC Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd. Though not all complaints were deemed founded, UBC’s then-president Martha Piper met with Galloway, considered the dean's recommendation and Boyd’s findings, and concluded “a record of misconduct” existed “that resulted in an irreparable breach of the trust placed in faculty members by the university, its students and the general public.”

In other words, he comported himself in a manner unbefitting a UBC professor.

In the hysteria following the UBC Accountable letter, an earlier incident demonstrating Galloway’s unfitness for his position appears to have been forgotten. I was hardly surprised, nearly two years later, to hear he’d been suspended and subsequently fired.

As Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

After Raziel Reid’s When Everything Feels Like the Movies won the $25,000 Governor General Literary Award for Children’s Literature (Text) in 2014, some voiced their concern the book was inappropriate for young adults; so inappropriate, they petitioned the Canada Council to reconsider the award. Prominent early critics of the book were award winning author Kathy Clark (first signatory of the petition) and columnist and author Barbara Kay.

What were Clark and Kay objecting to? A boatload of vulgar words, deeds, and images—a crack pipe cum anal dildo, masturbation by crucifix, anal sex, deathless prose (“His thick eyelashes were so dark that it looked like he bought them at the drugstore…I fantasized about gluing them on his eyes and then ripping them off when he climaxed”, juicy lips that look “like she had just sucked on a tampon”)--with pervasive cynicism and hopelessness the cherry on top. There’s little doubt Reid set out to ignite a minor Mapplethorpian sensation. Which he got. Clark declared:

I am a strong supporter of the freedom of speech and the petition does not suggest censoring the book. It states that this is not quality literature and should not be rewarded as such. Raziel Reid is free to write what he wants, and I actually commend him for his intentions…

Did WEFLTM really qualify as YA lit? Even CBC didn’t seem to think so, assigning it to the adult Canada Reads competition.

But if one thought it was undeserving of an award, what could be more Canadian than starting a petition in protest? Is it different from writing a letter protesting a university’s handling of a personnel matter?

Reasonable people can differ in their opinion of whether a book merits a children's literature award or YA designation. But Galloway's rejoinder to Clark was anything but reasonable:

I am writing to let you know that your attack of [sic] a fellow writer is disgusting. You may not agree with the content of his book, but if you don't value free speech and think that transgendered [sic] youth have a place in literature, and if you don't understand that your viewpoint is not absolute and privileged above other voices, then you don't deserve to call yourself a writer... here in Canada we don't censor literature...I am ashamed of you, and ashamed to share a profession with you. [Facebook]

Elsewhere, he mentioned that writers he’d spoken with shared “a mixture of support for [Raziel Reid], the desire to forcibly extract Ms. Kay and Ms. Clark’s heads from their rectums, and shame that we are actually having to have a freedom of expression debate in 2015.”

Was this grab bag of insults the way a mature adult handles a difference of opinion? Hardly. This was the hyperbolic language of the social justice warrior, a twining of bullying and ad hominem attack. This was Steven Galloway as pitbull, demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that UBC erred in elevating him to head of creative writing.

Where is the moderation one should expect of a professor and university leader? Where, even, is an understanding of the term “censorship,” which could reasonably be expected of a person in his position?

Censorship, as I imagine most thinking people comprehend it, arises when those in authority withdraw a book from publication, remove it from schools or libraries, burn it, or otherwise prevent people from reading it. Only a fanatical ideologue imagines petitioning a granting agency to reconsider an award to be censorship.

In a lengthy** public Facebook conversation with me on January 29^th, 2015, Galloway finally accepted Clark, Kay, and the petitioners, in his words, “have a right to voice their dislike of the book. They also have a right to ask the [Canada Council] to revoke the prize.”

What Galloway would not reconsider was his essential position: disgust and attack. He again assaulted Clark and Kay’s “privilege,” calling them “a couple of elderly women who have no real standing in the world outside of a small, insular bubble,” accusing Kay of “delusion bordering on psychopathy,” and capped his remarks to her with: “You have a newspaper column. I or any one of a number of other people I will see this week could also have such a thing with one phone call. We wouldn't even need our son to be on the editorial board.”

In sum, my contention is that Steven Galloway’s racist, sexist, and ageist insults over the Reid book protest revealed that by 2015, he was clearly unfit to head a university department. Given his propensity for shooting off his mouth, I suspected his dismissal was only a matter of time. Seeded from his own nature.

Read all about it in the dictionary, under the word “hubris.”

----------

Notes:

* The university may have erred in implying they suspected sexual assault. However, given the recent history of events on campus (see here and here), perhaps they were finally attempting to put protecting potential victims first. What would you have them do when an illustrious professor was accused in this way? The complainants must have been pretty credible, to merit the independent inquiry that followed.

**My pdf transcript runs to 17 pages.

Ghomeshi: he haunts us still

2016-02-21T02:40:00.001-05:00

I've been travelling for a bit, but one of the few issues I've kept up with these nearly four weeks is the Ghomeshi trial.

Sad, sad, sad. Angrifying. Sickmaking.

I think, from all the stories we've heard, there can be little doubt that the man is, allegedly, lolz, a consummate manipulative sh*t. If you're still on the fence about this, and you must be quite an acrobat, not to mention a charter member of the flat earth society, please consult the following offerings (in no particular order):

"Former York University student alleges Ghomeshi fondled him" (by Kevin Donovan)

"Why I can't remain silent about what Jian Ghomeshi did to me", by Reva Seth, who goes to some pains to explain what makes her such a reliable witness--

I've been married for 11 years to an incredible man. We have three kids, and I know that I am very lucky to be at that place where this feels possible...I was 26 and after two years with the firm, was just leaving a job as a Bay Street lawyer...about to start a job at Toronto City Hall as well as a Masters in Trade and Competition Law at Osgoode. I share this because one of the themes that his supporters seem to suggest is that the women now accusing him all wanted something professionally from him at the time or were somehow star-struck by him.

Not so with me.

--and provides the following case report:

I remember thinking "what the fuck is going on here? What's wrong with him?" Jian had his hands around my throat, had pulled down my pants and was aggressively and violently penetrating me with his fingers. When it was over, I got up and it was clear I was really angry...

So why didn't I do anything?

This is the part that I think is so important to understand if we are ever going to change the context in which rape culture and violence against women is perpetuated. I didn't do anything because it didn't seem like there was anything to do.

I hadn't been raped. I had no interest in seeing him again or engaging the police in my life. I just wanted to continue on with my life as it was. And even if I had wanted to do something, as a lawyer, I'm well aware that the scenario was just a "he said/she said" situation. I was aware that I, as a woman who had had a drink or two, shared a joint, had gone to his house willingly and had a sexual past, would be eviscerated. Cultural frameworks on this are powerful.

"The cult of Jian: his life as an outcast, who's standing by him, and why he's sure he'll walk" (by Leah Maclaren, who's known JG for nealy 20 years):

...Jian wove the most cherished and sacred liberal values of Canadian society into an ingenious disguise that he used to hide in plain sight. He was a wolf in organic, fair-trade lamb’s clothing. One woman I spoke to for this story who is now accusing Jian of sexual assault believes his persona was a deliberate cover for his predatory behaviour.

Jian used liberalism and feminism the way Roy Cohn used McCarthyism—as a grand screen of moral superiority that hid his deeper, more urgent desires. Did it turn him on to correct his Q staffers for using sexist language like “manning the phone” and then punch women for pleasure in private?

...The fact that we believed the cuddly, wholesome version of Jian makes the crimes he’s accused of doubly galling. Though he never mentioned anything about bondage, domination or a fondness for choking his dinner dates to me, he did enjoy trying to shock me. He once dropped an offhand comment about sleeping with a mutual male friend who was ostensibly straight and had a girlfriend. “It’s no secret I’m bisexual,” he said. His equal-opportunity orientation was known among his close friends, but I always thought of it as more of a political stance than a burning desire. Jian slept with men whenever he felt like it, which was occasionally but not that often. His real preoccupation was women. There were so many I couldn’t keep up...

Soon the volume of accusations crushed any lingering doubt. Why would so many unconnected women fabricate such similar stories for no conceivable benefit to themselves?

And, from Ruth Spencer, a young woman I knew personally some years ago, this ("I dated Jian Ghomeshi, Canada's fallen radio star"):

I now believe that Jian was grooming me for the same violence he inflicted on other women. I think he was pursuing and encouraging me because of the existing power imbalance, creating a level of emotional intensity as a preface to his “big reveal” so that I would either acquiesce or never tell. He trained me to feel sorry for him, to feel guilty about not giving enough of myself to him, to believe I was special to him. And for what? So that one day, when he thought the time was right for us to be more physically intimate, he could hit me? Smash my head against a concrete wall, like he allegedly did to one woman? Choke me with a leather belt, like he allegedly did to another?

In Anne Kingston's Macleans piece, "Jian Ghomeshi: how he got away with it," the deck reads "Jian Ghomeshi's behaviour was an open secret going back to his university days. Not that anyone took action. In fact, the CBC made him a star."

Kingston reports the following of Ghomeshi's years at York University:

...years before his rise as a feminist hero, he had a reputation as a male feminist pig, at least according to Kerry Eady, who attended York in 1988-89 and lived in Stong residence. Eady recalls attending a meeting with 25 other women convened by female residence advisers at Stong before Christmas 1988 to warn them, after a few women had reported having “bad dates” with Ghomeshi. Those allegations involving hitting; one women claimed she’d been choked in the stairwell. In echoes of responses to alleged harassment at the CBC 25 years later, the York women were told to be vigilant—and to work around him, Eady told Maclean’s. “We were told to report his presence in co-ed floors or at house parties, so residence advisers could escort him out. He was considered a creep.”

I could go on and on.

Kingston cites 11 women as having come forward with Ghomeshi allegations. Maclaren quotes De Coutere:

“I know of a woman who he hospitalized. I’d say there are over a dozen who never went to the police or the media.”

Ghomeshi's creepy, manipulative, and needy behaviour is a sad commentary on the employment atmosphere of what should have been Canada's premiere media employer, the CBC.

In a way, this story is a metaphor for the corporatization of what used to be a sacred trust (before Brian Mulroney debased the phrase), the so called fourth estate.

I never liked Q and could barely stand to hear JG's smarmy opening patter. I didn't need to be seduced by my radio-- I needed to be enlightened, informed, entertained. I could never understand why a sort of empty headed guy who took credit for others work but looked good in a tux merited the kind of star treatment he did, compared to the gravitas of someone like Anna Maria Tremonte, who had real experience in the journalistic trenches, as opposed to the fluff of Q. Or Shelagh Rogers whose smile flies through the air waves.

I can only conclude the suits who promoted/enabled the Ghoshter had serious hardons for him.

That there was something wrong with JG can be deduced by the way he took himself out: showing CBC execs videos of himself brutalizing a woman, with the idea that would somehow absolve him of the "jealous ex" he delusionally asserted was behind his problems.

Think of it: he thought video of him administering a beating during sex would somehow get these guys on his side.

Sorry, that is one sick f*cker.

And yet, we feminists are about to be broken-hearted again, as the court case appears to be foundering.

Why is that? And, more importantly, what lessons does this sorry case hold for the future?

I apologize in advance to those who will interpret my next words as victim blaming. But women--since the vast majority of sex assault endurers are women victimized by men--it's also time to step up to the plate. As adults.

We can fulminate as much as we like in our conviction that victim behaviour after alleged acts is irrelevant (e.g. here ), point to jurisdictions where the law has been adjusted to treat complainants more fairly (e.g. here ), or suggest use of civil courts to achieve justice for sexual assault survivors, where the burden for proof drops from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to a balance of probabilities (e.g. here ).

We can lobby for the creation of "specialized sexual assault courts like those that exist for criminal cases involving drugs and mental health...[with] a subset of judges with special training in the psychological dynamics of sexual assault and lawyers for complainants," as one of Kingston's interview subjects suggests.

But we must, also, live in the real world. And, in this real world, it's hard to believe a woman who, punched and choked by Ghomeshi, would then send him a six page love letter, or a picture of herself in a bikini, or have further contact with him, never mind sexual contact.

I'm a sympathetic observer, I actually believe he "did it." And still, my mind boggled. I could believe such things from women brutalized in long term relationships, of someone who had long been groomed (like maybe Spencer, above).

To those convinced we must always and forevermore believe those who come forward with stories of sexual assault (or any other crime), I also say "grow up." Who among us hasn't known a person who has lied, who might feel vindictive, or desire revenge?

Enough with the PTSD bullshit, the metaphoric return of the vapours and neurasthenia. If you are raped, it's not that you have to come screaming from the bushes with your bodice ripped.

But waiting more than a decade to go to the police? I call bullshit.

I read some comment on Facebook about the way these complainants are being treated, along the lines of "does anyone treat robbery or attempted murder this way?"

But if, in short order, 10 young women had come immediately forward to complain of JG's behaviour, would the police have been able to ignore it? As opposed to 13 years and 5,000 texts/emails later? Do you really think we'd be faced with the failure of a Ghomeshi prosecution under such a scenario? Not to mention how many women might have been spared a few sharp shots to the side of the head.

I understand why Reva Seth didn't come forward to police...but for her to have published a piece naming names as she has...yes, it's laudable she wants her sons to understand that women who are attacked have nothing to feel ashamed of. But what about all the daughters her "wanting to get on with her life as it was" left exposed to brutalization in the interim?

Who knew Stockwell Day's comments on "unreported crime", upon which we lefties, at the time, heaped such scorn, would turn out to be true?

If our society is experiencing the wave of sexual crime one hears about in numerous news reports, books (e.g. Missoula), and magazines, or sees portrayed in documentaries, then there is an army of fresh (and therefore infinitely more credible) survivors. Grab your ovaries, girls. All hail Mandi Gray, who has been covered by The Fifth Estate, The Toronto Star, and other outlets. There has to be safety in numbers. Please, step up to the plate.

They’re baaack!! Gleanings from Episode 1 of Downton’s final season

2016-01-04T13:05:00.000-05:00

As Montreal’s self-professed biggest Downton fan, Sunday night was a red letter one in our household. And as the preshow and Season 6, Episode 1 itself unfurled—with me curled next to hubby under a cozy blanket—I realized anew that it’s all about the women. The men on Downton may be occasionally dashing and decorative (even, sometimes, dead), but they’re ultimately a bit foolish about Downton Abbey’s underlying theme, which is the era’s need for reform, for change.

From corsets to hairdos, to the proper employment of well bred ladies, the move to the modern age Fellowes chronicles is about breaking the taboos that shackle the females to “suitable” domestic endeavour, and letting freedom reign.

Which is, interestingly, the thinking behind many current development programs: the best way to move a society forward is to empower its women.

One of my least favourite—to me, near inscrutable—plot lines is the jealousy/backbiting between Mary and Edith (I’m still not sure if Michelle Dockery is simply a poor actress or if it’s the emotional constipation of the British she’s stuck portraying that gets me down). If there was a struggle for resources (money or men), it might make some sense, but in a family that has everything, why is Edith so jealous of Mary, and why does Mary resent her? There’s nothing that explains it. It felt like a mystery, until I thought back to the older stories, of Cain slaying Abel, of Jacob stealing Esau’s birthright, the father Abraham’s blessing bestowed on the next generation’s leader. And, as I moseyed across this in my internet travels, the story of Rachel and Leah, though with these two, it’s about the love of a man (so they fail the Bechdel test).

So what does Fellowes telegraph of his plans for the season in this first episode?

Well, the first scenes give us a longish glimpse of Barrow, so it seems he will be a major figure this season, and Mary is off to the hunt, scandalously astride: tradition, once again, takes a beating. Robert tries not to harrumph.

Edith wants “a life,” and Anna and Bates get theirs back (though there are still a few crossed stars in the way). Mrs. Hughes involves Mrs. Patmore in an excruciating inquiry into Carson’s sexual intentions toward his intended…and Mrs. Patmore demonstrates (again) that she is a moral pillar, a loving and stalwart devotee of them both.

Denker and Spratt engage in a delightful cut and thrust, spurring the Dowager Countess to “rule by fear,” the fear being of the necessity of household downsizing (It’s 1925: "Who has an underbutler anymore?”).

Cora, her mother-in-law, and Isabel spar over the future of family influence, embodied in the local hospital, a family-controlled institution. (Elizabeth McGovern’s portrayal of Cora being another weak link, it must be said). And after Robert confronts and bests Mary’s erstwhile blackmailer, there’s a metaphorical changing of the guard as he acknowledges Mary is an apprentice no longer. Not only is she ready to assume control of the Abbey itself, but she’s “tough enough to run the whole kingdom.”

Perhaps the most emotionally genuine scene (at least, the most satisfying to me) was Daisy confronting the new owners over the looming loss of her father-in-law Mr. Mason’s tenancy as the Darnleys are forced by circumstances to sell nearby Malleton Hall. Of course, her outburst does everything but further Mr. Mason’s cause, but in a world where everyone else is emotionally constrained, it did my unBritish heart good to watch someone on screen finally let loose.

Yes, Downton is back. And though we can sense the creaks and groans of the plot’s contrivances (“Will the sisters ever find love, especially between each other?”), our anticipation is duly whetted.

Besides, Poldark is still in production.

On Censorship: Raziel Reid, Steven Galloway, and the Teachable Moment

2015-02-12T12:10:00.001-05:00

Before you go accusing people of censorship, you should know what it means. And when someone admits, after the fact, that he actually doesn't know the definition of the word--and he is acting director of one of the country’s most prominent creative writing programs—perhaps he should consider a new line of work.

The kerfuffle over the latest $25,000 Governor General Literary Award winner for children’s (text), When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid, illustrates a serious deficiency among Canada’s literati: despite the recent lessons of Charlie Hebdo, they apparently do not understand the definition of censorship. And perhaps even what “strong anti-gay sentiment” is.

With its boatload of vulgar words, deeds, and images—a crack pipe doubles as an anal dildo, masturbation by crucifix, immortal lines like “His thick eyelashes were so dark that it looked like he bought them at the drugstore…I fantasized about gluing them on his eyes and then ripping them off when he climaxed,” or juicy lips that look “like she had just sucked on a tampon”--not to mention its pervasive cynicism and hopelessness--there’s little doubt Reid set out to ignite a minor Mapplethorpian sensation.

Well, he got it. It started with an article by Barbara Kay, the Montreal-based National Post opinion writer of a certain age; the headline says it all: “Wasted tax dollars on a values-void novel”.

After that came criticism by Kathy Clark, an Ontario children’s writer who objected to the book’s vulgarity. A petition to the Canada Council to rescind the prize was created, with Clark the first signatory.

“I am a strong supporter of the freedom of speech and the petition does not suggest censoring the book,” Clark said. “It states that this is not quality literature and should not be rewarded as such. Raziel Reid is free to write what he wants, and I actually commend him for his intentions…in writing the book. It is the manner in which those intentions are carried out and expressed for a young audience that is at issue here.”

Reaction was swift and scathing. Vancouver writer and international bestseller Steven Galloway (The Cellist of Sarajevo, The Confabulist) attacked Clark on social media, calling her position

“disgusting…If you don’t value free speech . . . then you don’t deserve to call yourself a writer…I am ashamed of you and ashamed to share a profession with you.”

The statement has over 400 Facebook “likes.”

Incredible: Galloway, acting head of UBC’s creative writing program—and 400 of his like-minded, ostensibly freedom loving comrades--consider a petition to be censorship, an attack on freedom of speech.

Sorry, but NOT.

Here is the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004) on the subject (they define the noun, not the adverb):

Censor. noun. 1. an official authorized to examine printed matter, films, news, etc., before public release, and to suppress any parts on the grounds of obscenity, threats to security, etc. 2. Rom. hist. [means Roman History?] either of two annual magistrates responsible for holding censuses and empowered to supervise public morals. 3. Psych. an impulse which is said to prevent certain ideas and memories from emerging into consciousness.

So there you have it: censorship takes place when authorities—ie. those with real power-- issue fatwas, demand a book be withdrawn, remove it from schools/libraries, burn or otherwise prevent people from reading it. It would be censorship if Mr. Harper's Minister of literature turned around and said, “Take that sucker off the shelves. No one's gonna read about tampon lollipops on my watch!”

No matter how hard Galloway et al. twists it, a petition to the Canada Council to reconsider an award just doesn’t qualifies as censorship in the real world. Just to be clear, despite his many other failings, Mr. Harper, of course does not have a Minister of literature.

In these “Je suis Charlie” times, how can Galloway possibly consider a petition censorship? In a long discussion cum argument on my Facebook page over the past 10 days—where he finally admitted that dissenters to a decision have the right of appeal (ie. that the petition is part of our right to free speech and dissent), Galloway wrote this (among other ageist and insulting comments) to Barbara Kay:

You have a newspaper column. I or any one of a number of other people I will see this week could also have such a thing with one phone call. We wouldn't even need our son to be on the editorial board…Asking the Canada Council to rescind a prize for the first time in its history because it has sexual content that you and others find distasteful is so retrograde it almost baffles the mind. You don't think it's harmful, but you're approaching this from the position of an entitled, privileged white woman who has a platform to have a voice in the world…When I suggested that we would collectively like to extract your head from your rectum, it was because you are resolutely unwilling to see the world from any perspective other than your own privileged position…. I feel sorry for you, and occasionally a slight bit ashamed at myself for speaking harshly to an elderly woman.

Apparently, individual white women are not entitled to their world view. What is it called when someone is considered part of a race/class of persons, and not an individual?

But it gets worse.

In a recent Guardian interview, author Raziel Reid, Governor General Award winner for the young adult novel When Everything Feels Like the Movies, characterized the tittle of negative reaction to his book as evidence of Canada’s “strong anti-gay sentiment.”

But Canada doesn’t have a “strong anti-gay sentiment.” In fact, it’s among the most gay-friendly places extant.

In 1967 (two years before Stonewall), then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously opined, “There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” right before he initiated an update of the laws on abortion, divorce, and homosexuality. In 2004, Canada became the fourth nation in the world (after the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain) to legalize same sex marriage. These days, Lonely Planet says our home and native land is “hands down the most advanced and progressive nation in the Americas for the gay community.” They single out Toronto, third on their list of “most gay friendly places on the planet…a beacon for the LGBTQ traveller in North America.”

So does a petition against the awarding of a prize to this book mean we’ve turned into a country of gay-bashers? Get a grip...

[Also on HuffPo.ca]

Eugenie Bouchard's twirl should make us all mad

2015-01-23T16:33:00.001-05:00

(Published in The Toronto Star, January 26th and The Montreal Gazette January 27th)

During a post-match interview a couple of days ago at the Australian Open, Eugenie Bouchard was asked by an interviewer working for the tourney, Ian Cohen, to “give us a twirl” to show off her outfit. In the clip I saw, Ms. Bouchard looks surprised and reluctant but, at the urging of Cohen and the crowd, performs her pirouette. Then she buries her face in her hand.

Ms. Bouchard is ranked 7^th in the world in her sport. Do they make these kinds of requests of male top seeds? We all know the answer to that one.

Apparently, CBC Sports’ called the incident, “very unexpected.” Other media types called it “strange” and “odd.” Egregious is more like it. Why don’t men get how awful this was?

Let me connect the dots between the disrespect shown world-class athlete Bouchard and offenses like those alleged of Jian Ghomeshi. What does the Eugenie Twirl have to do with Ghomeshi? Plenty: both events cut to the heart of our society’s unequal treatment of the sexes and of the way females are socialized in our society. We’re trained to be nice and agreeable, to “go along to get along,” rather than to be autonomous individuals with the (at times prickly) human right to draw lines in the sand, demur, and even retaliate when reasonable boundaries are crossed.

I don't condone violence, but maybe feminists have been going about the quest for equality the wrong way. Perhaps it’s time to give women the physical skills that will empower us to use a little negative reinforcement, if necessary. Knowing we’re capable of cleaning their clocks might make a big difference to the way we are treated, not to mention what we’ll put up with.

Consider the case of Jim Hounslow, according to The Toronto Star, an e-learning specialist at the Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. He was the guy who alleged his gonads were grabbed by Ghomeshi way back when Hounslow worked for Ghomeshi while they were both studying at York University:

“With no warning, he just reached over and grabbed my genitals (through Hounslow’s jeans) and started fondling them. I was completely shocked and I reacted,” Hounslow said.

Hounslow, who is roughly the same height and build as Ghomeshi (“I am built like a cyclist and I am a cyclist”), said he grabbed Ghomeshi’s arm, pulled it behind his back and then pushed Ghomeshi hard against the elevator doors.

“I told him, ‘You are never to do that again,’” Hounslow recalls.

Contrast that to Lucy DeCoutere’s account to CBC of her alleged 2003 assault:

They started kissing consensually, but, she said, Ghomeshi soon became violent.

“He did take me by the throat and press me against the wall and choke me,” DeCoutere said. “And he did slap me across the face a couple of times.”… She left within an hour and saw Ghomeshi two more times that weekend, but they did not discuss the incident, and no further violent incidents occurred.

My point is that we (as a society) still aren’t doing enough to ensure girls and women have personal autonomy. Instead of grooming them to be strong, we groom them to be nice, by-the-rule players. Compliant, agreeable, and decorative.

No wonder we so often end up beaten and raped. I believe many people, men and even women, scoffed at reports that half of all Canadian women have been physically or sexually assaulted. But the virality of #beenrapedneverreported demonstrates that police charges truly are the tip of the iceberg.

Would the risk of being beaten up have deterred the activities of Dalhousie dental student “gentlemen’s club”?

What I want is a world where a small, cute woman is treated with as much respect as The Rock. I want a small, cute woman to be treated with respect because everyone deserves respect. But I'll take being treated with respect because of fear of a punch in the nose if that's all I (we) can get.

Women need to become more powerful as well as more empowered, and part of that means changing our approach to physical fitness, starting with youngsters. We need a revolution, the equivalent of the USA’s Title IX, here in Canada. Among other things, Title IX required American schools receiving federal funds to provide equal funds to both male and female athletic programs. We need self-defence courses, boxing, you name it. Whatever it takes to make us physically more powerful. Because the ability to write strongly worded letters clearly isn’t enough.

Most women understand why Ms. Bouchard pirouetted. Even Lucy DeCoutere’s behaviour is comprehensible, given Ghomeshi’s rainmaker status in the entertainment industry. But I think we can do more as a society to help women just say no to sexism and abuse.

Training women to be physically powerful—and aggressive as necessary—will hopefully create benefits beyond greater health and wellbeing. Done right, it will give women the confidence to say no—to the sexist treatment Ms. Bouchard experienced this week (though she, persists in calling it “funny”), to the attacks of abusers. Just say no to weak women. It’s time to go beyond slogans, and make sure our girls and women have the muscle that will make men think twice before mistreating us.

What a difference an (almost) decade makes: PEN Canada on Charlie Hebdo & the Danish cartoons

2015-01-09T12:55:00.001-05:00

I'm glad to see that PEN Canada has finally decided to stop speaking out of both sides of its mouth with respect to editorial/satirical cartoons. Contrast this excerpt from their January 2015 statement to the one below on the 2005 so-called Danish cartoon controversy.

Freedom of expression is now "a fundamental human right," and presumably remains such even when it is actually exercised:

Maybe PEN should recall the words of that noted french writer Voltaire:

"I do not agree with what you

have to say, but I'll defend to

the death your right to say it."

(Apparently, Voltaire never actually said this...)

What he actually said was, "What a fuss about an omelette!" But you can see why that didn't exactly catch on...

Well, PEN Canada, all I can say is better late than never.
From 2006: "PEN Canada supports the right of a free press to publish these cartoons, but also believes that a wise consideration of the principle of “voluntary restraint” would have led to better decisions."

Meaning, perhaps, "I'll defend your right to say anything you want, but hope to god you'll never exercise it..."

The 2006 PEN Canada statement, in its breathtaking Canadian niceness, is reproduced below.

When cartoons aren't funny (from the archives)

2015-01-08T17:14:00.002-05:00

Originally published in Toronto's now-defunct The Jewish Magazine, March 2006, at the time of the Danish cartoon controversy. I re-run it here in memory of those killed in Paris yesterday.

Review of Tim Johnston's new novel DESCENT: a page-turner!

2014-12-24T13:40:00.001-05:00

I received this as an ARC via Librarything.

A well written but strange book. A sort of PG-13 version of the long-term abduction/rape of a young woman...

I've been doing a lot of reading about serial killers the past year or so (don't ask. Okay, it's because of Russell Williams. But that's another story) and I can tell Tim Johnston has read the same Ted Bundy books I have.

For what it is--a thriller with literary aspirations--it is well done. A bit slow moving in spots, oodles of suspense in the last third or so. But I can't escape the glossing over of the horror of two years in the life of a kidnapped 18 year-old woman...for those who couldn't handle the depths of depravity, don't worry: you won't find that in these pages. And I do understand why Mr. Johnston chooses to wrap his story around the daughter about to leave for university (it's on their final vacation as a family that the abduction takes place). It's the same reason that the princess must be rescued in every old video game and movie: the young virginal woman is worth more than rubies (except to Hobbits, maybe).

Still, this sanitized horror uses the pornography of sexual violence to pull our strings.

That being said, I hope he does well with it.

(Find me on Goodreads here)

Guest post: Jonathan Goldbloom, candidate for the Liberal nomination, Mount Royal Riding

2014-11-21T15:45:00.000-05:00

Le français suit l’anglais

Friends,

I prepared the text below in response to a request from the Canadian Jewish News to Anthony Housefather and me to submit brief articles on our respective candidacies. The newspaper is not going ahead with the initiative. I have, therefore, decided to share my contribution with you.

My commitment is to be a strong voice in Ottawa for the Jewish community while being an effective representative of all residents of the riding.

Shabbat Shalom.

Jonathan

***

Mount Royal: A Special Riding

An Article submitted to the Canadian Jewish News

Mount Royal is the federal riding with the largest Jewish population in Quebec.

This brings with it a special responsibility – one that has been admirably fulfilled by Irwin Cotler to be a strong voice on issues of importance to the community, from support for Israel to social justice and human rights.

As your Member of Parliament my commitment will be to build on Mr. Cotler’s work and my own track record to be an effective voice for the Jewish community in the Liberal Party and in Ottawa.

As a member of the Board of Directors of The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and its predecessor, and as a communications strategist, I have worked with our community on key issues including the fight against government efforts to close Jewish daycares and the maintenance of kashrut in health care institutions. I provided strategic advice and support to the Jewish community in the battle against Pauline Marois’ Charter of Values and have helped garner support for Israel in Quebec City and Ottawa. I also played key roles in restoring civility to the Concordia campus in the aftermath of the cancellation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech and in reaction to the launch of Israel Apartheid Week.

Representing Mount Royal also brings with it a responsibility to build bridges of understanding with other communities. With over 80 cultural communities Mount Royal is one of the most diverse constituencies in the province. As I have crisscrossed the riding over the past months I have been struck by what we have in common, rather than by our differences.

The economic resurgence of Montreal is at the top of the list for all of us. We all want our children and grandchildren to have attractive opportunities and compelling reasons to stay in Quebec. We have a rare window of opportunity to ensure Montreal regains its vitality. But for that to happen the federal government has to come to the table, investing, for example, in research and innovation and infrastructure. Making this happen will be a priority for me.

Health care is another issue that resonates with everyone across the riding. The Harper government approach is to provide the provinces with a blank cheque. It refuses to establish national priorities and to work to foster collaboration between jurisdictions. Voters are looking to Ottawa for leadership and direction on a wide range of issues from support for our aging population and developing a national cancer strategy to responding to the alarming number of children with autism spectrum disorders. These are areas that I am very familiar with.

I entered this race for many reasons. I care deeply about Israel and the well-being of the Jewish community and will work tirelessly on your behalf. Secondly, I want to build bridges between all communities so together we can tackle the economic, social and environmental issues our city, our province and our country faces. Working together is how we can build a Canada that reflects all of our dreams and aspirations.

My father Victor taught me about the importance of public service. He entered public life because he wanted to serve the community, and I want to carry on that tradition. On November 30^th my hope is that Mount Royal Liberals will put me one step closer to serving the Jewish community as well as all the residents of the riding in the House of Commons.

***

Chères amies, chers amis,

J’ai préparé le texte ci-dessous en réponse à une demande du Canadian Jewish News qui nous a priés, Anthony Housefather et moi, de soumettre un bref article au sujet de nos candidatures respectives. Comme le journal n’ira pas de l’avant avec cette initiative, j’ai pris la décision de vous faire part de ma contribution.

Shabbat Shalom.

Jonathan

***

Mont-Royal: une circonscription spéciale

Un article soumis au Canadian Jewish News

Mont-Royal est la circonscription fédérale dont la population juive est la plus importante au Québec.

Cela comporte une responsabilité toute spéciale – une responsabilité que Irwin Cotler a admirablement assumée afin d’être une voix forte sur des enjeux cruciaux pour la collectivité, qu’il s’agisse de soutenir Israël, de défendre la justice sociale ou de faire respecter les droits humains.

Si je deviens votre membre au Parlement, je m’engage à prendre appui sur le travail de M. Cotler et sur mes propres antécédents afin de représenter efficacement la collectivité juive au sein du Parti libéral et à Ottawa.

Comme membre du conseil d’administration du Centre consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes (et de l’organisme qui l’a précédé), et comme stratège en communications, j’ai travaillé maintes fois avec notre collectivité sur des enjeux cruciaux, y compris la lutte contre les efforts du gouvernement pour fermer les cpe juives et le maintien de la kashrout dans les établissements de soins de santé. J’ai fourni des conseils stratégiques et mon soutien à la collectivité juive dans leur lutte contre la Charte des valeurs de Pauline Marois, en plus de contribuer à obtenir des appuis pour Israël à Québec et à Ottawa. J’ai également joué un rôle crucial quand est venu le moment de restaurer un peu de civilité et de courtoisie sur la campus de Concordia dans la foulée de l’annulation du discours que devait y prononcer Benjamin Netanyahu, ainsi qu’en réaction au lancement de la Semaine contre l’apartheid israélien.

Qui dit représentation de la circonscription de Mont-Royal dit aussi responsabilité de jeter des ponts de compréhension avec les autres collectivités. Avec plus de 80 groupes culturels, Mont-Royal est certainement l’une des circonscriptions les plus diversifiées de la province. Lorsque j’ai sillonné la circonscription au cours des derniers mois, j’ai été frappé par tous les points communs qui nous unissent plutôt que par nos différences.

Nous avons tous la relance économique de Montréal comme priorité. Nous voulons tous que nos enfants et que nos petits-enfants aient des possibilités attrayantes et des motifs convaincants pour rester au Québec. Nous avons une occasion exceptionnelle de faire en sorte que Montréal retrouve son dynamisme. Par contre, pour y arriver le gouvernement fédéral doit d’abord se présenter à la table en investissant, par exemple, dans la recherche et l’innovation, ainsi que dans les infrastructures. Je m’engage à faire de cet objectif une priorité politique.

Les soins de santé constituent une autre question qui suscite l’intérêt de chaque personne dans la circonscription. La méthode du gouvernement Harper est de donner un chèque en blanc aux provinces. Il refuse d’établir des priorités nationales et de travailler pour favoriser la collaboration entre les juridictions. Les électeurs se tournent vers Ottawa pour que le gouvernement fédéral fasse preuve de leadership et de direction concernant un grand nombre de questions allant du soutien à la population vieillissante à l’établissement d’une stratégie nationale sur le cancer, en passant par le nombre grandissant et alarmant d’enfants atteints d’un trouble du spectre de l’autisme. Ce sont des domaines que je connais très bien.

De nombreuses raisons m’ont amené à me lancer dans la course. Israël et le bien-être de la collectivité juive me tiennent véritable à cœur et je travaillerai sans relâche en votre nom. D’autre part, je veux établir des ponts entre toutes les collectivités pour qu’ensemble nous puissions aborder les enjeux économiques, sociaux et environnementaux auxquels notre ville, notre province et notre pays sont confrontés. Le fait de travailler ensemble est la meilleure façon de bâtir un Canada qui sera à l’image de tous nos rêves et de toutes nos aspirations.

Mon père Victor m’a enseigné l’importance de la fonction publique. Il a lui-même fait son entrée en politique parce qu’il voulait rendre service à la collectivité, et je veux poursuivre cette tradition. Le 30 novembre, je souhaite qu’en votant pour moi les Libéraux de Mont-Royal me rapprocheront un peu plus de mon objectif qui est de servir la collectivité juive ainsi que tous les résidents de la circonscription à la Chambre des communes.

Jonathan Goldbloom

Candidat à l'investiture libérale fédérale en Mont-Royal
Candidate for Federal Liberal Nomination in Mount Royal

http://goldbloom.ca/

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My Goodreads review of Sean Michael's Giller Prize Winner, US CONDUCTORS

2014-11-20T08:52:00.001-05:00

(Just a brief one, not much detail or synopsis)

An extremely accomplished (first!!) novel that imagines, in exquisite detail, the lives of historical figures. Lev Termen was clearly a genius to whom we owe many diverse electronic inventions. I enjoyed this book...but:

--The choppy short sentences, especially prominent in the first half of the book, got on my nerves. Also, the detail was a bit too exquisite (50-100 pages-worth)

--Turns out I find the sound of the theremin quite repellant (though that's hardly Mr. Michael's fault)

--The story was only redeemed by Termen's suffering in the latter half of the book (aka thank goodness for the gulag). Unfortunately all too real.

Money and Jewish community or Dad, meet shul

2014-11-19T18:42:00.003-05:00

I would be the first to admit that my Jewish education isn't deep. But it's deeply held, and rests on two foundational pillars: Rabbi Hillel's on-one-foot injuction, "That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary -- [and now] go study." And "justice, justice shall you pursue."

Which is why Rabbi Jay Kelman's article in last week's Canadian Jewish News, "We need not price Jews out of Judaism," broke my heart. It did this by acknowledging the depth of a potential Orthodox convert's pockets as a serious issue. Kelman quotes (without attribution) Rabbi Zvi Romm, administrator of the Rabbinical Council Of American's New York beit din: "One of the considerations we make is, can the person hack it financially?...If a person says I have no money whatsoever, I can't afford the $400 fee paid out over time, the question you have to ask is, how are you going to make it as an Orthodox Jew?"

Kelman insists, "Rejecting a convert is to be done for religious reasons only," saying rejecting converts based on their bank balance "would seem to be sacrilegious." Of course, there is a "but": "with the cost of Jewish life such as it is, financial considerations enter the confusing calculus of the conversion process."

Which makes a mockery of what I thought I understood about Judaism.

Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but the Bible, though I don't believe in its literal truth, is filled with stories that move me. Like the story of Hannah in the Book of Samuel. Hannah, though much loved by her husband, is barren, which is a great trial to her. She goes to the temple and prays, weeping with intensity. The high priest confronts her, thinking she is drunk. When she explains her situation, he assures her her prayer will be heard and her wish granted. He didn't ask her if she was sure her family could afford to raise a child...

~~~

When I was growing up, we were far from wealthy, and my family struggled with this issue of money and community. Which may explain why the attitude toward synagogue membership I absorbed from my father was a riff on the Groucho gag, "I'd never join a club that would have me as a member!"

My dad was raised in a pretty traditional Montreal Orthodox Jewish family; his parents' unhappy marriage was arranged (in Poland) and produced seven children (one died in Canada in toddlerhood). According to legend, his mother did what she could to miscarry each pregnancy, though this may have only extended so far as taking bumpy carriage rides. My father is the sole survivor of this nuclear family.

The first shul I recall is set in my mind, as though I'm one of Erikson's ducks, imprinted on a particular version of a house of worship. Chomedey, a Montreal suburb, developed in the mid-sixties, rapidly transforming from farmland to tracts of "little boxes made of ticky tacky." When we arrived in 1964, fields with ponds and pussy-willows existed round the corner from our modest duplex. Over the next several years, these lovely "empty" spaces, actually teeming with so much life, morphed into apartment blocks and single-family homes. The postwar baby boom had the public schools I attended, nominally Protestant (as opposed to the Catholic ones, from which Jews were excluded), bursting at the seams.

The synagogue I imprinted on, Congregation Young Israel of Chomedey, might have been called "Our Lord of the Turquoise Folding Chairs." A gymnasium-sized room did double duty as a synagogue and community centre (the latter incarnation hosting hypnosis shows by the late Reuben Pecarvé and screenings of Mary Poppins, The love bug, and The computer wore tennis shoes). An Ashkenazi Orthodox shul, which meant most distinctively to me that men and women sat separately, though kids were free to swarm through both sections. And we did. Cleavage was also by tribe, with a Sephardic congregation meeting on the lower level. I never got the feeling that relations between these groups were warm.

We were members there by the good graces of my Dad's youngest brother, Issie (another Young Israel of Chomedey). Issie was an engineer and shul founder, active in the community, who worked hard to make Quebec a unique Canadian jurisdiction where religious schools received government funding for the non-parochial portions of their curricula. So Uncle Issie was a professional and a macher, the only one of his sib-ship to go to university. He went to McGill for his Bachelor's, and to the University of Tennessee for his Master's degree. After that, he took a job with Canada's Department of Defence, working, I believe, on the DEW line.

Family was very close in those days and the locus of socialization for my father, probably for both my parents (I suppose it could still be if there was enough of it). I was friendly with the eldest of Issie's four children, a girl a scant year older than myself. My dad was neither a professional nor a macher; he'd left school at about 12 years of age, and worked as a furrier with his two partner-brothers. Together, they confronted bankruptcy in 1963. At the end of the previous season, they had gotten a deal on mouton, a curly short-haired form of sheep skin, the fashion of the moment. The following season, though, it was "out." The brothers sold a good part of their decades long stamp collection to make ends meet; one of my earliest memories is waking from a nap to an apartment full of strangers, there to peruse proof sheets and first day covers.

Following the close encounter with insolvency, my family couldn't afford full synagogue membership dues; I'm not sure we could afford even part dues. As long as Issie was around, we went to the Young Israel, and I think my dad imprinted on that financial arrangement. Or maybe he just remembered what being part of a shul community was like when he was young and most Jews lived in poverty: organized Judaism certainly couldn't have been so concerned about money in those days (or am I just being nostalgic?). Issie made aliyah with his family in the early '70s, about the same time our suburban shul--and its increasingly upscale membership--decided to add a more ornate sanctuary to the building, the folding chairs relegated to the basement hall, for bar mitzvahs and weddings. That was when the arrangement broke down for us, whether over membership dues and/or the additional funds needed for the new facilities. So we became peripatetic synagogue-wise, true wandering Jews.

One place I remember attending was a really small, religious shul, a shteibl my parents called it, with a sheet-like mechitzah dividing the women from the men (and, of course, the Torah). I recall candles glowing candles glimpsed through the mechitzah, presumably for Yahrzheit observance.

By the mid-seventies, a new factory-style high school was thrown up and quickly filled with Jewish and Greek kids who, like us, were rejects of the English and French Catholic school boards. Other students came from the aboriginal lands of nearby Oka. I had a number of classes (mostly sciences) in rooms of cinder block, with fluorescent lighting and no windows. It was a bit of a polyvalent nightmare, including some students who ripped mirrors off walls and toilets from floors--and that was just the girls!--some toughies, with blond hair and black roots, skin-tight jeans, and kohl-rimmed eyes. Of course, among the reprobates there were also Jewish kids who hung out at the back doors, smoking dope (or worse), similarly accoutred and behaved. At least one girl came to school pregnant while I was there. I wasn't overly exposed to these kids because I was an excellent student and our classes were streamed: enriched, regular and general. But I digress.

At that point, my parents were able to swing a small mortgage, so we moved to a suburb even further from Montreal: Pierrefonds. Our family now included a son whose religious instruction was apparently an imperative much stronger than mine had been. We joined Congregation Beth Tikvah, an organization run by the formidable Rabbi Zeitz. His priority one was a Jewish day school and, through force of personality, he got the Hebrew Foundation School up and running almost single-handedly, it seemed. My brother attended school there. And we were still on folding chairs on holidays!

My brother was bar mitzvahed the year I married my non-Jewish husband, 1981 (please see note 1). And, true to form, once the school was established, and as the community prospered, the membership was assessed to raise funds for a new sanctuary, banishing those folding chairs to the banquet hall anon. This was probably about 1983. My parents decided they could no longer afford membership in this synagogue and wrote the Rabbi, expecting to be offered a fee adjustment. Instead, there was silence. And that was that. We were again cut adrift, and wandered to holiday services in Golden Age institutions with grandparents in varying stages of decay.

In March 1986, we had our first child. A couple of weeks later, I met a woman and her first-born at a new mother's group run by the local public community service centre. We became friendly and ended up at her house for Rosh Hashanah dinner the following year (my mother had pneumonia). She and her husband told us about the Reconstructionist synagogue. A place, she assured me, that would accept our family and allow me to re-join my tribe, a need which became pressing with parenthood.

My Jewish education had been haphazard; I went to the A.J. Reisen Yiddish school on Sunday mornings for two years, starting when I was nine. I remember singing Lomir zingen for my father's parents on one of our weekly visits. The exquisite mixture of pride and embarrassment that accompanied such occasions is still fresh in my mind. To tell the truth, I feel that combination of emotions most of the time.

My dad walked me to Yiddish class on Sundays, our dog Lucky trotting on ahead. One late October morning, I was an hour late, victim of a forgotten change to Daylight Savings Time. For an over-weight, overly-sensitive meatball of a child, the effect of all eyes swivelling toward me as I turned the brass doorknob and entered the classroom was profound.

By the end of the second year, we started a Hebrew reader with a red cover. I remember its first page: an ink drawing of a large extended family group, and underneath, the single Hebrew word mishpacha. But by the end of that school year, I began objecting, another salvo in the emerging rebellion against my parents, my mother in particular. The following year, I didn't go back.

As a young teenager, I was active in B'nai Brith Youth Organization, and at CEGEP, in Hillel. I went to Israel for a summer at 17 (and thought I'd return), but despite a smattering exposure to brief courses of Hebrew, I never progressed far beyond that single page of the red-covered reader until my husband and I took a course together during his conversion process. And any facility I have singing and following along at services nowadays is due to the instruction I received during my two sons' bar mitzvah preparations, and from my time spent in shul.

So as a young parent, I felt exquisitely ill-prepared to mother a Jewish family, a Jewish home: by that point, my family hadn't been synagogue-affiliated for about five years, I had married a believing Protestant, part of the fulcrum of that pride/embarrassment seesaw, my knowledge of Hebrew and many of the holidays was vestigial. But despite all this, I still felt deeply that I and my children were and would remain in the fold. There was never any question of bringing them up in both faiths, or of giving them neither. Especially because of the Holocaust, I was determined that we were going to have a Jewish family.

My mother told me how pleased she was to see what a warm and nurturing mother I'd become. I was a scientist, had never expressed any particular maternal instincts that she could see, so it was a sort of happy surprise to her, she told me. She tracked down an organization called Parveh, for the children of mixed Jewish marriages. She wrote away for their literature and brought it to me and, for a time, pushed me to join or otherwise subscribe to their newsletters and writings. Which infuriated me: I considered my son Jewish, not half-Jewish, as my mother kept suggesting. It took time to get this through to her, but she finally got the message.

She also had a conflicted attitude toward Judaism, due in part to a simplistic but common interpretation of the place it gave to women. She virtually never went to synagogue, either. Maybe on the high holidays. She continually mouthed the most scathing opinions about the over-emphasis of money in the community, how holidays at shul were mostly fashion shows, how little many of the people attending really cared about spiritual matters. Of course, I had noticed this myself.

By the time Dorshei Emet was suggested to us as a possible spiritual home, I responded like the desert celebrates rain. We went to a new members meeting, where Rabbi Ron Aigen told us he hoped this would be a place to feel challenged rather than comfortable. I suppose he was alluding to that adage of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable," but for me, after all these years of spiritual ache, I longed for solace, healing and, dare I say it, comfort. I was among the afflicted in that sense, though I wouldn't have put it that way at the time.

My husband went to shul most Saturdays during the year he was studying to convert to Judaism, while my son and I worshipped at that other local Jewish temple, Cavendish Mall. And when our second son was born a year or so later, his brith milah was held at the shul. As the years passed, my father started coming with us to Dorshei Emet's High Holiday alternate service, usually held on folding chairs at a satellite location: a library hall or parochial school gym. This second service was held for two reasons: the original synagogue couldn't hold the entire congregation (and various hangers-on) when we all decided it was absolutely necessary to attend. Secondly, the shul's originators envisioned it as a space to nurture the adult intellect. The alternate service was a more relaxed place where parents of boisterous young children would receive fewer dirty looks.

The warm-hearted organizers of the alternate services gave my dad various honours; he held the Torah, received aliyot, and was always warmly greeted. All of this gladdened my heart; it was a large part of what I hoped to find in a shul community. But somewhere over the five or so years of his attending with us, the zeitgeist changed. It could have been because paid members found it increasingly difficult to find seats on the high holidays due to an increase in non-paying freeloaders, or because the costs attendant on the second service were rising, or because a larger number of members were changing fee categories (from full-paying adult or family memberships to reduced-fee seniors) or for a mixture of these or other reasons. The synagogue board seemed determined to force those who only bought High Holiday seats to become full members. What had been a celebration open to all unaffiliated Jews in the city morphed into a service with fees of $200, for one year only. Unless you were an out-of-towner, the second year you were expected to become a full-fledged member (with fees for a family at the time in the vicinity of $750, now closer to $2,000).

The predictable happened one late fall day (could it have been Halloween?). I was in the synagogue office to settle something-or-other pertaining to our first born's upcoming bar mitzvah. The shul's administrative director announced that she'd just received a $75 donation from my father. She looked at me, clearly expecting an explanation.

I wish I had told her to ask him herself. Instead, I said it might have had to do with his having attended the alternate service, held that year in the gymnasium at the Jewish People's and Peretz Schools. She replied to the effect that that was what she surmised, that he should have paid $200 for the privilege, and that anyway, as a Montrealer, he was required to join the synagogue if he wanted to come to future High Holiday services. And then, the gratuitous stiletto slipped between my ribs: "Next year, I am going to put him on a special list and tell [the organizers] specifically that he is to be barred from services unless he joins the synagogue."

Now, I know I had, particularly in that period of my life, a sort of aura of perpetual victimhood, a quality that a personality like our then-administrative director's would find impossible to ignore. I can't imagine her having dealt with most other shul members the way she dealt with me that day. I'm not saying it was my fault, but I'm sure there was something I should have done differently. But such was my precarious perch on my pride/embarrassment seesaw, that I miserably concluded my business with her, and went on my distinctly unmerry way.

And then I made what I still consider my colossal mistake: I told my father what had happened.

Maybe I should have paid the membership fees for him (which I thought, at the time, we couldn't afford), or I should have called the Rabbi or a board member. I told my father that if it was a question of needing reduced fees, I was sure something could be arranged. But he had already gotten his back up about it, and anyway, simply didn't think even a $200 fee for three days of worship was justifiable.

And so, with a single spell of our own Dorshei Emet witch, a goodly portion of what I'd searched for most of my adult life went up in smoke.

My dad ended up at a Chabad congregation, which he could attend for free. He took pictures at their purim parties, and at various other celebrations during the year. Their major fund-raising involved--at Rosh Hashanah services, no less--the auctioning of aliyot in the coming year for multiples of chai. My mom, as usual, stayed home.

In the years since then, I've spent too much time thinking about my father and my synagogue. I vacillate in my interpretation, at times convinced it's my father's stubbornness, his refusal to pay to attend synagogue, that's the cause of all this grief. A number of times, I considered leaving the congregation, especially when it came time to fund-raise for our new building, and not simply to follow a family tradition. I know there are some very wealthy people in our congregation, and an even larger number of the comfortably well-off. But I am convinced there isn't another religious community in Montreal, outside of ours, that would have the chutzpah, in attempting to raise funds for a building, to tell us that "we can do nothing --NOTHING--with only three and a half million dollars, that we absolutely have to raise $5 million," or the project would have to be scrapped.

I was also at a meeting where we were exhorted to simply take one less vacation each year, and donate the money thereby liberated to the building fund. Well, my family only took one vacation annually in those days, and only once in the nearly eighteen years since we'd had our first child, did it involve plane tickets!

I started this memoir in the hope of finally getting past these difficult feelings. And I recalled my Rabbi's Kol Nidre address to us a few years back, about wanting to acknowledge problems. He said he particularly wanted to know why those of us who left the congregation did so. My immediate family hasn't left, but I have at times felt estranged.

I know it's kind of a long story, but it is one I'm compelled to tell. The inordinate emphasis of money in the Jewish community is an ongoing problem for me--a disgrace, even--and I'm sure this perception is not mine alone.

Notes

1Our romance being a whole 'nother story, summarized as: we met at college; within a couple of years, we'd fallen in love, his mother died of metastatic breast cancer, I couldn't just leave him on his own--we were 20--and he didn't believe in "living in sin." So we married at the Reform Temple Emmanuel by Rabbi Bernard Bloomstone, z"l, the only local rabbi brave enough to marry a Jew and non-Jew. "Whither thou goest," as it were. My husband converted to Judaism six years later. Which sort of proves "if you build it, they will come."

2 The government of Quebec reorganized public schools along linguistic lines in the mid-1990s, requiring a constitutional amendment.

Before Suicide: Thoughts on David Gilmour's EXTRAORDINARY

2014-10-15T15:07:00.002-04:00

David Gilmour has to be the clearest writer I've read in a long time. In fact, EXTRAORDINARY is so clear, it reads like a film script. And not just any film script.

It reads like the Canadian cousin of the films "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" (since writing this, I've seen the third installment, "Before Midnight," and it's marvelous). A man and woman sit around and talk all night--about their lives, who they are, what is important to each, filling in the gaps. Of course, in the original, the couple falls in love over the course of a 24 hour period after meeting, by chance, on a train; they don't know each other at all.

In Gilmour's version, the couple is anything but strangers: a half-brother and half-sister, separated by a 15 year age gap.

It reads as though Gilmour leapfrogged to the third act of the trilogy, cutting out beginning and middle, opting solely for end.

And instead of being thrown together haphazardly on a train, they are drawn together on this single evening by the sister's need for help in committing suicide. She's a paraplegic who's had enough of living a diminished life, a life she finds harder and harder to manage.

I'm wondering about the title, if it's Sally, the sister, who is supposed to be extraordinary? M, the narrator, certainly seems to find her so, but I guess we all feel that way about those we love, about those whose half-stories we know. Or maybe the circumstances are extraordinary...yes, that seems more like it. It’s funny: the cover illustration is of a glowing firefly, but a moth drawn to a flame might have been just as apt.

I did not want to like this book. In fact, I didn't want to like any of this author's work. If you’ve been wondering why the name David Gilmour rings a bell, it could be because he was a long-time CBC film critic. Or because he already won the Governor General’s Literary Award for A Perfect Night to go to China.

Or you could be like me, mainly acquainted with David Gilmour because of that arguably disastrous Hazlitt interview he gave recently. I say arguably disastrous because perhaps, after all, there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

On principle, I wanted to dismiss this book. In fact, I wanted to ignore Gilmour’s work entirely. But, unlike Gilmour himself, I couldn't write him off without ever having read him. So I am working my way through his books. I won't buy them, though: he's not getting my measly toonies!

Did I enjoy Extraordinary? Yes. Not as much as the book I finished earlier in the day: Louise Erdrich’s The Roundhouse. I read that one for my book club; I’m also working on discovering more great women writers. For this, I may thank David Gilmour.

Was Extraordinary extraordinary? Well, it was good, not great. It filled an evening.

Will I remember it six months from now? Doubtful.

It was extremely clear, eminently readable. Is it such a great book that it deserved to be on the Giller long list? Well, not having read the others or the ones which were overlooked, I really can't say (very much want to read the Davidson and Coady ones).

I read it because my library made a copy available, because I was curious, and because I couldn't not like his writing because of some ideas he has with which I disagree.

I read it, in sum, to prove to myself that I am not as prejudiced as he is.

After months of fulmination and kerfuffle, David Gilmour is back teaching at the University of Toronto.

Canada's demographic shift: Concordia profs work to ensure healthier & happier longevity

2014-09-18T10:48:00.001-04:00

By: Beverly Akerman

Source: Concordia University Magazine

Canada is growing much greyer. In 2011, as baby boomers began crossing that 65-year-old threshold, the Census reported almost 15 per cent of us were seniors. By 2031, one quarter of Canadians will fit that bill. Centenarians are the country’s fastest growing age group.

This demographic shift has major social, medical and financial repercussions. For instance, within a generation, the number of Canadians with dementia will more than double, to 1.1 million people, and the cost of their care will rise from today’s $1.5 billion to a projected $153 billion.

How will society deal with these huge challenges? Concordia experts are looking at these issues from multiple angles.

Investing in planning

Patrik Marier, a professor in Concordia’s department of Political Science, is also scientific director of the Centre for research and expertise in social gerontology in Montreal.

As a professor in Concordia’s Department of Political Science, Marier’s research focuses on the policy implications of our changing demographics. These days, he’s analyzing the implications to pension, health care and labour policy, and working on a book about Canada’s preparations for aging populations.

“A large cohort of seniors have incomes barely above the poverty line,” he says. “And a substantial number of baby boomers carry impressive amounts of debt into retirement.”

Gender defines another worrying pension issue, Marier adds: women tend to have more career interruptions than men and therefore are more than twice as likely to rely on the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Yet it’s a complex issue. Governments in Canada and elsewhere are certainly aware of the potential future crunch on pensions. Marier, the holder of a Canada Research Chair in Comparative Public Policy, feels we’re not necessarily headed toward a disaster. “We must take care not to frame the issue as a crisis, a tsunami,” he says. “Public authorities should act on the challenges, but need to understand that adjustments are already taking place. For example, the data show people are already retiring later.”

As our population ages, we are looking towards overwhelming numbers of people with dementia, yet are not prepared for this. We have an obligation to provide them the best possible quality of life.

Charles Draimin, professor and chair of the department of accountancy at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business, notes that a segment of the Canadian population is no longer forced to retire.

Charles Draimin, professor and chair of the Department of Accountancy at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business, concurs. “In the early ’80s, the Quebec government changed the laws on mandatory retirement, and Ontario followed suit about eight years ago,” he says. “As a result, people are no longer forced to retire except for specific, highly physical occupations like police officer or fire fighter.”

The situation varies across jurisdictions, Marier points out. “In general, populations in the eastern provinces are older than western ones, and federal health care transfers don’t take into account there are more older people per capita in Nova Scotia than in Alberta, for example.” This makes the current health care funding formula “unfair,” he says, and describes “huge ongoing debates” about the effect of aging on health care costs. “A higher number of older people will most likely increase health care expenditure, but upcoming seniors are also healthier than those in previous generations.”

Louis Bherer is scientific director of Concordia’s PERFORM Centre (see the sidebar) and also serves as researcher and lab director at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. He agrees that 60 is the new 40 — which delays retirement age. When he started in the field as a graduate student about 15 years back, Bherer recalls that 65 was considered the start of being considered old in neurosciences research. “Now 75 is the geriatric cut-off.”

Nonetheless, the concern for the population’s retirement income remains real, as a significant portion of pensioners have relatively small incomes and one quarter of the retired population lacks any pension savings outside the public plan. As well, public pensions in Canada were designed to replace only a fraction of the median wage of a working person. Draimin points out that when German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck offered pensions to German workers over 65 in 1888, few people lived long enough to qualify. Yet with life expectancy now nearly 86 years old, “the length of the modern retirement has effectively doubled. While still young enough to save for it, people should probably be finding out what they’d have to invest to approach 90 per cent of their pre-retirement income,” he advises.

Marier believes we need to prepare better. “People spend far more time buying a new car or fridge than on the financial decisions related to retirement,” he says. “People need to ask questions and they need to know what to ask. Don’t be shy.” He recommends The Naked Investor: Why Almost Everybody but You Gets Rich on Your RRSP (2007) by John Lawrence Reynolds as a resource.

Quality of life matters

Communication studies professor Kim Sawchuk helps fight the attitude by younger generations that older people don’t have a clue about digital technologies.

We live in the digital age. We also live in a time of digital ageism, an attitude that assumes younger people have a natural fluency with digital media their elders lack, and a major reason seniors are often left out of research on new digital technologies.

Kim Sawchuk, a professor in the Department of Communication Studies, is working to counter digital ageism. Sawchuk holds a Concordia University Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies, a Canadian first, and directs the Mobile Media Lab, which is dedicated to interdisciplinary research in “mobilities,” the movement of people, objects, capital and information, locally and across the world.
From earlier work with seniors and cell phones, Sawchuk understands that seniors are extremely heterogeneous: “There are differences, for example, between someone who is 60 and not yet retired, someone recently retired and those retired 20 years or more.”

She explains that culture, language and social and kinship networks are at least as significant as age on technology use and practice, and that limits on access can be related to incomes, or simply to the realization “we have too much stuff” to manage in our lives.

“We need to understand how people decide what they want and need. We need to value those as well, those who are sceptical: every new technology is not absolutely necessary,” Sawchuk says. The Mobile Media Lab provides digital learning to seniors groups based on their requirements. “We ask seniors what they want to learn and do, and then we help them access that knowledge.”

Sawchuk describes a recent flash mob at Montreal’s Place Alexis Nihon organized with Ressources ethnoculturelles contre l’abus envers les aînées and the Contactivity Centre in support of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, June 15. “It was fantastic to see the reaction of these 50 seniors dressed in purple who participated, and then put up their intervention on YouTube. They were a force taking over the public space and putting their perspective on aging, using new media, into the virtual world.”

She has other ongoing projects with many seniors’ organizations. “At Concordia, we’re being encouraged to make what we know, and the studies we’ve done, relevant to the real world. And that’s a good thing.”

Taming regret

The research by psychology professor Carsten Wrosch has shown that when seniors are trained to write about their life in a positive light, rather than focusing on regrets, they feel better about themselves.

In a society that extols persistence as a goal-seeking behaviour, for an older person, knowing when to abandon a goal can be an equally valid path to well-being. For a young person seeking a lover or a job, persistence in the face of adversity makes sense.

Yet Carsten Wrosch, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Psychology, says that for some of the intractable problems of older age, “Giving up, quitting or abandoning goals, or finding some other goal to focus on can be the most adaptive response.” Especially if the person’s circumstances can’t be altered.

Wrosch is director of the Personality, Aging and Health Lab, affiliated with the university’s interdisciplinary Centre for Research on Human Development, which unites top researchers and trainees from six Quebec universities in the study of development over the human lifespan. A major research focus is the long-term study of aging. The Montreal Aging and Health Study has followed about 200 older adults for a decade. Last year, the study received a third Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant of close to $1 million.

Wrosch says research shows that regrets — such as being unable to walk or no longer able to do the groceries — can lead to excessive rumination and even depression, and increase one’s vulnerability to disease. Wrosch has demonstrated these psychological states — and their alteration — are reflected in measurable health-relevant biological processes such as levels of cortisol (reflecting stress) and C-reactive protein (related to inflammation states). “What I’m really interested in is preventing this downward spiral through self-regulation, a life-management approach,” he says.

One such approach taken in his lab, published in the journal Psychology and Aging, experimented with directed writing: coaching seniors to write about their life regrets by “making social comparisons, silver lining and positive reframing” — basically, making realistic comparisons with others in the same situation, as opposed to lamenting the loss of an ideal state. Results show marked decreases in the intensity of regrets and improved outcomes, including better sleep.

“Our research is a pathway to helping older people deal with regrets over the intractable problems of aging,” he says. “The ultimate goal is to discover mechanisms that can contribute to helping older adults enjoy a happier and healthier life.”

Training your brain

One of the research projects conducted by Karen Li, a professor in Concordia’s department of psychology, found that playing computer games along with fitness training helped improve seniors’ condition.

One road to such a happier and healthier life is keeping our bodies — as well as our minds — in shape.

That’s one area being examined by Karen Li, a professor in Concordia’s Department of Psychology. Li is interested in executive functioning, an umbrella term for those cognitive skills harnessing mental control, organization and self-regulation. She explains executive functions are closely tied with areas of the brain that shrink more rapidly as we age.

Li and her team at the Laboratory for Adult Development and Cognitive Aging test older and younger adults as they use executive functions to multitask by combining cognitive and motor activities. “We measure how much a person sways while balancing on one foot and compare that with the increased fluctuations they might exhibit while simultaneously listening to words or doing mental arithmetic.”

As cognitive tasks increase in difficulty, older adults show a greater drop in performance than younger adults. “That suggests that in older age, what used to be an automatic physical task — balancing — requires more attention and cognitive resources. Avoiding a loss of balance has practical implications for healthy, independent living,” she says.

So how to strengthen these cognitive functions? “A growing number of studies show that aerobic fitness training, even with a modest physical improvement, can lead to improved executive functioning,” she says. “Social engagement is also an important source of mental stimulation.”

Li’s work has also established that brain training with computer games can be a useful add-on to more conventional forms of physical therapy/fitness training. Together with Louis Bherer and other Concordia researchers at the PERFORM Centre, Li’s latest projects involve older adults with (and without) mild hearing impairment. In population studies of age-related conditions, hearing loss is associated with increased falling. Li hopes that brain-gym in combination with aerobic fitness training will better elucidate this link and, ultimately, be used to decrease falling.

She’s also keen on an ongoing project, funded through CIHR, involving the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. Healthy young and older adults and older adults with hearing loss walk on a treadmill in a virtual reality simulation of crossing a six-lane street. As the subjects are challenged with listening tasks, their walking is measured using motion-capture technology. The goal is to simulate a real-life multitasking situation in a safe environment to understand how hearing loss and mobility decline are linked.

Music to their ears

Music therapy assistant professor Laurel Young recently received awards from Wilfrid Laurier University and Temple University in Philadelphia for outstanding contributions to the field.

Laurel Young, an assistant professor of music therapy in Concordia’s Department of Creative Arts Therapies, may have one solution. Young is an accredited music therapist with clinical experience in geriatrics and dementia, palliative care and other areas of physical and mental health.

Prior to her music therapy training, as a university student Young had the opportunity to play music in the locked dementia units of a long-term care facility. “I could also awaken those who were very withdrawn,” she says. “I knew I needed to understand more and that’s why I decided to pursue training as a music therapist.”

Young’s initial interest in research came out of an internship where she worked with dementia patients at Toronto’s Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. While there, she investigated the use of music to stimulate object recognition. It was clear that music stimulated memory and interpersonal connection. “The science is just starting to catch up with the anecdotal experiences that music therapists have been talking about for years,” she says.

She expanded her bio-psycho-social health perspectives into the area of singing and health, yet her passion for working with seniors remained. “With almost all dementias, the music functions of the brain remain intact. Most individuals retain a sensitivity to music, and have the ability to participate in a wide variety of music experiences,” she says. “Research has also shown that both these attributes may be enhanced, even as other capacities deteriorate.”

Creative arts therapies won’t cure dementia, Young says, but by decreasing agitation, stimulating cognition and facilitating meaningful interactions with others, they can significantly improve quality of life for many patients.

She describes a case where the husband was institutionalized and hadn’t spoken for many years. The wife usually visited daily, sharing in much of his care. Young would see this couple in a small music therapy group. Singing gentle songs on guitar and touching the man’s hands, she was often able to rouse him from his languor.

When Young discovered that the couple’s song was Let Me Call You Sweetheart, the results were revelatory. She would sing “Let me call you sweetheart,” and the husband would finish the line with “I’m in love with you,” and then look at his wife. Here was a woman, Young explains, who for years didn’t know if her husband was aware of her presence or anything she did to help him. When the husband acknowledged his wife in that setting, it was moving and meaningful for them both.

“Music is a distinct domain of functioning in the brain that seems to serve a variety of purposes, but we are still discovering its full potential,” Young maintains. “My theory is that if the music functions of the brain are so important, shouldn’t we be trying to maintain these functions to the fullest possible extent?” She believes using creative arts therapies in this way is “not just fun and enjoyable, but clinically indicated.”

As our population ages, we are looking towards overwhelming numbers of people with dementia, yet are not physically, financially, or psychologically prepared for this, Young warns. We have an obligation to provide them the best possible quality of life.

In future, she hopes, “We may be able to understand how music works when other forms of communication have failed, to discover a way to capitalize on this in creative, functional, and meaningful ways. These people will be us — if we live long enough. How will you want to be treated?”

–Beverly Akerman is a Montreal writer.

Adapted from the original, published here.