Archive for the ‘News Stories’ Category
Recently I read an opinion piece by Barbara Yaffe entitled PM’s wife stepping out of the shadows then I check the top of the newspaper to make sure I hadn’t regressed in time. The repetitious ‘wife of’ along with phrases such as ‘becoming chatelaine of 24 Sussex avenue’ & ‘highly judicious manner’ had the role of the PM’s wife playing out like a political version of Father Knows Best.
While the US title for the president’s spouse of First Lady is not great; it has definition and in that capacity she does have the support and lee way to define the role and subsequent contributions during the President’s term.
Compare Michelle Obama on the White House website to Lauren Harper on the Prime Minister’s of Canada website. For balance we can look at the more traditional first lady, Laura Bush and what she accomplished during her years in the White House.
What is keeping the Prime Minister’s wives from fulfilling the potential of their position? Is it an outdated political protocol in Ottawa, type casting by the press or the personality types of the wives themselves?
One day a Canadian first lady will give that role the depth that it deserves; which is not as the article suggests about being a media personality nor is it about enhancing a husband’s political image. It is recognizing the opportunity to make a difference, leave an imprint in Canadian history and when the children ask what did you do while daddy was Prime Minister the answer is not going to be “Making sure that no one noticed me”.
With Your Biscotti & Coffee
Instead of An Interesting Woman I thought that I would end the year with a few good men and the choices may surprise you.
1. There is little doubt that the old style of politics is gradually and thankfully becoming a thing of the past. Today’s young politicians like Newark’s new mayor are running their cities from the streets. Is Cory Booker the Greatest Mayor in America? by Lucy Kaylin makes you believe in the future of some of America’s defunct cities.
2. South Africa no longer has the wisdom and steady hand of two of its most revered statesmen. In October at the age of 79 Archbishop Desmond Tutu retired. Nelson Mandela is 92 and November of this year his foundation asked that the public allow him to have a peaceful retirement.
3. At number four is the often abrasive, sometimes inarticulate Prince Charles. Recently interviewed by Brain Williams there is no doubt that above all else he has accomplished a lot through The Prince’s Charities and has been a visionary when it comes to the environment and organic farming.
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Funny how you can plan a week to go one way but life has a different plan. Just one of the unexpected bumps was chocolate lab Duke became ill. In spite of the amazing strides that we have made with this rescue dog his chronic anxiety is never far from the surface, that along with the fact that he is getting old led to a bad bout of acute gastritis. Translated this means a week of cleaning up dog vomit.
Anyway thanks to his amazing vet clinic we are on the road to recovery. I am grateful that the Animal Care Centre, here is Strathmore treats the whole dog – body, mind and spirit. As well as medications we went home on Friday with something called a D.A.P. Collar it releases pheromones which apparently produced wonderful results in helping to calm stressed dogs. We will see.
What I had planned to write about this week was India; a key part of President Obama’s 10 day Asia trip. The world is paying a lot of attention to this country and for more reasons than 
it being a source of call centers for overseas companies. The President has announced a 20 new trade deals that included such institutional companies as GE, Harley-Davidson and Boeing
This year the week of Diwali– the Hindu Festival of Lights falls from November 3rd to 7th. In the same way that Hollywood releases movies to coincide with the holiday season this is the week that Bollywood does the same. It has not been the banner year that India’s film makers had planned on so they are hoping that Bollywood can go global.
Keep an eye on this part of the world as globalization stands to not only improve the economy but will make us richer in our cultural perceptions.
In high school I fell into the ‘not’ group not athletic, not cute, not artistic, not particularly scholastic. As my parents travelled a lot I was also the new girl. Needless to say I was on the receiving end of unkind comments and jabs. Bullying didn’t have the virtual element back then but being the intended target of weak and insensitive people is painful.
I came out of childhood with a strong sense of my own individuality. Conformists bored me back then and still do today. People with a well developed sense of self ; will dine alone, visit countries as travellers not tourists, don’t have perfect faces and are really interesting to talk to.
Recently I got a chance to sit down and watch Avatar. It amazed me that one man could create this other world with such attention to detail. I wondered about James Cameron; was his childhood lived through his imagination or was he a jock? As bullying reaches a near crisis point this is the time when the heads of companies, scientists, artists, writers should come out and say “I didn’t belong to a popular group. I was the kid standing alone in the playground, the boy who loved to dance or the quiet girl reading in the corner of the library.”
We need to get the message out that being unique and different is ok. That it is often the loner who best leaves their distinctive mark on the world.
I like people but I also need my alone time which according to recent findings is going to lead to my early demise. Studies are becoming increasingly insistent that the more you interact with family, friends and co-workers the happier and healthy you are mentally and physically. One even went on to say that perhaps the medical profession may want to make some recommendations if a patient seems to be solitary. Prescription to read ‘meet two friends and call me in the morning’.
Some of us enjoy being by ourselves and don’t feel lonely nor are we in a state of inertia. We are of a personality type that need quiet time to de-stress and decompress. Which logically means being healthier.
Humans need peace and quiet so that creativity, problem solving and even healing can take place. I recently spoke with a client who had suffered a great loss; she admitted that what was wearing her out at this point was not the bereavement but the lack of time to herself. As well meaning friends and family kept calling and dropping by, she was trapped in a place of their need to comfort her.
Today’s society is over stimulated; requiring constant connection with something or someone. We are also passing this onto the next generation. In truth when we do embark on a friendship or relationship its growth and richness is nurtured by the fact that the individuals involved are self-sufficient, self-reliant and capable of autonomous thought.
I was thinking this morning while alone in the shower that we are fortunate Mozart didn’t spend all his time in coffee houses with his BFFs or Virginia Woolf wasn’t busy dazzling her followers on Twitter or she may never have written A Room of One’s Own which ironically is based on the premise that ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’ .
My inspiration to write this post came from: I’m denying your friend request by Marni Soupcoff, National Post
A New Risk Factor: Your Social Life by Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times
With Your Biscotti & Coffee
1) Two Summer Movies for grown-ups
Hidden among Despicable Me and The Twilight Sage:Eclipse are two cinema gems that you may have overlooked. Both are worthy of a stolen afternoon in a cool movie theatre and some buttered popcorn.
2) Warriors in Pink
India’s gang of vigilante women are striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.
3) High Line Park, NY
From historic railway yards founded in 1930 to a functioning public park, it is a fascinating journey.
I do it in the evening; Chris prefers to do it with his morning coffee. We have two delivered every day; the Calgary Herald and the National Post; when I am out & about I buy the Globe & Mail. In spite of all our efforts articles abound that the newspaper industry is in peril.
Is this slump in sales, partially due to different generational tastes yes, and it is also about lifestyle. Everyday I revel in, utilize and thoroughly enjoy the technology that puts the world at my figure tips. It allows me no limitations to where I can take both my coaching company and online magazine. However when it comes time to relax I prefer the print media format.
I don’t think we are seeing an end of print media so much as a time of rebirth. “We have a generation that is consuming information in totally different ways” says news anchor Kevin Newman in an interview that talks about his decision to leave his on air news job in order to explore the world of digital media. (Read Crossing digital divide, interview by Karen Mazurkewich)
Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel recently announced that ‘For the first time since the magazine’s birth in 1923, we will soon be delivering the entire contents of TIME to paying customers in a radically different way: as a self-contained application that you can download to the iPad. (From Ushering In a New Era)
Even though the competion for readership numbers is no longer about who has the news box on the corner of main and 1st street; the media companies are still choosing to handle the issues in a singularly autonomous fashion. Will the different media apps for devices such as the Blackberry or pay for content on the Internet prove to be the sustaining solution? Of all the articles being written on this subject, James Poniewozik sums up the current situation best in his editorial All the News That’s Fit to Mint
I think tackling the insatiable need for information and news in today’s world with a more united or partnering approach might prove to be the beginning of a solution for the media’s woes; in other words to go where no newspapers have gone before.
With Your Biscotti & Coffee
1) There was once a time when I would plow through any book, now I have to agree with Sonya Chung the list of books that I haven’t finished has increased. From her column in The 
Millions blog read Sonya’s post – It’s Not You, It’s Me: Breaking Up With Books.
2) Things are so troubled for the Roman Catholic Church that it is easy to forget that there are some truly heroic nuns and priests doing some remarkable work in the world. From the NY Times Who Can Mock This Church? by Nicholas D. Kristof
3) Does your dog like to rock to Bono or is your cat more of a jazz fan? If you don’t think that they have a preference check out the world’s first Music fof Dogs concert, article by Amy Coopes.
This past weekend was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and my Saturday morning tweet read - This Sat 40 years ago I was 15 and driving through Cape Cod with parents listening to Woodstock news reports on car radio.
It only took that 123 character post and the fact that it was a grey and rainy Saturday to leave me with a mantle of sadness; as my mind went back to the August weekend in one of my favorite places, shared with two people that I still miss today. Unlike many writers who like to present themselves as having risen from the dregs of dreadful childhoods, I had a good relationship with my parents. On the surface they may have been stereotypical of the distant English parents; in private they were supportive and loving giving me little fodder for even a mild case of teenage angst.
That evening Chris and I ate pasta, drank wine and caught up on the conversations that we didn’t have time for in the week. We then watched the movie Defiance. I had originally wanted to rent it because it starred Daniel Craig, who is on my short list of men I would have an affair with but the story proved to be so much more than I expected.
It is a World War II movie that looks at the Holocaust from a unique perspective. Telling the true story of a group of Jews in Eastern Europe who fought back from there home deep in the forest and the Bielski brothers who led them. While not a perfect movie the story itself is remarkable.
Saturday ended with me thinking that the type of person we become is not only the result of the family we are born into but also the time in history. For me is was about being a teenager growing up in the sixties. One thing I realized is that I want to start having the right conversations and asking the pertinent questions. From the hindsight of the person that I am today what talks I would have with my parents!
Relationships must be so much more than mere everyday words. Remember that a really sick friend is not just her disease; part of her still wants to talk about clothes, grumble about her husband and laugh over the funny parts of 30 Rock. Realizing that a grumpy co-worker or colleague might be troubled by something in her life and responding accordingly. It’s about asking parents and grandparents to share the early years of their lives and seeing how they intertwined with the events of the time.
And ultimately never forgetting that everyone has a story.
The majority of my coaching is done by phone which means that I don’t have to tidy my office or change out of my comfy shoes. So with a client coming over Monday at 9am I had to quickly go through my mental checklist to make sure that I was ready. Coffee pot on, files & books straightened into neat piles, quick dust, clean hand towel & fresh soap in the office bathroom, resources that she had sent me put into her file along with my notes, change shoes ……check.
Now while doing this Duke (aging, semi-neurotic chocolate lab) has been following me around. So I switch to the dog’s check list………walked, fed, water changed, toys at the ready and he didn’t look like an unmentionable body fluids where about to erupt from either end. So I stopped rushing and processing for a minute, put my hand on his face and asked him what his problem was. He then quietly leaned into me and let out a small contented sound. All he wanted was a few minutes of attention; to be stroked & loved…. this was a reminder to me that we don’t put love on a to-do list.
In between clients while I am writing or or doing administrative work I usually have a news channel such as the BBC or CNN on. This was the case when the second and much more sombre occurrence happened this week. I am referring to the death of Neda Agha Soltan. The announcer quietly issues a warning about how disturbing the footage was. At first I sat unsure of how to process the image that was unfolding before me thousand of miles away. Then I did the only thing that I could do, I stood. Alone and in the middle of my office I stood up in quiet homage to a young woman who would never see another sun rise and then I wept.
I love words whether written, spoken or sung they have power. They can expand us with knowledge or debilitate us with emotion. The art of communication isn’t in the number of words used, as less wordage & fewer sentences often enables us to process the genuineness of character or content without clutter. Well informed people know that it is best to keep their answers brief and to the point. When you give a confident woman a compliment she merely smiles and says ‘thank-you’.
My respect for words leaves me with a dislike for anything that has a whiff of censorship. If you don’t like the words discard the book, leave the theater or change the channel. It is in that context that I find myself in the surprising position of agreeing with Sarah Palin when she took offense to David Letterman’s recent joke. The content of that part of his monologue left a bitter taste that even changing the channel didn’t erase. He has apologized and Palin accepted the apology in a 94 word statement in which she even managed to even make mention of the US military. Perhaps a short ‘I accept your apology’ would have been more appropriate and a little less opportunistic or better yet maybe a tweet would be good practice for the always wordy Ms. Palin.
The world of words has changed even in the short period of time since she ran for vice-president. Political protests are being covered in 140 characters, iconic newspapers no longer exist and this summer people will be enjoying there favorite beach book on devices like Kindle.
I had better end this post before I too am overly wordy or as a writer friend of mine emailed me this week while gathering research for an upcoming article ……….sometimes it is better to shut up, stop writing and listen.