Men, we're not looking good

In the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by relationship counsellor and American author John Gray states the two sexes could not be more different. The most common relationship problems between the sexes are a result of fundamental psychological differences between the genders.

Having been married 18 years to the same beautiful woman I understand where the author is coming from (That woman by the way is Heather McMillan and according to Gray's book this single line of text should give me a point in my wife's mind). I see and do things radically different than my wife and sometimes we have the ability to drive one another crazy. We're no different than any other couple anywhere else in the world.

But lately I've found myself in situations that no man should ever be in. I've become the 'fly on the wall' so to speak overhearing conversations I shouldn't be hearing. And men, we're not looking good.

A few weeks ago I was at the grocery store with Heather. We do this mundane task together because it gets us out of the house alone where we can talk unedited, no worries of teenagers overhearing what we say or complain about. It's not a date, it's just an excuse to be together and we like it.

As we were standing in the checkout line the woman in front of us looked up at me while she was bagging her groceries.

"How did you get him out of the house?" she asked Heather. "It's hard enough to get my husband to do anything let alone drag him out to the grocery store."

"Oh he doesn't mind," Heather said looking at me with a smile.

"I'm glad my husband doesn't come with me," said the woman standing behind us. "If he helped we'd end up spending twice as much."

I kept my head down for one simple reason -- I didn't want to get involved in the conversation because clearly I was outnumbered. And glancing around I didn't see very many men I could reach out to for help if I got into trouble!

When we got back to the car I turned to Heather and asked, "What was that about?"

"Clearly they're not happy with their husbands," she said.

"And me?" I asked.

"You're doing fine," she said.

A few days later I walked into the lunchroom at work where three female colleagues were sitting. I was heating up some soup when the women started talking about lunches and their husbands. The men in their lives apparently do nothing to help out and that included making lunches. One husband that very morning dropped a light bulb on the kitchen floor and rather than clean it up he left a Post-it note on the refrigerator door warning his wife to watch her bare feet.

"Yup, you could put a different head on the same stupid body," one of them said. Turning around she saw me standing there patiently waiting for the microwave to heat up my soup and said, "We're talking about our husbands, not you Ian."

 Now I realize in both these situations I was not the men these women were complaining about. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't meant to hear those complaints but I did.

So what do I do with this information? Well first off I learn from it. I do help with the groceries but I have to admit Heather makes the lunches. But I'm not a stranger to brown bagging it. I have pitched in and made my fair share of sandwiches. I've even made my own lunch from time to time (GASP!).

What I can't do with this information is change any other husbands' attitudes. If you're married to a dumbass who does nothing to help out around the house he's your problem. Talk to him, convince him it's not a good idea to leave broken glass on the kitchen floor despite the fact he warned you about it with a Post-it note!

Maybe if more husbands heard their wives complaining about them in public like I did on these two occasions they'd smarten up, help out, put a smile on their lovely wives' faces.

Or maybe they'd shrug, crack open another beer and continue watching the ball game.

We may behave like we come from two different planets but at the end of the day it's up to us to all get along on Planet Earth.

Or get divorced.

Now I wonder where my wife keeps the bread?!?

Killing us with personal responsibility

Most Canadians know the dangers of consuming too much salt. But how many hands shoot forward at your dinner table in search of the salt shaker?

I've never been a big salt guy. I trace it back to my childhood when a friend of mine used to always lick salt he'd picked up off the road in the wintertime. I wasn't yet 10 years old but even then I knew what he was doing couldn't be good for you.

So when I sat down to watch The Great Salt Shakedown last week on Marketplace I didn't think I'd be one of the regular Canadians overloading on salt. I was wrong.

Host Tom Harrington gave 80 Canadians containers to urinate into for one day. These people ranged in age from teenage hockey players, school kids, a senior's swimming club and other middle-aged Canadians. At the end of the day all the containers were collected to measure the amount of sodium each individual had consumed. The results were startling.

The daily maximum amount of salt you should have in your diet per day is 2,300 mg. Almost everyone tested was far higher than 2,300 mg. One of the teenage hockey players registered an astonishing 7,000 mg of sodium in a day. He attributed it to some Chicken McNuggets and pizza he'd consumed.

So how come the majority of these people tested registered high levels of sodium? It's in the food they eat. And it's not just the boxed processed foods that are high in sodium -- it's practically everything.

A number of years ago Health Canada went after food manufacturers to reduce the amount of trans fats they put into their products. Similar legislation was passed in the U.S.A. But no such rules were enacted concerning sodium which plays just as much a role, if not more in heart and stroke.

Mr. Harrington attempted to get an interview with our Health Minister Aglukkaq to pepper her with his sodium questions but she refused. Instead her Parliamentary Assistant Colin Carrie stood in her place. I took note because he's also my MP. When Mr. Carrie wasn't looking like a deer caught in the headlights he said his government believes it's a personal responsibility to limit your intake of salt.

The next morning I went grocery shopping to exercise my personal responsibility. I spent twice as much time shopping because I looked at every label and couldn't believe how much sodium is in everything outside the produce aisle. In order to consume under 2,300 mg of sodium per day you practically have to starve yourself! Don't believe me? Take the test using Marketplace's sodium calculator. It's not an exact science like the lab tests on the show were but it will give you a ballpark figure. Visit http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/sodium-calculator/index.html I took the test and my sodium count was 2,501 for a day. Scary.

Health Canada has raised a red flag over the amount of sodium in each and everyone of our diets but nobody on Parliament Hill is listening. If we keep this up you can count on the number of heart and stroke deaths to spike, especially among Boomers.

I understand that salt enhances the taste of food but I'd trade a bit of taste for a longer life any day. It's difficult to exercise personal responsibility when food manufacturers are allowed to pile sodium into everything (Even orange juice has sodium in it!). We wouldn't want to inconvenience big business would we? Put the blame on the consumer, how convenient.

I don't add salt to anything and as I found out from watching Marketplace I don't have to. Food manufacturers are doing that for us.

 

Hollywood in the classroom

 I love to watch a good movie. And if I can get out of the house with my wife and watch it at an actual movie theatre even better. If not, watching a flick at home is also an enjoyable experience. 

My children are no different than me when it comes to movies. Their cinematic tastes clash with my own most times but the other weekend we watched a teenage show that wreaked of the 1980s -- The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It was 90 minutes well spent and it provided another opportunity for me to reflect upon my youth.

It's nice to sit down and enjoy a movie. But there's a time and a place for enjoying these things and those times shouldn't be between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday during the school year. You may be asking yourselves, "Movies at school? Who watches movies at school?" To that I only have one answer -- your kids if indeed you have kids. Hollywood has taken over the classrooms in Durham Region.

I recall viewing ancient documentary films in grade school during history classes. No big name actors in those films, no special effects. Just dull, historical material that complemented the course curriculum we were studying.

These days DVDs are played in the classrooms for pure entertainment in my kids' classes. Last spring the students in the primary and junior grades actually went to the movie theatre to watch Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. The senior students saw The Hunger Games. I asked my kids if they were studying anything remotely associated with either of those movies. They weren't.

Apparently many schools got special deals to view these highly anticipated movies. So learning was out, entertainment was in. Hollywood 1, Education 0.

I thought once my eldest daughter Rebekah got to high school the movies would end. Not so. Two weeks ago she got to view the movie Top Gun in french class. No, it wasn't the french version!

Since September she has viewed in class the movies Babe, 1408, The Day After Tomorrow, Emperor's New Groove (a movie my 6 year old would enjoy), Babar, Mean Girls. Only one movie had any educational value and that was a documentary on water played in geography class. It's also the only movie Rebekah couldn't remember the title of, great!

Rebekah is in the academic stream, what in my day was called 'advanced'. If the course curriculum allows students the time to view this many movies in a semester and a half there's a problem.

My wife Heather called Rebekah's school to ask the principal what's going on? So far he hasn't returned her call. It will be interesting to hear his response.

The goal of all educators should be to educate our students and prepare them for their futures. Teach them, talk to them, question them, engage them. Don't pop in a DVD and ignore them. Viewing this many Hollywood movies during class times tells me the system is failing our kids, at least the system here in Durham Region.

There should be a ban on viewing movies in the classroom unless it has something, anything to do with what students are studying. If not, keep Hollywood out of our classrooms.