In My Opinion

NHLers shouldn't get H1N1 vaccine early

That headline might be the toughest thing I've ever written, seeing as I'm a die-hard hockey and NHL fan.

Despite my bias towards hockey players, I understand all the uproar about NHL teams jumping the queue so their players – and in the case of the Calgary Flames, their families – could get the H1N1 flu vaccine, while the rest of the country's 'high-risk' patients stand in long lines, sometimes to be turned away because of vaccine shortages.

It's simply not fair.

Sure, NHLers, and pro athletes in general, do a lot of travelling, spend a lot of time in close quarters with each other, share water bottles, and interact with fans who could be infected with H1N1 on a daily basis. But what are the chances of an NHLer having more hand-to-hand contact with people than a cashier at a grocery store, on a daily basis?

Yeah, slim to none is right. And yet, that cashier, if they have no underlying health conditions or aren't pregnant, can't get the H1N1 shot because they're not 'high-risk'. These players are healthy, strong men who, even if they contract the disease, have very little chance of dying from it. People with underlying health conditions, children and pregnant women certainly are at greater risk of dying than men between 20 and 40 in peak physical condition.

It's elitism, and heads are rolling in Calgary already, as they should. The Toronto media has tried to turn it into a story here with our beloved Maple Leafs, but it hasn't really taken hold because the club hasn't said which of their players got the shot. Two of them – Jason Blake and Phil Kessel – currently have and recently beat cancer respectively, so they fall into the 'high-risk' category, and hopefully got their shot.

Anyway, the government is likely happy some of the venom has been re-directed away from its pathetic handling of this 'pandemic'. But can you imagine if this had been a real threat to public safety, like an epidemic that we're supposedly overdue for. Many, many of us would be dead, because our government can't roll out a proper vaccination program.

As an update to last week's well-read post about my family's battle to decide whether to vaccinate our two-year-old, we've decided to hold off for now. We can always stick the needle in her arm later, if seemingly healthy children start dying in increasingly high numbers, but we can't turn back the clock if we give her the vaccine and then something is found to be wrong with it. And Amy and I are both happy with the decision we were able to come to, once cooler heads prevailed and we stepped outside the panic-zone so many of us were in last week.

In fact, this quote from Campbellford Memorial Hospital's chief of staff Dr. Paul Williams, helped solidify the decision in my mind. It's from Thursday night's board meeting.

“I think we’ve already seen the spike,” Dr. Williams explained.

“We’ve seen this go through local schools and we’ve probably seen the biggest wave we’re going to see locally. The media and government have created this fear, but what we’ve seen so far is less severe than a regular flu season. Beyond the next couple of weeks, unless we see another wave, getting a flu vaccine at this point is almost fruitless.”

Read our full story here.

Should we vaccinate our kids?

I am deeply entrenched in the midst of my first gut-wrenching decision as a parent.

My wife and I are trying to decide whether we should take the advice of Health Canada and the local health unit and take our two-year-old to get the H1N1 flu vaccine.

And I don't know what to do.

It's not that I don't trust Health Canada – although being a resident of Port Hope has made me skeptical of the government agency at times – it's just the lack of concrete proof this hastily-produced vaccine won't somehow debilitate my child in six months, a year or 10 years from now that is scaring the hell out of me.

I want to trust doctors. I want to trust Health Canada. I want to trust huge pharmaceutical companies that are collecting $400 million by selling enough H1N1 vaccine to our government to cover every single Canadian, and enjoying the mass hysteria and line-ups at clinics, no doubt.

But I also don't want to make my baby sick by giving her something that was invented six months ago.

They used to put mercury in vaccines. Of course, they only found out that was harmful years later. Obviously we learn from our mistakes, but who's to say when the next mistake will be made, when companies forgo the normal decade of vaccination testing before mass immunizations start, as has been the case here.

But then there's the other side. What if we don't get Layne vaccinated and she gets sick? Sure, she appears healthy, and we'll rush her to the walk-in clinic the minute she starts showing signs of illness, but that's what this family did on the weekend, and now their son is dead.

How could I live with myself if something happened when I held the power to prevent it, allowing fear of any unknown side effects stop me from protecting my child?

I've posed the question to my friends on Facebook and, surprisingly to me, eight of the 11 who have replied said they're not getting themselves or their kids done, or are undecided on the matter. They're like me – afraid of possible side effects of an unproven vaccine.

They're going to preach hand-washing to their kids and hope for the best.

A poll on this paper's website, northumberlandnews.com, has 59 per cent of 148 respondents saying they won't be getting the flu shot because of the unknown side effects (if any) in doing so.

So I'm obviously not alone in my hesitance to put my faith in Health Canada and pharmaceutical companies.

So here's what I want and cannot find from any reputable source on the web, in newspapers, or on TV news: I want to know what the chance of my daughter, my wife or me contracting H1N1 is, even just a ball park range. I want to know what the chances are of my daughter and wife getting really sick after contracting the disease (I'm strong as an ox and will be fine). I want to know what the chances are of one of them dying from H1N1.

And I want to know the vaccine is safe. Not in the short-term – six months without people becoming paralyzed does not make a vaccine safe – but in the long term.

Unfortunately, I can't find these answers anywhere, and I'm left playing a sickening (and endless) game of pros and cons, like every other Canadian parent.

When I grow up ...

Earlier this week at the dinner table, Amy and I were talking about her brother's girlfriend, who is getting closer each year to becoming a veterinarian through the University of Guelph.

Layne, of course, was interested in the conversation, because she kept hearing the keywords, "Greg and Robyn", two of her favourite people. Then we proceeded to explain exactly what Robyn would be doing as a veterinarian – helping cows and horses, also two of Layne's favourite things, next to other farm animals like rhinos and bears.

Amy then asked her if she knows what her Uncle Greg does. Layne was a bit off with her answers of "fireman" and "policeman" (he's actually a lineman for Hydro One), so Amy asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up.

A doctor? She nodded her head two or three times and smiled.

A fireman? Another nod.

A policeman? Yup.

A newspaper editor? No. (Um, what?)

A farmer who milks cows and drives tractors like our friend Halle's Dad? Yes.

A teacher like Aunt Janine. You betcha.

And on from there ... I don't remember what other careers we pitched, but she excitedly said yes to pretty much all of them.

Although just a game to Amy and I, this was yet another small learning experience for Layne, one of many she encounters during the course of a day.

It got me thinking about what a great position kids of today are in. They literally can be anything they want to be. They can set a goal of becoming a professional skydiver. Or a humanitarian who brings relief to those who struggle to survive every day in Africa. Or a small business owner. Or an artist. Or both.

The possibilities truly are endless.

I don't remember dreaming about being anything but an NHL or Major League Baseball player when I was a kid, both of which had no real chance of ever happening. It wasn't until a month into my high school co-op at The Kincardine News (one of my hometown papers) that I discovered my writing ability could parlay into a career. When I was a kid (and yes, 'teens' are officially kids to me now), writing wasn't something I did for fun. It came naturally to me, and my uncanny ability to BS my way through English and history essays was the only place it came in handy, until 1996, and my first day at The News. I was fortunate enough to be guided by my Editor Bev Fry and Publisher Ron Wassink, who must have seen a bit of potential in me.

I enjoyed the newspaper business, so that's the path I took. It wasn't the culmination of some long-term plan I'd set for myself, like some people who always dream of being a cop or nursing horses back to health like soon-to-be Dr. Robyn.

Luckily, I have no regrets. Other people take years to find their true passion, while others never do, simply minimizing their passion to that of a 'hobby', to be done on their spare time.

Maybe if I had access to the Internet before Grade 10, I would have pursued a profession more 'worldly', but it wasn't easy to learn about the globe back then, at least not in the Toronto Star sports section, the only part of the newspaper I'd pick up. Now, kids are on the Internet at age three, four, or five. As they age they can learn about poverty at home and abroad, kids their age who are helping others, and ways they can change the world themselves, no matter where they live or what their situation may be.

The entire world has been at their fingertips their entire lives. Dreaming big isn't just a dream anymore. Throughout my career I have met and read about so many kids that are making a difference in their community and their world – and there's more and more of them each year, as those born into the Internet generation hit their teen years – and experience life and the world in ways I couldn't even grasp, let-alone dream about, when I was a teen.

And how unbelievably cool is that?

Re-discovering my long-lost imagination

Layne checking for rhinos and bears, which were chasing us along a stretch of the Ganaraska Trail on Sunday.

My imagination is something I left behind long ago.

I made pretty good use of it as a kid though, using it in my one-man baseball games, where I'd rifle a tennis ball against the one-foot stretch of concrete between the grass and the siding of my house. I had a base (a worn patch of dirt where blades of grass once stood), ghostrunners and a 10-count to nab the runner at first after I'd field the ball, throwing it back against the foundation, and magically turning from fielder to first baseman and stretching to make the play in time.

I'd have complete nine inning games and head back into the house a giant grass stain from head to toe.

Although Mom and Dad likely cringed every time they heard the tennis ball whap off the lowest piece of siding (my aim was fairly good, but did stray on occasion), they never once told me to knock it off, because I think they were glad I was outside running my ass off for an hour or two, instead of sitting in front of the TV.

I'll also assume they didn't think I was crazy ... but I can't be sure of that.

Looking back, not only did my ball games give me good exercise (although, at 75 lbs. in Grade 7, I wasn't exactly overweight), but they also allowed my imagination to run wild, meaning every night was Game 7 of the World Series, and I was the star.

It may have been make believe, but it was fun. It was also good training for my baseball 'career', because I've only become hesitant to dive for a ball in the past five years, now that pain doesn't go away so fast anymore.

But as we age, our imagination disappears. There's no opportunities in our lives for day dreaming; no time for closing our eyes and imagining we're on a safari or travelling the world by hot air balloon, like that attention-seeking family in the U.S. Adults go to work, whether we love it or hate it. We do our job, sometimes well, sometimes not. We come home. We eat. We watch TV. We go to bed.

It's not fun. Nor should it be. We're adults, y'know.

We don't have time to be dreaming about climbing Mount Everest, or living in a hut on a beach in Thailand. It's called the Rat Race for a reason, and if you're not 100 per cent focused, you're definitely not going to get the cheese. Dreams don't pay the mortgage or the payments on that shiny new SUV.

I've been that adult (minus the fancy car). I still am to some extent. But slowly, Layne is helping me rediscover my lost imagination. Her brilliantly vibrant two-year-old brain has been spotting rhinos in our house and yard for a couple of months now (stemming from a Curious George DVD where a rhino chases the monkey through the zoo). Out of the blue, she'll see a rhino, let everyone in the house know he's coming (we have to put our feet up on the furniture because, obviously, rhinos will eat your toes) and then leap into our arms for safety.

Often, the rhino turns out to be a 'little one' that fits nicely into her hand. Sometimes she pets it, sometimes she eats it, while other times it's so big I have to shoo it away.

At first, I was weirded out by Layne and her rhinos. I thought that she might have a bit of her Mom's ever-present crazy-gene, and it made me uncomfortable. I played along but always hesitated to get too into it, because c'mon, a rhino?

But over the past weeks I've become more comfortable with my re-energized imagination, and we've now been targeted by sneaky bears, in addition to the rhinos, which, incidentally, have started pooping and peeing on the floor, the buggers.

I'm enjoying getting to know my imagination again, and have decided that I'm not going to just use it for spotting wild jungle animals in my living room, but also taking some time each day to dream a little dream for myself too, whether it be about my career goals, places I want to travel, or scoring the winning goal to get the Leafs their first win of the season – because seriously, I could play on that team right now. It doesn't matter what the topic, just wherever my imagination chooses to take me for a few minutes, before I fall asleep at night.

I recommend trying it. I'm sure we could all use a little adventure in our lives, even if it's just make believe.

If we allow ourselves to dream a little now, maybe we'll be comfortable enough to take that giant leap when the opportunity presents itself.

Showing signs of empathy at two

My daughter, who turned two in July, is bright.

And I don't say 'bright' through the rose-coloured glasses of a proud father. I mean smart. Like self potty-trained at 20 months, singing O' Canada, 'Twinkle, Twinkle', and the full alphabet, and counting to 15 at 26 months.

Y'know, smart.

We have conversations that she participates fully in, she forgets nothing (once asking where the cranes were when her Mom and her pulled into a Peterborough shopping centre that had been under construction during their last visit, four months previous), and she takes great pride in tasks – small and large – that she accomplishes daily, whether they be changing her baby's diaper, putting her shoes on the right feet, helping Mom make muffins or painting a picture with all her friends and family in it.

Amy and I have often joked that she will either be good or evil – she'll either put her gifts to good use and change the world, or she will be uncontrollable and destroy all that get in her way.

Obviously, we're hoping for the 'change the world' option, and each day the signs seem to point in that direction. We've always tried to stress empathy towards others – caring for other people or animals, and their feelings – and she is learning that lesson every day.

When she sees another child crying, she will walk over to them, barge through their parents and give them a hug. Even children she doesn't know.

That's a good sign.

Then, yesterday morning, when watching an old (early-70s) cartoon movie borrowed from the library, she turned to her Mom, with tears in her eyes, and asked where the pig was going and if he was going to be OK, when he was sold to a different farmer.

Empathy.

Despite any personal desire to push Layne – not today (she is just two!), but in the coming years – to find ways to help others, I will hold back and let her choose her own direction, as she grows and learns more about her surroundings and the world. She's already shown me that if I try to force her to do something against her will, she'll flip the other way just to prove to me she can (hence the notion about her using talents for 'evil').

But the signs, for now, are pointing in the right direction, and hopefully they stay that way as the age of two turns into four, six, 10 and 16.

Things to be thankful for

I'm not a religious person.

I kicked and screamed when my parents made me go to Sunday School in the 1980s, and would likely do it again if my wife tried it today.

A big part of religion – at least what I think it should be – is being thankful for all the goodness in your life and expressing such, every time you worship to whomever/whatever is your higher power of choice.

So, as a non-religious person, I don't feel like I take enough time to reflect on what I'm truly thankful for. Since it's Thanksgiving weekend (which I'm thankful for) I thought now would be a good time to do so.

I am thankful for:

• My beautiful wife and wonderful two-year-old daughter, who make me smile every time I walk through the door, no matter what happened during my day. Words don't describe what you mean to me (which doesn't bode well for my writing career ...).

• My parents, who taught me all of life's lessons – large and small – and continue to do so today.

• My (much) older sister, who lives in London, England, who continues to teach me that you can be old, successful, and still see every interesting corner of the world whenever you feel like it.

• My in-laws, who have always treated me like a son and brother, even when they must have been shaking their heads and wondering who their eldest child and sister got tangled up with.

• The ability to laugh that straight-from-your-belly laugh. Some people have too much true pain in their lives to every find the spot it comes from.

• My dog Andie. Is there any better way to be greeted at the door than by an animal that can't contain its excitement to see you? I promise to pay you more attention, and not just when you're in the way.

• My extended families. Although we don't cross paths enough, you always make me feel like I haven't lived away for nearly 10 years.

• My mechanic, for not charging me the full $75/hour rate that time Amy forgot to screw the cap back on after getting gas, causing the engine light to come on.

• A turkey dinner on Saturday night, at a kitchen table, under a roof. Too many people won't have the same luxury this weekend, and there's no way of knowing if, some day, it might be me in that spot.

• My co-workers, for teaching me something new every day, whether I want to learn it or not. The Northumberland News might have the best newsroom in North America. We're small but we annually win the awards that prove our immense strength.

• The people of Northumberland County, who make this such a wonderful place to live. I've never lived in a place where volunteers have so much impact on the day-to-day operations of a town and its quality of life.

• Good books. And not the regular cops-chasing-killers books that I devoured in the past, but different books that are teaching me new ways of looking at myself and the world. Books you actually have to read, not ones you can skim through in an afternoon.

• My little bro Justin, for teaching me all I need to know about video games, and keeping me young in the process. If you're not a Big Brother yet, you should be.

• Non-career related goals. I'm not waiting until retirement, because many never make it that far.

• My old friends back home. I can still act like an idiot whenever we see each other, and you (well, your wives) still return my e-mails when we're trying to figure out the next time we can get together.

• Chocolate Xplosion Blizzards at Dairy Queen. They're just so damned good. Subway too. This will be my last meal when I get the chair.

• A long weekend. They're too few and far between, but maybe that's why we do our best to soak up each moment. Right now, there's far too many people with no job to go back to on Tuesday.

• Bloggers (myself not included) who open people's eyes to a whole new way of life, and always free of charge. Not many people would put in those sorts of hours without an ulterior motive.

• Having so much more to be thankful for, but since it's 5:10 p.m., and I have a four-hour drive back home ahead of me, I will stop now.

So take a few minutes this weekend to make your list. Reflecting on what's good in your life makes you realize how insignificant some 'problems' you have truly are.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Are we really desensitized to murder?

In today's paper we have yet another outstanding story from Jennifer O'Meara, this one about the amount of murders Northumberland has had over the past decade.

Although, per capita, we don't seem to be out of line with other parts of the province or country – which seems odd, because there has been three murders and four murder trials (with two more starting this month that we can't report on because a youth is one of the people charged with the first-degree murder of a Warkworth woman in 2008), and I've only been here three years.

The Cobourg police chief said Northumberland residents seem to take murder and violent crime in stride these days, unlike the old days (for lack of a better term to describe two decades ago) where a murder would send shockwaves through the entire community, whether they knew the victim or not.

It just doesn't happen anymore. We seem to have become desensitized to murder.

Almost daily I hear somebody refer to Cobourg and/or Port Hope as a 'small town', and while I think other centres like Brighton and Campbellford truly fit that bill, I can't really agree with the major centres of west Northumberland being called that when there's over 35,000 living in the two towns. It probably doesn't help that I was raised in a town of 600 and I could still draw you a map of every street in town, as well as almost every house, although I couldn't tell you who lives in each house anymore, being gone for nearly a decade now. So Brighton's a big town to me, really!

So I can see why it's a bit more difficult to not be chilled to the core when we hear about a local murder, because chances are pretty good we don't know the victim. In fact, I live about a dozen houses down from Michel Leblanc, who was murdered in his home – on my street – on Sept. 23.

Although I felt badly for a family I didn't know, other than to say hi in passing as we were out for a walk, I didn't lock our easily-accessible windows that night and haven't any night since, even though there has been no arrest, police have said nothing of a suspect, and I have a precious two-year-old sleeping under my roof.

Hell yes, I'm desensitized.

It's not that I want to be, but it's the digital world we live in. We see and read about murder every day.

UPDATE: Here's an old blog I wrote about how a town that's not used to murder reacts when it happens.

In today's editorial, we wrote about this issue, and I think it goes well with this posting (which makes sense, since I wrote both!). Here it is:

Is today's society so used to death that even when it happens in our own community, we're not shocked?

That's the case, says Cobourg Police Chief Paul Sweet.

Over the past 10 years there have been eight murders in Northumberland County - the latest victim being Michel 'Mike' LeBlanc, of Port Hope, on Sept. 23 - and the chief said violence just doesn't have the same affect on the community-at-large anymore, unless they have a connection to the victim.

In other words, there was a time when a murder in one of our small towns gripped the community, sending shock waves down every side street and cul du sac within the town's borders, and often to neighbouring communities.

Although the case has been made many times, there's no doubt television, movies, video games and the Internet all play a role in this desensitization to violent acts.

We can watch death dissected numerous times a day on CSI and Law and Order reruns, if we choose.

Movies are made to be gruesome in order to keep the attention of a generation that demands instant gratification.

Video games take pride in how much blood you can spill, whether it be through war, gang fights or hockey scraps.

The Internet has brought death into our living rooms and offices, as we simply have to log onto any news website - newspaper, TV, or radio - to get the gory details of the latest shocking murder - remember the Greyhound bus murder in Manitoba and the subsequent coverage of eyewitness accounts? - or the newest mass murderer who blasted his way through a school in any country in the world.

If we read or view these news reports nearly every day - something that was practically impossible to do just 15 years ago - it's no surprise we aren't chilled to the bone when someone in our seemingly small town dies under the most tragic circumstances. Just over a decade ago, doors would be locked at all times, windows would be sealed tight, and people wouldn't let their children out of their sight for weeks afterwards, especially if the murder remained unsolved.

Today? Well, there are two murders in west Northumberland where nobody has been charged, yet life has already returned to normal on Pochon Avenue, in Port Hope, where Mr. LeBlanc's life was taken just two weeks ago. The police remained at the scene until last Friday, but the children of the neighbourhood had resumed their road hockey games even before the police tape came down.

The desensitization to death is no one's fault, and it certainly doesn't minimize the tragic loss of somebody's loved one, but it says something about the world we live in.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

Forgive me readers for I have sinned.

It has been five months and two weeks since my last blog post.

I swear it has been in my thoughts on an almost-daily basis, and I had no intention of letting it go this long, but after the first month, it became too easy to not come back. To ignore what amounts to yet another responsibility that eats up 10, 20 or 40 minutes of my time each day – time that just hasn't been available for most of 2009.

But it's Oct. 5, my first day back from a week off. I'd like to say I used the time to reflect on my game of neglect-a-blog, but that simply wasn't the case. I just saw the long-ignored bookmark on my computer screen about five minutes ago and decided that of all the days I've said this, today is actually the day I fess up to the error of my ways, and return to my blog.

Because I do miss her (I know, a blog is technically an 'it', but so is a much-loved car, right?). I miss writing – a part of my job saved solely for two or three editorials a week between Northumberland News and The Independent – and, though challenging and hopefully meaningful to the communities we serve, they're hardly a creative outlet. At least not like the blog, where I have carte blanche to write (or not write, as is my case) pretty much whatever I want.

So, I'm back. And I'm going to be consistent. I'm going to write about anything and everything, like I have for the past two years (save the aforementioned five months in 2009), and I'm going to enjoy it, although it's likely too late to repeat my second place finish for Metroland's Best Blog of 2008, but really, who has room for all those giant trophies anyway ... *cough*

But it's too bad all my readers have long since departed to much more enjoyable, and consistent, pastures.

News reporter keeps winning awards

The Northumberland News is once again rolling in the awards.

Jennifer O'Meara had a great night at the Ontario Community Newspaper Association's banquet on April 17, claiming third spot for the Stephen Shaw Award for Reporter of the Year for her series 'Poverty in Northumberland'.

Jen, who has compiled a long list of awards since joining our newsroom in July, 2007, also claimed first place for Best Business or Finance Story for her fantastic story about the closing of the Kraft plant, titled 'Kraft preparing its last meal'.

Way to go Jen. Once again, you've proven why Northumberland News is the most trusted and most decorated news source in Northumberland County.

News wins more 'bling'

OK, so that title is my attempt at being cool, and upon re-reading, I see I've failed miserably.

But where the Northumberland News, once again, has not failed miserably is at the awards table, as we brought home three more industry awards on Monday — this time as part of the Metroland Awards, our company's awards for editorial excellence.

Photo Chief Peg McCarthy led the way, winning the same two categories she claimed in 2008 — Best Spot News Photo and Best Photo Spread. Peg's photo of residents' reaction to a University Avenue fire, in Cobourg, last July, claimed top prize, while her photographic portrayal of the Port Hope Fall Fair was feted in the photo spread category.

In 2008, Peg won these categories with her coveragel of the fiery accident on Hwy. 401, in February, 2007.

Our other award went to this space, a second place finish for yours truly in the Best Blog category. It's a bit embarrassing winning an award for blogging when you tend to post twice a month, but I already cleared that up yesterday, so we'll move on ...

So yeah, three more awards to add to our dozen from other community newspaper organizations throughout North America this year. It's just more proof that nobody does local news better than Northumberland News.