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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, February 18, 2010 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager The Oakville Beaver is a division of Helping in Haiti Lisa Raitt, Halton MP ll Canadians are deeply concerned over the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in Haiti. The impact is creating overwhelming challenges, not Lisa Raitt only for the people living in the damaged country, but also for their friends and family here in Canada. Recently, I attended events in both Ottawa and Halton to make my own personal donation towards the relief efforts in Haiti. I would like to commend and thank all of you who have also made contributions to the charities of your choice. I learned more about Canada's strong relationship with the Haitian community, as well as the presence of Canadian development organizations in Haiti. It is in part because of this significant relationship that our government feels so strongly for the people of Haiti during their time of need. I would like to offer my personal and most sincere condolences to those who have lost friends and family in this terrible event. My thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people. I am proud that Canada was one of the first countries on the ground after the devastating earthquake. Since then, our government has been working around the clock to assess the situation and do whatever it can to help the Haitian people. The Disaster Assistance Response Team has been deployed. Canadian Forces aircrafts have been delivering emergency supplies and personnel, as well as bringing stranded Canadians home. More than 2,000 men and women and seven helicopters are contributing to rescue, recovery and reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The HMCS Halifax and HMCS Athabaskan are also delivering food, bottled water, medical equipment and humanitarian supplies. Our government is supporting relief efforts with additional funding to provide essential services for three million people over the next six months and helping the UN World Food Program to deliver 100 million meals within the next month. On Jan. 25, we hosted a meeting of foreign ministers in Montreal to begin laying the groundwork for the reconstruction of Haiti. At the meeting, Prime Minister Stephen Harper rallied the international community to a strategic and co-ordinated effort to help rebuild Haiti. I would like to close by taking the time to remind you that cash donations are still the fastest, most efficient way to get help to people living in a disaster zone. Canada's total donation is more than $130 million for humanitarian assistance and I hope through your generosity this number will continue to grow. WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Media Group Ltd. RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America A THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER LOOKING TO THE END OF THE RAINBOW: Robbie Murray and his supporters sold chocolate hearts in Fortinos on Saturday as a fundraiser for Robbie's Rainbow, a fund for kids who need infusion drug therapy for Crohn's Disease, but can't afford the $35,000-$40,000 it costs and whose families have no drug plan to cover it. For more information, visit www.robbiesrainbow.ca. Pining for days when time moved slowly or even stood still t last, some science to suggest that I'm not crazy. At least, not in this instance. In recent years, my life has been one big blur. It's like, if I blink or sneeze, an entire season sails by. I hit a couple of golf balls and suddenly summer is gone. I finish carving the Thanksgiving turkey and, by cracky, it's Christmas. I fall over on my cross-country skis and robins start heralding spring. For a while, I thought I was suffering from life overload, and the blur of my activities was correspondingly creating a blurring of time. But when I considered whether I'm actually busier now than, say, when we had three young kids underfoot, I begrudgingly admitted that I'm probably not. Naturally, I wondered whether I was going crazy. Then I thought that maybe I'm one of those guys with a genetic disorder that causes them to travel through time, like the character in The Time Traveler's Wife. But, why would my travels only fast-forward me into the future and never back in time? Which, of course, returned me to my original thought: that maybe I was going crazy (if only for thinking that there really is such a thing as a genetic time-travel- A Andy Juniper ling disorder). Finally, I found answers online, in a National Public Radio story that suggests that as you grow older, time indeed flies faster. According to Duke University psychology professor Warrens Meck, as people age "they have this sense, this feeling, that time is going faster than they are." Apparently this is true across all cultures. The question is, why? Now, I don't want to get too scientific, knowing that not all of you are as, ah, science-y as I am (full disclosure: in high school, the author was expelled from chemistry and he quit biology in disgust the day fetal pigs were tabled for dissection), but here's the bottom line: when you're young and experiencing things for the first time, your brain slowly absorbs the experience, noting and storing all details. And, as it goes through this process, it's like time is standing still. Conversely, when you're experiencing something for the 100th time, you are merely "embroidering a bank of previous experiences," something the brain does quickly and without much contemplation. In essence, while a younger brain is savouring an experience and taking copious notes, the older brain is saying: been there, done that. You know, it's true. I can remember an age in my own life when time could seemingly be reined in, as opposed to now when it's always out of control. I recall events that made time stand still (for instance, a first kiss with a girl who'd handcuffed my heart). And I remember times when, unlike today, time actually moved in frustrating slow motion (nearing the end of summer holidays, for instance, as the dog days dragged their heels and I impatiently waited for back-to-school, for fall and football). Nowadays all time ever does is fly. Ah, what I'd give for a few slow-motion scenes and heel-dragging days. Wait. According to researchers, it is possible to regain the youthful illusion that time is moving slowly. All you need to do is shock the brain by continually engaging in new and novel experiences. Hmmm. Naked sky-diving? Where do I sign up? Andy Juniper can be visited at www.strangledeggs.com, contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, or followed at www.twitter.com/thesportjesters.