Practical advice for young Aspergians

By Julia Mckinnell - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 9:12 AM - 3 Comments

Getty Images; Photo illustration by Taylor Shute

Growing up with Asperger’s syndrome made John Elder Robison, the bright son of a philosophy professor, a social outcast and, later, a high school dropout. But the now-successful businessman, author of the new book Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian, believes that Asperger’s actually gave him a professional advantage over normal people, just as it might have done for Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Dan Aykroyd: “The more different you are from other people, the more likely you are to solve problems in a different way. That may be a handicap in school, where they expect you to do things the teacher’s way. Once you get out of school, though, your difference can become a powerful advantage.”

Robison, who learned the hard way that coping in the real world is really just a matter of learning manners and social conventions, fills his book with practical advice for young Aspergians, using himself as an example.

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Man enough to laugh at cancer

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Ben Birchall/PA Photos/Keystone Press

A couple of months ago, men were sprouting moustaches for “Movember,” a month-long campaign that raised over $21 million—nearly triple last year’s total—for Prostate Cancer Canada. (Liberal Mark Holland, who tried but failed to grow a handlebar, was one of more than 80 MPs who donated the space above their upper lip through November.) Partly inspired by Movember’s success, the Canadian Testicular Cancer Association (TCTCA) has claimed a month of its own. During January, or rather MANuary, the TCTCA aims to teach men “how to have the balls” to talk about testicular cancer.

The first-ever MANuary doesn’t encourage anyone to grow more hair—quite the opposite, in fact. In one MANuary fundraising event ripped straight from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, “volunteers will get their backs waxed on stage,” says actor-comedian Peter Laneas, a testicular cancer survivor and spokesperson for the TCTCA. “Nothing brings people together better than public humiliation,” he jokes.

Cheeky marketing has more commonly been used by breast cancer groups: foundations like Feel Your Boobies and Save the ta-tas grab attention—and fundraising dollars—with fun, sexy messaging. Now humour is doing the same for cancers that typically affect men. Prostate cancer is as prevalent as breast cancer, says Adam Garone, CEO and co-founder of the Movember Foundation, “but guys don’t like talking about their health, especially below the waist.” The first Movember campaign was held in Australia in 2004; in 2010, close to half a million people took part globally. “When we survey the guys on why they participate,” says Garone, “the number one reason is because it’s fun.”

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Good news about Canada’s education system

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 13 Comments

Canadian students have come a long way | Tannis Toohey/Toronto Star

The end of the year is a hopeful and generous time for Canadians, a time when we indulge our better instincts and tend to look on the bright side of things. How strange then, that recent good news about Canada’s education system has prompted a sudden bout of pessimism.

Last week saw the release of a massive comparison of school systems around the world. The Programme for International School Assessment (PISA) is run every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and tests 470,000 15-year-old students across 65 countries and regions in reading, math and science. Canada, once again, found itself among the world’s leaders in educational performance.

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Are we raising our boys to be underachieving men?

By John Intini - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Nicole Hill/ Getty Images

The trick to having a baby girl, according to researchers in the Netherlands, is a calcium- and magnesium-rich diet, full of hard cheese, rhubarb, spinach, canned salmon and tofu. It’s also important, claim the authors of the study, for women to steer clear of salty foods, potatoes and bananas. Though the study was based on a small sample, it wouldn’t be a shock if the results prompted prospective parents to stock their fridges accordingly.

As Robert Bly and others prophesied in the 1990s, when they retreated to the woods to beat drums and exhort men to embrace their inner caveman, the modern male is in danger of losing his way. The process apparently begins early. On average, boys earn lower marks, study less, and are more likely to repeat a grade than girls. Young men are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to graduate university than young women. And while they still dominate in engineering and computer science, men are outnumbered in most professional programs, including law and medicine.

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Cost of healthcare needs reevaluating: study

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 10, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 0 Comments

The population is aging more slowly than expected, which means the burden on health care systems in industrialized countries might be less than expected and the cost of taking care of the elderly should be remeasured, according to a new study in Science magazine. The study, by American and Austrian researchers, suggests aging should be measured in a way that isn’t fixed to chronological ages. Current indicators used worldwide to determine healthcare and retirement costs are based on chronological age “and in many instances consider people as being old when they reach age 65 or even earlier,” professor Warren Sanderson, one of the authors, told the BBC. This has policy implications, since population changes are expected to have major economic consequences in the future.

BBC News

Lap dancers are more than just pretty faces

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 11:26 AM - 0 Comments

Academic research from the University of Leeds has found that one in four women who work as a lap dancer in Britain has a university degree, while one in three women were in some form of education, with about 14 per cent working to fund an undergraduate course and about six per cent to fund a postgraduate degree. The majority of dancers like their work, and say they were not pressured into the job. Instead, they chose lap dancing for the money or because it complemented their main careers. “These young women do not buy the line that they are being exploited, because they are the ones making the money out of a three-minute dance and a bit of a chat,” said Dr. Teela Sanders, one of the researchers on the year-long study. On average, a lap dancer took home 232 pounds for a shift after paying the club commission and fees, giving most an annual income of between 24,000 and 48,000 pounds.

The Province

What a season of sexual harassment suits says about the modern office

By Anne Kingston - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 9:31 AM - 0 Comments

Justin Sullivan and Jacob Andrzejczak/Getty Images/ Richard Lautens/Toronto Star

Just as 1967 is remembered as the summer of love, 2010 will be the summer of sexual harassment—or at least of sexual harassment claims. The latest in an ongoing parade of allegations led to the resignation of Hewlitt-Packard CEO Mark Hurd earlier this month, after a contract employee who planned VIP events said he’d sexually harassed her.

HP investigated Jodie Fisher’s charge and concluded it “was not supported by the facts.” But Hurd was out in any case, on grounds that he had violated the company’s expense account policies and “misused” corporate assets. The probe also found that he had not reported his “close personal relationship” with Fisher, a former soft-core porn actress, which consituted a conflict of interest.

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This is your flight attendant speaking: take this job and shove it

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 10:54 AM - 0 Comments

A fed-up flight attendant made a dramatic exit from a JetBlue plane—and presumably his job—on Monday after a passenger accidentally hit him with luggage and refused to apologize. Steven Slater is alleged to have gotten on the plane’s PA system and cursed out the passengers aboard, adding the insults were especially meant for the passenger who’d struck him. According to reports, Slater then grabbed two beers from the attendants’ galley, pulled the emergency chute, and slid his way out of the plane. Slater was subsequently arrested at his home in New York and is facing charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

Wall Street Journal

Churchill’s false teeth sell for $24,600

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 30, 2010 at 12:39 PM - 0 Comments

Winston Churchill’s upper dentures were sold to a collector for $24,600 at auction Thursday. The false teeth were designed to fit loosely, helping Churchill maintain his particular accent, which was marked by a slight lisp. The prime minister’s weekly radio addresses are believed to have contributed to Britain’s resolve during the dark days of World War Two. As such, historian Jane Hughes of London’s Hunterian Museum has called them “the teeth that saved the world.” Churchill’s lower dentures are believed to be buried with him.

Sydney Morning Herald

Tokyo’s “oldest man” actually dead for 30 years

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 30, 2010 at 11:21 AM - 0 Comments

A man listed as the oldest living male in Tokyo actually died 30 years ago, Japanese welfare officials said after they found the man mummified in his bed. Police visited the home of Sogen Kato at the request of ward officials updating their list of centenarians ahead of Respect for the Elderly Day in September. They found the mummified body believed to be Kato lying in his bed, wearing underwear and pajamas, covered with a blanket. Japanese welfare officials had tried to meet Kato since earlier this year, but his family members repeatedly chased them away. Kato was born July 22, 1899, which would have made him 111. Tokyo police are investigating possible crimes on suspicion Kato’s family received pension money of the man and his dead wife.

The Telegraph

Women most attractive at 31: survey

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:03 PM - 0 Comments

Women are at their most attractive at age 31, according to a survey reported in the Telegraph. In fact, those in their late twenties and early thirties are considered even more attractive than 18 or 19-year-olds, researchers say. The survey polled over 2,000 men and women, and found that beauty is related to personality, too. 70 per cent of respondents defined beauty as being confident, 67 per cent described it has having good looks, and 47 per cent described it as being stylish.

Telegraph

Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston announce engagement

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 2:27 PM - 0 Comments

Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are getting married—and they told US Weekly about their plans even before notifying their parents. The celebrity magazine reports Bristol and Levi got engaged two weeks ago without the blessing of their parents. In fact, Bristol says she finds the prospect of telling her mother, 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, “intimidating and scary.” The younger Palin is featured on the cover of the magazine with Johnston, along with their 18-month-old son Tripp. The couple says they reconnected while working out a custody plan and hope to get married within six weeks in Alaska.

Toronto Star

An “epidemic” of hot car deaths

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 at 12:58 PM - 0 Comments

Every year, about 37 babies and toddlers in the U.S. die after being left in hot cars, accidentally left strapped into safety seats or otherwise trapped in the vehicle, CNN reports. Death by hyperthermia, when the body’s temperature rises uncontrollably, has happened to about 450 U.S. kids since 1998. Memory expert David Diamond, a scientist at Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, Florida, calls it an “epidemic,” saying that it happens on average once a week, from spring to early fall. Babies and small kids can’t regulate their body temperatures well, warming up to five times faster than an adult, especially in a car where, in just half an hour, the interior can get 35 degrees hotter. An infant could die of hyperthermia in just 15 minutes on a 75-degree Fahrenheit day. While some kids are left there by negligent parents who purposefully do it while running errands, others climb into the car and get trapped. But most of them are victims of memory lapse, says Diamond, who notes it “can happen to anyone.” About 60 per cent of adults involved in these tragedies face criminal charges.

CNN

Chess prodigy Bobby Fischer’s body exhumed

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

An Icelandic court dug up the body of eccentric chess champ Bobby Fischer on Monday in a bid to prove whether nine-year-old Jinky Young is his daughter. Fisher, who defeated Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1972 in the most famous chess battle of all time, died in early 2008. Fischer drifted in and out of public life, disappearing in 1975, reemerging in 1992 for a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia (he won) and then disappearing once more before reemerging in Iceland in 2005 (four years after Young’s birth). It’s unclear when the paternity test results are due or whether Young has shown any aptitude for chess.

CNN

Central Perk replica hits Beijing

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 5, 2010 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

It’s an uncanny replica of Ross and Rachel’s favourite hang out, but this Central Perk is neither in downtown New York City nor on the set of “Friends” in Los Angeles. Rather, it’s tucked away on the 6th floor of an office building in downtown Beijing. Owner and manager Du Xin, a loyal Friends fan, opened Central Perk in March after he couldn’t find a café with a similar vibe in Beijing. Du scrutinized thousands of pictures of the show’s set, watched endless reruns of the sitcom, and spent five months laboring over furniture designs with manufacturers in Beijing before his dream was realized. Despite an initial lag in business, Friends’s massive popularity in China created buzz for the café through Chinese message boards and blogs, drawing fans in. Most of Du’s customers are college students and young professionals who grew up watching the show as a way to learn English and get a glimpse of young American life. The sitcom has also made its way into China’s education system, where episodes are included as part of the curriculum for English listening and speaking training, and to help students pick up American slang and cultural references. But Du isn’t the only entrepreneur capitalizing on the café’s famous name–other imitations have also opened to much fanfare in London and Dubai.

CNN

Prince of Monaco to wed

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 3:27 PM - 0 Comments

Prince Albert of Monaco is engaged to marry South African former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock, the royal palace announced in a statement Wednesday. The palace did not indicate a wedding date, but palace
spokesperson Laetitia Pierrat said under protocol, royal couples must wait at least six months between the announcement of the engagement and the wedding day. Pierrat said Albert, 52, met Wittstock, 32, in 2000 when she was visiting Monaco for a swimming competition. Wittstock has lived in Monaco since 2006. Colombe Pringle, executive editor of the French celebrity magazine Point de Vue, said she hasn’t heard any rumours that Wittstock might already be pregnant, but said there would “obviously” be an heir. Albert has never been married, but has two children from previous relationships. Neither can assume the throne because they were born out of wedlock.

Globe and Mail

Widow of wrestler Owen Hart suing WWE

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 12:14 PM - 1 Comment

The widow of Owen Hart, a World Wrestling Entertainment performer who died in a 1999 stunt, says she’s suing the WWE and its leaders, including Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon. Martha Hart said McMahon, who stepped down as WWE chief executive to run for Senate, and her husband, Vince, the current chairman, have continued to use Owen Hart’s image to promote the business despite agreeing to stop after his death. Hart planned to file her lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Hartford. Owen Hart died at the WWE Over The Edge pay-per-view on May 23, 1999 when he fell 78 feet due to an equipment malfunction. His family sued the WWE and several other defendants in the death. Martha Hart agreed to an $18 million settlement with the WWE in 2000. In her new lawsuit, she alleges the WWE and the McMahons violated a contract that restricts the use of Owen Hart’s name, likeness and wrestling footage. In a statement, she said, “In the 11 years since Owen’s tragic and avoidable death, I have worked tirelessly to disassociate Owen’s name and likeness from anything related to WWE in order to protect our children from any reminder of the circumstances surrounding their father’s death, and to avoid any misplaced perception that I endorse WWE.”

AP

Wrestling Inc.

Gay men are good at recognizing faces

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 11:22 AM - 1 Comment

Gay men can recall familiar faces faster and more accurately than their heterosexual counterparts because, like women, they use both sides of their brains, according to a new study by York University researchers. The study, published in the journal, Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, examined the influence of gender, sexual orientation and whether we’re right-or-left-handed on our ability to recognize faces. It found that when memorizing and discriminating between faces, homosexual men show patterns of bilaterality—the usage of both sides of the brain—similar to heterosexual women. Heterosexual men tend to favour the right hemisphere for such tasks. “Our results suggest that both gay men and heterosexual women code faces bilaterally. That allows for faster retrieval of stored information,” says study lead author Jennifer Steeves, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. Steeves and her colleagues also investigated the influence of hand dominance on such tasks. They found that left-handed heterosexual participants had better face recognition abilities than left-handed homosexuals, and also outperformed right-handed heterosexuals.

York University

Same old thing, day in, day out

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 3:24 PM - 9 Comments

A survey of British women found most are fed up with the predictable routine of their lives and frustrated with constant work pressures and lack of a social life. Not enough holiday time and having to do housework on top of their jobs were high on the list of reasons for women’s boredom, along with never changing the way they looked and never having enough money. When asked what would improve things, nine of ten answered “a little spontaneity.” More than one-third liked the idea of packing their bags and emigrating to another country, while 31 per cent fantasized about telling people what they really thought of them. A quarter of women would like to walk into work and hand in their notice and the same percentage wished they could radically change their hairstyle. And what’s stopping them? Some 34 per cent of women don’t have the confidence to make the necessary changes to their life to make them happy, while 29 per cent claim not to have the time.

Telegraph

Personal betterment course has the worst money-back guarantee

By Caitlin Crawshaw - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 11 Comments

Photograph by Chris Bolin

With a shaved head, tattoos and a penchant for speaking his mind, 32-year-old James Derlago may not be the first person you’d expect to find disclosing his innermost thoughts to 30 teary-eyed strangers in a self-help course. Yet, nearly two years ago, Derlago, a garage-door installer from Red Deer, Alta., spent a week at a community centre doing just that. He’d signed up for the free Personal Best (PB) course on the advice of his girlfriend, who’d tried it. Derlago figured he had nothing to lose: after the death of his mother the world had seemed to turn grey. At first Derlago was enthusiastic about the course. He was connecting with others and felt capable of turning a corner. He happily signed up for the second in the three-course series, this one with a $2,100 price tag. For a time, he joined the ranks of Personal Best’s passionate supporters, lauding it to friends.

Then a rare disorder took away his hearing. He couldn’t work, and suddenly money was tight. To his disappointment, he realized his new disability would prevent him from getting much out of the second course, so he sent PB a brief email explaining the situation and requesting a refund. What he assumed would be a minor administrative matter, Derlago says, morphed into months of hostile emails, an unresolved complaint to the Better Business Bureau, and an unrefunded $2,100 fee for a course he didn’t even take.

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Hope in a sea of 'globish'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment



Jeff McIntosh / CP

Robert McCrum’s new book, Globish, documents the Internet-fuelled rise of English to become the global language. But the same Internet that seems to endanger the world’s minority tongues may yet turn out to be their salvation. Nunavut, with a population density of one person per 70 sq. km—some 30,000 people scattered across two million sq. km—needs Internet services as much as downtown Toronto. But it wants them in its own language: Inuktitut, a language that, at the time of Nunavut’s founding in 1999, lacked not only software, but even a keyboard that could display its syllabic alphabet.

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Canadian wins "most beautiful tweet"

By macleans.ca - Monday, June 7, 2010 at 5:31 PM - 0 Comments

Canadian Marc MacKenzie has won the “most beautiful tweet ever tweeted,” chosen and announced by broadcaster Stephen Fry at the Hay Festival, an annual 10-day literature festival held in Wales from May to June. The organizers of the festival had different tweet categories including the most eloquent, most evocative or the best pun. MacKenzie, 41, began tweeting after people said they enjoyed reading his Facebook statuses. His winning tweet read: “I believe we can build a better world! Of course, it’ll take a whole lot of rock, water & dirt. Also, not sure where to put it.”

BBC News

Law school: 'kindergarten for cretins'

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 15 Comments

Getty Images

Most people think of lawyers as silver-tongued, but Robert Martin, a retired law professor at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., admits that subtlety is not his strong suit. His paper, “University Legal Education in Canada is Corrupt Beyond Repair,” is as subtle as a sledgehammer: in it, he compares law faculties to “psychotic kindergartens” populated by “a horde of illiterate, ignorant cretins.” The paper, published last fall in the academic journal Interchange, made the rounds of law blogs and news sites in Canada and abroad last week, turning Martin into a minor Internet phenom.

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Prescription for trouble

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 4 Comments

Rob Tringali / Sportschrome / Getty

The price sounds steep—$3,500, plus expenses, for a house call—but for the kind of people seeking Dr. Anthony Galea’s help, it’s chump change. New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez used his services, as did his on-again-off-again girlfriend Madonna, and Swedish soccer star and Calvin Klein underwear model Freddie Ljungberg, per a well-placed source. Tiger Woods flew him to Florida five or six times—business class, naturally. According to an affidavit filed in court when the RCMP searched Galea’s offices in mid-October, seeking evidence of performance-enhancing drugs, the 51-year-old doctor treated 23 pro-athletes in eight different American cities over a nine-week period last summer. During the last decade, hundreds more from the NFL, NHL, CFL, NBA, major league baseball, track and field, and beyond, have beaten a path to his unassuming clinic, now located near Pearson International Airport, seeking to ease their aches and injuries. And even after Tony Galea’s name has been dragged through the mud for months, fingered as the latest sports “Dr. Feelgood,” the calls still keep coming. When David Beckham tore his Achilles tendon in March, shattering his World Cup dream, he reached out to Galea, looking for a miracle. The doctor turned him away.

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