Junior hockey rivals NHL with more than dollars

The National Hockey League is not the only place you can find good-quality, competitive hockey in the Lower Mainland, but it is the game that could empty your wallet.

“I would definitely say I come to the Giants games over Canuck games because it’s so much more affordable,” said Mike Pitre, a season-ticket holder since the Giants inaugural Western Hockey League (WHL) season in 2002. “I can still afford to go for dinner before the game and, more importantly, beers after it. It’s so much more fun to be able to make a night of it.”

Pitre is not wrong in believing he’s saving lots of money by choosing Giants games over those of their professional counterparts. For the price of one regular-season game ticket to GM Place to watch the Canucks – about $130 – you get this: two tickets to a Giants game at the Pacific Coliseum, parking, two beer, two hotdogs, one Giants team Tshirt, one Giants hat, plus $7 and change back in your pocket.

There are three junior hockey leagues in B.C.: the WHL, the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), and the Pacific International Junior Hockey League (PIJHL).

The most local and community-based of these is the PIJHL, which has its entire conference of teams located within the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. For a long time the PIJHL was considered a league riddled with violence, fights and little skill, but all that’s changing.

“The league has really cleaned its act up in the last few years,” said Mas Morimoto, public relations manager for the Richmond Sockeyes. “It used to be that the players playing in the league were older and at the end of their playing careers. Nowadays we are much more of a developmental league for younger players on their way up.”

Play quality in all of B.C.’s junior leagues is high. Players are routinely drafted by NHL teams when they turn 18. The good thing for fans of junior teams is that it’s not impossible to get tickets. Unlike Canuck games, for which single-seat tickets are pretty much all that’s available for good games, junior games have plenty of good tickets available for walk-up customers on game days.

The Giants average just under 10,000 fans a game in the Coliseum, which seats 16,281. The Sockeyes play in a much smaller venue at Minoru Arenas, which seats about 1,100. This season, they have averaged about 400 fans a game. Minoru Arenas is a first-come-first-seat facility, so all tickets are general admission. The Canucks have sold all 18,630 tickets to the Garage for every game since Nov. 14, 2002.

Lower-level junior hockey clubs appeal to a sense of community and families, according to Morimoto. Supporting local programs such as Thomas Cook Elementary School breakfast program, which supplies a hot breakfast to kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford one, and raising money for a local firefighter who was injured on the job, leaving him a quadriplegic, are examples of how the Sockeyes have become involved with the community. The Sockeyes support such charities by donating a portion of ticket sales.

Tickets to the Sockeyes games are only $8 for adults and free for any kid wearing a minor-hockey jersey. For roughly the same price as one ticket to a Canuck game plus parking, a father and son could get a season-ticket package and attend all 25 home games of the team of their choice in the PIJHL.

Depression hits youth hardest, doctors encourage youth to explore alternatives to psychotropic drugs

Canadians under 20 report the higher level of depression, and people between 20 and 29 years of age have the highest levels of anxiety, according to report issued in September by the Canadian Mood Disorders Society.

The most alarming statistics to come out of the report are that 90 per cent of people who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental illness, and that suicide is the cause of death for 24 per cent of Canadians between 15 and 24 years of age, and 16 per cent of those between the ages of 20 and 29.

Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression, and although 80 per cent of people with depression respond well to treatment, 90 per cent of those with depression don’t seek treatment.

“Depression, sometimes it’s a blessing,” said Dr. Hamdy El-Rayes, director of the H.R. Mental Wellness Centre, “because it stops you in your tracks and makes you reflect on the way you’re going and what you need to do.

“Medication does not solve the underlying issues that caused the depression or anxiety.”

El-Rayes said he feels that Canadian youth should explore all options before turning to medication.

He believes that empowering those who have depression or anxiety, and encouraging them to take charge,, is the only successful way to heal someone. El-Rayes said that being younger is an advantage for people, because they have more time to work out issues and aren’t as set in their ways.

Growing up with the Internet and easy access to information has made this generation more open to new ideas, but at the same time has inundated them with too much information.

“Everything is new, and so younger people are willing to accept anything that will help them,” El-Rayes said. From what he sees in his practice, he feels that younger people ask more questions, hesitate to take something just because they’re doctor said to, and are more aware of medication side effects than previous generations were.

Canadians turn to medication more often than not. According to the Mood Disorders Society of Canada, Canadians are the largest users, on aper-capita basis, of psychiatric medications in the world. Canadians are also the secondlargest users of sedatives and the fourth-largest users of prescription narcotics in the world, according to the society. In 2006, there were 51 million prescriptions for psychiatric medications dispensed by Canadian pharmacies, a 32 per cent increase over the previous four years.

“You expect to be able to medicate yourself out of any problem,” said Paul Swingle, a Vancouver psycholo-gist, who argues that simply medicating a problem doesn’t address what caused it in the first place.

“That’s the alcoholic mentality, that you can avoid everything by getting plastered,” he said.

Swingle has seen the consequence of treating depression on the surface rather than at its source.

He has seen many women between the ages of 25 and 40 with a previously undiagnosed form of ADD known as High Frontal Alpha ADD. These women struggled in school, often couldn’t hold a job and, after becoming depressed, were put on a roster of medication to treat their depression. They went undiagnosed because the behaviour associated with the condition are talkativeness and flightiness.

“Since that fit our cultural stereotypes, these unfortunate young girls went undiagnosed,” said Swingle. “So they weren’t treated for the ADD, which created a reactive depression because of failure.”

The perception of drugs being the answer to emotional problems has been spread effectively by pharmaceutical advertising, which is legal in the U.S and Australia. But because American programing is prevalent on Canadian television, it’s common on our airwaves. A local therapist, Cindy Trevitt, said she feels that this is the greatest threat on the mental landscape for today’s youth.

“The implicit message is don’t feel bad ever, you should feel happy always and not experience life,” said Trevitt, a Vancouver counsellor. “It takes away from our ability to experience life. If I can feel sadness to its great depths I can also feel joy to its great heights.”

Trevitt argued that although today’s generation may be bombarded by this advertising, it is less influenced by it than previous generations.

Old news sparks new views

Avian flu and the West Nile virus may have dropped off the media radar with all the attention on H1N1, but they have not dropped off the map.

“Because [avian flu is] not spread effectively between bird and human, it’s not a huge concern for most people,” said Roy Wadia, director of communications for the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. “If it were to become of pandemic size, it could cause a catastrophic pandemic on a scale that would epically dwarf the current H1N1 pandemic.”

“Everything is ultimately local,” said Wadia. “If it’s happening in your neck of the woods, it’s a big story,” said Wadia. “If it’s happening in another country thousands of miles away, or even two or three countries away from you, it’s not a concern.”

Wadia, who was working in China during the original outbreak of avian flu in 2003, recalled that although it was a big concern in that area, it was of minimal concern in the West.It was not until the virus resurfaced in 2008 on Western farms and began having a direct affect on farmers and citizens that it received widespread attention. Since then, media focus has shifted again, but Wadia still sees avian flu as a huge public-health issue.

According the World Health Organization, there have been 442 documented cases of avian flu infection among people, with 262 of those cases proving fatal. Direct contact with diseased birds is believed to be the cause of most of these infections, and transfer from human to human has been rare. However, the potential for the disease to mutate or evolve and become more efficient in transferring is the largest concern for public-health officials.

West Nile virus is another infection endemic to various parts of the world. The virus first appeared in North America in 1999, but how it came to New York remains a mystery. Until then, the virus was found in Africa, Eastern Europe, parts of the Northern Mediterranean, Egypt, Israel, Romania and the Czech Republic. Upon its arrival in North America, it became the most widely spread vector-borne disease (spread by the bite of an insect or animal) on the continent, according to the BCCDC. To date, seven Canadians have reportedly contract the virus, two in B.C., two in Alberta and one each in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. None of those people died.

A senior environmental health specialist for the BCCDC, Ken Cooper, noted that the original North American form of West Nile, designated NY99, has mutated, is virtually extinct and has been replaced by WN02, a closely related variation.

According to the BCCDC, only one in 150 people infected with the disease will respond strongly to it; others can carry it without ever knowing they had it. The centre reports that there were 4,511 cases of WNV reported in Canada between 2002 to 2008.

“There are serious side effects for those who become ill with neurological symptoms,” said Cooper an email interview. “Even those who get milder symptoms can still be quite ill and have an impact on health care and on economics.”

The economic cost of responding to avian flu has been felt by farmers around the world, who have had to slaughter their birds, including geese, ducks and chicken, to stave possible spread of the infection. In 1997, Hong-Kong destroyed 1.4 million chickens when a portion tested positive for the infection, according to reports from CBC. In 2007, a commercial duck farm in Regina executed 50,000 birds after some of them tested positive for H7N1, a variation of avian flu that does not kill people.

“Avian flu has a strong economic impact on people who are poultry farmers and [who] work in the agriculture field,” said Wadia. “From Vancouver’s perspective it’s no big deal right now, but if you see it from the perspective of a farmer in China, or a very large poultry processor in Thailand, it’s a huge deal.”

Wadia added he is confident the Canadian health community is well-prepared for H1N1.

Online anonymity results in less privacy

The explosion of personal information on the Internet is leading to “Facebook creeping,” new reasons for being fired, and, according to a Kwantlen sociology instructor, public humiliation.

“[Young people are] more inclined to invade other people’s privacy without feeling invasive about it,” said Annette Reynolds.

“There’s a tendency to feel like you can cross social barriers because there’s an anonymity. That’s a kind of cyber-bullying,” Reynolds said, remembering a time when she read hurtful comments on the teacher-rating web site RateMyProfessors. com.

Cyber-bullying is a rising trend, according to a Microsoft Canada Youthography Internet Safety survey released in February. The survey of people from nine to 17 years old found that 40 per cent of Canadian youth had been bullied online, up from 25 per cent in 2004. It also reported that 60 per cent of youth believe people bully because it is “cool.” More than half of the 16 per cent who said they have cyber-bullied another youth said there were no consequences to their bullying.

“Public humiliation is a form of entertainment,” said Reynolds.

Bullying is one of the side effects of an information free-for-all that includes blogs about people’s personal lives, YouTube videos featuring friends, and Facebook pages full of personal info. Privacy has a different meaning than it used to.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say kids today don’t care about their privacy,” said Micheal Vonn, B.C. Civil Liberties Association policy director. “Previous generations never had to think about this stuff because the system was so different.”

In the past, privacy was provided by default before technological advances introduced a plethora of information databases. Now that personal information is required in order to access many Internet services, people must choose between those services and privacy. “What we really want is control,” said Vonn.

The government hasn’t hesitated to take advantage of the new opportunities for control, either. Technology-based surveillance, called dataveillance, is increasing as a form of policing and is a worrisome opportunity for state control, she said.

“The new policing philosophy is, ‘Why don’t we just know a whole lot about everybody all the time. Then we’ll be able to do a risk assessment.’”

Knowing a lot about everybody all the time applies to personal relationships, too. A University of Guelph study released in August indicated that the more time a person spends on Facebook, the more likely they are to become jealous of their significant other because of overexposure to triggers. A person may become alarmed by a comment from someone saying “It was great to see you,” become jealous, and begin “Facebook creeping” that commentator’s profile for more information.

This trend in “Facebook creeping” leads to suspicions, just as government dataveillance does.

“[Data] starts to take on a reality and a life of its own… regardless of if you’ve done anything wrong,” said Vonn.

Employers are pursuing control too, said Michael Cox, who believes he was fired from a probationary bus-driver position with Coast Mountain Bus Company in January because of his blog.

“The company was sensitive to any kind of criticism and certainly sensitive to internal criticism,” Cox said. His blog included information about transit troubles during last winter’s snowstorms. “I think part of it was they wanted to make an example of me.”

He advised bloggers and social media users to speak their minds but remember that their words could affect them professionally. “There is no such thing as true freedom of the press or true freedom of expression. There’s always going to be a limit.”

The costs of censoring personal information that is being published online, such as reduced freedom of speech, need to be weighed against the benefits, which include retaining a job. In today’s digital age, the ability to avoid having personal details on the Internet isn’t always there. “The only way to remain a truly private individual would be to only purchase using cash and to be an electronic hermit,” said Cox.

It’s difficult to remain an electronic hermit, and one result is identity theft. Equifax Canada fraud specialist Vanessas Guillani told the Globe and Mail in June that identity theft went up 500 per cent from 1998 to 2003.

Identity theft is a big problem, but personal problems with identity itself are also on the rise. People can take on various identities through social media, which can result in a loss of self, according to Vonn. Internet game Second Life, which mimics real-world activities, including earning income and building relationships, has been featured in the news as a harbinger of real-life problems. A number of game users have adopted their character and attempted to create a perfect life, only to lose their jobs, friends and family. Some have fallen in love with virtual characters only to learn that the real person was not what they expected.

Sidebar: How to protect yourself

• Read privacy contracts, particularly those regarding health, credit-card and banking information.
• Ask questions or refuse to sign things that don’t seem worth it.
• Consider the implications of your pictures, thoughts and videos before you post them.
• Know your employer’s policies concerning social media.
• Remember that once you publish something online, you can never get it back.

Cloverdale: Growing community uses events to retain identity

Cloverdale streets were decked out with Christmas lights, crammed with people and covered in decorated semi tractor-trailers and trucks on Dec. 6 at Hawthorne Square.

The Santa’s Parade of Lights, put on by the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association (BIA) in partnership with the Cloverdale District Chamber of Commerce, is one of five annual events held in the area to maintain Cloverdale’s historic small-town identity and strengthen the sense of community.

The Cloverdale BIA was expecting a crowd of 7,000 people to line the streets for the parade, out of a population of only 55,000 people in the small section of Surrey. The area was once entirely farmland, and is still sustained by blueberry crops, but is now considered a peri-urban community (an area adjoining an urban space), because of its location at the centre of a rapidly growing city.

The growth has caused the Cloverdale BIA to create guidelines and larger-scale plans of action to promote the area’s historical western identity, which is the foundation for the local economy. Cloverdale does not have any above-ground parking, parking meters or big-box businesses, which helps maintain the small-town culture.

“[Cloverdale] is filling in and growing at an unbelievable rate, unmatched about anywhere in B.C.,” said Paul Orazietti, executive director of the Cloverdale BIA.

One way that the BIA is responding to urbanization is by adding a social-responsibility aspect to the parades and festivals. This is the third year that the holiday parade was collecting donations for the Surrey Christmas Bureau and the Surrey Food Bank, with a goal of collecting $5,000 and two-and-a-half tons of food for the food bank.

“Charity has taken a much higher profile,” said Orazietti, adding that homelessness is a growing problem in Cloverdale. At one point, over 50 people were living in the town centre, he said.

The events serve to bring locals together and promote opportunities to give back, but they also exemplify Cloverdale’s identity to nonresidents.

Stores are decorated, businesses are welcoming – it’s all part of a plan to encourage outsiders to feel like they are a part of the community, too.

Economically, Cloverdale is challenged by its avoidance of large stores such as Safeway, whose nearest location is in Langley. But small-town values have led the BIA to resist the introduction of such businesses, preferring to support local businesses instead. These steps aim to protect the community’s assets while events build sustainability, he said.

Cloverdale is on a path that may head towards transformed economy and increased symbolism, as small-town community features become replaced with modern infrastructure, according to Jacqueline Mulcahy, member of the Maple Ridge Community Heritage Commission and a post-graduate urban-studies student at Simon Fraser University.

The community may find itself using street signage and banner programs as a reminder of the original identity, as was done in North Vancouver, if the rapid population growth continues, said Mulcahy.

“It’s impossible for communities to resist [change],” she said. “A sense of identity is necessary in any community.

“You have to have some means of a discourse,” Mulcahy said. “If you don’t have a sense of collective identity, it’s very difficult to have political engagement and it’s difficult to have a consensus.”

Individuals in the area are also realizing that parades and festivals are a good way to help the younger generation plug into Cloverdale’s traditional values and history. Rick Hughes, the vice-president of Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School, is trying to encourage youth to get involved in organizing parades, sports camps and other local events.

“It’s up to my generation to make sure that we’re passing all this into succeeding generations,” said Hughes. “There’s a lot of young folks out there that think, ‘Well, I’ll do it if there’s an immediate payoff’ instead of ‘I’ll do it if it’s helping somebody out.’”

Hughes has lived in Cloverdale his entire life, and has helped organize parades, the rodeo and the creation of Surrey Museum over the last half-century. When he was a child, all of his neighbours knew each other, but that is not the case anymore, though there are still some core families that remain. He welcomes different ideas and lifestyles, but added, “It’s important to remember the things that got you where you are.”

Fraser Health predicts and prepares for worst-case flu scenario

After months of monitoring the southern hemisphere’s H1N1 cases, Fraser Health has determined 40 per cent of the world’s population will catch H1N1 before next April.

The number is twice the yearly 20 per cent seasonal flue infection rate, according to Dr. Roland Guasparini, Fraser Health’s chief medical health officer.

“The vast majority are going to have a mild, self-limiting illness,” Guasparini said. “[But] the flu’s not really mild. You will feel like you get hit with a truck.”

Fraser Health based its estimate on the number of cases that have been reported in the southern hemisphere. As winter and the flu season comes to an end there, the infection rate offers a glimpse into what residents of the northern hemisphere should expect.

Guasparini said Fraser Health has been planning for a severe pandemic for many years, expecting it to surface at any time. The summer arrival of the H1N1 flu suggests that the virus will peak early, over the next eight to 12 weeks, and taper off by December.

The health unit has spent most of its time planning for a worst-case scenario including 200 intensive-care patients, more than Fraser Health facilities can currently house.

To prepare, it has planned alternative treatment sites, purchased additional ventilators and decided how to staff additional health care locations.

“But we’re not going to see that worst-case scenario,” said Guasparini. “We’re expecting, based on the southern hemisphere, that we’ll be able to manage the hospital cases as usual.”

H1N1 is a contagious disease, he explained, so “the attack rate will be the same regardless of the severity of the symptoms.” A mild disease could, however, allow H1N1 to spread more widely than expected if infected people don’t remain home until they recover.

Current concern is for the elderly, children, pregnant women and those with chronic respiratory and cardiac conditions. Those who fall into these categories are at a high risk for severe illness until they receive the H1N1 vaccination, which will not be available until November.

“We’re hoping . . . we just have a seasonal flu year, but the nice thing about all the media attention is that it’s just brought attention to safety conditions,” said Guasparini.

The message about hand-washing, coughing into a shirt sleeve and staying home when sick “has hit home in a big way.”

He said the media is doing a great job of accurately presenting H1N1 facts. Public-health workers are dealing with the additional strain of responding to patients’ concerns, but the attention devoted to understanding the threats and safety procedures is a new and welcome phenomena.

During previous pandemics, the methods of communication were far more limited.
Guasparini said the international attention and response is a testimony to the system health officials have for monitoring and responding to infectious diseases.

“People are not scared, they just kinda focused their attention.”

Don MacLachlan, former managing editor at the Province and former director of public relations for Fraser Health, agreed that media has “been doing a very responsible job.”

MacLachlan said the public perceives H1N1 as a problem, and its status as a pandemic means it is, so the media is rightly informing people about it.

A number of rumours have cropped up since H1N1 first appeared, leaving some people hesitant to trust media coverage. Bulletins have been issued debunking beliefs that H1N1 can be contracted by eating pork, that entire villages in Asia were being wiped out and that the coverage is only hype. But the myths aren’t from the mainstream media, said MacLachlan.

“People aren’t reading or listening to traditional media news. They get news from Facebook, Twitter or MySpace and they treat that as the definitive truth.”

The media attention has pushed some towards fear or skepticism about the reality of the threat. MacLachlan attributed any “exaggerated state of concern or panic” to individuals who are receiving the media’s messages. He added that “people are hearing and reacting responsibly to responsible messages.”

As students tighten their belts, a night out is less affordable than ever

Beer budgets are going bust in the economy downturn that is forcing students to forgo their usual entertainment expenditures.

Students are doing “anything to save money,” said Lindsay Meredith, SFU marketing professor and consumer-behaviour expert.

Luxuries, such as cars and dining out, are the first things to go. “God forbid, the beer budget may take a bust as well,” said Meredith.

Things as basic as a movie night can turn into serious money in a climate that’s forcing students to postpone any optional purchases. Students are shifting toward home entertainment, a trend Meredith calls cocooning.

Renting or downloading movies, house-to-house visiting and house parties are all on the rise, he said.

Meredith suggested considering laptop, iPod and cellphone costs seriously. “A lot of students insist on carrying that cellphone, but maybe that’s one of the things that should be dumped.”

Ten out of 15 students surveyed by the Chronicle said there’s no way they’d give up their cellphones to save money. Their monthly cell-phone bills average $70.

“Playing in the technology pool costs money,” said Meredith. “So if entertainment has to be provided by a technology medium, you’re going to have to pay for that. Get your head around trying to entertain each other.”

Azad Haddad, a 19-year-old engineering student, said he would ditch his phone in a heartbeat. “Why not?” he asked. “I’ve done it before. Communication is crucial these days but money comes first.” He said cell conversations are extra talk that eats up time with few benefits, when face-to-face conversations are a better alternative.

“[My days without my cell phone were] the best days of my life, having no headaches, no phone calls, nothing to worry about.”

Students get hammered by the recession, but other young adults fare better. Young adults in the work force are vulnerable to rising unemployment rates, but they are not tied down by the massive debt some students accumulate.

Students are expected to return to their night-out-on-the-town habits after the economy rebounds. Meredith said people do not give up established lifestyle habits easily.

More than half of the 50 Kwantlen students polled said that their entertainment consists of watching television or movies or using the computer.

From Motörhead to Mariah, karaoke is for all

You might think that the bulk of North America’s tone-deaf musical hopefuls only come out when Canadian Idol begins to host auditions, but you’d be wrong. They fill a number of Metro Vancouver karaoke bars, which range from the dark and dingy to the darker and dingier. The opportunity to grab the mic usually comes at a low price — your embarrassment — but the cheap drinks help with that.

Hoko’s, a karaoke, sushi and sometimes live-music bar, is a quaint little nook on Powell Street that draws a fun, young, alternative crowd (think arts students on a bender). But you can’t come just to sing karaoke, you have to eat or drink something, which isn’t bad considering the $3 pints and sushi that’s all under $10. Despite its draw to university students all over Vancouver, there’s no
student discount.

If your taste in music is a little more Motörhead than Mariah, then you’re probably headed for the Asbalt. Since the closure of the Cobalt on Main on Sept. 30, the Asbalt on East Hastings is where Thursday and Sunday-night Hot-Rod Skaryoke is hosted. Drinks range from $3.50 to $10, but you’re going to want to have several of them to attempt to use that bathroom. Could be pricey, but watching a leather-clad 300-pound man with a bleached mohawk belch out Heart’s “Barracuda” is priceless.

If you live out in the suburbs and an expensive cab ride just isn’t in your budget, here are two places that will suffice.

The Fireside Pub in New Westminster’s Sapperton hosts a karaoke night every Thursday, which is treated on a first-served basis. No cover charge and no obligation to buy drinks or food, but the song selection takes up all of a single, soft-cover binder and there’s no cheesy landscape music video to go along with the words. Bummer.

Beatles Karaoke on Kingsway is a little more traditional than its slosh-fest counterparts for the undiscerning student. The establishment rents private rooms for $25 per hour an up (depending on the size of the room), and they don’t serve booze. Like many private karaoke cabarets, they open at 8 p.m. and close at 2 a.m. with the sole purpose of doing karaoke. So, no food or drinks, but you can bring your own.

Douglas Fairbairn, 32, who frequents Beatles Karaoke, suggests that if you bring your own booze they might turn a blind eye.

As for their song selection? “They have a lot of songs,” said Fairbairn, “but the ‘Man in Black’ is my personal specialty.”

There are separate songbooks for English and Chinese karaoke.

All of these places can provide a cheap night out, but the cheapest of all would be a night in with Rock Band, a few friends, a six-pack and a pizza.

Does constant communication help or hinder?

The number of people who have cellphones may have skyrocketed in recent years, but communications instructor Pamela Ip says the basics of communication haven’t really changed.

Nearly 75 per cent of Canadians owned a cellphone in late 2008, according to Statistics Canada. Just two years earlier, only about 67 per cent of us had one.

In the same report, Stats Can also said households of younger people (18-34) were more likely to own cellphones and, in many cases, to use cellphones only. A slew of cellphone-use statistics put out by a UK online news site, Telegraph, claimed that the average age at which a person begins to use a cellphone is eight-years-old.

Ip said she recognizes the advantages of heightened communication due to the invention of the cellphone, but added that it’s not all positive.

“Technology, with each [new] device, increases communication, but it also creates an unnecessary dependence on it,” Ip said. “We’re so dependent on these things that if people leave their cellphones at home or their e-mail is down for a couple hours, we start to get extremely anxious about that.”

And anxious we have been conditioned to be, as we now rely on getting our information faster and more efficiently, with the advent of blogging and tweeting. We are being updated on news as it is reported instantaneously, through news sites and blogs, and have learned to communicate in the same way. We send a text-message and expect a response in a minute or less.

But instantaneous communication isn’t necessarily making us more efficient, and, according to Ip, is actually making us more “flaky.”

“It also makes us think very lastminute; like instead of saying we’ll meet at the restaurant at a certain time, we say ‘I’ll call you when I get to the restaurant,’” said Ip.

Talking on a cellphone while driving has become such a problem that it has been banned in Newfoundland, Ontario, and Quebec, with fines of up to $500.

The B.C. government is also looking to pass a bill to ban cellphone use while driving. B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed introduced the bill in October. If passed, the new law would take effect Jan.1, although the $167 fine to violaters wouldn’t be implemented until Feb. 1.

The way we communicate and collect information can also leave us with a shorter attention span. A BBC News article titled “Turning into digital goldfish” claimed that “web-browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds— the same as a goldfish.” The article, which relied on the help of Ted Selker from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that our bodies become conditioned to “flitting from one thing to another on the web [so that] we get into the habit of not concentrating.”

Ip argues that communication itself hasn’t actually changed, but the face of it has.

“Whether you’re talking to a professor or to a peer, you still need to know the fundamentals no matter what the media,” she said.

Flu virus spawns crop of conspiracy theories

We’ve heard it all: The moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job, there are UFOs at Area 51. But have you heard that H1N1 flu was genetically engineered?

Dan Jason, a Saltspring Islandbased organic-seed farmer, thinks H1N1 was created. Jason, who studied seed growth for 20 years, knows a lot about genetically enhanced crops and is calling bullshit on the idea that H1N1 is a chance mutation.

But what does a lowly seed farmer know about all this?

“Genetic engineering creates things that wouldn’t normally happen in nature,” he said, recalling an experiment that introduced flounder genes into a strain of tomatoes. (Winter flounder, a species of fish which produces an antifreeze protein, have the ability to survive in subzero temperatures. Genes were taken from the fish and grafted onto tomatoes, in hopes of creating a crop that wouldn’t freeze.)

“It’s a very weird thing to take genes from a foreign species and bombard them onto a crop,” said Jason. “It doesn’t happen normally and it’s the same story with the flu.”

Jason, like many others, believes that H1N1 flu was engineered by combining viruses from birds, pigs and humans, a sort of grab bag of genes intended to create dependencies on pharmaceutical companies.

His explanation? Vaccines for the flu (which he believes will soon be mandatory) contain mercury, which some people believe causes autism in children and therefore creates a need for Ritalin and other medications used to treat behavioral problems.

Lee Moller argues a different point.

“If we really had the power to genetically modify, to create a flu, we’d create something much bigger than [H1N1],” he said.

Moller, the head of the B.C. Skeptics Society, runs a website that aims to debunk conspiracy theories, urban legends and folklore, ideas that Moller says are “based on faulty logic and paranoia.”

Moller’s website features links to articles that disprove or explain conspiracies , to a blog titled “Rational Enquirer,” and an organization called “skepticamp,” which hosts an annual conference that touches on paranormal claims, alternative medicine and cryptozoology.

“There’s conspiracy theories galore,” he said. “It’s almost human nature to assume a hidden cause.”

Kwantlen psychology professor Steve Charlton thinks there are two sides to conspiracy. “Often people aren’t skeptical enough,” he said, “but the other extreme of that is people who are overly critical without skepticism.”

Those would be the conspiracy theorists.

“There’s lots of conspiracy theories based on misunderstanding or [lack of ] probability,” Charlton said.

Alex Jones, head of InfoWars, hosts conspiracy-heavy radio broadcasts, which, despite perhaps farreaching and often exaggerated nature, has a substantial following. The InfoWars website (www.infowars. com) features an article that claims “[swine flu] originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.”

“Coincidence becomes fact in people’s minds,” said Charlton.

Sidebar: Other myths about H1N1

Swine flu was a rumour created by the U.S. government to persuade people into buying sterilization products to stimulate the economy.

The U.S. made up swine flu because they hate Mexico and want to close the border.

Hand sanitzer can spread swine flu.

A new strain of H1N1 has emerged, specific to those who died from the influenza, called H1Z1 (or zombie swine flu). The new virus would be able to restart the heart and resurrect the victims as zombies.

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