Category Archives: Lifestyle (MC Archive)

Lifestyle-related columns that appeared on Jason Menard’s previous Web site, Menard Communications.

Happy Holidays the Perfect Way to Say Merry Christmas

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By Jason Menard

To some the phrase Happy Holidays has turned into an epithet insulting of those who celebrate the “true” meaning of Christmas. Yet, what they’re missing is that this sentiment, expressed in two words, ideally reflects what the Christian ideal actually is – a celebration of love, acceptance, and joy.

We live in a multi-cultural society. And we are increasingly exposed to a wide variety of faiths, belief systems, and religions. To respect their existence and appreciate their lives isn’t succumbing to political correctness, but rather embracing the best of our humanity.

The utterance of Happy Holidays does not diminish the meaning of the season. In fact, by showing respect, love, and appreciation for all the peoples in this world, one could argue that we are finally following those Christian edicts of loving thy neighbour and doing unto others as you would want done to you.

We need to get over the Christian-centric hand-wringing and lamenting about the commercialization of Christmas and the need to be all-inclusive. Despite what the song says, there is ample evidence to suggest that Christ wasn’t born on Christmas Day.

Early Christian leaders were smart and decided to roll a number of existing festivals into one. Roman Saturnalia, Celtic Yule, and pagan solstice celebrations were all smushed together to make Christmas accessible to all! For followers of a religion that adapted existing celebrations to make its own more palatable, there seems to be a bit of irony in how they’re lamenting the change and evolution of the current notion of Christmas.

Each of us celebrates the holidays in our own way, regardless of what faith we have. And not one religion or belief holds more capital than others. Nor can wide-sweeping generalizations be made. Some Church-going Christians are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Jolly St. Nick, while some of the harshest of Atheists lament the commercialization of the season.

Yet, the great thing about life is that no one can force you to believe in something you don’t want to. If you hate the commercialization of the Christmas season and it offends your Christian sensibilities, you are more than welcome to look away. Embrace and celebrate the season as it means to you. The last time I checked, Wal-Mart wasn’t opening up outlets in Churches, so you have refuge from the retail! Conversely, those who don’t ascribe to the Christian beliefs should also be free to enjoy this season free from guilt or preaching.

One can choose to focus on the negative of the season, or one can embrace all the good that the holiday season has to offer. It all depends on the point of view you choose to take. If you are going to only focus on the negative, then your enjoyment and appreciation of the situation will be diminished. And once you start noticing the bad, that’s all you’ll be able to see. Instead, wouldn’t it be nice if we could start noticing the good, regardless of our faith.

No matter what God you choose – or chose not – to pray to, what this holiday season does is bring out the best in people. Families and friends who have spent the year apart come together to celebrate each other. Acquaintances are renewed, gifts of appreciation are given, and the warmth of the soul heats up this rugged Canadian winter. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful gift to us all if we could look past our own individual prejudices and see that, overall, the world is filled with a little more love, a little more happiness, and a little more warmth at this time of year.

If one takes a look at the religions of the world, there are themes that are common to all belief systems. And the biggest may be the idea of love. Whether it’s loving your family or those around you, most people will agree that this world would be a better place if we embraced this concept of love.

So as my Catholic wife and my non-denominational self prepare to celebrate the holidays, we’ll appreciate and answer our son’s questions about the nativity and share in our daughter’s reading of a Hannukah story. The greatest gift we can give to them – and the world – is the gift of tolerance, love, and appreciation of everyone’s beliefs and uniqueness.

Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, or any other religion – peace, love, happiness, and acceptance are truly things that we can all celebrate at this time of year.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Putting the Care Back in Healthcare

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By Jason Menard

If Hippocrates was alive today, he’d be greatly ailed by the state of our health care system. Of course, good luck on him for actually finding a doctor that would treat him.

Healthcare in this country has rapidly deteriorated to the point where the concept of a house call is little more than a quaint memory – akin to a Normal Rockwell painting hanging on the wall. Care and compassion have been replaced by productivity, efficiency, and billable visits.

Healthcare is extinct and in its place has risen the concept of Health Management. And we have no one but ourselves as patients to blame for this devolution of care.

We have deified our medical professionals. We have come to accept their judgments as the final authority, to be accepted without question. Our great failing is that we no longer look at doctors as humans, with their own frailties, trials, and tribulations.

Due to one person’s wish to get to their destination just a little quicker, my wife and I have been deeply immersed in all aspects of the health management system. And we have seen the best and the worst. We have seen great displays of compassion, caring, and adherence to the basic ideals that Hippocrates set out when he crafted his oath.

Yet those qualities have not been displayed by those with the letters M.D. after their name. Rather, it has fallen to practitioners of so-called alternative medicine to fill in the gaps. They, the chiropractors and physiotherapists, are the ones who now display the bedside manner so often lacking in our coolly efficient doctors. They are the ones who understand that a caring ear attuned to our frustrations is just as therapeutic as any prescription that can be written. Yet many continue to write them off as quacks and opportunists, despite the fact that they’ve made a commitment to caring for their patients.

Recently I attended a seminar presented by an insurance broker who explained that, in order to maximize profitability, doctors and other medical professionals ascribe to a five-minute window of treatment. Three minutes of face time, followed by two minutes of paper work. Many of us have walked into a doctor’s office to be greeted by signs indicating that only one issue will be dealt with per appointment. Any other concerns must be addressed in another, billable, appointment. The situation has deteriorated to the point where new doctors in the region where I live have the audacity to make potential patients apply for their services.

These doctors should feel shame! They should apply for the right to treat us! When it comes to my health and life, I should have the right to choose amongst my doctors for the one who gives the best care – not just be forced to take whatever table scraps are left, and to be thankful for it.

Doctors have a difficult job, I understand that. Especially in this region of southwestern Ontario, they are overwhelmed by work, dealing with funding cut-backs, and stressed beyond imagination.

But could part of that stress come from a lack of enjoyment in their job? There is no longer the sense of familial relations that we once shared with our doctors. The personalized care, understanding, and knowledge have been replaced with the medical equivalent of working on a factory line. It has become repetitive, productivity-driven, and – most importantly – soulless. One would hope that the majority of people were called to the medical profession because of a desire to help people – not just line their pocketbooks. So can this new age of medicine truly be fulfilling?

Louis Lasagna, the academic dean of medicine at Tufts University in 1964, penned the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath. In it he said, “I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care for the sick.”

Yet, more often than not, patients are made to feel like they are nothing more than the sum of the numbers on their health care card. We are a necessary, but unwanted, imposition upon the lives of those to whom we turn for help.

We need to change the focus back from health management to health care. We need to work with our medical professionals to petition the government for more funding to ensure that we have a system of which we can be proud. The focus has to be on quality of care, not on quantity of care. Our doctors must feel able to spend more time with a needy patient, rather than watching the seconds tick by on their watches.

Most importantly, as patients we must demand to be treated as humans, not just numbers.

The modern Hippocratic Oath ends with the phrase, “may I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

To experience joy, one must have a soul. Our medical system needs to find it.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em

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By Jason Menard

It’s a fact of life. Chances are that the larger your family gets, the smaller your circle of friends will be – and differing views and tolerances on child-rearing is often the catalyst for change.

Some mothers do have ‘em. It’s not just the title of a British television comedy – it’s a simple fact of life. There’s a reason why couples with children tend to lose friends over a period of time – friends can last through thick or thin, but differences in how you raise your kids can be the straw that permanently breaks the camel’s back.

There’s no way to determine how people are going to react to becoming parents. There’s no indication that you can gather during your youth or the formative years of the friendship that can give you any sort of inkling as to what their parental style will be and, more importantly, how that will mesh or clash with your own views when you both have children.

The biggest problem is that everyone thinks their way is the right way. And this intransigence can drive a wedge between the longest-standing of friends.

In any relationship, when forced to choose between your kids and your friends, your offspring will win each and every time. It’s a foregone conclusion. The best intended criticisms and suggestions will never be met with understanding when it comes to raising our children. So it’s almost better not to say anything except for the resentment that carries. Eventually that simmering pot will boil over and what happens is that the list of excuses as to why you can’t drop by gets increases, while the level of enjoyment of this shared time decreases.

Everybody has different standards for discipline and child-rearing expectations, and when those don’t mesh with your own, it creates an environment that’s intolerable. My wife and I know are strict with our children. We have high expectations for them and their behaviour, especially outside of our own walls.

Kids will be kids, but there’s a time and a place – and there are limits. We’ve set clearly defined limits for our children and we expect them to follow them – if they don’t there are consequences. We don’t hit our children, nor do we believe in corporal punishment, but we also aren’t afraid to express our displeasure with them when appropriate. We will raise our voice at times to indicate the gravity of a situation.

We’re not perfect and neither are our kids – nobody is. But we’re confident in taking our children out of the house. We know we can go to a store, visit friends and family, or enjoy a dinner out with the confidence that our kids will be well-behaved and respectful. We don’t expect them to be robots or sit poker straight and not talk – and we don’t ask of them anything we don’t expect of ourselves.

But that view isn’t shared by all of our friends – and this is the issue we couldn’t have anticipated. Whether it’s constant screaming, refusals to eat food, or rudeness and aggression, things that aren’t accepted in our household are tolerated in others. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some people we know who condemn other people’s children for being unruly, undisciplined, and unwieldy are blind to the fact that their own little hellions are running around behaving the same way.

So what is one to do? Disciplining other people’s children – try it once and see how well that works! The only way to deal with it is for the parents/friends to be on the same page when it comes to child-rearing, and that’s a compatibility test we often don’t get to take until it’s too late.

Are we wrong? Are we too strict? Is it too much to expect that saying no to a kid 10 times may result in some action (or at least some appreciation from the other parent as to respecting the rules of our house)? Are we wrong in believe that while kids should be allowed to be kids, running around like free-ranged chickens with no restrictions is a little counter-productive towards their long-term development and appreciation of a life with rules and regulations?

As our families grow our circle of friends get smaller. We have friends lamenting the loss of their single friends without realizing that if their obnoxious offspring are taxing on those who already have children and understand the trials and tribulations, why would someone without the first-hand experience of child-rearing want to subject themselves to this torture? The visits become infrequent, the phone calls are fewer and farther between, and, eventually, they stop outright.

The same goes for those friends with children. Raising a family is tiring enough and subjecting yourself to a visit marred by unruly children and indifferent parents is not high on your list of things-to-do. So you withdraw little by little, distancing yourself from what you know is going to be a negative experience. Eventually, time and distance proves too much and you can cross one more person off your Christmas card list.

There are some lines that just can’t be crossed. While friends and family are the keys to life, they’re not always compatible. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing that until it’s too late.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Remembering the Light

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Remembering the Light

By Jason Menard

Dec. 5, 2005 — Too often in our lives we are touched by tragedy, either directly or indirectly. And while the events are remembered and the perpetrators vilified, the victims often are forgotten.

As we reflect on the violence at École Polytechnique de Montreal 16 years ago Tuesday, many will remember the name of the man who killed these bright young women for no other reason than their gender. But we must never forget the names of those who were lost, for that would be the greatest tragedy.

Today we remember:

  • Geneviève Bergeron (1968-1989)
  • Hélène Colgan (1966-1989)
  • Nathalie Croteau (1966-1989)
  • Barbara Daigneault (1967-1989)
  • Anne-Marie Edward (1968-1989)
  • Maud Haviernick (1960-1989)
  • Maryse Laganière (1964-1989)
  • Maryse Leclair (1966-1989)
  • Anne-Marie Lemay (1967-1989)
  • Sonia Pelletier (1961-1989)
  • Michèle Richard (1968-1989)
  • Annie St-Arneault (1966-1989)
  • Annie Turcotte (1969-1989)
  • Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958-1989)

But these 16 are not alone. Like Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey, their names become part of the back story, overshadowed by our infatuation with the macabre. Their killers’ names roll off our tongues, but the victims’ names are lost in the recess of our mind.

It’s time that we make an effort remember the victims. It’s time that we make the memory of their names more important than the existence of those who ended their lives. And perhaps by remembering what we’ve lost, we’ll work harder to prevent actions like this from ever happening again.

Maybe it’s just a human defense mechanism wherein, after a period of time, we have to push one tragedy into the recesses of our memories not only to make room for the next one that comes, but also to help us deal with the depths of these tragedies. When taken as a whole, the grief and sorrow that comes from empathizing with all the victims of society’s ills can be overwhelming.

But to help us find the positives in this world, we have to focus on the good. We have to remember the bright lights that have graced us with their presence – not the dark souls who have snuffed them out.

On this day, we need to remember the light that shone from these 16 women. We need to realize that they, and many other like them, are the fires that burn brightest in this world, illuminating the darkness and making this world a place to live – not just exist.

So as you hold your candle aloft, look deep into its flame and embrace its light and warmth. It’s the only defense against the darkness in this world.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Gorging Ourselves on Media Pop Tarts

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By Jason Menard

So, after months of speculative bombardment – headlines shouting from the covers of the magazine racks infiltrating us through osmosis as we wait to pay for groceries – Nick and Jessica have officially split.

But it’s not the glossy celebrity rags or trashy tabloids that are spouting off this news – it’s the respected sites: CBC, CANOE, CNN, and MSNBC that have chosen to feature this minor piece of fluff on their respective front pages. On a day when the gauntlet has been thrown down in order to disband our Canadian minority government and on a day when the U.S. is celebrating Thanksgiving, Nick and Jessica’s breakup is on the marquee.

In fact, why can I comfortably refer to them without their surnames and be reasonably confident that you, the reader, will know who they are? The reason is that we’ve let the banal and trivial become relevant!

All the news that’s fit to print – no matter if the substance is so light that it will blow away with the next gentle breeze. Which all goes to prove that, no matter how fluffy the meal may be – or no matter how full we are — if a meal is wrapped up in a pretty package we’ll gorge ourselves at the buffet of banality and head back for seconds!

Did you hear? Pamela Anderson is now pressuring the Loblaws grocery chain to label which eggs have come from caged chickens, in order to allow shoppers the freedom to choose whether they want to buy their eggs from free range, happy chickens, or continue to support the oppression and cruelty of evil doers who would force these helpless hens to pop them out in sub-standard conditions so that you can enjoy a nice omelette.

Really? Why? With all the people in the world who are eminently more qualified to speak to issues – or even clutter our airwaves – why are we so focused on these vixens of vapid (in Nick’s case he’d be a fox of vapid, but that doesn’t have the same cachet.)?

At least in Anderson’s case, I’d like to think that she’s using her powers for good. With Nick and Jessica, this he-said-she-said, on-again-off-again questioning, reeks of nothing more than a way to keep their names in the headlines for yet another week. Perhaps now we can state ourselves through the holiday season by being regaled with the inevitable reconciliation rumours and next round of spats.

And we buy it, hook, line, and sinker. In both Simpson and Anderson’s cases they’ve translated a paltry amount of talent and an ample bust into relevancy. But they’re not the first and they certainly won’t be the last, because when it comes to cornering the market on being newsworthy for nothing, women corner the market. In fact, although Nick Lachey is often tabloid fodder, it’s more as an appendage to the media machine that is Jessica Simpson (see, they do have last names!). On his own, he can now count down the remaining few ticks of his 15 minutes and start looking back at what was.

Yes, women mount the publicity pedestal and we can’t stop watching. The sex-kitten Madonna begat Whitney Houston and her drug whispers. Houston begat Mariah Carey and her breakdown. Carey begat Jennifer Lopez and her serial marriages. Lopez begat Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson who moved from chaste, virginal paragons of society to publicity-grabbing, borderline-jailbait, sex objects. This unholy trinity begat the over-exposed — in every sense of the word — Paris Hilton. And this is hardly a comprehensive list: the names Lohan, Doherty, Kournikova, Reid, Jolie, and Aniston have all hog-tied the headlines for nothing more than being themselves.

Guys are few and far between – although what we miss in quantity we certainly make up for in quality (a relative term): Michael Jackson anyone? Paging Mr. Simpson and Mr. Blake – the real killers are waiting.

No, our hunger for banality is only sated with a side order of salaciousness. Our Q&A needs to have a little T&A to have any, uhm, legs. And it’s only going to get worse. The Wired World has opened up new avenues for investigation and insinuation. The advent of 24-hour news means that each and every topic has ample time to be analyzed – and over analyzed – to death.

And with each of these stories, the accompanying images are always as lascivious as standards will allow. With almost every Simpson story, we are greeted with yet another image of her in a bikini taken from her acting debut. Yes, while only a handful of people subjected themselves to the horror of The Dukes of Hazzard, millions more have been exposed – almost fully – to Jessica’s acting assets. These starlets are always shown in various states of undress – as if they’ve never stepped out of their homes in a T-shirt or, perish the thought, a pantsuit.

While the eye candy may be sweet, ultimately it’s unfulfilling. And in the end, when all is said and done we’re left with disposable, fast-food trivia. What do we remember in life: wolfing down drive-through out of a paper bag or the well-prepared meals of substance that take us more time to enjoy?

Both we and our newsmakers decide what we want out of life. Do we want something of substance that takes time to chew over and digest, but allows us to fully enjoy a variety of flavours and textures?

Or do we simply want a Pop Tart?

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved