Canadians have no time for healthy living

CBC.News
Many Canadians believe they don’t have enough time to exercise or eat healthy meals, the Heart and Stroke Foundation says.

the Heart and Stroke Foundation an online survey released Tuesday that suggests most Canadians know heart disease and stroke can be fought by making healthy choices. Yet almost half of the survey respondents said they don’t have enough time to be active or eat healthier meals.

Arul Myles Mylvaganam of Richmond Hill, Ont., was one of the Canadians who felt too busy to cook. The real estate agent used to eat most of his meals in his vehicle, starting with five cups of coffee a day with cream and sugar.

Then five years ago, he felt severe pain in his chest and knew he had to get to a hospital.

“I told her if you don’t bring me now, you won’t see me again,” Mylvagadam recalled with his voice breaking. “If not for my wife, I don’t think I’d be alive today.

Heart patient Arul Myles Mylvaganam started eating better after feeling severe chest pain.

The survey pointed to a disconnect between what Canadians know they need to do to protect themselves from heart disease and stroke and what they’re actually doing, said Dr. Beth Abramson, a cardiologist and a spokesperson with the foundation.

Nearly half of respondents in the online survey of 2,160 Canadian adults conducted in October used time as an excuse for being unhealthy:
44% of respondents said they had no time for regular physical activity.
41% said healthy meals take too long to prepare.
More than half (51%) said fast food outlets don’t have enough healthy choices.
And almost a third (31%) said the time they would like to spend being active they instead spend commuting.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation says that finding time is critical for Canadians because heart disease and stroke kills one in three Canadians and is the leading killer of women.

 

Wisdom Of The Day

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Inspirational Quotes

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.”

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

Dalai Lama Quotes

 

Abused and kept like slaves, say B.C. domestic workers

Lynn Jose was treated ‘like an animal,’ she says, while caring for an elderly man with Parkinson’s.
(CBC)News

Two immigrant women employed as live-in domestic help in separate homes in B.C.’s Lower Mainland say they were treated like slaves by their employers and held as virtual captives in their jobs.

One of the women, who worked as a nanny and housekeeper, said she still feared her employers and spoke to CBC News on the condition that her identity was concealed.

The other woman, Lynn Jose, was a caregiver for an elderly man with Parkinson’s disease.

Both workers ended up at the same Vancouver-area women’s transition house, recovering from their ordeals and looking for new work.

Jose, in her early 30s, said she worked, “from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the morning. So, worked 12 hours, but you only got paid eight hours. I haven’t been paid yet for that time.”

The nanny, also in her early 30s, told a similar story.

‘She went towards me, scratching me on my shoulders, then she punched me.’
—Lynn Jose”I was working like a slave, because from 6:30 [a.m.] until 9:30 in the evening, you cannot sit, you cannot rest,” said the woman, who declined to reveal even her first name.

“After the children left [for school], I had to run upstairs, cleaning the bathroom, the kitchen and all the rooms downstairs and upstairs,” she said.

She said her only escape from child care and cleaning 16 hours a day was getting fired. Her boss let her go rather than give her time off for an operation on her foot, she said.

Surveillance cameras and alarms
Each of the women said they were constantly monitored by surveillance cameras inside the homes and were not allowed to adjust the electronic security systems, which meant that if they left the house, they would trip the burglar alarms.

“You weren’t allowed to leave the house?” the second woman was asked. “No,” she said. “Even the code number at the alarm — they were not trusting me any way.”

Lynn Jose was treated ‘like an animal,’ she says, while caring for an elderly man with Parkinson’s. (CBC)Jose cared for a bedridden man, and said his wife attacked her more than once.

“She punched me here,” Jose said, pointing to her shoulder. “And [she] grabbed me on my arm and she pressed harder and left two black and blue [marks] on my arm.”

Jose said the second attack occurred when she asked to go to the mall on her day off.

“She went towards me, scratching me on my shoulders, then she punched me here,” she said, again pointing to her right shoulder.

Sister called police
Jose texted her sister overseas, who called police in the Lower Mainland.

“[The police] asked me if I want to do further investigation. I said, ‘No, I just want to leave. I am afraid,’” said Jose.

“And the police said, ‘Do you know anybody here? Do you have a community or a church?’ I said no. I told them I don’t know anybody here.”

Jose had been employed at the home for only a few weeks before quitting. Now unemployed, she is desperate to find a better job with a new family.

Both of the domestic workers said they were threatened with deportation and violence.

The nanny said the elderly man she was caring for held her by the arms and told her she was dumb.

“I said, ‘This is not good. You’re treating me like an animal.’”

The nanny said the man’s wife told him, “You know, honey, we treat them as an idiot, not a human.”

Police told Jose the courts would be unlikely to convict her employers because the injuries to her arms were consistent with those suffered by people who were constantly lifting and moving a patient.

The nanny said she was not interested in pursuing any abuse-related charges. Like Jose, all she wanted was to be paid the hours of overtime she is owed.

 

Mayor ‘disturbed’ after video shows bus driver yelling and swearing at passenger

OC Transpo is investigating and Mayor Jim Watson is “disturbed” after a video was posted on YouTube last week in which a driver appears to repeatedly swear and yell at a passenger who is described as mentally handicapped.

The video, which was added to the site Nov. 3, shows a male passenger in a sweatshirt and shorts at the front of what appears to be an OC Transpo bus. A man can be heard yelling throughout the 52-second clip, which ends with the passenger getting off at the Eagleson park and ride.

The description attached to the video, which had been viewed more than 7,200 times by Monday morning, describes the passenger as a “mentally ill 20 something male” who had been talking to the driver before the video was shot. The passenger can then be heard apologizing as another person is yelling at him.

“If you don’t shut your f—ing face I’m going to stick my fist in it,” the voice says. He repeatedly tells the passenger to “shut up.”

OC Transpo officials say they have seen the video and are looking into it.

“Customer relations is always a priority for us and we take this situation very seriously,” said Alain Mercier, OC Transpo general manager of transit services, in an emailed statement. “OC Transpo is investigating and appropriate action will be taken based on the findings.”

Mayor Jim Watson will be happy to hear that.

“Like anyone I am very disturbed by what I have seen and heard and want to see a thorough investigation conducted,” he wrote on his Twitter account Sunday afternoon.

The name of the person who took the video is not attached to the site. Messages sent through the site to the person who posted it were not returned.

The description said the bus, which is described as the 96 bound for Kanata from downtown, only had the three people (including the videographer) on it at the time. It also said the passenger tried to explain that he had a mental illness before the video was shot.

The video ends with the passenger who was trying to apologize getting off the bus after the person who was yelling tells him to do so.

Garry Queale, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union local 279, which represents the drivers, said that because the driver can’t actually be seen in the video, the investigation first needs to confirm that it was, in fact, the driver speaking.

“If it was the driver speaking, we don’t condone that action,” Queale said. He added, however, that a diagnosis of mental illness in the passenger shouldn’t be made casually, and that fact will need substantiation as well. He also said the investigation is needed to bring out any other relevant facts.

“There’ll be an investigation through OC Transpo, and the operator will have union representation and we’ll find out exactly what sparked it and what happened, if it did in fact happen,” said Queale. He also said the bus driver could need help. “Does he have problems? We have all kinds of programs to help our operators out.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

 

Martin Luther King Quotes

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

“Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

“We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”

- Martin Luther King