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This month’s feature articles:

Regular monthly features:

"My name is Rob G. and I was one of Otto's early gifted students in the late '70s and early '80s (I'm 34 now with 3 kids of my own). I'm a great believer in the power and effectiveness of gifted programs, and having gone through Otto's programs (I also have his book) I can attest to their long-term effectiveness. In a nutshell, here is some of what Otto's gifted program did for me:

• taught me real research skills - when I was 10 I interviewed Mel Lastman, then the mayor - I just called him up
• helped me believe that the impossible was possible (in my 20s I Iearned to speak Japanese, lived there 4 years, and was the first Canadian-based startup ever to turn a profit in Japan in less than 3 years)

• I learned to abstract the world around me, then flip it back to make sense of it all. This might not make sense, but here's an example: What does math taste like? I think it tastes like pink jellybeans, which for me is a pleasant taste. I equate math with pink jellybeans, and so I like to chew math. I have a mechanical engineering degree from U of Waterloo. Pink jellybeans helped me get through some crazy exams.
• I learned to brainstorm. One of my treasures is a sheet of paper from the Tokyo Hyatt Hotel where I sat one night at 3am and mapped out all the things I needed to do to start the business. It helped me clear my head and get it all started. Everything on that list got done, and it worked out well. I learned how to do that when I was 10. The next time I saw the skill taught was at a $500 per person management seminar. The people attending should have learned it years before."
  
  All the best,
  Rob G.

The Canadian government will be introducing a same-sex marriages bill shortly after the start of Parliament in February. Serious concerns of many faiths who believe that same-sex marriages and heterosexual marriages are not morally equivalent will lead to much debate and discussion. The biggest debate will be over what the exemptions will be for the religious right.

These are some of the concerns and challenges:

• Religious buildings will be forced to rent their properties to ceremonies that are against their faith. The Knights of Columbus have already been charged with discrimination by a gay couple for refusing to rent their hall for a wedding reception.
• Charitable status of churches may be revoked if the ministers refuse to perform same-sex services. Calgary bishop Fred Henry was warned of this by a tax official during last June’s election when asked to remove critical pastoral letters from his website.
• Marriage commissioners and other public or civic ministers of faith who refuse or choose not to perform same-sex ceremonies on moral grounds will have to resign. Several provinces have already sent out warnings.
• In British Columbia gay and lesbian educators are trying to change all school curriculum to replace terms like "mother" and "father" with "parent" and "caregiver."
• Sex education classes in all schools will have to be modified to teach that homosexual activity and heterosexual activity are morally equivalent. Despite the moral stance, a court forced a Catholic high school in Oshawa to allow a gay student and his male partner to attend the school prom.
• Marriage preparation courses may be under scrutiny for discrimination.
• It is highly unlikely that decisions made over the past years regarding same-sex unions by lower courts will be changed. The precedent has already been set and these decisions will form the basis of the government bill.

Those who wish to get involved may do so in several ways.

February 9 – Christian Ash Wednesday start of Lent

February 9 – Chinese/Vietnamese New Year 4704

February 9 – Buddhist Lunar New Year

February 10 – Muharram - Islamic New Year

February 14 – St. Valentine’s Day

February 15 – National Flag Day

February 16 – Family Day (Alberta)

February 21 – International Mother Language Day

February 24 – Night of the Full Moon

February 25 – Holi Sikh New Years Day

This is also Heart Month and Black History Month

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It is sometimes easier to find a document if you know whether it was created in a word processing or spreadsheet program, etc. Most window lists just have the name of the document without extensions. Seeing the extensions can help in identifying files especially if they are close in name but created in a different program.

Open "Windows Explorer", click "Tools", click "Folder Options" and then click "View". About 12 lines down, remove the checkmark beside the words "hide extensions for known file types". The change can be reversed if you don’t like it but otherwise will remain once changed.

From now on, when you open a window of listed documents, it will read: recipes.doc or recipes.xls which will immediately identify its source. Just click on it to open it. No other operations are affected.

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• Americans use over 16,000 tons of aspirin a year.
• Regis Filbin is in the Guinness World Book of Records for having been in front of the TV camera the longest. Since 1958 he has logged over 15,000 hours. Hugh Downes is second.
• The most common cause of bankruptcy in the USA is inability to pay for high medical and health related costs. Savings, homes, and other accumulated wealth are easily wiped out by sometimes huge health bills that are not covered by insurance or state medical protection. Perhaps Canadians should be more concerned and protective of their universal social health care programs. A healthy society is a productive society.
• An Ontario government study showed that in gambling produced $4 billion in tax revenue. About 4.8% of gamblers are addicts and they paid out about 35% of all that money.
• Before Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat was the most popular cartoon figure.
• An average roof of 2000 square feet weighs about as much as a small Honda Civic. The tiny granules that coat the shingles are made of crushed gravel that are ground into tiny pieces, have colour added to them and are then baked to achieve a ceramic finish. They protect the shingles from ultra-violet rays.

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Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

In Search of Moby Dick by Tim Severin.

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.

The Infamous Exploding Whale by Dave Berry. Humourous story about a town that tries to get rid of a beached whale with explosives.

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (Reed Publishing)

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(from Adaptiv Learning Systems, a Pennsylvania consulting firm, that helps people in corporations stay resilient in difficult situations. It's a skill everybody, especially leaders, should have. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/45/bounceback.html)

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