Other

Canadian employment declined by 6,400 jobs in June following a surge of close to 60,000 jobs in May. The national unemployment was unchanged at 6.8 per cent and total hours worked, which is strongly correlated with economic growth, increased 2.1 per cent compared to June 2014.  Employment grew by a total of 33,000 jobs in the second quarter, as a robust 143,000 full-time jobs was partially offset by a decline in part-time work. Overall, today’s employment report is neither strong enough to put off talk of further monetary stimulus by the Bank of Canada nor weak enough to push the odds of a rate cut beyond that of a coin flip. 

In BC, employment posted a second consecutive strong month, growing by 15,400 jobs in June. Full-time employment accounted for all of the gains, rising by 36,300 while part-time employment declined. The provincial unemployment ticked 0.3 points lower to 5.8 per cent.

Mike Howell
Van. Courier

Attended a news conference Monday where Providence Health Care officials unveiled plans to build a new “state-of-the-art” hospital on the False Creek Flats.

No surprise, there were many doctors there.

Also saw philanthropist Robert Lee and Police Chief Jim Chu in the crowd.

But I didn’t see any city politicians in the room.

Hmmm … you would think maybe Mayor Gregor Robertson might be on hand for an announcement about a $1 billion project that affects one of the last big pieces of vacant land in the city.

Maybe his absence had something to do with the fact the city had assumed St. Paul’s Hospital on Burrard Street was staying put.

After all, Premier Christy Clark did commit in June 2012 to redeveloping the century-old hospital. I tracked down the news release from the premier’s announcement.

And I quote: “St. Paul’s Hospital delivers world-class care to families in Vancouver and from across British Columbia. Finalizing the concept plan is a critical milestone that will lay a strong foundation for a redeveloped hospital that ensures patients and families continue to receive that world-class health care for years to come.”

If you’re counting, yes, she did say “world-class” twice.

So with the premier on record in 2012 and the city going ahead with planning the future of the West End (which incorporated St. Paul’s) and the False Creek Flats (which is heavy on providing job space) then Robertson’s absence is understandable.

The mayor told reporters Tuesday that Health Minister Terry Lake informed him last week about the new project. While Robertson hopes to see a net increase in services for mental health and addictions at a new facility, he is worried that West End seniors, HIV/AIDS patients and others who rely on St. Paul’s won’t receive the primary and emergency care they need.

“It remains a concern to find out their final decisions late in the game,” he said of the announcement by Providence, which is working with the province on the proposal. “We were deep in a planning process. There were certainly rumours about the province moving St. Paul’s facilities to False Creek Flats but nothing substantiated for years.”

Added Robertson: “There needs to be more cooperation. When we’re planning for the long term, it’s good to have more notice with the major moves from our government partners.”

At Monday’s news conference, the project’s lead manager Neil MacConnell said Providence still has to have “significant conversations with the city” about the new hospital.

MacConnell and Lake also promised consultation with West End residents, who will be without an emergency department, MacConnell announced Monday.

As for Clark’s commitment in 2012 to redevelop the hospital, Providence’s president and CEO Dianne Doyle explained Monday that an analysis concluded redevelopment wouldn’t be good value for money spent.

Now it’s up to the St. Paul’s Foundation to raise at least $500 million towards the $500 million already promised by the province for the project.

Then, if the new hospital opens by 2022 as planned, the public and the mayor of the day — likely not Robertson, but who knows — will be able to say whether it’s worth the money.

Meanwhile, the old St. Paul’s remains open.

©Vancouver Courier

Other

Jack Welch (Former chairman and CEO, General Electric)

“Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one’s sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence.” — Jack: Straight from the Gut, 2001. 

 

Henry Ford (Founder, The Ford Motor Company)

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” — Quoted in News Journal, 1965. 

 

Virginia Rometty (Chairman and CEO, IBM)

“Your value will be not what you know; it will be what you share.” — Council on Foreign Relations event, 2013. 

 

Walt Disney (Co-founder, The Walt Disney Company)

“A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there.” —  Quoted in Walt Disney, Magician of the Movies, 1966. 

 

Arianna Huffington (Co-founder and editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post)

“We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.” — Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, 2014. 

 

Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks)

“Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” — Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul, 2007.

 

Steve Jobs (Co-founder, Apple)

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” — Stanford Commencement address, 2005

 

Sheryl Sandberg (CEO, Facebook)

“Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy.” — Lean In, 2013. 

 

Richard Branson (Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group)

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” — The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership, 2014.

 

Warren Buffett (CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.“ — Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett by Andrew Kilpatrick, 2007

 

Segev Homenick
Other

Many couples choose not to marry and instead become a common law couple.  They may believe that by not getting married, their property, finances, and belongings will be kept separate and apart in case the relationship breaks down.  What many British Columbians do not realize is that your property rights in a common law relationship are the same as a legally married couple.  Therefore, if the relationship breaks down, the common law couple will be treated as if they were married.  So what does this mean anyway?  A couple is considered to be in a legal common law relationship after living together for two years.  At that point, each partner has a valid legal interest in one another’s property, regardless of how much each partner has been contributing to the property.  It does not matter whose name the property is registered in.

In most cases, real estate is a couples’ greatest asset.  Therefore, when buying a home, it is important to protect yourself and your property from the get go.  One effective way of doing this is to enter into a cohabitation agreement with your partner.  There are four situations in particular where a cohabitation would be a good idea:

1)      You have been living in your home, and your partner is planning to move in; 

2)      You and your partner are planning to purchase a home together and would like to ensure that if the relationship breaks down, you have a plan of action for the future;

3)      You and your partner are already living together and have decided that you would like to enter into an agreement;

4)      You and your partner are legally married and wish to opt out of the Family Law Act and create an agreement of your own.

A cohabitation agreement is a written agreement between the parties where couples, common law or married, can outline their own intentions and decisions as to how they would like things to unfold in case they break up.  For example, couples can create terms outlining how they will share in the equity of the home, whether or not the home will be sold, who, if anyone, will remain living in the home etc.  Dealing with these kinds of details before hand can significantly reduce the headache and hassle which usually accompanies separation.  In addition, cohabitation agreements can set out terms during the relationship.  For example, couples can agree on items such as who will pay for what, responsibilities to the family home, responsibilities to children and even pets, etc.  Couples wanting some great degree of certainty and structure in their relationship may often use the cohabitation agreement as a tool for setting out such terms.

If you or your partner are planning to or have already started living together, you should consider signing a cohabitation agreement.  For more details, please feel free to contact Nida Skrijelj of Segev Homenick LLP at [email protected] or at 604-629-5400.  For more information about Segev Homenick LLP, please visit us at www.Segev.ca .

Mike Bird
Other

Sorry, America. China just overtook the US to become the world’s largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Chris Giles at the Financial Times flagged up the change. He also alerted us in April that it was all about to happen. 

Basically, the method used by the IMF adjusts for purchasing power parity, explained here.

The simple logic is that prices aren’t the same in each country: A shirt will cost you less in Shanghai than in San Francisco, so it’s not entirely reasonable to compare countries without taking this into account. Though a typical person in China earns a lot less than the typical person in the US, simply converting a Chinese salary into dollars underestimates how much purchasing power that individual, and therefore that country, might have. The Economist’s Big Mac Index is a great example of these disparities.

So the IMF measures both GDP in market-exchange terms and in terms of purchasing power. On the purchasing-power basis, China is overtaking the US right about now and becoming the world’s biggest economy.

We’ve just gone past that crossover on the chart below, according to the IMF. By the end of 2014, China will make up 16.48% of the world’s purchasing-power adjusted GDP (or $17.632 trillion), and the US will make up just 16.28% (or $17.416 trillion):

Other

The US economy added 248,000 jobs in September while previous months job growth was revised higher by 69,000 jobs. Over the past 3 month, US payroll growth has averaged 223,000 jobs. The US unemployment rate fell to 5.9 per cent, the lowest reading in six years.

While inflation remains muted and considerable slack remains in other measures of employment, today’s overwhelmingly positive jobs report should add further fuel to the case for the US Federal Reserve to move interest rates higher in 2015. Moreover, if job growth continues at the current pace, long-term interest rates in both the US and Canada may begin to rise in anticipation of tighter monetary policy.

 

What factors determine which of us will make it past age 90? Lesley Stahl reports on a groundbreaking study that has revealed some unexpected findings

Lesley Stahl
other

It’s always been a dream of mankind to live forever. Since the start of the 20th century, we have increased life expectancy in this country by a remarkable 30 years — from just 49 in 1900, to almost 79 today. And more and more of us are making it into that group we all hope — and kinda dread — joining, the over 90 crowd, affectionately dubbed “the oldest old.”

As we first reported this spring, men and women above the age of 90 are now the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. Yet very little is known about the oldest old, since until recently, there were so few of them. So what determines which of us will make it past age 90? What kind of shape we’ll be in if we do? And what can we do now to up our odds? Finding out is the goal of a groundbreaking research study known as “90+.”

Jane Whistler: I was born on April 21st, 1914.

Ted Rosenbaum: My birthday is February 7th, 1918.

Lou Tirado: I was born on August 25th, 1920, and I’m 93+.

Ruthy Stahl: June 15, 1918, and it was– I’m sure, a lovely day.

Lesley Stahl: Do you feel 95? What do you– what age do you feel?

Ruthy Stahl: I feel about 52. (laugh) Not really.

Ruthy Stahl

CBS News

What they have in common — other than having lived a combined total of almost 400 years — is that decades ago, they all lived in a retirement community called Leisure World 45 miles south of Los Angeles.

[Announcer: Hi there, and Welcome to Leisure World. A new way of life, designed for alert and active people 52 years and older who want to get the most out of life.]

Today it’s still a retirement community, and they’re still getting the most out of life, though it’s no longer called Leisure World. It’s now its own city: Laguna Woods.

Claudia Kawas: They didn’t like the words “Leisure World.” They consider themselves active.

Lesley Stahl: Active World.

Claudia Kawas: Active World.

Dr. Claudia Kawas spends a lot of time in Laguna Woods these days. She’s a neurologist and professor at nearby UC Irvine who discovered the research equivalent of gold here — information gathered from thousands of Leisure World residents back in 1981, with page after page of data about their diet, exercise, vitamins, and activities.

Claudia Kawas: 14,000 people answered–

Lesley Stahl: 14,000–

Claudia Kawas: –this questionnaire in 1981. Many of them, if they were still alive, would now be over the age of 90.

She saw a rare opportunity to study what worked, and what didn’t.

Lesley Stahl: So you– did you try to find them?

Claudia Kawas: We went after all 14,000. And if they were still alive, we wanted to find where they were.

With $6 million of funding from the National Institutes of Health, Kawas and her team set out to find out who had died, when they died, and to convince those who were still living and over 90 to sign up.

Claudia Kawas: And you’re how old now?

Jane Whistler: I’ll be 100 in three months.

Claudia Kawas: We’re gonna have to have a party.

Jane Whistler: Good! I love a party.

Jane Whistler is one of the more than 1,600 men and women they found and enrolled as subjects in the 90+ study. They are checked from top to bottom every six months — their facial muscles, reflexes, balance, how they walk, how fast they can stand up and sit down and most importantly, how their minds are working.

Tester: I’m gonna say and show you three words for you to remember. Shirt. Brown. Honesty.

Jane Whistler: Shirt. Brown. Honesty.

Tester: Perfect.

Tester: Now please spell “world.”

They are given an hour-long battery of cognitive and memory tests.

Tester: Good. Now spell “world” backwards.

Jane Whistler: D-L-R-O-W.

Asked to connect letters and numbers and to remember.

Tester: All right. What three words did I ask you to remember earlier?

Jane Whistler: Brown. Shirt.

Tester: You want a little hint?

Jane Whistler: Yeah.

Tester: OK. Was that word honesty, charity–

Jane Whistler: Honesty.

Tester: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: When it’s time for your exams in the 90+ study, do you look forward to it or–

Jane Whistler: Sure.

Lesley Stahl: Do you ever say, “Oh, they’re gonna find something,” or, “I’m not gonna be able to do as well as I did last time?”

Jane Whistler: Oh yeah, I think that. Sure.

Lesley Stahl: You do.

Jane Whistler: But that doesn’t stop me. I think it’s– I think it’s fun.

Lou Tirado: Shirt, brown, honesty.

Lou Tirado

CBS News

We were struck by what great shape many of the study participants are in like Lou Tirado, a World War II B-17 gunner who was shot down near Berlin and spent eight months as a German POW, and Sid Shero, another World War II veteran, who came to talk to us despite having suffered a stroke just a few weeks earlier that slurred his speech.

Sid Shero: I am 92 years old and going strong.

Sid drives his car to his test sessions.

Lesley Stahl: You drive a convertible?

Sid Shero: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: You want the girls to look at you.

Sid Shero: They call it a chick car.

Sid, a widower, works out at the fitness center, keeps up with the news — and the ladies…

Lesley Stahl: So you’re a bachelor.

Sid Shero: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: Do you date?

Sid Shero: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: Do you have a rich social life?

Sid Shero: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: Is it fun?

Sid Shero: Yes. Very much so. And I hope to last a long time.

But of course not everyone is so lucky. When participants like Louise Bigelow, age 97, are too frail to come in for testing, the testers go to them.

Tester: Now, an orange and a banana are alike, because they’re both–

Louise Bigelow: Yellow.

Louise remembers events from long ago, like when her bridal veil caught fire a few minutes after this photo was taken.

Louise Bigelow: It went right into the flames of the candles. So I always had a lot of excitement all the time. And that was the beginning.

Lesley Stahl: You’re not gonna forget that ever.

Louise Bigelow: No.

But when it comes to recent memories, and thinking skills, she struggles more and more.

Tester: And in what way are laughing and crying alike?

Louise Bigelow: Ugh. I don’t know.

Ruthy Stahl: Brown, honesty, and uh shirt.

The testers go to 95-year-old Ruthy Stahl’s home too. They go not because she can’t come to them. She just doesn’t have time.

Ruthy Stahl: I’m in my car more than I’m in the house, I think. Because I do so many things.

Lesley Stahl: What do you do?

Ruthy Stahl: I am flying all over the place.

Flying, as in speed walking three miles almost every day.

Ruthy Stahl: On Sunday, it’s only two miles.

Lesley Stahl: Are you on the computer?

Ruthy Stahl: Yes, I am. But I’m having trouble with my computer.

Jane Whistler: I had a computer for 10 years and enjoyed it, but it died.

Jane outlived her computer. At almost 100, she’s done a lot of outliving.

Jane Whistler: We were all bridge players down here. We’d play bridge and have dinner and we had a lot of fun.

Lesley Stahl: Have some of them died?

Jane Whistler: They’ve all died.

Lesley Stahl: They’ve all died.

Jane Whistler: Every one.

Lesley Stahl: Oh my goodness.

Jane Whistler: I’m the only one left.

So what was it that got these people into their 90s…

[Claudia Kawas: So you’ve never had a stroke.

Jane Whistler: No.]

…while their spouses, friends, and colleagues…

[Claudia Kawas: Never had hardly anything…]

…dropped out along the way?

Claudia Kawas: What’s your secret?

Jane Whistler: I wish I knew.

Genes clearly contribute to longevity, says Kawas, but they aren’t everything. Jane Whistler’s parents both died when she was young.

Claudia Kawas: Well whatever your secrets are, by being in the study, we’re gonna try to find ’em out.

Lesley Stahl: So you can go back and look at their medical history?

Claudia Kawas: Everybody in the study filled out that questionnaire in the early 1980s.

And comparing that data to how it’s all turned out has yielded a slew of published findings about behaviors associated with living longer. So what’s the verdict? No surprise: smokers died earlier than non-smokers. And what about exercise?

Claudia Kawas: People who exercised definitely lived longer than people who didn’t exercise. As little as 15 minutes a day on average made a difference. Forty-five was the best. Even three hours didn’t beat 45 minutes–

Lesley Stahl: Oh wow.

Claudia Kawas: –a day.

Lesley Stahl: That’s interesting.

Claudia Kawas: And it didn’t all have to be at once. It could be, for example, 15 minutes of walking and then later in the day gardening or something. And it also didn’t have to be very intense exercise.

“People who exercised definitely lived longer than people who didn’t exercise. As little as 15 minutes a day on average made a difference. Forty-five was the best. Even three hours didn’t beat 45 minutes a day.”

And non-physical activities — book clubs, socializing with friends, board games — all good.

Claudia Kawas: For every hour you spent doing activities in 1981, you increased your longevity and the benefit of those things never leveled off.

The subjects we spoke to had definitely been active, but they didn’t strike us as having lived their lives worrying about their health.

Jane Whistler: I’m not a big vitamin person.

Lesley Stahl: Have you watched, over the years, what you ate?

Lou Tirado: Eh, not– not really.

Lesley Stahl: Dessert?

Jane Whistler: Sure. I love dessert.

Ruthy Stahl: I always had a glass of wine before dinner. And now I still do, but I can’t quite finish it.

Lesley Stahl: Clean living, huh?

Sid Shero: No.

Lesley Stahl: No? Not clean living.

Sid Shero: I don’t know what clean living is.

Lesley Stahl: What about alcohol?

Jane Whistler: Sure, I love wine.

Lesley Stahl: Do you take vitamins?

Sid Shero: Yes. A lot of ’em.

So which vitamins helped? Antioxidants?

Lesley Stahl: OK, Vitamin E. We’re sitting at the edge of our chairs. Does it– did it make a difference? Vitamin–

Claudia Kawas: It was–

Lesley Stahl: –E?

Claudia Kawas: –my favorite, but uh-uh.

Lesley Stahl: No?

Claudia Kawas: People who took Vitamin E didn’t live any longer than people who didn’t take Vitamin E.

They also looked at Vitamin A, C, and calcium…

Claudia Kawas: The short answer is none of ’em made a difference.

Lesley Stahl: None of them made a difference to living–

Claudia Kawas: In terms of–

Lesley Stahl: –a long life?

Claudia Kawas: –how long you live.

Lesley Stahl: What about alcohol?

Claudia Kawas: Oh. Alcohol made a difference.

But it may not be what you think…

Claudia Kawas: Moderate alcohol was associated with living longer than individuals who did not consume alcohol.

Lesley Stahl: Wait a minute. Ha– moderate– alcohol you live longer?

Claudia Kawas: Yes.

Up to two drinks a day led to a 10-15 percent reduced risk of death compared to non-drinkers.

Jane Whistler: Isn’t that exciting?

And any kind of alcohol seemed to do the trick.

Claudia Kawas: A lot of people like to say it’s only red wine. In our hands it didn’t seem to matter.

Lesley Stahl: Martinis just as good.

Claudia Kawas: Yeah.

And there’s good news for coffee drinkers. Caffeine intake equivalent to 1-3 cups of coffee a day was better than more, or none. And if you’re concerned about those bulging waistlines, listen to this.

Claudia Kawas: It turns out that the best thing to do as you age is to at least maintain or even gain weight.

Lesley Stahl: Gain weight?

Claudia Kawas: Uh-huh.

Lesley Stahl: So being–

Claudia Kawas: Really.

Lesley Stahl: –a little overweight is good?

Claudia Kawas: Being obese is never good.

Lesley Stahl: Right.

And being overweight as a young person wasn’t good either. But late in life, they found people who were overweight or average weight both outlived people who were underweight.

Claudia Kawas: It’s not good to be skinny when you’re old.

But living a long time, even if we don’t have to watch our waistlines, isn’t the only thing most of us care about. We want to be all there to enjoy it. And it’s in the areas of Alzheimer’s and dementia that the 90+ study is generating some of its most provocative and surprising findings. We’ll tell about that, and one more thing, romance after 90…

Lesley Stahl: How’s your sex life? You brought it up!

Helen Weil and Henry Tornell: [Laughter]

When we come back.

Part Two

We are a nation getting older. By the middle of the century, the number of Americans age 90 and above is projected to quadruple. While that’s good news for those of us who want to stick around, it also means more time to literally start to lose our minds. Dementia, including that most dreaded form, Alzheimer’s disease, is a looming threat, and a primary focus of the 90+ study. Participants are asked to donate their brains to the study after they die, so researchers can compare what they saw in life to the secrets buried deep within. And the picture isn’t always matching up, bringing new discoveries and new questions about what may actually be causing dementia in the “oldest old” and what we may be able to do about it.

Lesley Stahl: You know, I think that it was common belief that if you got to 90 and you didn’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s, that you weren’t gonna get it.

Claudia Kawas: Unfortunately. No. I really, really expected to find that. But in our study that’s not to happen.

Lesley Stahl: It’s not true.

It turns out the risk of developing dementia doubles every 5 years starting at the age of 65, and it keeps right on doubling. And given the growth in numbers of the oldest old by mid-century…

Claudia Kawas: We are going to have more people with dementia over the age of 90 than we currently have at all ages put together.

Lesley Stahl: And we’re not even thinking about it.

Claudia Kawas: We should be.

As charming and engaging as all the 90+’ers we met were, one who we were particularly moved by was 96-year-old Ted Rosenbaum, a former American history teacher who’s been married for 63 years.

Ted Rosenbaum: I was very lucky. So now at this stage of the game, if it’s petering out, just reminiscing about our past is a source of incalculable joy.

Tester: An orange and a banana are alike because they’re both?

Ted Rosenbaum: Fruits.

Ted did well on parts of the 90+ exam, like repeating long strings of numbers, backwards.

Tester: Six, one, eight, four, three.

Ted Rosenbaum: Three, four, eight, one, six.

But when it came time to remember the three words she’d told him just 40 seconds earlier…

Ted Rosenbaum: Three words…[pause] Give me a hint.

…he was lost. and that wasn’t his only problem.

Tester: What is today’s date?

Ted Rosenbaum: Today’s date?

Tester: Uh-huh.

Ted Rosenbaum: Today’s date?

Lesley Stahl: Does he have dementia at this point?

Claudia Kawas: Yes. Ted has–

Lesley Stahl: He does.

Claudia Kawas: –dementia. You know, unfortunately there’s no blood test. There’s no X-ray. It’s an examiner finding out that an individual has problems in two or more of the main things that brain does for them. So that’s where he is.

And what’s perhaps the most devastating is, he knows it.

Ted Rosenbaum: My worst condition is my memory.

Lesley Stahl: When you can’t remember something, what goes on inside you?

Ted Rosenbaum: Terrible frustration and terrible– you know, it’s having more and more of a negative impact on me, psychologically.

Determining what’s behind his memory loss isn’t easy, since diseases like Alzheimer’s can only be definitively diagnosed in the brain after death. So it’s after the 90+’ers die that a new round of sleuthing begins.

When subjects in the study donate their brains, they come here to neuropathologist Dr. Ronald Kim. He showed us one of the things he always looks for — the plaques and tangles in the brain that are the tell-tale signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Ronald Kim: It forms all of these plaques.

Lesley Stahl: All these brown spots are–

Ronald Kim: Yes–

Lesley Stahl: –plaques?

Ronald Kim: Are plaques, that’s correct. And in an individual like this I would expect the patient to be demented.

Tester: Do you read newspapers every day?

Loring Bigelow: Yes, I read ’em in the evening.

Loring Bigelow spent five years in the study. He passed away last summer, and while Dr. Kim studies his brain, the rest of the 90+ team independently reviews years of his test results and videos to assess whether he had developed dementia, and if so, from what? While early on, his scores were strong…

Tester: Who is our president?

Loring Bigelow: Obama.

Over the years, there was a gradual but unmistakable decline. He’d pick up a newspaper he’d just finished, use the TV remote to try and make a phone call.

Tester: Do you know who is the president?

Loring Bigelow: I want to say Herbert Hoover. I can’t think of it.

[Barbara: Could not remember his age, anxious.]

The consensus here was likely Alzheimer’s – which presumes a brain with plaques and tangles.

Claudia Kawas: Are we ready to hear the truth?

Only then do they open up Dr. Kim’s report.

Maria: Plaques, zero. So, no plaques.

Female voices: Oh, OK. Ah.

Claudia Kawas: Wow!

Maria: No plaques. No cortical tangles anywhere.

Claudia Kawas: Pretty amazing.

What’s amazing is they’re finding that 40 percent of the time in people over 90 — what doctors would think is Alzheimer’s – isn’t. In Loring Bigelow’s brain, Dr. Kim found something else — something the 90+ study is finding quite a bit — evidence of tiny, microscopic strokes called microinfarcts. His brain was full of them.

Ronald Kim: Here is a microinfarct. It’s the hole–

Lesley Stahl: Oh, right here.

Ronald Kim: –which is basically a tiny stroke.

Claudia Kawas: So you’ve got all this tissue is missing.

Ronald Kim: If you find one, it suggests that you should probably look for others. And some patients may have hundreds or thousands of them.

These microscopic strokes are insidious because people don’t even know they’re having them.

Ronald Kim: They can be totally silent. And slowly but surely over time, you’re picking off– you’re disconnecting your cortex from the rest of the brain and then you start to become demented. It can look just like Alzheimer disease clinically.

Lesley Stahl: Do you know anything we can do to prevent a– these mini strokes?

Claudia Kawas: I wish I did. But I will soon, I hope.

Kawas suspects one thing that may cause them is low blood pressure, and she has some evidence. While none of the factors from the original Leisure World study — vitamins, alcohol, caffeine, even exercise — seemed to lower people’s risk of getting dementia, the 90+ study discovered that high blood pressure did.

Claudia Kawas: If you have high blood pressure, it looks like your risk of dementia is lower–

Lesley Stahl: Lower?

Claudia Kawas: Than if you don’t–

Lesley Stahl: High blood–

Claudia Kawas: –have high blood pressure–

Lesley Stahl: Wait. High blood pressure, lower risk of dementia?

Claudia Kawas: In a 90-year-old.

High blood pressure is still dangerous if you’re younger. Yet another reason she says it’s so important to study the oldest old.

Claudia Kawas: Most of what we know we study in much younger individuals — in 50, 60, maybe 70-year-olds. And then we just kind of assume that the same thing should happen in older people.

Lesley Stahl: And you’re saying we shouldn’t?

Claudia Kawas: I think we shouldn’t.

Take this next counterintuitive finding — this time, in the 90+ subjects who have no dementia.

Claudia Kawas: We’re finding out that if you die without dementia in this age group about half the time you still have plaques and tangles in your head.

Lesley Stahl: No? So you can exhibit Alzheimer’s and not have plaques and tangles half the time, and the reverse–

Claudia Kawas: Both directions.

Lesley Stahl: –you’re fine and you do have plaques and tangles? So what do you make of that?

Claudia Kawas: I mean one possibility is that plaques and tangles have nothing to do with it. But it might be that plaques and tangles are very, very important, but just a 90-year-old who has them and didn’t develop thinking problems has some way of getting around them that maybe all the rest of us would like to know.

So now they’re looking at people with no signs of dementia like Ruthy Stahl, Lou Tirado, Sid Shero, and Jane Whistler to see if they have plaques and tangles, but are not affected by them. There’s a new type of PET scan that for the first time makes it possible to find plaques during life, so the 90+ study is engaged in the delicate task of putting 99-year-olds like Jane Whistler, into scanners. Sid Shero, at 92, hopped right in.

Claudia Kawas: Jane and Sid both have very, very, very good thinking, as you saw.

Lesley Stahl: Yes. Definitely.

Claudia Kawas: And it turns out that one of their scans is positive, and one is negative.

She showed them to us one on top of the other. Yellow and red indicate the presence of amyloid plaque.

Claudia Kawas: So this is Miss Whistler, and this is Mr. Shero.

Lesley Stahl: Well, I’m surprised–

Claudia Kawas: Sid Shero–

Lesley Stahl: –having talked to him, that I’m seeing yellow and red here. Kind of stunning.

So what does that mean for Sid? The positive scan means statistically he’s at greater risk of cognitive decline, but Dr. Kawas says the fact he’s doing so well in spite of the plaque in his brain, and his stroke — means he may have that something protective and special that could help the rest of us. She says they’ll be keeping a close watch on him.

Lesley Stahl: If it’s unclear that the pathology hooks up with what you’re seeing, what does that mean in your mind?

Claudia Kawas: I think we’re looking for too simple an answer. I think we want one thing to explain Alzheimer’s. Look at something different. Like what makes skin wrinkle. Well, I mean, getting older makes skin wrinkle. Being in the sun too much makes skin wrinkle. Not taking care of your diet and they put them all together and they all contribute. And I think it might turn out to be the same for our thinking, especially in late life, that it’s not just Alzheimer’s pathology from plaques or not just microinfarcts, but the number of these hits that you take. And after a while you can’t withstand them all.

There’s one last thing we wondered about in the over 90 crowd, and that’s romance. Helen Weil, 92, and Henry Tornell, 94, both widowed, have been dating for three years.

Helen Weil and Henry Tornell

CBS News

Lesley Stahl: So do you see each other every day? Several times every day? Once a day? How does it work?

Henry Tornell: She gets one day off a week.

Helen Weil: It’s true. Tuesdays.

Lesley Stahl: Tuesdays is a day off.

Helen and Henry love being part of the 90+ study and both have signed up to donate their brains after they die. Henry has only one problem with the whole enterprise — what the study hasn’t asked about.

Henry Tornell: I asked them, “Aren’t you gonna ask us any questions about our sex life?” And they said no.

Lesley Stahl: Well, I will. How’s your sex life? You brought it up.

Helen Weil: See, he is funny, you know. That–

Lesley Stahl: Well, I don’t know. I think– I’m not laughing. How is your sex life?

Helen Weil: He’s blushing.

Lesley Stahl: He’s blushing. But is that part of– do you think that has something to do with–

Henry Tornell: I would say it has a big part.

Lesley Stahl: Helen?

Helen Weil: We are very emo– we are very affectionate./

Lesley Stahl: But do you think that sex is an important part of staying young?

Henry Tornell: Yes.

The 90+ study has just gotten another 5-year round of NIH funding to delve deeper into risk factors for specific types of dementia, like those microinfarcts, and to search for genes that may be protective, in their continuing search for the secrets of the oldest old.

Claudia Kawas: I really believe that when we learn things from the 90-year-olds. they’re gonna be helping the 60- and 70-year-olds -not just how to become 90-year-olds, but how to do it with style and as good a function as possible.

Lesley Stahl: Well, obviously you’ve already started that by telling us that we should have some wine. That we should have some coffee. Good news–

Claudia Kawas: And socialize.

Lesley Stahl: And socialize.

Claudia Kawas: And exercise.

Lesley Stahl: And gain weight.

Claudia Kawas: And that’s my favorite.

Lesley Stahl: My favorite too, absolutely.

And maybe a little something else!

[Helen and Henry dance]

We are happy to report that all the 90+’ers in our story are still going strong. Several have celebrated birthdays since our story aired — including Jane Whistler, who had a big one. She is now 100.

Helen Weil and Henry Tornell

CBS News

© 2014 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Jon MacCall
Other

“Can I add you to my email list?” Are these words part of your client cultivation vocabulary yet? They should be.

Now that the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is law, sales reps, as users of electronic marketing tools, need to be aware of some Dos and Don’ts.

As an earlier REM article pointed out, the intent of CASL (effective July 1, 2014), is to stop hackers and spammers from preying on customers using commercial electronic messages (CEM). The difference between spammers and legitimate marketers is that the latter has received consent from individuals. In a nutshell, the CASL rules are straightforward:

* No more mass emails to strangers.

* Get consent from potential clients, either expressed or implied.

* Provide opportunity for contacts to opt-out or unsubscribe.

* Respect your contacts’ decision to opt-in or out of marketing messages.

So, if your marketing includes sending emails, faxes or private messages on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or LinkedIn, the new law requires that you only send to those who have consented.

More specifically, here’s what CASL means to sales reps:

* You cannot send electronic messages to lists (including lists you have bought!) unless you get consent from each person on that list who will receive an email (and be prepared to prove that consent was obtained if challenged).

* You can continue to use your website to generate leads and you can respond to consumer inquiries from your personal, company or franchise website.

* You cannot automatically put all website leads on an email campaign without express consent.

* You can harvest emails from other people’s personal or company websites but only if they do not have a “do not send me commercial offers” disclaimer on that site. (Be sure to document where and when you got the email, ideally saving a screen shot to prove there was no disclaimer.)

Express Consent vs. Implied Consent: When getting permission to add people to your email list, CASL makes a clear distinction between express consent and implied consent. Express consent is when a contact explicitly agrees to receive electronic marketing messages from you. “Would you like to receive messages from me?” You have express consent when they say yes. This is your best-case scenario because express consent never needs to be reconfirmed (it’s good forever). It’s a lot less complicated to manage on a go-forward basis.

It’s also on-side to send CEMs to individuals where you have implied consent. Under CASL you can claim Implied Consent from a contact if you’ve had a business dealing with them – someone who voluntarily dropped a business card at your open house, someone with whom you have transacted business, or have signed a buyer agency or listing agreement.

The key with implied consent is to keep track of the last business dealing with that contact as well as the date because this type of consent expires after two years. This means you have two years to convert your implied to express consent or to have another business dealing with that person to reset the two-year clock.

As you can see, keeping track of implied consent expiry dates can soon get tricky if you have a good-sized book to manage. Pen and paper may no longer be a viable technology for managing your book.

You can still send an email to answer a consumer inquiry, for example in response to a website lead request for information on a specific listing. What you can’t do anymore is to automatically put all website leads on an email “drip campaign” unless they provide express consent. CASL requires that your response be limited to answering the original inquiry. A long back-and-forth exchange is okay, as long as the consumer is in control of the conversation.

The bottom line: get consent and keep track. Whatever technology you decide to use for tracking leads and contacts – whether that technology is pen and paper or state-of-the-art CRM – make sure it works for your business. For every contact you have, you should also be able to prove consent to contact.

Canada‘s anti-spam legislation (CASL) is in place to protect Canadians while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the global marketplace.

If you use electronic channels to promote or market your organization, products or services, Canada’s new anti-spam law may affect you.

It is your duty to understand and comply with the law.

Compliance Basics

Q:

• Do you use email, SMS, social media or instant messaging to send commercial or promotional information about your organization to customers, prospects and other important audiences?

Q:

• Do you install software programs on people’s computers or mobile devices?

Q:

• Do you carry out these activities in or from Canada?

Copyright © REM 2014

Naoibh O’Connor
Van. Courier

CP’s July 31 deadline to remove “encroachments” on its property along Arbutus Corridor has passed and work is resuming to return the corridor to federal operating standards, according to spokesman Ed Greenberg.

That includes crews beginning to identify items such as sheds, gardens or vehicles that remain on CP property and pose a safety risk as work takes place, Greenberg said in an email to the Courier.

“As track work progresses on the corridor any identified encroachments will be removed in order to maintain a safe work environment for CP crews,” he wrote. “With the resumption of track work along the corridor, and to ensure safety, it would be important for people to please stay off the railway’s property as it is an active corridor and work is commencing.”

Greenberg added that CP won’t comment on “reports or speculation when it comes to any discussions with the City of Vancouver.”

“After more than a decade of discussions, CP still remains very much open to productive talks with the City, but in the meantime, we are proceeding with work on the CP corridor to resume train operations,” he added.

© Vancouver Courier

Gardens, party zones and train buffs found along unused rail line

Rebecca Blissett
Van. Courier

Bramble bushes with stems the size of a child’s wrist strangle the old railway tracks underneath the south side of the Burrard Street bridge now, but up until 1982 they met the Kitsilano trestle over which the B.C. Electric Railway once trundled.  

The trestle was torn down just four years shy of its 100th birthday and while the slip of land where the tracks lead out is overgrown and unremarkable, evidence of Vancouver’s railway history pokes out here and there on the gravel access road under the bridge.

It’s a good place to start a walk along the Arbutus rail line heading north to south.

The line crosses West First Avenue with the long-silent crossing signals — markers perhaps purposefully kept by Canadian Pacific Railway as a reminder of who really owns this corridor of land.

The scenery changes from one side of the road to the other; wild growth and somebody’s camp gives way to orderly gardening with a sign warning not to steal anything or risk making Esme, a young gardener, upset.

The tracks cut across West Fourth and the trimmed grass between metal and wood is the only greenery, otherwise the space is a backyard for car lots and garbage bins. Across the tracks at the entrance to the lush garden at Fir Avenue sits a beat-up Chevy cargo van, a bookend between industry and persistent nature.

The garden at West Sixth has reached park proportions with a subdivision of planter boxes with edibles, flowers and apple trees. Weeds stuffed into gardening bags lean against CPR’s faded and rusty No Trespassing sign, cheerfully ignored like children no longer avoiding the neighbourhood crank’s house because he’s moved into a care home.

The track cuts over West Seventh and up Arbutus Street for the longest straightaway of the Arbutus Corridor line’s journey. The ragged stretch of track between West Broadway and West 12th is known as a “party zone” according to a woman who sniffed her disapproval during her walk to work. A few steps down the line, to prove her point, a couple of guys were cracking open beer and sitting on a concrete box.

Oddly out of place are the rail crossing signs at West 14th. The posts have a new coat of paint and the X is sparkly clean, interesting considering the last time engine 1237 dropped off its malt and barley at the Molson Brewery was May 2001.  

Abe Van Oeveren, who tends to his trackside garden nearby the crossing, is a bit of a train buff. He’s lived in the neighbourhood since 1984 and remembers how Dave the engineer used to wave, sometimes blowing his horn, when they saw one another.

“I miss the trains,” he said. “I used to have to straighten all the pictures in the house after it would rumble by.”

Down the slight valley and up the tracks turn near Quilchena Park where a view of the ocean is seen over the tops of the houses. The tracks have plenty of cow-catching room at West 42nd so the extra space seems to lend itself to a feeling of more permanency for gardens as sheds have been built complete with cottage fencing, not to mention a scarecrow dressed as a cyclist.

The closeness of the Vancouver International Airport is evident by low-flying aircraft near West 60th Avenue. Just past Rand Avenue there’s a typed plea by the exasperated-sounding Wits End Co-op not to build a garden near the tracks because an endangered bird species likes to hide in the underbrush.

A few metres down the way, young Ben and brothers Lars and Rainier hung out with their “attack” tabby cat named Barney in their hang-out they carved out of the bushes, complete with a couple of abandoned office chairs. The cat ran off, and Rainer, while playing the guitar, mentioned there was a secret tunnel nearby but it meant crawling through blackberry bushes to find it. The boys didn’t seem to care much for the idea of their hideout being ruined by a train.

“The train would probably take out all the gardens, too,” said Lars. “That’s bull!”

The temperature felt about 10 degrees warmer by Southwest Marine Drive’s rush hour. Here the tracks pass by warehouse, car lots, and concrete piping makers. Yet in the middle of all the noise and industry of the riverside there was a small garden with a bathtub of flowers.

The Arbutus line, and the five-hour walk, ended with a padlock at two gate doors leading to a swing bridge over the river to Richmond.

Tracking the Arbutus line’s history

• The Arbutus Corridor line was built in 1902 after the province granted the land to Canadian Pacific.
• The Kitsilano Trestle, which spanned False Creek near where the current Burrard Street Bridge is today, was built by Canadian Pacific in 1886 and torn down in 1982. It was said to be a navigational hazard for passing boats.
• The last passenger train ran along the Arbutus Corridor in 1954 and the last freight train in 2001.
• Canadian Pacific’s only customer on the Arbutus line was Molson Brewery when it stopped running.
• The Arbutus Corridor line starts near Granville Island and passes through Kitsilano, Arbutus Ridge/Shaughnessy, Kerrisdale and Marpole before crossing a swing bridge into Richmond.
• The Arbutus Corridor sits on combined land roughly the size of  45-acres.
• After pubic hearings in 2000, the city passed the Arbutus Corridor Official Development Plan that designated the land for transportation, parks, and/or greenways even though the land is private property. The CPR took the city to court saying that the city had taken its property for which compensation was due.
• Suggestions were made the city should buy the land or make a deal with CPR but formal discussions faded during years of contentious court battles.

© Vancouver Courier