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6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 28, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER VP, Group Publisher DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager Metroland Media Group Ltd. includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA ANCHOR Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER President Media Group Ltd. Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora EraBanner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian Working with you in controlling West Nile virus Gary Carr Gary Carr, Halton Regional Chair RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America D THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION oing our part to protect the health of Halton residents is a responsibility that Halton Region takes very seriously. Since 2001, Halton's Health Department has been investing significant effort into the surveillance of West Nile virus (WNV), and taking actions to reduce human illness caused by the virus. I welcome your assistance in our surveillance efforts and ask that you encourage your friends and neighbours to do their part to fight WNV and reduce the risk of human infection. Residents can help to protect themselves and their families by reducing the number of mosquito breeding areas around your home. Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water. The type of mosquito that is most commonly associated with carrying WNV needs only an inch of standing water to lay its eggs. Water that has been allowed to sit for seven days or longer is considered standing water, and is an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. There are many things you can do to remove standing water from around your home, including: · Turn over or remove all water-holding containers (tin cans, plastic jugs) lying around your yard. · Drill holes in the bottom of any unused containers so water won't collect. · Turn over plastic wading pools and wheelbarrows when not in use. · Change the water and clean birdbaths weekly. · Clear leaves and twigs from eavestroughs, storm and roof gutters throughout the summer. · Remove dense brush and weeds where mosquitoes rest and hide during the day. · Turn over compost piles on a regular basis. · Fill in any low depression areas in lawns. WNV activity was found last year again in Oakville, and two Halton residents were infected with the virus while travelling outside the region. Two mosquito pools and two blue jays tested positive for the virus. Residents of Oakville were essential in assisting Halton's Health Department to monitor the spread of the virus. In fact, in 2007 Oakville residents reported 376 dead birds to Halton Region. I urge you to call in any dead bird sightings. To report a dead bird or standing water, or for more information about West Nile virus, please call Halton Region at 905-825-6000, toll free 1866-4HALTON (1-866-442-5866), TTY 905-827-9833, or visit our website at www.halton.ca/wnv. Rewiring our brains and getting back to basics of books ccording to some experts, the Internet is rewiring our brains and rendering us unable to concentrate for prolonged periods of time. Addressing this point, Nicholas Carr writes in this month's Atlantic magazine: "Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy." But nowadays, after a page or two, "I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do." It's something to which most people I know can relate. Just last weekend I found myself with that rare gem known as time on my hands. I picked up a book, read a few pages -- and, in the book's defence, they were not insipid or uninspired pages -- then got restless. These days, with our abbreviated concentration spans and our million-option universe, we are losing readers and true readers are realizing they have to make a concerted effort to read -- set aside time and devote that time to the book at hand. With this sorry state of affairs in mind, I humbly present (with the hopes of inspiring) my 21st annual offering of superb summer reading -- Books For The Beach, Perfect Prose For The Poolside -- a recommended reading-list known to incite bedlam in bookstores, lunacy in libraries and rioting, or at least reading, in the streets. Shut down those addictive computers. Pour a A drink, get comfy, and crack some spines. Special Topics In Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. Billed as "a comedic literary murder mystery", this debut novel is edgy, at times dazzling and always ambitious. Naturally some critics had problems with it because the author is beautiful (a model), young (27), and precocious. Less petty reviewers actually loved the Andy Juniper novel with The New York Times raving: "This book will leave readers salivating for more." The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son, by David Gilmour. I love all of Gilmour's books, but this poignant memoir truly hits home. The Film Club relates how Gilmour, at his wit's end, lets his 16-year-old son, Jesse, drop out of school -- granted, the beleaguered boy is about to flunk out and school is sucking the life out of his soul -- on two conditions: no drugs, and he must watch three movies a week with his dad. The Film Club is born, father and son reconnect, and the memoir takes flight. Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld. An intelligent and engaging coming-of-age tale that, when first published in 2005, inspired all the inevitable comparisons to The Catcher In The Rye. While Sittenfeld is no Salinger (honestly, who is?), she works wonders with the genuine and steady voice of this novel -- a teenage girl named Lee -- as she depicts, semester by semester, four years of life in what one critic called "prep school purgatory". Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Part chatty memoir, part travelogue, part spiritual journey, part self-deprecating look at the author's life as she wittily and wisely navigates through minefields of depression and divorce. Driven by The Power Of Oprah, this book has sold nearly five-million paperbacks. And the natural backlash to such success is huge (headline in New York Post: Eat, Pray, Loathe), and largely unwarranted. Honestly: how can you hate a book that inspires readers to travel, eat up life, meditate and basically better themselves? Finally, a few other books I think would be positively perfect at poolside -- not coincidentally, all by Canadian authors: See The Child, by David Bergen; The Angel Riots, by Ibi Kaslik; October, by Richard Wright; and Bottle Rocket Hearts, by Zoe Whittall. Happy reading, and have a great summer. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.