Children Of Men By Orato Editor Heather Wallace 03/28/07 It's hard to realize how desensitized we are until one day something horrible happens and we notice we don't feel anything. I used to take the bus everyday through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside - Canada's poorest postal code. I saw many horrible things. It usually put me in a somewhat sour mood, until the bus let me out at my stop, where I could grab a coffee and head into my safe little office niche. Passing by the water cooler, I may tell a co-worker, "I saw a third trimester pregnant woman shooting heroin this morning." Or, riding the elevator with a colleague on my way out for lunch, I may tell him about the mentally handicapped person I saw sitting backwards in her wheelchair, urinating in a street corner. We would shake our heads and ask "Just what is the world coming to?" But we wouldn't cry or shake our hands in the air. Instead, we peruse the newspaper, looking for articles to do the talking for us. And then we're barely surprised when the mainstream media says virtually nothing about these monumental crises. March has been a depressing month in my little town. Until last Sunday, Vancouver had rain every single day, and as the weeks rolled on without sunsets or chirping birds, I started to ask myself whether I may be suffering from a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder. The SAD felt most pronounced this past Saturday, when I just couldn't seem to shake the coil of the heavy, wet winter, which persisted despite it being spring. My boyfriend and I decided to kill the rainy day inside a movie theater. We'd both wanted to see the movie Children Of Men [1], starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore. Given my frame of mind, I'm not sure why I wanted to see a film about the prospect of human extinction, set in end-of-the-world London in the year 2027, when not a single baby has been born in 20 years. The plot follows the secret discovery of a miraculously pregnant woman and a frenzied journey to deliver her to safety and restore the Earth's future. As one would expect, given the circumstances, the humankind depicted in Children Of Men is despondent and suicidal. The movie was pure edge-of-your-seat intensity and Armageddon, chaos and anxiety, violence and death, from beginning to end. There were moments I had to take a deep breath because I was so overwhelmed by what I was seeing. When the movie finally ended, my boyfriend and I walked outside, looked at each other and said, "Holy crap." I was glad to get outside and breathe in reality again, safe in my fertile little 2007 world. But across the street, a mini-Armageddon was unfolding. We had seen the movie at a Tinseltown on the edge of Vanouver's abyss: The Downtown Eastside, Canada's poorest postal code. Police and firetrucks were busy cordoning off a city block. An ambulance was parked in the middle of the road and a man was down. Someone passing by us told us the man had been stabbed in the stomach with a large piece of rebar. We walked closer to the scene to get a better look. (It's not everyday a car wreck unfolds before your eyes, and given that we're essentially morbid creatures, we wanted to see it.) I could see the man, and I saw the long piece of metal beside him. I averted my eyes before I saw the point of the weapon's entry. We stood there a while, watching the reactions of other onlookers, a lone cameraman getting footage and the various emergency response and law enforcement officials milling about their business. The scene was quiet; the man was still. In the alleys behind me, men searched through dumpsters looking like wet rats. One man came around the corner, clutching a hypodermic needle. Unlike the movie, in which everything moved me, only one thing stood out as unusual to me on the corner of Vancouver's abyss; it was not the gruesome nature of the man's injuries. But just meters from where the injured man lay, I saw two young children standing under an umbrella, which was held by an adult crouching down to talk to them. I pointed it out to my boyfriend and we both said, "Jesus, get those kids out of here." I've thought about those kids a couple times since Saturday. I wonder how this memory will impress itself upon their little psyches. I thought maybe they had witnessed the crime, otherwise someone surely would have ushered them to safety and protected them from this scene. ***** My boyfriend and I told all our friends about what we'd seen that day, but neither of us heard anything about it on the local news. That is, until last night. I saw the victim's mother speaking out about her son, and I learned he had succumbed to his injuries and died in hospital - from a fatal stab wound to his face. The mother admitted her son had been a drug dealer and had a bad attitude, but said this did not justify his murder. 21-year-old James Mintus had been fighting with a couple on the street, and the couple was with two young childre

this baby was on the market for 9 mil.... From the auction press release.... "Bellerive" Resting on some three acres where the waters of the Detroit River and Lake Erie converge, this five-bedroom, nine-bath Hamptons-style mansion, dubbed Bellerive Estate, offers views of a historic lighthouse and the Detroit skyline. In the spacious master bedroom, which features a private balcony and a sitting area, even television viewing becomes an indulgent activity. With the press of a button, a 50-inch plasma set drops from the mirrored ceiling. The master bath offers his and hers grooming areas, with separate walk-in closets, heated floors and a computer-controlled shower and steam room. The kitchen, which is equipped with a charming breakfast nook, includes custom cabinetry, granite counter tops and a five-burner Gaggenau stove top. The adjoining family room comes complete with a fireplace, large-screen TV and bay window overlooking the water. The home's library has a wet bar, vaulted ceiling and built-in bookcase. The room's curving staircase takes you to a second-floor office and two bedrooms. The opulent touches of the 14-room waterfront estate seem to go on and on. Among them, a full-service English pub with views of a spectacular waterfall, a 12-seat movie theater and a three-story elevator. Linda Starling's favorite room of all is the atrium, an all-glass room with wrap-around floor-to-ceiling windows, which is half surrounded by the infinity edge pool. "In the summer time, you feel like you're floating in the pool," she says, "And in the winter time, you feel like you're in a snow globe." In addition to that crescent-shaped pool, which overlooks Lake Erie, the grounds offer a tennis court with a bath, shower and snack area. There is a separate one-room apartment as well as a parking court and four-car garage. For boat-lovers, the estate also features a covered boat dock, which enables a yacht as grand as 57 feet to sail into the backyard. The estate will be auctioned by J.P. King Auction Co.