The Citizen, 2015-05-07, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015. PAGE 5.
“el.e.vat.or: A platform or compartment
housed in a shaft for raising or lowering
people or things to different floors or levels.”
The elevator. One of those basic
engineering facts of life so ubiquitous
and pervasive that we take it utterly for
granted.
What are you going to take – the stairs or the
elevator? The elevator of course! Especially if
you’re going up 10 flights and/or you’re
humping a lump of Samsonite the size of a hay
bale. The elevator. So civilized. So necessary.
How long do you reckon they’ve been around?
Would you believe 2,000 years?
At least. We know the Romans used
elevators in the first century BC to move
people, livestock and produce from one level
to another.
Well... sort of elevators. They weren’t very
fancy. More like some planks nailed together
and attached to a system of pulleys and ropes
operated by slaves. Nothing that Elisha Otis
would care to put his name on.
Mister Otis, of Yonkers, New York, is the
engineering genius who came along about 19
centuries later. He was a big fan of the elevator
idea but somewhat put off by the tendency of
the devices to crash when a cable snapped or a
rope broke. If the elevator platform was at any
considerable height when this mishap occurred
its contents became violently reacquainted
with that more basic engineering principle –
gravity. The results were not pretty.
What Mister Otis provided was a safety
brake. The Otis Safety Elevator (patented
1861) still went up and down by means of
pulleys and cables, but if the cable snapped, a
series of ratchet-like teeth automatically
deployed from columns supporting the
elevator cabin.
These teeth snagged the cabin, preventing it
from plummeting down the shaft and crashing
into the basement.
Instantly, the concept of working in an
office, say, 24 floors above the surface of the
earth became achievable. Multi-storey
buildings, even skyscrapers, suddenly made
good economic sense. Cities acquired a whole
new dimension – straight up. The Otis elevator
was to urban centres as fire was to
Neanderthals shivering in their caves. The
elevator is a miracle we take for granted.
But using one? We don’t take that for
granted. Riding an elevator is like a religious
experience – and not in a good way. The rider
surrenders to a machine that is out of his
control. The rider can feel the motion, but
cannot see either destination or point of
departure. The rider is trapped and
defenceless.
That’s if you’re the sole occupant. If others
board, a ritualized pas de deux ensues. Two
riders end up kitty-corner to each other. As
more riders enter, everyone shifts to maximize
the shrinking space around them. Eye contact
and vocalization is discouraged. Looking up at
the floor monitor panel is a popular move.
Yes …there’s four lighting up. Oh, and look!
Here comes five...You can also peer down at
your shoes. Everybody improvises their own
method of looking as uncomfortable as
possible for the duration of the trip. And just in
case it’s not excruciating enough there’s
usually a Muzak soundtrack.
I’m kvetching here but I love ‘em. Can you
imagine city life without elevators? I just wish
I could get in touch with Elisha Otis.
I’d tell him “Thanks for the lift”.
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
The world is quickly becoming one of
instant gratification when it comes to
media like television, movies and video
games and it isn’t a good thing.
Unlike many of the other evils facing the
world today I’ve addressed here, I’m actually
as swept up in this one as anyone else is.
Thanks to services like Netflix, Hulu, Video-
on-Demand and legal grey areas like
downloading television shows, people are
consuming entire media cultures at an
unprecedented rate and I hate to admit but, I’m
among the worst.
Like so many other vices, my participation
in it started with a small taste.
I had taken a one-month trial of Netflix
back when it first started as a streaming service
and started watching some television shows.
I remember thinking, “It won’t replace
cable, but it could be fun.”
I was wrong.
Now we don’t have cable in my house.
I can stream my local news (or as local as
it gets anymore) through websites, I can
stream hockey (at great effort, it used to be
easier) and Ashleigh and I are reliving old
television shows that we didn’t know we
would love.
When I first started with Netflix, Ashleigh
and I weren’t living together. It gave me a lot
of time to fill and Netflix was a good way to do
it.
There would be some days or weekends
where I would say, “Okay, I’m just going to
watch a few episodes of this show then go out
for a walk and get some groceries.” I would
then emerge from the television room dozens
of hours later having binge-watched a show
because I had no idea how much time had
passed.
Watching episode after episode of a
television show is a very easy way to lose time.
If they’re displayed in the proper order, you
can forget where one episode ended and
another began and lose track of just how many
episodes you’ve watched.
I’m not complaining here, a rainy day is the
perfect time to catch up on all those episodes
of old television shows. I, for one, am always
in the middle of something like Night Court,
MASH or NewsRadio. I’m saying that, like all
things, moderation is key.
The way that television shows are produced
encourages people to enjoy the show at a
leisurely pace and not end up losing important
pieces of the plot to prolonged sessions.
I guess it can be compared to studying for
examinations quite well.
As much as any reporter will have to cram
information the day, or hour, before doing an
interview, anyone can tell you that taking a
good pace is paramount when trying to learn
something.
The longer you hear or read or watch
something, the more repetition occurs and the
more likely you are to retain it.
That’s why many shows employ the, “Last
time on...” practice at the beginning of the
show.
Unfortunately, knowing all of this isn’t
enough to make me stop watching televisions
in marathon sessions during wintery or rainy
days. I guess that’s why it’s a good thing that
Ashleigh is around.
Most of the shows I watch now (with the
exception of those I have on when I’m
exercising) I watch with her.
Currently we’re catching up, thanks to some
borrowed DVDs, on Castle, a great show about
a writer getting involved in solving crimes.
It stars Nathan Fillion, one of my favourite
actors and I could easily sit there and spend the
better part of a day off watching dozens of
episodes.
However, Ashleigh can’t and that stops me
from binge-watching the show.
I think that’s a good thing.
Whether it’s explaining to my family and
friends how we take our time with television
shows, limiting ourselves to one or two
episodes of any given show or thinking further
ahead to when we’re setting an example for
younger people, it’s a good thing she’s there to
stop me from binging on the shows.
It makes me think about binging on other
things and how that isn’t necessary.
Do I really need to empty that whole bag of
potato chips into a bowl and eat it while
watching the Montreal Canadiens lose 6-2?
No. I can just as easily watch them lose with a
quarter of a bag and then I have enough left to
watch them hopefully win the next game.
Do I really have to have a second helping of
lasagna or chicken and rice? No, I can abstain
and have leftovers for lunch the next day.
I guess it’s a mindset thing.
As I wean myself off of binge-watching
television shows, I’m starting to evaluate other
parts of my life and whether I need to binge
there as well.
I remember when the very term binge was
completely negative in its connotation.
Binging, before the age of Netflix and other
streaming services, refered to spending time
over-indulging in drink or food.
I even had someone describe a way I take to
new video games as binging.
When I was younger, the first weekend after
I bought any new game, I would usually end
up finishing it.
Sure, I could’ve enjoyed it over a couple of
weeks or a month, but I would usually end up
beating it in a day. That wasn’t really
indicative of the $65 or $75 price tag that
accompanies video games.
Whether it’s video games or movies or even
reading, the human mind isn’t meant to binge
on that kind of media.
Taking your time allows you to connect with
a plot or a character and allows you to really
feel something about that person. Trust me, as
someone who originally spent years reading
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and then binge-
watched the movies, I can tell you the former
sticks with me a lot more than the latter.
So take a lesson from a former Netflix-
binge-addict (who will likely face several
relapses), just because we have the capability
to watch six years’ worth of television shows
in a weekend, doesn’t mean we should.
You will enjoy it much more if you spread
that out over a few months and you won’t end
up hating yourself for how much time you
wasted watching one show.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
For your service...
In this week’s issue of The Citizen, there is
a story about Doug Scrimgeour, a 30-year
Blyth firefighter who has now provided aid
to firefighters and paramedics in Mexico. In
my interview with him, he spoke of the
brotherhood that exists among firefighters.
This concept, of course, is not new. As the
son of a police officer, I have heard stories for
just about as long as I’ve been alive about the
brotherhood among police officers.
Behind the idea of a brotherhood (or
sisterhood) is the understanding that someone
in your same line of work knows what you go
through on a day-to-day basis. We joke about
the journalistic brotherhood around here. But
when it comes to a true brotherhood, it is
reserved for first responders: police,
firefighters, paramedics and the military.
So when Doug told me about his project and
the fire halls he was able to outfit in Mexico,
you could tell that it truly came out of a feeling
of responsibility and a genuine need to help a
fellow brother. Doug, of course, is not related
to these men, nor do they even speak the same
language, but they are joined in the shared
experiences of knowing what it’s like to run
into a burning building, rather than run out.
It’s the same sense of brotherhood my dad
spoke about all those years. As a kid, I didn’t
know why my dad got so much joy out of
running into another police officer when we
were out. He just seemed like another person
my dad didn’t know to me. But, of course, I
now know that there is much more to it than I
knew.
So it is with that in mind that we know the
news earlier this week hurt a lot more than 44
people and their families, but rather millions of
people throughout Canada and around the
globe.
Vince Savoia from the Tena Conter
Memorial Trust has spent the last three days in
Ottawa calling for increased mental health
support for all Canadians after it was
announced that the country lost 44 first
responders and military members to suicide in
the last year.
Savoia has said that there are essentially two
tiers of medical service provided to Canadians
based on whether their condition is physical or
if it’s mental. If you break your arm, he said,
you can go to a hospital and be treated that
very day, while if a person seeks help for a
mental health issue, they are often referred to a
specialist and put on a waiting list that could
take years.
First responders are often viewed as the
strongest among us. They are seen as the front
line when it comes to the dangers of the world.
So often, however, we act surprised when these
same people need help. We forget what police
officers and firefighters see on a daily basis
and because they have taken on a tough line of
work, we are conditioned to think of them as
being mentally bulletproof, but more and more
we’re learning that isn’t the case.
If anything, these people need more help
because of what they go through on a day-to-
day basis. However, there is still a stigma that
exists and Savoia says changing that frame of
mind is the way forward.
“That’s the culture that we need to change,
and we need to make sure people understand
that there is no shame in coming forward and
asking for help,” Savoia said on Canada AM.
Too often struggling on the inside is viewed
as weakness. The culture is changing and
North America is getting better, but if what
Savoia says is true, it seems like Canada still
has a long way to go if we truly want to show
these people we care about them.
Other Views
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