HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-07-23, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015. PAGE 5.
Quiz time, kiddies. Name me the
superstar that lives underground, has
orbited the earth in a space capsule,
adorned the hair of Marie Antoinette and made
Bob Dylan cry.
Time’s up. It’s the potato. It grows
underground and became the first vegetable to
be grown extra-terrestrially (Space Shuttle
Challenger, 1995.) To bewitch her suitors,
Marie Antoinette liked to wear potato
blossoms behind her ears. And Bob Dylan, a
prolific urban gardener (who knew?), broke
down in tears when his New York balcony
potato plants succumbed to blight.
The point is: the humble potato is a heavy
hitter.
It’s called the Irish Potato, but that’s a
misnomer. South Americans were cultivating,
harvesting and chomping down on an
early variety of Solanum Tuberosum for
millennia before any potatoes made their way
to Ireland. Europeans never laid eyes on a spud
until the 1500s, when Spanish marauders
loading their galleons with Incan plunder
accidentally tossed in few potatoes in with the
gold.
The potato was not an immediate hit.
Europeans reacted with paranoid suspicion
worthy of a Fox News commentator. They
denounced the foreign tuber as temptation
from the devil. Religious leaders declared that
potatoes were (gasp) aphrodisiacs – and
caused leprosy. As late as the 18th century
English farmers linked potatoes to the spread
of Catholicism. Some English politicians even
ran on a platform of “No Potatoes, No
Popery!”
How could the potato be anything but unholy
– it wasn’t mentioned in The Bible!
But then a few ignorant sinners boiled some
up and ate them and European civilization
morphed into a whole new reality.
No exaggeration. Before potatoes came to
Europe, mass famines occurred with dreadful
regularity. In France there were 40 famines
between 1500 and 1800 – that’s more than one
every ten years. England had 17 famines in the
century preceding 1723.
Potatoes changed all that. They were
inexpensive, nutritious and any idiot could
grow them – even in crappy soil. It’s estimated
that the arrival and cultivation of potatoes
effectively doubled Europe’s food supply in
terms of calories.
By the end of the 18th century, routine
famine had all but disappeared in ‘potato
country’, which stretched from the British
Isles to the Ural mountains of Russia.
Imagine what this meant. People don’t write
books, paint masterpieces, build cathedrals or
dig canals when they’re facing famine – or
recovering from the last one. For the first time
in history, Europeans had a dependable annual
food supply. European culture flourished just
as surely as the potato plants that fed the
populace.
What a wonderful, life-giving nugget, the
simple potato is – and utterly undeserving
of its reputation of being a fattening food.
Potatoes are an amazingly rich source of
nourishment. One potato delivers 40 per cent
of your daily Vitamin C requirement – and
more potassium than bananas, spinach or
broccoli.
And potatoes are NOT fattening – it’s the
added butter, oil and sour cream that which
puts on the pounds. Boiled potatoes good;
French fries, not so much.
Or as Francophobic Fox News likes to refer
to them: Freedom Fries.
As the French say, Plus ca change...
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Once upon a time people would smile,
chat with a reporter, tell them
everything they saw or even strike a
pose when they saw a camera pointed at
them.
Once upon a time they would talk to people,
show them picture of their kids they kept
in their wallet and swap stories about what
kind of activities they have gotten up to as of
late.
Unfortunately, those days seem to be
(mostly) long gone. Now, people will share
their thoughts and beliefs on Facebook before
they talk to their neighbour, they will beam
pictures of their kids around the world for
anyone and their dog to see (and probably
make it possible for people to see where they
live in the process) and they will tell anyone
with a computer screen anything they want to
know.
Well, anyone except their local reporters.
In the past seven years (has it really
been that long? So much for paying off
my student debt in five) I have watched as it
went from easy, to difficult, to down-right
impossible to get the smallest bit of
information for my job.
Whether it’s a name of someone enjoying a
local meal, the date and time for a coming
event or the nitty-gritty information about a
happening, it’s tough as a reporter to get
people to chat with you about the information
you do need.
Take, for example, our Ontario Scholars.
Since I started at The Citizen five years ago,
interacting with educational institutes has
become more and more difficult as the rules
around privacy and the paranoia they breed
have multiplied exponentially.
When I started, I could ask for a list of
students, a photo, their future plans and
the names of their parents without anyone
balking.
Now, with some schools, getting a list of
students’ names is like pulling teeth.
Before I go any further, let me say that
some schools still do help quite a bit in this
onerous task and I thank them for that. I
thank everyone I deal with at every school in
the area who makes my job easier instead
of more difficult. You are the diamonds
in the rough, the needles in the haystack
and the exception to the rules and I can’t
tell you how appreciated you are around the
office.
Before anyone starts a witch hunt for those
helpful educators or administrators, I’ve done
my research and they aren’t in the wrong.
Some schools could be sending us far more
information then they choose to.
According to representatives of the Avon
Maitland District Board of Education, we can
be given more information to help in tracking
them down. For one reason or another,
however, it’s not provided to us.
That’s why I say thank you to the people
who have gotten in touch with us to let us
know that their children were overlooked in
our coverage or haven’t yet been printed. It’s a
sad state of affairs, but if those people don’t
get in touch with us, we may miss an Ontario
Scholar or three and that is something I regret.
While we simultaneously can’t find much of
the information we’re looking for or much of
the information we need, we do occasionally
get inundated with information we didn’t ask
for or don’t need at the same time.
We welcome (and typically print) letters to
the editor about the issues covered in the paper
because it makes sure that the only coverage
we’re showing isn’t from the people in charge
of something.
Whether it’s the cross-border service policy
in North Huron, fire coverage across the area,
the Goderich to Guelph Rail Trail and all the
potential benefits and problems it presents or
missing someone who deserves recognition,
we encourage people to put pen to paper and
tell us what they think.
That, however, is not an open invite to call in
and lambast us because someone went to a
local council and presented their side of the
story.
That’s why we go to those meetings: So the
people who are busy on Monday or Tuesday
nights (or Wednesday or Thursdays in the case
of Huron County Council) can find out what is
being talked about. We’re not presenting a
skewed view of an issue, we’re presenting
what was presented to council so that we can
then report what decision council made.
Calling us up and yelling at us about the
information being wrong isn’t going to solve
the problem. Making time to go to a council
meeting, however, and talking to council as a
deputation and presenting your side of the
story might help.
Municipal politicians (much like journalists,
though that’s where the similarities end) work
off the information presented to them so that’s
the story we present to you, the reader.
If any council says it isn’t going to support a
cause because its constituents came forward
with misgivings about it, that is the story we’re
going to write. We’re going to say that a
council doesn’t support the Goderich to
Guelph Rail Trail opening until more
information is available or another council is
going to radically alter its open air burn bylaw
because the ratepayers they represent came
forward and asked for that.
If councillors change their mind because
representatives of the G2G Trail Inc.
convinces them to or because a fire official
says the current bylaw isn’t sufficient, well
then you had better bet we’ll cover that too.
The simple fact is we get calls, letters and
remarks in public that the whole story isn’t be
represented when the truth is, in a story from a
council meeting, we’re not covering the G2G
Rail Trail or the open air burn bylaw (and I
only point to those two issues because they are
current) issue. We are covering how council
reacted to the information presented.
So if you think North Huron, Morris-
Turnberry, Huron East, Central Huron,
Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh or Huron
County Council has an issue wrong, turn to
them because theirs are the minds to change.
Us? We’re here to keep you informed about
what decisions they make.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Ranking courage
In a decision that has proven controversial,
ESPN, the U.S. sports television network,
awarded its prestigious Arthur Ashe
Courage Award at this year’s ESPYs to Caitlyn
Jenner, the former Bruce Jenner, the winner of
the Olympic decathalon in 1976.
Jenner is the world’s most famous
transgender person, undergoing a highly
publicized transition from male to female after
declaring her intention to do so earlier this year
in a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer.
Then, on arguably the most famous
magazine cover in recent memory, Jenner
declared “Call me Caitlyn” on the cover of
Vanity Fair.
Jenner has since been praised by millions for
choosing to “live her truth” after decades of
feeling she was a woman born in a man’s body.
Others, no doubt spurred by her connection
to the loathsome Kardashians (Bruce had been
married to Kris Jenner, mother of the famous
layabout trio of Kim, Khloe and Kourtney
Kardashian), have slammed Jenner’s transition
as publicity-seeking (the curious timing of
which has also been linked to her new
television show) and the word “freak” can
easily be found in internet comment sections.
While I can’t pretend to understand the
struggle that Jenner says enveloped her for
decades, as a sports fan and regular consumer
of ESPN, I feel I can comment on the
presentation of the award, which to me, seems
like a publicity stunt on the part of ESPN.
While the choice to award Jenner may be
sexy (a journalistic term for something
exciting and hot at the time – not the accepted
alternative), that doesn’t mean it was right.
One clear contender for the award was Noah
Galloway, a man who competes in professional
Crossfit events, runs marathons and even the
Spartan Death Race, all after losing an arm and
a leg to an IED in Iraq.
There is also Lauren Hill, a 19-year-old
woman with cancer who fulfilled her dream of
playing and scoring points in a college
basketball game, while raising over $1.1
million for pediatric cancer. She died mere
months later.
Perhaps the struggles and accomplishments
of Galloway and Hill fit a more traditional
sense of courage and accomplishment and
perhaps, as some have said, the award
shouldn’t lead to arguing degrees of courage,
but that’s exactly what an award does.
There is also the argument made by veteran
sportscaster Bob Costas, who says Jenner
hasn’t been involved in a sport (the ESPYs are
sports awards) in close to two generations.
There is also the case of Kim Howe, who
was killed as a result of a motor vehicle
collision that involved Jenner. Jessica
Steindorff, one of the drivers involved, has said
that Jenner caused the crash by driving
“negligently, carelessly and recklessly.”
Courageous isn’t the word Steindorff has
chosen when speaking of Jenner.
And while, in her speech, Jenner joked about
choosing an outfit and being picked apart by
the “fashion police”, one can’t help but
compare those struggles with those of
Galloway and Hill, one whose wardrobe, if
speaking comparatively, is vastly changed by
the loss of half his extremities, and the other
who has since died, not being given a chance to
attend the ceremony, should she have won.
Courage is courage – it comes in all shapes
and sizes. Jenner is courageous, while at the
same time both Galloway and Hill are (were)
courageous. But if forced to rank the
courageous, the ESPYs need to do that, not
fish for ratings and create water-cooler talk.
Other Views
A common tater commentary
All the information we don’t need