The Citizen, 2015-08-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015. PAGE 5.
Iam not Roman Catholic. I’m not even
religious. For me the essence of religious
ideology is summed up in a headline
that appeared in The Times of London last
year: NEPAL SEEKS NEW CHILD
GODDESS: MUST HAVE VOICE LIKE A
DUCK.
That said, I have nothing against people
who find solace in a coda of beliefs that
rejects logic and common sense. As H.L.
Mencken wrote: “We must respect the
other fellow’s religion...to the extent that
we respect his belief that his wife is
beautiful.”
Besides, as Mencken also said, there’s a
chance he may be right.
As a non-religious person I don’t follow the
ups and downs of the Catholic church, but
there’s one Catholic that keeps catching my
eye.
He’s an older fella, the son of Italian
immigrants. He once worked as a nightclub
bouncer, likes tango, soccer, riding the buses
and walking the streets. He lives in a modest
two-bedroom apartment in Rome. His name is
George (Jorge) Bergoglio. You probably know
him better as Pope Francis. He is not your
average pope.
And that’s a good thing. There have been
266 popes in history and some of them have
been a little sketchy. Back in the ninth century
AD, Pope Stephen VII put a predecessor on
trial for blasphemy. Tricky. His predecessor
had died years earlier. Pope Stephen had his
corpse dug up, dressed in papal robes and
cross-examined in court.
Other popes, oaths of celibacy
notwithstanding, had wives, mistresses, and in
some cases, illegitimate children. Indeed, a
bastard son of Pope Sergius III became Pope
John XI.
Most popes, it goes without saying, hew to a
much higher code of conduct, but even the best
of them tend to be on the conservative, don’t-
rock-the-boat side, not to mention somewhat
magisterial in bearing.
Francis has already shed a good deal
of the ornamental vestments that go
with the position. He was expected like
his predecessors to live in the lavish
Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. He chose
instead to live in a Roman guesthouse. Other
popes travelled about in the famous
‘Popemobile’, a fancy bulletproof limousine.
Francis gets around in a Ford Focus. The man
believes in modesty and he practises what he
preaches.
And that’s not all he preaches. In his
latest Papal Encyclical called Laudato si
(Praise be), Pope Francis asks “What is
happening to our common home?” Then
he unloads on rampant consumerism,
depletion of fresh water, biodiversity loss,
environmental degradation and the lunacy
of blind adherence to profit-driven economic
ideologies.
He doesn’t sound like a pope; he sounds like
David Suzuki.
He can make headlines but will he
make a difference? Hard to say. No doubt the
pope is a glittering beacon to the 1.2 billion
Catholic faithful who consider him
their spiritual father, but when all is said
and done, the pope proposes, the Vatican
disposes. Pope Francis is a shiny pearl
buried in the barnacle-encrusted oyster-shell
of Vatican bureaucracy. But he is no fool.
Old friends describe him as ‘a chess player’
who thinks out every move before he
makes it.
He’s certainly got our attention. As I once
overheard someone say: “That guy sure knows
how to pope!”
As Christians say: Amen to that.
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
“My name is Denny and I’m a
reporter and, for the next two
weeks or so, you’re going to
learn about what I do for a living and whether
it’s something that might interest you. Along
the way, you’re probably going to learn a little
bit about photography. At least, I hope you
do.”
“My name is Denny and I’m a reporter and
for the next two weeks you’re going to learn
about what I do for a... wait, I’ve already said
this part.”
It’s a good thing my wife worked on
Saturday because I’m sure if she heard me
reading and re-reading the things I was on
Saturday, she might have gone as crazy as I
think I was by the end of the day.
I was preparing for a course on
photojournalism that I’m going to be teaching
at the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity in
September that revolves around the annual
reunion of the Huron Pioneer Thresher and
Hobby Association and I have to say, I don’t
envy teachers.
Okay, maybe I do, summer vacation, union
benefits, all that great stuff is enviable but
preparing to speak in front of a small group of
people is difficult for me.
Big groups (60 or more) I have no problem
with. I could give Presidential (or Prime
Ministerial) addresses if I were pushed into it,
but when you get down to a dozen or fewer
people, for some reason, it gets a lot more
difficult for me.
I don’t know why, but being a speaker for an
intimate group is something I’ve just never
been good at.
After I finished reciting the above sentence a
dozen times, I started to build on it, then I went
back and completely re-wrote it so, if you’re
going to attend the course, don’t worry, it will
be all fresh and new (and well-rehearsed) by
then.
Then, I started working on the course
curriculum.
Timing how long I had to talk about things
and how long I could expect students to be
taking pictures or working on their
photography was also a bit difficult but, to be
fair to myself, I’ve never had to do anything
like that before.
Sure, I’m very interested in what makes a
good photo for everything from a sporting
event to a cheque presentation but how can I
make them interesting to other people who
aren’t already in the industry?
How can I take what I do with a camera in
my hands and boil it down into a handful of
three-hour lessons? How can I make
something that seems like second nature to me
accessible enough to be taught in that three-
hour window?
How can I explain what being a
photographer is about to me and make that
exciting?
It’s a tough proposition and, before long, I
started to think about reasons I wouldn’t want
to do what I do.
I thought about the hundreds, if not
thousands, of photos I’ll take over the course
of a year that never see the light of day.
If you ever see me out working, you will
hear the shutter on my camera taking two or
three photos a second. I can come back from a
three-hour event with three hundred or more
photos. Once upon a time I explained that to a
friend who was the de facto photographer in
his office because he had taken some classes
and he didn’t understand how I didn’t go
insane. Looking back on that discussion, I
wondered how I could explain that those
photos have a use and that they may sit there
for years but someday someone might need
them without it sounding like I was making up
excuses.
I then dwelled on some other less-than-
stellar situations I’ve run into and started to go
to some dark places and spawn some hard
questions.
What if I were boring? Or worse, what if I
made my job sound so amazingly awesome
that everyone wanted it and eventually one of
them replaced me?
My mind is a dangerous one to leave to its
own devices because I can sometimes jump to
some outrageous conclusions.
Needless to say there were a lot of questions,
both logical and bordering on crazy, but, I
think, in the end, I found a balance between
teaching what needs to be taught and keeping
it interesting. I guess, however, I won’t really
know that until the course is over.
By the end of the day, I had come to the
conclusion that I maybe should have given
myself a few more weeks to prepare.
At the end of it all though, all the planning
and all the figuring out what I should focus on,
I have to say, I really do love my job,
especially when I’m taking pictures.
I know I’ve shared this before, but before I
got my first job at a newspaper I saw
photography as a means to an end: you had to
have a picture to draw attention to a story.
After a few weeks, however, I realized that
photos are, in many cases, better than stories
and they can be a heck of a lot of fun to plan,
prepare for and execute.
Taking them is not easy, however. Taking
pictures for the paper isn’t just snapping a
camera: we have to properly identify photos,
we have to consider who can and can’t be in a
picture, we have to determine what is
background and what isn’t and, on occasion,
that can mean a lot of asking questions, a lot of
running around and last-minute phone calls.
Despite the hiccups that you might run into
being a news photographer still is, as far as I’m
concerned, a heck of a lot of fun.
As much as I may play it down, getting that
front page photo is still a rush. Seeing that
perfect shot that tells the story is something
that I will always enjoy and sharing that with
people is something I’m very much looking
forward to.
Columnist’s note: Last week a line of my
column walked away between our Blyth office
and the printer. My final words were supposed
to be: “I’m officially retired.”
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The dream will work
I’ll never forget the first time I uttered those
now immortal words “Teamwork makes
the dream work.” I immediately knew it
was a phrase that was going to make people
remember me for a very, very long time.
O.K., so I didn’t come up with teamwork
makes the dream work. John C. Maxwell did.
Born in Michigan, Maxwell is apparently a
very successful author, speaker and pastor,
who also has a few New York Times bestsellers
under his belt.
To say I’m a firm believer in Maxwell’s
phrase though, would be a fair statement to
make (and a true one). In many of my sporting
passions, teamwork is not just a good idea –
it’s essential to success.
In baseball, you can try and take the field
yourself (you can’t actually, it’s against the
rules, but for fun let’s say you could), but the
number of “gaps” in both the outfield and the
infield would grow exponentially.
Teamwork is at the very core of the concept
of competitive cycling. Each team has a
leader – often a well-rounded cyclist with ticks
in all of the major skill boxes, such as
climbing, sprinting, descents and endurance –
and a number of domestiques, as they’re
called. The word literally translates to
“servant” in French, with the concept being
that a team of cyclists is full of domestiques
who will do everything from co-ordinate mid-
ride feeding, to gathering water bottles for the
leader to breaking the wind at the front of the
peloton (the group of riders), giving the leader
the opportunity to draft on his wheel and
conserve energy. No rider could ever win a
major cycling race, even a one-day race,
without the help of teammates.
So it is in saying that I salute the business
owners of Brussels on working together to
bring interest, more business and attractions to
the village.
The group of volunteers has now been
meeting for a number of months and they have
discussed plenty of different things, whether it
be the creation of a new event in Brussels or
simply beautifying the community. Any and all
ideas pertaining to the betterment of Brussels
have been on the table.
Teamwork amongst local businesses is
nothing new. For decades businesses and
business owners have been working together –
whether it be through Business Improvement
Areas, partnerships or cross-promotion – so
the Brussels group isn’t exactly reinventing the
wheel, but what its members are doing is
taking a common problem and putting their
heads together in an attempt to solve it.
It’s no secret that Brussels businesses have
had their challenges over the years, and those
challenges have been especially tough over the
last two years with extensive construction
rendering the village’s main street unpassable
at times, but the time has come that all of the
optimists said would come.
No pain, no gain, was what they said and
they were right. Two years of hard work on the
streets of Brussels and now, the main street is
looking better than ever. Not only is all of its
underground infrastructure in order, but its
appearance is slick and improved – from the
new curbs to the fresh, smooth pavement (a
cyclist’s dream, might I add). Add to that the
new decorative streetlights that are on the way
and Brussels promises to look better than it
has, at least in the nine years I’ve been here.
So these visionary minds with a special
place in their hearts for Brussels are now
working on ways to welcome people back to
the village.
I’m sure we won’t be disappointed.
Other Views
Pip Pip! for new Pope Francis
Trying to teach what it is I do