HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-11-12, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2015. PAGE 5.
Ibought a smart car. Not a Smartcar – a
smart...car. It’s smarter than any car I ever
owned. I’m pretty sure it’s smarter than
me.
I’m not bragging about it. I am not one of
those guys who wears deerskin driving gloves
and chatters on about urban/highway gasoline
ratios. I don’t love cars. I don’t even like them
much.
Here’s what I want from my car:
• It should always start when I turn the key.
• It should keep me warm when it’s cold
outside.
• It should keep me out of the rain and
protect me from a faceful of bugs.
Aside from a few other basics – brakes,
headlights, wipers, that sort of thing – that’s
about all I really care about, car-wise. My car
doesn’t have to look snazzy or go fast. I don’t
care if the radio reception is fuzzy and the
cigarette lighter doesn’t work. I am not super
fussy about automotive hygiene. As long as the
front and back windows are clean enough to
see out of, we’re good to go.
I regard cars pretty much the way Roy
Rogers regarded Trigger. I will feed it, have it
serviced regularly and give it a place to sleep
at night. In return I expect it to do its job and
not to bug me.
That is not going to work with my smart
car. Take the owner’s manual, which is about
the size of a telephone directory for a large
town. It doesn’t require two hands to lift, but
almost.
The manual is large and dense because
there’s a lot of stuff you need to know about a
car that’s smarter than you. Page 14 shows a
schematic drawing of the instrument panel. It
looks like the command module for the Apollo
13 space mission.
The steering wheel – which used to be a
simple thing with two or three spokes and a
horn button, now features nine buttons
including audio control, cruise control, shift
paddles (?) and something called multi-
function display control switches.
I think there’s a horn in there somewhere as
well.
Is all this increased automotive braininess a
hit with drivers? Hah. A recent survey called
the 2015 Driver Interactive Vehicle Experience
Report investigated the popularity of various
new features, such as: A voice link that
connected the driver to a human concierge for
directions or to make reservations. Forty-three
per cent of drivers ignored it completely.
It also examined an automatic parking
system that tucks your car into a parking spot?
Thirty-five per cent of drivers never tried it.
And a voice texting and voice recognition
system? More than half the drivers utterly
ignored it.
A fair number of owners didn’t even know
about most of the new technology (I’m
guessing the brick-sized owner’s manual
scared them off). Many said they’d dump the
technology when buying their next car.
My advice to carmakers: consider the
Jitterbug, a cellphone put out by Samsung. It
has a giant number pad you can read from
across the room. The buttons are large and
indented so that you can’t hit two at once.
There are two option buttons. One says YES,
the other says NO.
You cannot play Angry Birds on the
Jitterbug. It does not take photographs. It does
not support tweets or texts and it will not give
you the humidity index in Mogadishu.
What the Jitterbug does is handle phone
calls. Period. A cell phone that’s just cell
phone. Imagine.
There is just one drawback to the Jitterbug.
It’s not available in Canada. Oh well. I can
always place a call from my steering wheel.
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
This year’s Canadian Walk of Fame
inductees, for the most part, are
disappointing to say the least and
outrageous to be very critical of the event.
On Tuesday, Nov. 7, the following
Canadians were added to the Walk of Fame,
whose mission, according to CEO Melanie
Hurley, is “to celebrate Canadian excellence
and to inspire the next generation,”: actor
Wendy Crewson, actor Lorne Green
(posthumously), musician Michael Bublé, Don
Cherry and Ron MacLean (who should need
no introduction), Olympic rower Silken
Laumann and author Lawrence Hill.
Let me go on record as saying that I don’t
dislike anyone on the list, I just think, that with
such a lofty mission, the Walk of Fame folks
have missed the mark on several of this year’s
inductees (and those several are probably the
biggest names that are on the list this year).
Lets start with Bubble, I mean Bublé.
From a personal standpoint, I honestly have
never figured out how Bublé has such a
following. When I listen to his music, one of
two things happens; his earlier work puts me to
sleep while his newer work makes me curse
Antares Audio Technologies for creating Auto-
Tune.
For those of you unaware, Auto-Tune is a
technology that was originally intended to help
smooth out musician’s recorded performances.
Maybe they had an absolutely perfect
recording of a song minus a small hick-up or a
missed note, and Auto-Tune corrected that.
However, since its inception in 1997, it’s
become the norm for pop artists. That’s why
live music has become so very different from
what we here on the radio.
Do I have a problem with Auto-Tune? Not
on the whole. It’s a tool in the toolbox just like
every other professional entertainer has.
Those tools can extend (or start) careers.
Much like drugs or operations in sports or
plastic surgery for visual entertainers, it’s an
advancement that is being used (or in some
cases abused) to make a better product.
That said, Auto-Tune can go beyond a tool
and become a crutch. Some musicians have
even become famous for abusing it instead of
their natural talent.
However, Bublé became famous because of
his voice. People likened him to the crooners
of yore and that’s how he got big.
That would be like George Clooney going
all Face/Off and trading his money-making
face (and acting ability) for Ryan Reynolds’
mug.
How is that inspiring to the Canadians of
tomorrow? It isn’t. It’s telling them that
technology can make you a (bigger) star when
talent and hard work aren’t enough and I don’t
think that’s a great message.
Beyond my personal gripe, there is the
whole objectification of a woman thing where
he posted a picture of a woman’s posterior on
Instagram and then later said it was the world’s
fault because anyone who knew him would not
have taken it that way. Is that really an
inspiration to Canadians? (Though he did
apologize, I guess that’s Canadian.)
Next, let’s turn to Don and Ron. I like
Hockey Night in Canada’s dynamic duo so my
only problem is that Don Cherry, while
entertaining, isn’t really a role model.
He is likely one of the most famous
Canadians that breaks all the stereotypes
(except for the big hockey one).
There are two things that Canadian hockey
fans can expect from every season – the
Toronto Maple Leafs won’t win the Stanley
Cup and Cherry will get himself involved in
some kind of trouble at least once by the time
the playoffs arise, and likely again during the
playoffs.
The only thing louder than Cherry are his
suits (which I think are awesome but, yes, I
understand how some people don’t like them).
I don’t think he is representing the Canada
that we want the world to see.
Canada is in a big cultural recovery situation
right now. Whether you like or hate the
Conservative Party of Canada, which was just
ousted from power, they did change the way
Canada is viewed on the world stage and some
of those changes have been labelled as
negative by a lot of people.
This isn’t the time to be glorifying a man
who has called coaches “dog food”, supported
the invasion of Iraq and the U.S. war there and
has ties to embattled former Toronto Mayor
Rob Ford.
At a time when international news about
Canada has been equal parts good and bad, it
may not be a great idea to put forward Cherry
as a Canadian icon or say he is going to inspire
future Canadians.
MacLean, on the other hand, isn’t really
famous enough for the walk in my opinion.
Again, I can’t stress enough that I find them
both to be entertaining, but MacLean is like
the sidekick to a late-night television show (oh,
there’s a million dollar idea, give Cherry his
own late-night show on CBC). I mean, you
don’t tune in to shows because of the
sidekicks, you tune in because you enjoy the
comedic stylings of the host.
As far as the other nominees, I don’t have
any particular problem with any of them. I
know that Laumann is a great athlete, I know
that Hill is an accomplished author and I know
that the two actors have many credits to their
names, however, the list seems a bit lackluster.
Compared to inductees like (in no particular
order) Alexander Graham Bell, Terry Fox,
Robert Munsch, Margaret Atwood, Michael J.
Fox, Bobby Orr, Timothy Findley, Wayne
Gretzky, Phil Hartman, Mario Lemieux, k.d.
Lang, Farley Mowat, Rachel McAdams and
Team Canada 1972 (the hockey team), I find
very little to get excited about here.
Maybe, however, that isn’t the Walk of
Fame’s fault, maybe as Canadians, we just
need some better role models. I can’t help but
notice, however, that Chris Hadfield,
Lieutenant Romeo Dallaire, the Barenaked
Ladies, Frank Gehry and Northrop Frye
aren’t on the list so it isn’t for a lack of other
choices.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
If you can play...
You may remember the stirring
beginnings of the You Can Play
project. Started in 2012, the social
activism campaign simply stated to athletes
that “If you can play... you can play.”
The concept behind the campaign was to
eradicate homophobia in sports and it hit the
ground running with powerful ads featuring
some of hockey’s biggest names, such as
Claude Giroux, Henrik Lundqvist and Duncan
Keith, among others. In the ad, Patrick Burke,
one of You Can Play’s founders, stated that the
campaign’s goal was to “ensure that lesbian,
gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT)
athletes around the world are afforded equal
opportunity; judged only by their talent,
character and work ethic in their sport.”
It’s a great campaign and it has tons of
merit – because it transcends so many different
worlds. The idea that if someone is talented
and good at what they do, their potential
should be endless could mean so much to so
many. If you’re female, if you’re black, if
you’re any type of minority, the idea behind
You Can Play is that if you work hard enough,
you can achieve your goals and be equal.
On Sunday night, however, I was reminded
of the dark side of the whole “You Can Play”
idea. I’m not referring to the You Can Play
campaign specifically – because, of course, it
doesn’t really have a dark side – but the mere
concept that if you’re good on the field,
someone will always take a chance on you.
Enter Greg Hardy of the National Football
League’s Dallas Cowboys. He was convicted
of a vicious May, 2014 assault on his then-
girlfriend. He is alleged, among other things,
to have thrown the woman around the room,
strangled her and threatened to kill her.
Hardy was suspended for 10 games by the
NFL, a suspension that was eventually reduced
to four. However, the case took a turn when
Hardy appealed his conviction and the victim
failed to turn up for the jury trial. The
prosecutor dropped the charges and Hardy
walked free. This was a while ago, but the
story was in the news recently because Hardy
had the conviction expunged from his record,
meaning that it is now completely gone and
unattached to his name. Just one day later,
Deadspin published a thorough piece detailing
Hardy’s crimes, complete with photos,
sparking immediate outrage and disgust.
The photos are sickening, just as sickening
as Hardy’s continued arrogance in the face of
the situation. He is being enabled, however, by
the Cowboys, and their owner Jerry Jones,
who, even in the face of the new evidence,
called Hardy one of the team’s leaders.
This situation is not new for the NFL, which
just last year found itself face to face with
footage of Ray Rice punching his now-wife in
an elevator, knocking her out. Rice was made a
pariah in public and was banished from the
league. He fought for reinstatement, which he
won, but no team will pick him up.
With Rice, it’s easy though. His best years
are long behind him – so no one is tempted to
take a chance by signing him, which would no
doubt carry plenty of controversy with it.
However, as the campaign states, if you can
play... you can play. So when it comes to
Hardy, whose value on the field is undeniable,
if he can play... he can play.
The Hardy situation, which was tough to
stomach for millions watching the Cowboys
play the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday Night
Football, is proof of the cold sports business. If
you can provide value on the field, as
unfortunate as it may be, owners don’t really
care what you’ve done off of the field.
Other Views
Take the wheel, please; I’m lost
Missing the mission by a mile