Loading...
The Citizen, 2013-03-21, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013. PAGE 5. “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” – Shakespeare Ah yes. The enduring fame of infamy. Names of monsters like Karla Homolka and Clifford Olson are etched on our minds for life, but...that woman who pulled three kids from a burning house – what was her name again? Which brings us to Richard. A time bomb of a handle to lumber a kid with, and not just because of its unfortunate diminutive, Dick. ‘Richard’ conjures up the spectre of Richard III, one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays. In The Bard’s estimation, Richard III was emphatically not a nice guy. In Shakespeare’s telling King Richard has Henry VI murdered along with his son. Richard also offs his wife Anne Neville, his own brother George, sundry other royals and, most infamously, the ‘two little princes’ – 12- year-old Edward and nine-year-old Richard. What a beast, n’est-ce pas? But what if it never happened? What if Richard III, instead of being England’s most vilified monarch was merely a victim of Tudor spin-doctors? Could be. The dynasty that replaced Richard III made a habit of blaming everything they could on ‘the previous administration’ (sound familiar?) – and when it came to political slander, a certain young playwright from Statford Upon Avon who came along a century or so later turned out to be the Karl Rove of his time. Richard suffered from a slight curvature of the spine; Shakespeare turned him into a brooding hunchback. Shakespeare has King Richard killing the Duke of Somerset at the Battle of St. Albans. No mean feat. Richard would have been two years old at the time. Indeed, there is no evidence that Richard was guilty of any of the killings Shakespeare attributes to him. As for the murder of the princes in the tower, experts agree that no modern court would convict Richard of the crime. Any number of royal court intriguers could have benefitted from the disappearance of the princes – most especially Richard’s successor, Henry VII. If Richard had a better PR department he might be regarded today not as a blot on the royal escutcheon but as a champion of the people – he abolished press censorship, established the right to bail for people awaiting trial, cleaned up England’s finances and even performed heroically in battle, despite his physical frailty. A historian of the time records that “to his last breath he held himself nobly in a defending manner”. Unfortunately, Richard not only lost his life at Bosworth, he lost the battle too. And it’s the victors who get to write the history books. Reminds me of a certain U.S. President who tried to remake America. He created a vast network of federal grants to state and local governments that cost billions. He set up a national agency to regulate pollution; another to guard workers’ health and safety. He even tried to bring in a guaranteed minimum wage and a national health plan for low-income families. Like Richard III, his time in office was cut short. Odd thing: his name was Richard too -- Richard Milhouse Nixon. Makes you think. Arthur Black Other Views Shakespeare the spin doctor In high school at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School I hated drama class. As much as my young and cool teacher Mr. Polidano tried, he could not get me interested in drama. The most memorable thing I ever did in drama class was break my toe. The sunken “stage” was shaped like a horseshoe with black velvet curtains all around it. Unbeknownst to me, on the other side of those curtains were wooden blocks used for other drama projects that we weren’t advanced enough to take part in I guess. I was walking along the perimeter and brushing against soft curtain on my right side until I wasn’t, and one of my toes was on a crash course with one of those wooden blocks. It hurt a lot, but there was an upside, going to a uniformed Catholic school, I was now equipped with a note from my doctor informing any passing teacher who questioned my sneakers, that I was on a three-month vacation from the rigid prison of dress shoes (I still hate them to this day). So now that we’ve gone through a vivid recreation of my most memorable drama class moment, it’s safe to say that I don’t have a lot of first person experience with art on stage. So it was one of the more interesting tasks I’ve been charged with in my life with The Citizen when I spent an afternoon at Whitefield Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) operation just outside of Lucknow with Jessica Morrison of Whitefield and esteemed Blyth Festival actors Catherine Fitch and Marion Day. As someone who interviews people for a living, I found it fascinating to be a fly on the wall during the actors’ preparation for Beyond The Farm Show, which will hit the Blyth Festival stage on June 28. Catherine and Marion asked Jessica questions in an attempt to discover who she is, and eventually craft a dramatic scene out of our visit that day, which is so different from what I do for a living when I sit down to interview someone. It was interesting to hear all of what Jessica had to say about her farm operation, and it was also interesting to hear Marion and Catherine explain what exactly it was that they were doing there. I had a brief flashback to my drama class mishap, but it didn’t come to fruition, thankfully. As I followed the group out to Jessica’s chicken barn, I trod carefully down an icy hill walking behind Marion. Being the only man on the excursion, the biggest person there by easily 100 pounds and nearly a foot of height, I could see the headlines now “Reporter slips, breaks both of star actor’s legs, ruins Festival opener”. Luckily for me, and even more luckily for Marion, that didn’t happen, so my run of bad luck and injury in dramatic situations came to an end that day. What I’m trying to get at, I suppose, is that I am looking forward to sitting in the Beyond The Farm Show audience on June 28 with my mom (yes, she’s making the trip), I feel lucky to have had such an inside track on the creative process. So when I see that trip to an organic CSA and straw bale house portrayed on the Memorial Hall stage, I will have been there when the seeds of that plant were sown. I wish I could have spent more time with the other actors like David Fox and Tony Munch and Jamie Robinson, but alas, I have a job to do and I can’t spend weeks with the show’s cast, as much as I would like to. A dramatic failure Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense For the majority of the last decade of the 20th century, Canada was the envy of the world according to the Human Development Index. The 2013 version of the index was recently released and Canada has dropped from 10th place in 2012 to 11th place, leaving the top 10 all together. Based on health, income and education, the report is generated by the United Nations and has seen some dramatic changes over the years. While the actual numbers show that Canada is slightly better this year than it was in 2012, what it shows is that Canada is not improving fast enough. It shows that other nations have accelerated their efforts to enrich the lives of its citizens and even the United States of America, which was perpetually below Canada a decade ago, is now in third place. Federal NDP leader Megan Leslie says that it’s unfortunate Canada has fallen so far under the Conservatives, but also says that one of the major causes of Canada’s index score is that there is such a disparity between low and high incomes and that the current government has done nothing about that. While countries that are closer to the equator are quickly climbing the index, such as the Republic of Korea and China who hold the 12th and 13th places respectively, the majority of nations pushing Canada to the bottom of the list are European. Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland are in the top 10, accompanied by other locales such as New Zealand and Australia. Surprisingly (to me anyways), other developed nations like the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Finland are further down the list, occupying spots between 20th and 30th place What does it all mean though? Well I’ll give you my spin on it, independent of mud slinging at any particular party. If you look at the graphs, read the hard statistics and take it all into account, Canada isn’t doing poorly. We’re not doing as well as we used to and we’re just on the cusp of the top 10. Whether we break into the top 10 and reclaim the number one position or not is a question beyond the scope of my interpretation of the numbers. If you look at everything, it looks like we’re plateauing. We’ve reached near parity with the averages for developed nations and it looks like we’re going to be stuck there for awhile. At least I hope we are. I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist but, when you plateau in a report like this, in my experience, it usually means you’re running out of gas and getting ready to take a fall. Since 1980, Canada’s gap over what is defined as “very high human development” by the index, and over other markers that denote a good quality of life, have been substantial. Recently, however those lines are nearly coming together. Canada is just barely above them. To me, I almost feel like I’m standing on the prow of the Titanic. All my life I’ve been told I won the lottery of life, being born in a first world country of such high standing, and all my life I’ve believed that, while the United States was destined to face the end of the Pax Americana, perhaps even in my lifetime, Canada, who tried to mind its own business unless it was called upon to defend the world, would continue without hesitation. Now, I’m not so sure. Now I think this unsinkable nation is a perfect analog for the Titanic. All it takes is one man standing in the crow’s nest not watching for the icebergs of gender, equity and social inequalities and we’ll soon be clinging to a wooden door asking our neighbours to the south to let us up (and then nobly falling into the ocean to not drag them down with us). I guess, if I wanted to be truly American (that being hailing from one of the American continents), I should forego the Titanic reference and liken us to Gordon Lightfoot’s telling of the crash of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Although icebergs make a far better visual for danger in the water than witches or gales of November. Whether you’re steering thousands of people or tens of thousands of tonnes of iron or the future of Canada, dangerous waters are something that need to be dealt with. Then again, I’ve been known to make a mistake or two every 52 issues or so. Maybe Canada’s going to shoot back into the top 10 or the top five in the next few years. Maybe Canada will continue to grow while other nations falter. Maybe we’ll discover gold under the Alberta Oil Sands. Maybe a lot of things could happen, but in the end, I think we’ve got to start looking for a leader who doesn’t waste time trying to rename the government when we’re stalling as far as development goes. We need a leader with their eyes on the future, not on their ministers making sure the pull-strings are still attached. We need to start thinking about the world we want to see in five, 10 or 20 years and stop worrying about whether it will be red, blue, orange or (unlikely) green. I’m not sure who that will be, but it’s going to be something important when the next rounds of municipal, provincial and federal elections come up; who wants to change Canada for the better by increasing the quality of life and decreasing disparities in income and social services versus who wants to continue trying to be the shiniest of two piles of waste by pointing their finger at the other guys. I know who will get my vote. Denny Scott Denny’s Den Development index a damning report “When I was a young man, I observed that nine out of 10 things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did 10 times more work.” – George Bernard Shaw Final Thought