HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-06-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013. PAGE 5.
The great comedian George Carlin once
said something that scared the hell out
of me. “The average I.Q. is 100,” said
George. “This means that half of all humanity
is stupider than that.”
But how can that be? We live in an age when
we have an abundance of universities and
libraries, educators and scholars, the internet,
TED talks…. A time when people can read
and consult and collaborate and… access
wisdom more than ever before, and yet…
Read the news. 21 INJURED BY
WALKING ON HOT COALS blares one
headline. Apparently, nearly two dozen mature
adults attending a motivational seminar in San
Jose, California were treated by firefighters for
second- and third-degree burns which they
received after being encouraged to walk
barefoot on white-hot coals by self-help guru
Tony Robbins.
Burned from walking barefoot on glowing
coals heated up to 1,100°C. Who could
possibly have foreseen this?
Then there’s the tragic case of Richard
Swanson, recently killed by a pickup
truck on Highway 101 on the outskirts of
Lincoln City, Oregon. Swanson was struck
while dribbling a soccer ball on the side of
Highway 101.
He planned to dribble that soccer ball down
the entire length of the American west coast
through the mountains and jungles of Mexico
and various Central and South American
countries, all the way to Sao Paolo, Brazil, in
time for the opening ceremonies of the World
Cup in 2014.
I’d suggest a one-word inscription on his
tombstone: Seriously?
Sometimes the membrane between chutzpah
and stupidity is hairline fine. Take the case of
Francesco Schettino. Signor Schettino used to
be a ship’s captain, but he’s been unemployed
since he piled his luxury liner, the Costa
Concordia, into the Italian island of Giglio
while showing off to a female passenger he
fancied. Schettino has been charged with
incompetence, manslaughter (32 passengers
died) and abandoning ship (Schettino claims
he ‘slipped and fell’ into a lifeboat in the midst
of the evacuation).
But here’s the chutzpah/stupidity element:
Schettino is counter-suing the cruise line
that fired him – for wrongful dismissal.
He claims his skillful actions after the
ship went aground prevented the deaths of
‘even more passengers’.
And then there’s our home-grown genius of
chutzpah/stupidity (call it chupidity?) I refer
of course to that strutting, chirping chipmunk
in charge (alas) of the National Hockey
League, Gary Bettman.
Here is a man who, in his 20-year chokehold
on the league has chased teams out of Quebec
and Winnipeg while awarding franchises to
such hockey hotbeds as Columbus, St. Louis,
Tampa Bay and Phoenix.
Bettman’s done such a fine job on the
Phoenix franchise the experts say it may
finally turn a profit next year. Providing the
Coyotes don’t play any games.
The Phoenix Business Journal claims the
Phoenix Coyotes could have seen some
black ink in the 2012-2013 season – but only if
the lockout had continued for the entire
season.
It seems those sky-high salaries the players
command when they’re on the ice are killing
the owners financially.
So it’s come to this: based on the team’s
projections, the only way for the Phoenix
Coyotes to make money is if they never play.
Nice deke, Mister B!
The writer Harlan Ellison once wrote that
the two most abundant things in the universe
are hydrogen and stupidity.
Don’t tell Bettman about hydrogen – he’ll
try to sell it an NHL franchise.
Arthur
Black
Other Views
A world where chupidity reigns
My heart was warmed significantly last
week when an anonymous donor
paid nearly $150,000 in back taxes
for Detroit’s Masonic Temple, one of the most
beautiful concert venues I’ve ever had the
pleasure of visiting.
The temple is 14 floors high, consists of over
1,000 rooms and occupies an entire city block
in the Cass Corridor area of Detroit, one of the
city’s most historically significant sections. It
is the largest Masonic Temple in the world.
The building contains a number of
recreational facilities, like a bowling alley, a
pool hall and a swimming pool. However, most
people know it for its three auditoriums and
two ballrooms, which is where the Masonic
Temple as a concert venue comes in.
The first and only time I ever attended an
event at the temple was just over a year ago
when Detroit-born musician Jack White, of
The White Stripes, played a handful of solo
shows there.
White, one of the biggest stars and most
accomplished musicians in the world today,
frequently fills arenas that hold 20,000 to
30,000 people, but when in his hometown of
Detroit, he has always favoured the temple’s
Scottish Rite Cathedral Theatre, which holds
just over 1,500 people.
White’s mother worked as an usher at the
hall when he was a child. He said he always
felt at home in the theatre.
That feeling won’t be going away anytime
soon, as last week White was outed as the
anonymous donor, ponying up $142,000 of his
own money to save the gorgeous building. In
light of White’s generosity, the Masonic
Temple Association announced that it would
be renaming the Scottish Rite to the Jack White
Theater.
White spent his early days as a musician in
Detroit, cutting his teeth at small local venues.
He formed The White Stripes in 1997 and
would continue playing music in the two-
member band for over 10 years.
One of the band’s most heralded tours was
its cross-Canada tour, when White pledged to
play a number of shows in every province and
territory in the country, including impromptu
shows at unlikely venues mere hours before he
was set to take the stage. For example, the band
played a show on the deck of the Arva Flour
Mills building just north of London ahead of its
show that night at the John Labatt Centre. They
played other shows across the country at
retirement centres, pool halls, bowling alleys
and even a city bus during the tour. The tour
was filmed for a documentary called Under
Great White Northern Lights.
In recent years, White moved to Nashville,
alienating many Michiganders, who felt that
White was leaving them, as well as his Detroit
roots. It was around this time that White was
credited with calling the Detroit music scene
“super negative” which didn’t help his place
with those in his hometown.
However, year after year, White has shown
that he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.
Now, of course, Detroit is home to the Jack
White Theater and it was just a few years
earlier that White was revealed as the
anonymous donor behind a $170,000
contribution to repairs to Detroit’s Clark Park,
where White grew up playing baseball.
When someone makes it big, there is a
certain amount of pride shared by everyone in
their hometown on behalf of that person. So
when they don’t turn their back on where they
came from, it makes for a sense of pride like
none other.
Good for Jack, and good for Detroit.
Hometown pride
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Sometimes there are news stories which
touch your heart or trouble your mind,
the kind of story that stays with you for
weeks because of how emotional it was or the
problems that it creates in your brain. Other
times there are stories that stay with you
because of how ridiculously under-thought a
decision was.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s paint job
for his Air Force Two (as I shall now call it) is
one of those “what were they thinking?”
stories that simply won’t leave my brain no
matter how hard I try to play it off as
unimportant.
Picture, if you will, a landing strip at
an airport. Picture one in Ireland, where a
G8 meeting is being held this very week.
Planes line up to drop off their
dignitaries. There is Air Force One from the
United States, there will be a plane from
London, England, there will be planes from
around the world and then Canada will show
up.
Now, up until a few weeks ago, Canada
showing up would likely be the least
controversial, least noticeable thing on that
tarmac. The dignitary plane, which ferries
people like Harper, or visiting dignitaries, or
the Royal Family around the world and
Canada, used to be a matte grey. It used to look
very plain and belied the importance of the
people in side.
I appreciated that reality. I respected that
reality. Instead of spending money or time to
design a new paint job that somehow
represented the incredibly diverse peoples of
Canada, it was simply painted to serve the job
it was doing.
That, however, wasn’t good enough for the
Government according to Harper.
Recently, Harper had the plane painted to
represent the Royal Canadian Air Force
(RCAF). It now has a white top, a red streamer
down the side and the bottom of the aircraft is
a dark, dark blue. As a matter of fact, it’s a
very similar blue to that of the Conservative
Party over which Harper reigns.
Now, I will certainly not argue that the
RCAF symbol does contain a blue circle and a
red maple leaf on a field of white, however I
will argue that the blue (or it could be purple,
I am loathe to admit it, but I’m colour blind. A
colour blind photographer, they should write a
book about me) is the lesser of all three
colours.
I will also argue that the plane now looks
like the paint job given to the vehicles of very
patriotic truck owners in the United States
with the red, white and blue colour scheme.
One might wonder why this would stick
with me.
Does it really matter if the plane looks more
like its United States counterpart than it
should? No, I guess not.
Could this shameless plug of the leading
party’s power lead to more votes for them in a
coming election? I very much doubt it.
Aside from the cost of the new paint job over
the cost of reapplying the same business-suit
like grey, will this really affect tax dollars? Not
really.
From every logical standpoint, this decision
has next to no merit as something I should
dwell on, however dwell I shall.
I shall dwell because it’s an example of a
government making decisions regardless of
the wishes of its constituents.
I shall dwell because, like when Harper
attempted to rebrand the Canadian
Government to Harper’s government, it shows
a complete disregard for logic and for the
people of this nation.
Please, don’t get me wrong here. The
conservative movement, notice I did not say
the Conservative Party, holds a great many
ideas that could be implemented and serve the
nation well.
The Conservative government, however, at
the national level, continues to make decisions
that seem to exist only to make their leader
happy.
Under Harper’s rule, people have been fired
for refusing to use senseless monikers like
“Canada’s New Government” and news
releases are branded “Harper Government”
despite policies which state that any renaming
must include either the word Canada or the
term The Government of Canada.
To equate an entire people, an entire
government, with the leading party’s figure
head is irresponsible.
It paints Canadians as many things that we
just aren’t. We aren’t interested in cozying up
to the United States and we aren’t interested in
being known as the subjects of Harper.
Whether we are conservative or liberal, or
Conservative or Liberal or NDP or Green
(notice the capitalization there, it’s of
paramount importance), we are a people who
should be represented by our government as a
whole, not by one man or one face.
I want to reiterate again that this isn’t a pro-
liberal, pro-Liberal or anti-conservative stance
to take. This is an anti-Harper rant.
I’m tired of the Stephen Harpers and the Rob
Fords of Canada being the ones that represent
us on the international stage. Whether they are
Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green or one of
the plethora of other parties that make up our
grand democracy system, I want our next
leader to be someone who doesn’t embarrass
us.
I don’t know who it is. It might be Justin
Trudeau or it might be Tom Mulcair or it could
be anyone else. Whoever it is, these self-
important decisions need to stop and the
government needs to start working for us, the
people, not for the person in charge.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Red, white and blue? Plane crazy
“No man for any considerable period
can wear one face to himself and another to
the multitude, without finally getting
bewildered as to which may be the true.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Final Thought