HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-07-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013. PAGE 5.
Authorities in Nepal will install a
ladder to provide a shortcut over a
steep cliff near the peak of Mount
Everest. A government spokesman said
the ladder would ‘ease congestion’
for climbers on their way to the
summit.
Hmm. As a guy with exactly zero aspirations
to climb the world’s highest mountain (or
indeed anything higher than that brick of
mango ice cream at the back of the freezer)
excuse me for asking but... isn’t the whole
point of climbing Mount Everest the fact that
there are no ladders?
Isn’t climbing Mount Everest supposed to be
hard? And dangerous? And uncomfortable? If
not, why not install a series of heated
escalators from base camp? Why not hot air
balloons with celebrity hosts? (Kim
Kardashian does Katmandu!)
Sixty years ago Edmund Hillary and
Tenzing Norgay ascended Everest wearing
wool and leather. They wouldn’t recognize the
be-Spandexed, Rolexed and oxygen-bottled
tourists who ascend the peak in catered droves
these days. Modern day Everest wannabes
aren’t so much brave and hardy; more rich and
bored.
Why do we make it so difficult to be heroic
anymore?
In some quarters, ‘hero’ has become a dirty
word. At a Pennsylvania preschool, ‘super
hero play’ and ‘monster games’ have been
banned because school authorities fear
they make kids ‘dangerously overactive’. One
child came home and told his mother that
“make-believe isn’t allowed at school
anymore.”
Closer to home, there’s the case of
Briar McDonnell. Briar’s a Grade 7 student
in Calgary who saw a kid being harassed by
another student. The boy was being taunted,
pushed and prodded.
And then there was the knife. Briar
didn’t see it, but his classmates did and
Briar ‘heard the flick’. Nevertheless, Briar
stepped in and pushed the bully away. A
teacher intervened, the principal was called
and...
Briar was commended, right? Con-
gratulated? Singled out at assembly
as a good guy? Given honourable mention
in the school yearbook?
Nah. He was hauled down to the principal’s
office and treated like a criminal. The police
were summoned and Briar’s locker was
searched. His mother was called and told that
her son had been “involved in an incident” in
which he “decided to play hero and jumped
in”.
“We don’t condone heroics,” the principal
harrumphed. Briar, she explained, should have
gone off and found a teacher to handle the
situation.
Briar’s mother wondered if perhaps, in the
time it would have taken Briar to find a
teacher, the victim’s throat might have been
slit. The principal said that was ‘beside the
point’.
Mrs. McDonnell didn’t agree.
“What are they teaching them?” she
asked a National Post reporter. “That
when you go out in the workforce
and someone’s not nice to you, you have
to tattle to your boss? What are we going
to do if there are no heroes in the world?
There would be no police, no fire, no armed
forces... ”
And probably no more people like Yuichiro
Miura. The Japanese climber reached the peak
of Mount Everest last month, becoming the
oldest person to do so. Mister Miura is 80
years old.
He didn’t need a ladder.
Arthur
Black
Other Views
Where have all the heroes gone?
You know when you hear people say
they’re not “cut out” for something? I
can certainly relate. Some people,
through no fault of their own, just don’t gel
with a certain world sometimes.
Much has been made recently in the pages of
The Citizen of the term “red tape” which, of
course, is the all-encompassing term for an
issue being held up by some government body.
Red tape is mentioned all the time, but lately
it has been a central figure in the tale of the
parkades several business owners wish to place
in front of their shops in Blyth.
Business owners like Blyth’s Rick Elliott
(Elliott-Nixon Insurance, Queens Bakery) and
Peter Gusso (Part II Bistro, The Station House)
have expressed their frustration over the delays
happening with the parkades. Once again, the
story has been well documented in The Citizen
because both businesses hoped to have the
parkades, an idea they first brought forward
last summer, in place for this year’s Blyth
Festival season to both help business on main
street and increase foot traffic in the village.
Decisions like these, however, are at the
whim, not only of local council members, but
often of Huron County Council, and some-
times, in cases of severances and the like, the
Province of Ontario.
So when Elliott, an established businessman,
and Gusso, a world class chef, stand in front of
Huron County Council, there is no other way
of seeing it than business owners quivering in
front of council like Oliver Twist asking the
orphanage’s master for more gruel.
So the decision comes down: approved, with
conditions. Council’s next meeting, due to a
summer break, is at the beginning of
September, meaning just a handful of
performances of Falling: A Wake, the Festival’s
final show, being staged at the Phillips Studio,
remain in this year’s season when the parkades
could theoretically be finally approved (though
there’s nothing guaranteeing that they will).
There goes another year.
The slow-as-molasses world of politics can
be a tough one to grasp for business owners, or
anyone used to doing their own dirty work.
If Gusso needs a new appliance in the Part II
Bistro kitchen, for example, I doubt he holds a
meeting to discuss it, putting the issue on hold
for two months while he weighs the pros and
cons of said new appliance. He goes out and
buys a new one, otherwise that’s at least two
months of business he stands to lose.
It’s not hard to understand why regular
people, when faced with the world of politics,
just helplessly throw their hands in the air.
Their fate is in someone else’s hands, and those
hands aren’t exactly quick like Iron Mike
Tyson’s in his prime.
When my old friend Sarah Mann died, her
family, alongside Community Living Central
Huron, began a photo show fundraiser. It
hummed along for a few years, being handled
by family members and friends.
There came a time, however, that the show
was handed over to the county, with the
thought it would lighten the burden on Sarah’s
family. There was no photo show that year.
The next year her family took the show back
and, with the help of Community Living and
several sponsors, the show returned to its
previous glory, remaining there ever since.
Sometimes you have that ability, the ability
to take the power back, but with an issue like
Blyth’s parkades, it just isn’t that easy.
I have no sage advice for those poor Blyth
souls entangled in red tape; all I can say is that
I feel your pain, and offer the familiar sports
consolation “better luck next year.”
Allow 4-6 weeks for...
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Earlier this week I was trying
desperately, and perhaps somewhat in
vain, to try and find a news story about
the thousands of people in both Ontario and
Quebec who were without power after the
massive storms that hit eastern Canada last
week.
Unfortunately for me, it was Monday I was
looking for the story.
Monday I was ready to write a column all
about being in the dark, you know, being
without power.
Living in Huron County has certainly
opened my eyes to a lot of different weather
events.
I survived the cyclone and tornado in
Goderich, I’ve sat through intense blizzard and
early thaws in Blyth and heat wave after heat
wave across the county as well as the famous
ice storm of a the past few years
Suffice to say, I know that being without
power can be a pain.
However, I was unable to find the story to
get the details to write about that because the
royal baby was being born.
By the time you’re reading this, I’m
sure there will have been a miniature
explosion of pictures and videos of the baby
(and whatever else people can get away
with) and a name will have been announced
by Prince William and Kate, the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge. The world will
know everything it can about the infant that is
third in line for the crown (after his
grandfather and father) and likely the future
king, but it still won’t be enough. People
will still be ravenously looking for every
tidbit.
So, back to the power outage and its lack of
coverage.
When I opened my usual news sources, I
found one thing and one thing only being
covered, the birth of the future ruler of
England.
I don’t mean there were several different
news companies covering it, I mean that
each news company had a half (if not a full)
dozen stories on the yet-to-be-born tyke
ranging from pictures of the happy couple
to a recap of the life and times of William
and Kate to stories speculating what the
name of the child will be to, and I jest
not about this one, CNN’s genetic breakdown
of the child who will have a six per cent
chance of being a red-headed like his uncle
Harry.
At first it frustrated me. There was an
honest-to-goodness news story happening
right here in Ontario and in our neighbouring
Quebec.
Trucks and barns had been thrown the
lengths of football fields, 65,000 people were
without power and might remain so until
Tuesday (that being four days without
electricity) and here the news is focusing on
the likelihood that the future King of Great
Britain will have red hair and freckles.
As I said, at first, it frustrated me.
However, after that I realized that I shouldn’t
begrudge these ‘news’ outlets for providing
what their readers and viewers apparently
want. Soon after that, I realized, that
these kinds of news stories are pretty much
what pays my bills and puts food on the
table.
No, I don’t benefit directly from stories
about the Royal Family, but what it does
is it reminds people that the internet is
fickle.
Sure, for me it meant not being able to find
a story about people without power who are as
close as a province away, but for people who
are interested in what North Huron or Morris-
Turnberry Councils are doing, or for people
wondering what Ty Sebastian feels about his
recent big win or for people wanting to know
a little bit about the new pastor in town, the
internet just isn’t the place they’re going to get
that news.
The place they’re going to get that news is
right here in the pages of The Citizen (or from
someone who reads The Citizen then tells them
about it, but, either way, it’s still our work
that’s getting out there).
That’s why, when people closer to my
generation ask me how it feels to be a part of
the last honour guard of print news or ask me
why I would get into a business that has a
shelf-life, I take every satisfaction in
explaining to them that the internet, radio and
television can do a lot of things, but they can’t
do what I do.
Sure, you may get tidbits from North
Huron council meetings from my colleagues
on the radio, but what about the rest of the
story?
Television can show you what’s going
on, but what about the history? What about
the stories before and after an event to
show how it stacked up with previous
incarnations?
While there is some importance behind the
birth of the next king of an empire Canada
used to be a part of, I think it pales in
comparison to the things that are happening
next door and that’s why I think that, even
when it’s my generation that’s retired and
taking it easy, the community newspaper will
always have a place on the coffee table or the
kitchen table.
I guess, in my mind, the royal baby is
important and there’s no debating it, however I
think long-time newsman Peter Mansbridge
hit the nail on the head when he tweeted the
following:
“Just in case you were wondering,
370,000 babies are born worldwide every day
(source: Google). All of them ‘royal’ to
someone.”
So, regardless of whether it’s a brunette or a
red-head, regardless of the odd-makers
giving Alexandra a better chance to be the
name than Diana and regardless of what
happens next in the drama that is the Royal
Family, I’ll care more about how local
councils decide to deal with parkades than I
will a new addition to the Duke and Duchess
of Cambridge’s family.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Apparently some royal baby was born?
“Well done is better than well said.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Final Thought