HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-11-14, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013. PAGE 5.
This is a gut-wrenching column for me to
write. It forces me to re-think pretty
much everything I believe in, hold dear
and – until now – have accepted about myself
without question.
Here’s the problem: I’ve found something
that Stephen Harper and I agree on.
It’s not his government’s gutting of
Canada’s environmental protection legislation;
I remain appalled by that. Nor is it his heavy-
handed muzzling of government scientists –
that’s an outrage to freedom of speech.
I’m still annoyed with his two-faced
relationship with the Senate – appointing
bum-boys and bag(wo)men then throwing
them off the Tory truck when somebody
spills some gravy. I despise him for his
pretence of ignoring climate change (he knows
better) and for his unseemly haste in dropping
our country’s drawers for Chinese investors
keen to syphon up our resources.
I disagree with our disagreeable tyrant in
more ways than I can count, but on one
subject, we are on the same page.
Remembrance Day poppies. Stephen
Harper’s got that right. A couple of years ago,
while pinning a poppy to his lapel,
Harper grumbled something about how,
despite nearly a century of technological
innovation, the best the Canadian Legion
can come up with to attach poppies to humans
is a common straight pin.
Amen to that, Mister Harper. I admire the
poppy but I despair at the accepted method
of attaching it to my clothing. For a clumsy
guy like myself the pins are tricky and
treacherous. I daresay I’ve given as much
blood through my thumbs on Remembrance
Days as I have intravenously at any Red Cross
Blood Bank.
Ineffective too. I lose anywhere from three
to nine poppies every November. I buy them
one at a time, faithfully, and I pin them to my
clothing, hopefully. And each year, one
at a time, they detach themselves and lazily
drift off my lapel or my hat band like autumn
leaves from a sugar maple. They come off
because, well, they were never really on, were
they? Expecting a straight pin to restrain a
poppy is like expecting Don Cherry to be shy
and retiring. Ain’t gonna happen.
In the decades since the poppy was first
presented as a way to remember our fallen,
the world has been blessed with snaps,
buttons, tie bands, Velcro and a host of
adhesives ranging from Crazy Glue to Sticky
Notes. Surely something in that pantheon
could be used to replace that infuriating
straight pin.
Or perhaps I’m not seeing the big picture
here. Maybe the Canadian Legion is crazy like
a fox. If they can find a way to sell me nine
poppies a year instead of just one – that’s not
inefficiency, that’s planned obsolescence – and
money in the Legion’s pocket.
As for the bloodletting, that’s small
potatoes – especially compared to the rivers
of blood that were spilled by several
hundred thousand Canadians on the world’s
battlefields. Perhaps pricking our thumbs
once a year is a worthy symbolic gesture
and a reminder of those who gave so much
more.
Maybe the pin on the poppy isn’t a dumb
idea; maybe it’s a little bit of marketing
genius.
Besides, anything that can get blood from
Stephen Harper can’t be all bad.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Blood from a stone or a flower Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
There are a lot of problems with this
coming year’s Olympics and they
stretch from crimes against humanity to
just crimes against common sense.
While I obviously have a problem with the
Olympic Committee basically validating
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay
agenda by continuing to hold the Olympics
there, I also understand that, at this point, there
aren’t a lot of other choices.
Sure, we should all band together and
tell Putin to get his act together, but,
from a logistical standpoint, it’s too late to
hold the venerable competitions anywhere
else.
So, with that clearly stated (and just in case
it wasn’t, homophobic laws are bad, Putin
needs his knuckles wrapped and Russia needs
to get with the times), I’ll move on to another
issue.
Late in the business day on Monday, news
broke that there wouldn’t be any forms of
modern communication allowed at the
Olympics.
Russian news outlets reported on Monday
that Instagram, Twitter, Vines and basically
any other means of quickly spreading
graphical or text-based content regarding the
Olympics will be banned.
At first, I was excited. Why? Well because it
meant a level playing field for journalists. That
was until I read the ban will only apply to
journalists.
Any print journalist who uses a phone, tablet
or pocket camera could be banned and have
their accreditation removed according to early
reports.
In fact, this is the opposite of what I had
hoped and thought it would be.
Journalists were told on Monday by
Olympic officials that, while organizers won’t
be able to stop supporters and spectators from
carrying their phones, they will be prevented
from bringing reflex cameras and equipment
into the competition.
Essentially, journalists can take their
pictures with professional equipment but not
post them using any means of modern
technology.
Spectators, on the other hand, can’t
use professional equipment but can go
absolutely willy-nilly posting anything they
want to Twitter, Instagram or Vine (a video
sharing service that, similar to Twitter,
truncates the amount of time that people can
use).
Pair this with a report last month published
by The Guardian that there will be NSA-level
spying on all communication happening in or
around the Olympics and you have an
extremely scary situation.
Not only do you have athletes dropping out,
protesting the games or simply not going for
fear of their livelihood, you have people
spying to their heart’s content, giving those
people who want to protest or those who may
have something to fear from the homophobic
laws enforced by Russia even more reason to
not participate in an event that is supposed to
transcend social and political lines and show
the best of the best in the world.
As a journalist, I’m furious.
Twitter, Facebook and other social media
sites may have created a world where false
news travels quicker than ever before. It may
have created a world where the media
is becoming judge, jury and executioner
long before people see a courtroom. Those
technologies may have done all sorts of
bad things for the world of news but we can’t
throw out the baby with the bathwater.
It does provide an opportunity for
professional, reliable journalists to quickly
report on things.
Sure, we don’t live in a world where it’s
likely that students will be ushered into a
gymnasium to watch a hockey game on a tiny
television, but there are still some unifying
experiences out there. One of them could be
many of us getting an e-mail or a tweet or an
Instagram photo in the middle of the day when
some amazing play is made and Team Canada
brings home the gold.
The spying and surveillance might have its
place in protecting the athletes and spectators
but, given Russia’s overtly homophobic
stance of late, I can’t help but feel there
might be something more sinister behind it.
I’m not going to say they’re trying to catch
people breaking their ridiculously laws
exclusively, but I’m sure it has something to do
with it.
In the end, what we’re seeing here is a nation
hosting an event which is supposed to
recognize humanity overcoming our borders
and coming together to compete in sports, in
games but handling it and itself so horribly
that it’s doing the opposite.
Through wars, through conflicts, through
the worst imaginable things in human history,
the Olympics have persevered.
There have been ups and downs for
Canadians the whole time.
We’ve won, we’ve lost, we’ve won and then
had medals confiscated. As a nation we have
experienced these things.
This year however, this fourth year to be
precise, we won’t be. We will be separated.
Whether it’s by the technology not being
used or by the fact that some of us will be
boycotting the games, the Olympics will not
be the unifying event that they are supposed to
be.
Because of the actions of those in power in
Russia, because of spying, because of fear we,
and all nations, will be separated I encourage
everyone reading this to let that known.
I’ve been told it’s too late for the Olympics
to be changed this year but that doesn’t mean
we have to accept this situation.
Write letters, e-mails and tweets or make
videos and post them online. Let the
International Olympic Committee know that
these practices can’t stand.
We might not change it this year, but we can
change it for the future.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The Olympics: Underground, unplugged
For the people...
It was Henry Clay, a former U.S. Secretary
of State, who said “a good compromise is
one where both parties are dissatisfied.”
Democracy, it seems, tends to be the ultimate
compromise.
I could go into a number of issues facing the
nation, like its money-grubbing senators, its
lying politicians and a certain mayor who
refuses to step down, despite much of Toronto
calling for his resignation, or at least a leave of
absence, but I won’t. One issue is hot enough
locally to keep the focus here.
Again wind turbines are taking centre stage
in Huron County and twice last week, people
have stepped up to opponents of wind turbines
and told them they don’t speak for everyone.
First it was at a Huron East Council meeting,
where members of Huron East Against
Turbines (HEAT) suggested that council hasn’t
done its job in defending the people of the
municipality from what they call the “horrors”
of wind turbines.
It was Councillor Les Falconer who said he
was elected by the people of Huron East to best
represent all of the municipality. With wind
turbine lease-holders in the municipality, it’s
clear that not everyone in Huron East is against
wind turbines. It’s a simple point to be made.
So when one of the group’s representative’s
suggests that money that could possibly flow
into the municipality by way of a community
vibrancy fund, would be considered “blood
money” by “the community”, is it truly the
entire community she represents?
Pennies don’t exist anymore, so with
municipalities trying to pinch nickels as tight
as they can these days, if there is money to be
had for the municipality, politicians owe it to
all of their ratepayers to at least investigate
their options, which is essentially what Huron
East Mayor Bernie MacLellan said.
Because one special interest group feels
money obtained through a community
vibrancy fund from a wind turbine company
would be “blood money”, should all Huron
East taxpayers be denied that money?
Another question of representation was
asked by an Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh
(ACW) resident at Huron County Council’s
Nov. 6 meeting. Jennifer Miltenburg, a resident
who is in favour of wind turbines, doesn’t have
a voice at the council table. Both of the
municipality’s councillors, who represent
ACW at the county level are unable to speak on
the issue because of a conflict of interest, so
how then is her voice being heard?
Anti-wind turbine groups have certainly
been vocal in recent years, but because they are
the most vocal, it doesn’t mean they speak for
everyone.
Councillors, like Falconer and the most of
his fellow councillors, are to be commended
for keeping their eyes on the big picture.
Of course, protest groups like HEAT deserve
to be listened to and considered, but
councillors have to remember the scope of the
debate. With nearly 10,000 people in Huron
East, councillors cannot allow issues to be
hijacked by a handful of people who are
passionate about one issue that could cost the
entire municipality hundreds of thousands in
legal fees if handled improperly.
These groups operate on the principle that
the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but without
the other three wheels, whatever is trying to get
somewhere, then goes nowhere.
Perspective needs to be maintained and
consideration needs to be given to the fact that
political decisions are made with more than
one group’s interests in mind, because that, my
friends, is democracy.
When you look at yourself from a universal
standpoint, something inside always
reminds or informs you that there are
bigger and better things to worry about.
– Albert Einstein
Final Thought