HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-04-12, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012. PAGE 5.
T he test of good manners is to be
able to put up pleasantly with bad
ones.
– Wendell Wilkie
I’m worried about the increasing
disappearance – and possible pending
extinction – of two critical English language
expressions.
Those expressions are (a) Please and (b)
Thank you.
Used to be common as song sparrows, those
expressions. “Could you pass the potatoes,
please?” “Yes, here you are.” “Thank you.”
I can still cast out as many Pleases as I want,
but I seldom hook a thank you. Instead I reel
in “No worries”, “Sure”, “Cheers”, “No
problem”,” You betcha”, “Right”, and
occasionally “Have a good one.”
Such expressions are hardly hostile, but
they’re also not quite as heartfelt or sincere as
a simple thank you. There’s an ironic aura of
‘no big deal’ about them. They don’t represent
a connection between two people; it’s more
like a disconnection.
Lisa Gache, a consultant in Los Angeles has
noticed too. She says what used to be common
courtesy in civil discourse is on the way out
and being replaced by all things casual.
“Casual conversation, casual dress and casual
behaviour have hijacked practically all areas
of life,” she says, “and I do not think it is doing
anyone a service.”
Wade Davis, the Canadian anthropologist,
ethnobotanist, author and photographer travels
the world but when he’s in North America, he
says, it’s never hard to tell whether he’s north
or south of the border.
Just go in the nearest supermarket. In
Canada, he says, you usually have eye contact
with the cashier and a brief conversation,
while in the U.S. the transaction is totally
impersonal. You could be dealing with a
robot. Davis says it’s a class thing. In Canada,
the chances are very good that the cashier’s
kids and your kids go to the same school, play
on the same soccer team, and live in the same
neighbourhood. Whereas in an American
store you’re often dealing with a bused-in,
part-time worker from a poorer
neighbourhood, working for minimum wage
and living in a whole different society. Why
would she or he be friendly? Aside from a few
bags of groceries on the checkout counter you
two have almost nothing in common.
I notice a growing remoteness with the
people I deal with in public here in Canada.
My partner, who has a way of crystallizing my
various melodramas, laughed when I
mentioned the Public Chill.
“What do you expect – you’re a geezer,” she
said. “That makes you invisible to anyone
under 25.”
A retired scientist I know concurs. “We’ve
noticed that the lack of acknowledgement and
general politeness isn’t confined to strangers”,
he writes, “Neighbours, friends and even
spouses of our children seem to have a hard
time giving thanks of any kind”.
Maybe it is just a generational thing. If so,
there are signs that some adults are getting a
little tired of being treated like doormats. Tom
Jordan of North Carolina, for instance, who
discovered that his 15-year-old daughter
Hannah was cursing her parents out on
Facebook, telling the world they treated her
‘like a damn slave’ because they expected her
to do chores around the house.
Dad took the laptop out in the yard, set up a
webcam, shot the laptop nine times with a gun
and posted the video to YouTube for “all those
kids who thought it was cool how rebellious
you were.”
Now that’s an extreme (and extremely
American) reaction to bad manners. I prefer
the approach taken by the famous actress Ethel
Barrymore who once invited a young actress
to a dinner party. Not only did the guest not
appear, she didn’t bother to let Barrymore
know in advance, or to account for her absence
afterward. Several days later the two women
met unexpectedly.
“I think I was invited to your house for
dinner last week”, the young actress said
lamely.
“Oh, yes,” replied Barrymore brightly. “Did
you come?”
Arthur
Black
Other Views Would you read this, please?
Last weekend I found myself with a bit of
time on my hands and no Easter plans,
so I got caught up in the spirit of Major
League Baseball’s opening day weekend and
made the drive to Detroit.
The Tigers were playing the Boston Red Sox
and it couldn’t have been a more perfect day to
take in a baseball game outdoors.
There is no other sport so tied to its season as
baseball is to summer. Sure, everyone
identifies hockey with winter, but the hockey
season often begins at a time when people are
still wearing shorts outside and it often ends
when people are digging out those same pairs
of shorts.
To me, and to a lot of people, baseball means
summer is here. The arrival of spring training
means that winter is on its way out and the
beginning of the playoffs means that winter is
rolling back around once again. Baseball is
summer.
Walking around Comerica Park the air was
full of the smell of cotton candy and beer nuts
and sausages cooking on the grill. The reality
of the situation is that Jess and I got into a bit
of a push and pull because I was so excited, I
drifted off into my own little world. I wasn’t
watching where I was going, I would speed off
to see something, leaving her behind in a
stadium she’d never been in and I couldn’t sit
still. I think she just wanted to bring it to my
attention that was acting like I was eight years
old and I needed to calm down for my own
good.
For me there was just no better feeling in the
world than last Saturday. The air was warm,
the grass was green and there was baseball
being played.
In Detroit, Comerica Park is an open-air
stadium. In many places there are fences
instead of walls and the outfield wall is so short
that a collection of people stood on Brush
Street able to look into the stadium and follow
the game without having purchased a ticket.
This is how baseball stadiums are meant to
have been built. As a child I grew up watching
Chicago Cub home runs get hit onto Waverly
Avenue and balls going over the Green
Monster at Boston’s Fenway Park dropping
among the hundreds of fans collected on
Yawkey Way.
So growing up, what did I have? I had the
SkyDome. Sure, now it’s called the Rogers
Centre, but it will always be the SkyDome to
me.
When it was first opened at the beginning of
the 1990s, it was revolutionary. The roof
opened and closed depending on the weather
report. It was the end of rain-outs, while at the
same time preserving the ability to experience
a game under the blue sky and bright sun.
However, after doing a bit of a tour in recent
years, I’ve seen how an open-air stadium can
preserve that baseball feeling that made it
America’s pastime for decades.
There’s something about being outside on a
beautiful day, enjoying a game with no time
limit on a lazy weekend day that can feel like
watching grass grow to some and mean the
world to others.
I looked around the crowd to see young men
and women participating in the age-old art of
keeping score with their pencils and programs
and I was inspired to do the same, giving Jess
a bit of a lesson on trying to keep statistics in
the most statistics-driven game in the world.
She was overwhelmed at times, but in the end
she did well.
So baseball is back, which means summer is
back and everyone should be just a little bit
happier when they pass you on the street.
The boys of summer
Last week’s issue of The Citizen had
quite a few stories regarding local
Sunshine Lists.
Both the Avon Maitland District School
Board and Huron County released theirs, but
the Huron Perth Catholic District School
Board stated that the system needs an upgrade.
Trustee Ron Marcy stated the $100,000 list
needs to be adjusted for inflation since it was
created in 1996.
He stated that $71,000 in 1996 would be
$100,000 now and that $100,000 then would
be $139,000 now.
I ask, when we’re talking about people
making two to four times the average hourly
wage (based on a 40 hour work week) of a
Canadian over the age of 15, do we really need
to worry about inflation?
Maybe we should be considering other
concerns with the Sunshine List.
I’m sure, for example, Dr. Nancy Cameron,
Huron County’s Medical Officer of Health, is
a very accomplished individual. However, in
the middle of an economic downturn, she
made $297,252.96 in 2011. Based on Statistics
Canada’s 2011 data and a 40 hour work week,
that is approximately six times the average
hourly wage of someone over 15. ($23.53 and
to me even that number seems very high.)
Heck, even based on an 80 hour work week
that’s still three times the national average.
Now I’m not going to say doctors shouldn’t
make more than, say, a journalist.
They go to school for years, they reach
inside of people and... I’m going to stop that
line of thought before I start feeling ill.
At one point I did want to be a doctor until I
realized that a doctor has to be comfortable
with blood and needles and all that stuff I’m
definitely not comfortable with.
Anyway... they do all that squishy medical
stuff that makes me uncomfortable and for that
they definitely should make more than me.
But should they make 10 times (or more,
who knows, I’m just spitballing here) more
than I do?
That’s a discussion for the budget makers.
All I can do is sit there slack-jawed as I see
the correlation between how much people
make and how much money isn’t available for
the institutions they work for.
A doctor makes $297,252 annually and we
can’t afford improvements to local hospitals.
I’m not saying there is a causation
relationship there, but I’m sure the two are not
independent situations.
We are in the process of building a new
school (which is setting the bar for other
schools to be built at $11 million according to
a recent comment at an accomodation review
committee (ARC) process in western Huron
County) which is closing several other schools
to promote educational excellence and enrich
education.
Those schools are being closed because they
don’t have the necessary population to make
them financially feasible.
Meanwhile, 97 members of the Avon
Maitland District School Board made more
than $100,000 this year.
That’s $9,700,000. It seems to me we could
keep a lot of schools open with half of that
kind of money and those employees could still
annually make more than $50,000.
Heck, if Director of Education Ted Doherty
cut his $188,000 annual salary by 75 per cent
then the board would have $141,000 to help
keep local schools running while leaving him
with $47,000.
I know, that doesn’t seem like a heck of a lot
of money, but I make ends meet with a lot less
than that. If we had $4,850,000 (half of the
$9,700,000) to spread around the Huron and
Perth areas we could probably save a lot of
local schools and upgrade, repair and maintain
them.
I went to a couple schools with relatively
low populations and I found them to be some
of the best learning environments available.
So, back to Marcy’s comments: I don’t think
we need to update the requirements for the
Sunshine List. I think we need to keep the
Sunshine List as it is and view it as a mark on
public sector employers if they have anyone
make it to that list.
I’m sure that $99,999.99 is more than
enough to run a household on and no one,
especially living in Huron County, should
need anywhere near that amount to make ends
meet.
The Sunshine List should be seen as a “hit
list” for budgetary cuts in my eyes. The second
you start making enough to buy my car every
two months you should probably be making
less than you currently are.
A lot of people will probably think I’m just
griping about the fact that they make more
than me, but that’s not really what this is
about.
I had a lot of options when I was in school.
I could have done a lot of different things but I
chose the path that I wanted and I’ve never
regretted it.
I don’t care if people make more than me,
money doesn’t dictate the quality of my life and
it shouldn’t dictate the quality of anyone else’s.
What matters to me, and to anyone who
matters to me, is the measure of someone’s
character.
To get away from the emotional stuff and
bring it back to the point here; I’m not
suggesting communism; I’m saying that the
disparity in the range of wages in this country
is far too great.
I’m saying the more people get for running
an institute the less there is for the institute
itself.
I’m saying that there are a lot of problems in
this area caused by a lack of funding,
especially in the health care and education
arenas. Those two areas are also home to some
of the highest wages in the area.
I see a problem that needs to be addressed.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Sunshine List should mark budget cuts