HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-09-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2012. PAGE 5.
Here’s a headline to catch an old-timer’s
eye: TEEN DRIVERS NOT DRIVEN
TO GET LICENCES.
“The world has changed,” says Mary
Baracco, director of Young Drivers of
Canada. “When baby boomers were growing
up in the ’60s and ’70s, 16-year-olds were
more apt to get their licence right away.
Today it’s not as high a priority for young
people.”
Well, I certainly didn’t get my first driving
licence when I turned 16 – but only because
my birthday fell on a Sunday. Come 9 a.m.
Monday morning you could find me with my
nose pressed flat against the glass door of the
Driver Licensing Office, waiting to get my
hands on that precious document.
When I was in high school, getting your
driver’s licence was as sacred a teenage rite of
passage as sneaking a smoke under the
bleachers or buying your first tube of
Clearasil.
Getting your licence meant freedom! No
more plodding like a foot soldier from home to
burger joint – or worse, riding your dorky
CCM three-speed. Nobody hoping to appear
cool rode a bicycle after they were old enough
to get a driver’s licence. That little piece of
paper was like sprouting your own set of
wings.
It wasn’t really. Most of us still didn’t have
a car and getting permission to take out the
family clunker involved Kissingeresque
negotiations with the Keeper of the Keys, but
we imagined we were free as birds.
So what’s different between the kids of
today and kids back then? Well, the driver’s
test, for one thing. When I got my licence back
in the Stone Age, all I had to do was wheel
once around my one-horse town with a
municipal clerk in the passenger seat and try
not to hit anything. Nowadays new drivers
have to thread their way through Learners and
Novice levels. each with a host of restrictions
and provisos that would daunt all but the most
determined contestants.
Then there’s insurance. If you’re under 25,
insurance companies treat you with all the
compassion and understanding they would
extend to any alcoholic serial-killing speed
freak. They’re more than happy to extend a
policy to you. Don’t forget to bring your
wallet.
Speaking of wallets, best enrol in a qualified
Driver’s-Ed program before you take the test.
That’ll set you back another few hundred
bucks.
There is one other major modern
development that’s put driving a car on the
back burner for many young people, and it’s so
small you could fit a couple of dozen of them
in the glove compartment.
The cellphone. Think about it. The
cellphone does for kids of today what a car did
for kids of my generation. It puts them in
touch with their peers (and more). It’s
available around the clock and it doesn’t get
flat tires or speeding tickets.
Sheryl Connelly, a manager with Ford
Motor Company has seen the writing on the
windshield: “The car has been displaced by
the cellphone,” she says. “Digital devices
transcend time and space. You can feel you’re
with your friends even when you’re not with
your friends.”
Well, maybe. But when my 16-year-old
hormones were looking for a ‘friend’ on
Saturday night, text messaging was not
what was on my mind. And there’s something
about the ambience of sitting in a big old
Dodge with its hood ornament pointed
at a Drive-In movie screen, a big box of
popcorn on the dashboard and your sweetie
beside you that all the Steve Jobs and Bill
Gates in the world haven’t figured out
how to replicate.
Yet.
Arthur
Black
Other Views The driving honeymoon is over
There are times when you see something
that perfectly encapsulates the being of
someone, or something; what their
whole life is about displays itself in one image
or event in a remarkable feat of storytelling.
This happened to the hapless Toronto Blue
Jays on Sept. 4 when they were spanked by the
Baltimore Orioles by a score of 12-0, but that
was far from all that happened that night.
The Blue Jays have been crippled by injuries
this year, with over a dozen of the team’s upper
echelon players on the disabled list at any
given time. They have been the victims of bad
luck, poor planning and front office moves that
just haven’t worked out. In short, the season,
for a young team that showed so much promise
early, just hasn’t gone the Blue Jays’ way.
However, during the Sept. 4 contest with the
Orioles, the season sunk to a new low and it
brought new meaning to the suggestion that the
season was a wash-out.
Despite a full day of rain, high-ups at the
Rogers Centre decided it would be a good
move to open up the arena’s retractable roof.
And like so many decisions made in the
team’s camp this year, not only did it not pan
out, but it suffered a catastrophic failure.
Less than two innings after the roof was
opened, it began to rain quite hard and the crew
began the process of closing the roof back up.
It was at this point, however, that an
announcement was made saying that the roof
was still closing, but at a slower rate than
normal.
This announcement reminds me of several
Blue Jays’ injuries this year. Pitcher Brandon
Morrow was taken out of a game in May with
what was said to be a minor injury to his ribs.
The Blue Jays said he would be well enough to
make his next start. He returned in late August.
Slugger José Bautista was said to have tweaked
his wrist on a swing months ago. He has now
had season-ending surgery.
The roof eventually jammed as rain poured
into the middle of the field and fans were
forced to either open their umbrellas or retreat
to covered portions of the building.
Certainly that was an embarrassing low point
in the season. Surely it couldn’t have gotten
any worse, could it? It did. While rain poured
into the building, the Rogers Centre’s fire
alarm began to sound throughout the entire
building.
There was no fire, however, as an
announcement rang through the arena telling
people that there was no problem.
Innings later the roof was finally closed with
what team representatives called “little
disruption”.
Maybe for the players, but for the 13,556
people in attendance, the incident didn’t look
to cause “little disruption” as thousands of fans
were displaced and scurrying around the
Rogers Centre in search of dry land during the
gaffe.
To me, the evening was the team’s season in
a nutshell. The roof, that should have never
been opened in the first place, jams while
closing, rain pours into the arena, the fire alarm
sounds and all the while, the Blue Jays are
falling to a division rival by a dozen runs. If
someone from out of town asks you how the
Blue Jays did this year, tell them to watch the
Sept. 4 game and they’ll understand.
For the players involved, however, I couldn’t
help but feel sorry for them as they toiled on
the soggy field while in the midst of giving up
12 runs to the Orioles, whose last winning
season was 15 years ago.
The team’s only hope is that when one roof
closes, another opens.
Season at a glance
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
There’s a lot of time to kill on the road
between Goderich and Brampton and I
swear every second commercial break,
regardless of the radio station I was listening
to featured some politically-charged ad about
teachers and how they weren’t being treated
fairly.
Now, I like teachers. I went to school with
teachers, one of my roommates is a great
music teacher and a hilarious guy to hang
around with. Without teachers, my job would
be really, really tough.
Without teachers things would be difficult
but, to be honest, I’m really angry at them.
Here are some of the problems that have led
to the provincial government standing where it
is (and if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me,
but a search of primary, secondary and even
tertiary documents seems to prove the
statements correct):
• Teachers can bank up to 200 sick days and
be paid for them after they retire at 50 per cent
pay to a maximum of $46,000 (An amount I’d
love to make in a year, for reference sake).
• Teachers salaries have increased, in
Ontario, an average of 34 per cent over the past
eight years under the Liberal government.
• Teachers have gained 50 per cent more
preparation time over the past eight years for a
total of 240 minutes per week (that’s four
hours).
Now I’d love for someone to come up and
prove me wrong on any of those statements
but, I’m sorry to say this, you’re going to find
very little sympathy from me even if you do
for one major reason (if you’re a teacher):
You’re making enough money that your union
can literally throw money at a union problem
through a province-wide advertising program
across at least half a dozen different radio
stations from different media companies.
Now I have my fair share of experience with
unions (not that I’ve ever been in one, but I’ve
got experience with them) and I can honestly
say that I don’t see them as a bad thing as
some people do.
Unions are necessary for large groups of
people and not just because it helps them
negotiate together. They also provide a system
to benchmark earnings and make sure teachers
in Toronto aren’t making drastically more than
teachers in other parts of the province (or it
provides the evidence that shows the opposite
is true).
That said, I think that things have gone a bit
too far here. Teachers can strike like anyone
else; they did it while I was in school.
Professors can strike like anyone else, again, it
happened to me in school, and if your
employer is the province, then I guess you can
claim that they’re mistreating you, but if
you’re going to start claiming the McGuinty
government has been bad for you, I’d look at
the gains in the past eight years.
I’d also think about removing the political
swing from the ads. I’m sure that teachers are
going to think twice about voting for the
Liberals in the next election, but I’m fairly
certain that there are far more people in this
province who work 12 months out of the year
and make far less than teachers who think the
provincial government is making the right
move by freezing those (in my opinion) high
salaries paid for through their taxes.
If you want to encourage people to write to
the government to give you a fair swing at the
table; go for it, if you want to tell people
you’re being treated unfairly, again, go right
ahead, but don’t talk about Dalton McGuinty
and his promises.
Politicians lie. Politicians philander.
Politicians are viewed as lecherous
individuals. You’re not going to win anything
by trying to malign an individual that most
people already have. If you’re going to insist
on trying trying to prove the proven, why not
prove that water is wet?
Now, before I burn any more bridges, I’ll
switch topics.
Last Thursday I sat through another meeting
about fire protection services.
I heard North Huron make the argument that
their price is the lowest it can be. I heard
Morris-Turnberry claim they’re paying too
much. I saw people squabble over the issues
back and forth and back and forth because,
well, to give the politicians a little credit, the
information presented by the Ontario Fire
Marshal at the meeting really had only the
most tenuous link between the situation in
Morris-Turnberry and North Huron. It almost
seemed that the representatives were more
interested in trying to say “It’s possible,” than
providing any information on how North
Huron and Morris-Turnberry could get past
the negotiating problems that put them in this
situation in the first place.
Wait... strike that, it was definite. I felt like I
was watching the Watergate scandal, but
instead of having no recollection, the
representative kept saying “I can’t comment
on that” or “I’m not here to comment on that”.
As a ratepayer (and yes, I am still one of
those), I have to say it was pretty
disappointing knowing that every person there
was getting paid to basically be told what they
already knew. (Well, what North Huron
already knew, I’m not privy to the same level
of information about Morris-Turnberry).
Deputy Fire Chief David Sparling
questioned the presence of Central Huron
Council for a similar reason and I’m with him.
Regardless of whether they were invited to
sit in the gallery or not, all of Central Huron’s
Council was there as well as their Chief
Administrative Officer.
If I was a Central Huron ratepayer, I would
be as frustrated as Sparling was when he asked
them if they were getting paid.
The meeting literally had nothing to do with
Central Huron since no decision was set to be
made that night. If Central Huron councillors
or staff get paid, it’s a waste of tax payer
dollars. If they all went of their own accord,
kudos to them.
As for North Huron and Morris-Turnberry,
they can’t be blamed for the Fire Marshal’s
representatives presenting old information, but
it doesn’t change the fact that the time, and
therefore the money, was wasted the same as it
is with useless attack ads.
Tax dollars being wasted all over
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den