HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-04-21, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2011. PAGE 5.
You know what’s the biggest bummer
about having another federal election?
It’s not the viral festering of VOTE
FOR ME! lawn signs besmirching the
landscape. It’s not the millions of dollars being
snow-shovelled out of campaign headquarters
for everything from lapel buttons to free
lunches to rally kazoos. It’s not the balloon-
face, insincere grins at the front door or the
bales of brochure bumf stuffed in the letterbox.
It’s the gas.
It’s the blah, blah and blah of vacuous vocal
emissions ad nauseam. We are doomed to a
barrage of endless undeliverable promises and
fake threats issued from the throats of self-
styled electable wannabes of every political
persuasion.
Then there’s the Stage Two bummer—we
don’t get just gaseous emissions –we get equal
time gaseous emissions. Every newscast and
every newspaper dishes out Tory Gas and
Grit Gas; kNee DiPper Gas and Blockhead
Gas.
As I write these words, Green Party leader
Elizabeth May, who blew the other national
leaders away in the last federal election
debate, has been denied access to this year’s
Gasfest. Meanwhile Gilles Duceppe and his
fellow Fragmentistes gets to bloviate to the
citizens of nine provinces and three territories
who couldn’t vote for him if they wanted to,
which they don’t.
Qu’est-ce que c’est que ca?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for political
discourse and healthy debate. It’s just that I
hate being talked to like I’m an eight year old
– and then having to sit through variations on
the same fairy tale in triplicate.
I miss speakers who at least occasionally
showed wit – like Trudeau and Dief the Chief;
like JFK and Sir Winston. Even more, I miss
Cool Cal.
That would be Calvin Coolidge.
He was the 30th President of the United
States, a flinty ex-lawyer from the rock-ribbed
state of Vermont and he was not a terrifically
witty or engaging speaker. Coolidge was
better than witty or engaging.
He was brief.
Coolidge never believed in wheezing out a
paragraph if a sentence would suffice – and
he’d pass on the sentence if a grunt would
cover it. The man did not waste words, at work
or at home. His wife greeted him one Sunday
on his return from a church service and asked
him how the sermon had been.
“Fine,” said Cal.
“And what did the minister talk about?”
“Sin,’” said Cal.
“And what did the minister have to say about
sin, dear?”
“He was against it,’” said Cal.
Coolidge became famous for his
parsimonious palaver. One financial backer
approached him at a fundraiser saying “I just
bet my partner $20 that I could get three words
out of you.”
“You lose,” said Coolidge.
It’s difficult to imagine how Calvin
Coolidge would fare in a modern election
campaign. He would no doubt be found
wanting in the sex appeal category, but he
wasn’t exactly Playboy centrefold material
back in his heyday. Washington socialite Alice
Roosevelt Longworth said he “looks like he’s
been weaned on a pickle.” When someone told
the writer Dorothy Parker that President
Coolidge had just died, she said, “How can
they tell?”
A man of few words, but he made each one
count. During one election campaign,
President and Mrs. Coolidge visited a
government farm and were taken on separate
tours of the facility. At the chicken coop, Mrs.
Coolidge, who was a good deal earthier than
her husband, inquired whether the rooster
‘serviced’ the hens more than once a day.
“Dozens of times,” she was told.
“Tell that to the President” she said.
When President Coolidge arrived at the
chicken coop during his tour he was duly
informed of the rooster’s sexual stamina – and
of Mrs. Coolidge’s request that he be so
informed.
“Same hen each time?” asked the President.
“Oh, no,” said the overseer, “a different one
each time.”
Coolidge nodded. “Tell that to Mrs.
Coolidge,” he said.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Another election – gaaaaaaah!
After a lifetime of democracy in this
country, Canadians of all political
stripes can agree on one thing: election
promises will be broken.
The term “the lesser of two evils” is often
bandied about during an election. One
candidate lied and stole, but the other also has
skeletons in his closet and the third is untested;
so he hasn’t lied, simply because he has yet to
be presented the chance.
These opinions run rampant around an
election and with good reason. Many
Canadians have seen enough elections, and
subsequent terms of office, to know most
platforms and promises are a lot of sizzle to get
votes without enough steak to back it up.
So while official platforms and policies were
what came out of the mouths of the candidates
for the office of the Prime Minister of Canada
last week, it is increasingly evident that image,
likeability and relatability are continuing to be
just as important. In other words, how you say
something is just as important as what you say.
So after thoughts on the economy, healthcare
and crime were shared at last week’s debate,
the real debate started. Who won the debate?
Does anyone ever really win these things?
I’m not sure that they do, but statements are
analyzed and off-the-cuff responses are graded
by journalists and political experts, but what
tends to stay with Canadians, myself included,
are simply how these people came across.
So at the debate, Conservative Leader
Stephen Harper spoke every word to
Canadians, speaking directly into the camera,
despite actually responding to, for example,
New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton,
who was directly to his left. Did that make
Canadians feel like they had a friend in Harper,
or did it make them wonder why he would
answer someone’s question without looking
them in the eyes? When answering a question
on health care, Harper said that his family,
along with the family of the woman asking the
question, both rely on the Canadian health care
system. No doubt Stephen, as Canadians don’t
we all?
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff began
answering a question about crime from a man
in British Columbia by calling him “Mr.... our
friend from British Columbia” forgetting his
name. Harper and Layton remembered the
man’s name when they had their say. What
does this say about Ignatieff as a person? What
does it say about him as a leader?
Truly, not much, but these are the things that
people often remember, and as I said, I’m as
guilty as anybody when it comes to the little
things.
Jack Layton dropped several youth-centric
terms into his responses that could help his
already youth-friendly image, talking about
gang life and using the word “bling” and then
going even further, appealing to the users of
Twitter in this country, employing the term
“hashtag fail” which even the young among us
didn’t catch.
But did Layton’s blatant drop-ins get him
youth votes? Probably.
Going through life, we surround ourselves
with friends we can relate to and whom we see
as good and honest. But when choosing the
leader of our nation, we have to put aside some
things that comfort us and choose the person
we feel could best lead a nation. Many times
fitting the leader bill doesn’t necessarily mean
fitting the friend bill.
We are often smart voters, but when it comes
down to it, voters are people and sometimes
our hearts can lead us where our brains may
warn us not to tread (or vote).
The little things
If you’ve played local senior, old-timer or
minor football (soccer) in the last decade,
odds are, I’ve met you.
It may be well-known to some, and not to
others, but I’m a football referee.
That’s how I spent last weekend - boning up
on that craft, re-earning my certification, and
asking questions from specific circumstances
in the past year that I made a call on, but had
to verify the reasoning for.
I love football... or soccer. I’ll call it soccer
from here on out.
I love soccer because there is no video
replay. There is (supposed to be) minimal
debating of calls, and it’s a gentleman’s game
(again, it’s supposed to be).
Hockey referees are bound by rules, the
same as ringette referees, broomball officials,
and baseball umpires. If a rule is broken, they
have to react.
Soccer referees, on the other hand, follow
ideals.
There are the laws of the game – guidelines
by which decisions can be made – and then
there are the unwritten rules.
That is why I love the game.
No other game tells its officials to follow
common sense or cherish the spirit of the
game.
In hockey, if you find a way to circumvent
rules, you can get off scot-free, in soccer, it’s a
little trickier than that.
Circumventing the rules is considered
breaking the laws of the game.
How many times have you saw a hit in
hockey and said, “That wasn’t illegal, but it
certainly was excessive?”
Well, you shouldn’t see that in soccer.
Referees aren’t there to uphold the laws of
the game, we’re there to make sure that the
players are safe first, enjoying the game as it is
meant to be played second, ensuring the game
and laws are respected, third, and, finally,
issuing punishments for people who break the
rules too often, with too much carelessness, or
in an attempt to ruin the fun of other players.
It may seem odd to enjoy a system that has
so much ambiguity, but I far prefer it over
something that calls for rigid rules, regardless
of how they may ruin the experience of the
game.
That in mind, the 18 laws of soccer are
incredibly complex.
If you have a copy of the laws, take a look at
them, then take a look at the explanations for
some of the more in-depth ones.
Law 12, for example, Fouls and
Misconducts, may only be a couple pages in a
law book, but it can easily have entire tomes
written on how it should be called, what leads
to a foul being a cardable offence, and when
you should let fouls go.
That’s the biggest things that I find fans,
coaches and players need to learn; laws are not
followed to the word, they are followed to the
intent behind the law.
Say little Johnny gets tripped, and I don’t
call it while Johnny’s mother jumps up and
starts screaming bloody-murder.
Well, while Johnny is getting up (because
odds are he isn’t hurt), his teammates have
taken the ball and scored a goal.
Kinda seems like it was in Johnny’s best
interest to not bring the ball back, doesn’t it?
That’s the biggest thing to watch for in a
soccer game – the advantage. If a call would
hurt the team it’s supposed to benefit, it
probably won’t get made.
So fans, parents and players, unless you’re
willing to jump on the field as a referee, don’t
be quick to judge.
And one other note on the laws – offside
probably isn’t what you think it is.
Offside, in soccer, is a very fluid thing. The
rules that define it rely on the position of
certain players on the pitch, how the ball came
into play, and whether an offside player gains
an advantage. It’s complicated. If you want to
learn about it, don’t read the law book. Ask an
official when the next clinic for referees is
because referees, whether they’re 16 or 60, are
learning new interpretations of the laws every
year.
If you have questions, wait until after a
match, approach an official and ask your
questions. I, as a referee, would far prefer that
to someone screaming in the middle of a
match.
Now, onto a related issue – vandalism.
While vandalism and soccer are no strangers
to each other thanks to over-zealous fans, I’m
not referring to a World Cup Match.
Blyth has three pitches (fields).
The two beside Sparlings Propane are the
predominantly used ones in my experience,
but there is a third pitch called Soccer Field
number 1 behind the Blyth Community
Centre.
The last time I was there, there were no nets,
leading me to believe it probably doesn’t see
much use anymore.
That’s unfortunate, it was a nice place to
play. Emphasis on the word was.
A concerned citizen informed me today that
someone took it upon themselves to re-
landscape the field with their four-wheel drive
vehicle.
The field now sports huge, water-filled ruts
that, if anyone did try to play on it, would
likely result in broken legs and ankles
What does this have to do with soccer? Well,
let’s say something happens to the other
pitches in Blyth and a game has to be played
there with portable nets.
Any good referee will call the coaches to the
centre of the pitch and inform them the game
won’t happen unless there’s another pitch
available.
Mudding can be fun, if you own the
property, but when you ruin someone else’s
property or public property, you’re in the
wrong, shame on you. Come forward, admit
the wrong-doing, and help make it right.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Soccer clinic and field torn up