HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-12-01, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011. PAGE 5.
Did you catch that photo in the
newspapers of Vladimir Putin
emerging from the Black Sea looking
like James Bond, carrying two ancient Greek
amphorae? Now, that’s the kind of photo op
any politician would eat his left arm to be able
to post on his website. What a coup! How
prescient of the Russian president to have
brought along government photographers on
his vacation to record his moment of triumph
– and on only his third time scuba diving!
Gosh, many archaeologists spend their
whole careers dreaming of making a discovery
like that. Pretty impressive. And utterly
bogus.
Somebody spilled the borscht on Putin’s
attempt at public relations. Turns out the
2,000-year-old jugs he ‘discovered’ had
actually been found during a legitimate
archaeological dig and conveniently placed off
shore in a couple of metres of water. Putin
didn’t even need a wetsuit. All he had to do
was bend down, stick his fingers in the
handles, stand up and smile for the cameras.
I wonder how you say ‘hubris’ in Russian..
The word comes from the same place those
waterlogged amphorae did – ancient Greece.
It’s derived from the word ‘hybris’ which
means ‘wanton presumption toward the gods’.
Your grandmother would have called it being
‘too big for your britches’. There’s a lot of it
going around. Has been for a long time.
Back in 1812, the Emperor of France, King
of Italy and master of continental Europe, one
Napoleon Bonaparte, decided he was ready to
take on Russia. He assembled an army of
500,000 soldiers and, despite the urgent
warnings of his top officers and advisors,
started marching on Moscow. Later that same
year, in the dead of winter, barely 20,000
frostbitten and emaciated French survivors
staggered back to France.
Hubris one; Bonaparte, no score.
The late and unlamented Muammar Gaddafi
spent his last 40 years wrapped in the coils of
hubris. He adored being photographed in
buffoonish comic opera costumes, surrounded
by a phalanx of big-bosomed Amazonian
bodyguards. He ended up, as the world knows,
being hauled, squealing, out of a drainage pipe
in the desert.
Mussolini with his chest puffed out like a
pouter pigeon; Hitler with his lunatic, rabid
dog stare; Mao bobbing like a bloated cork in
the Yangtze (Beloved Leader Swims 15 KM in
65 Minutes the Chinese press gushed). What is
it about the siren song of front-page glory that
tempts leaders to look so ridiculous so often?
Western leaders are not immune to the
disease of hubris. George (the Dim One) Bush
will live on in history, if only for the incredibly
tone-deaf photograph that shows him grinning,
duded up like a for-real fighter pilot on the
deck of an aircraft carrier with a banner
reading ‘Mission Accomplished’ behind him.
The year was 2003. One hundred and 39
American casualties had been recorded in Iraq.
In less than a decade, another 4,000 U.S.
troops would die there -- not to mention (as
they almost never are) hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi civilians. Bush’s oblivious cowboy
cockiness makes the photograph appear even
more hollow.
And Canadian leaders? That brings us to
Lake Okanagan and a press conference in the
year 2000. Stockwell Day is running hard for
the Prime Minister’s office. Actually, he’s
riding hard – full throttle – on a jet ski,
wearing a skin-tight wetsuit. He looks tres buff
– especially for a Canadian politician. He
slews the jet ski up to the dock, flashes a 500-
kilowatt Hollywood grin and indicates to
reporters that he’s ready to take questions.
It should have worked. Instead the members
of the Fourth Estate all but wet their pants
laughing. Instantly, Stockwell Day became the
butt of 10,000 jokes from coast to coast to
coast. Somebody should have warned him that
Canadians don’t do hubris so well.
And from all appearances, neither do the
Irish. They just elected Michael D. Higgins as
their president. At age 70, short and bald, he’s
an unlikely candidate for PR photos riding on
a jet ski, swaggering on a flight deck or
hoisting Greek amphorae out of the ocean.
Mister Higgins, a poet, a politician and a peace
activist, was described in the Irish Times as:
“Avuncular, erudite, experienced with the Irish
gift for language and tune, a bockety knee and
a whiff of diddly-aye for the Yanks.”
I don’t care how he’d look in a wet suit; if I
was Irish he’d have my vote.
Arthur
Black
Other Views The emperor’s slip is showing
By now we all know that the B.C. Lions
have won the Grey Cup, and thank God
for that, because if they didn’t, as we
saw earlier this year, the people of Vancouver
probably would have trashed the city. Again.
The real fireworks however, took place just a
few days before Sunday’s big game when two
CFL legends, Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca,
both 73, fought each other (with their fists -
and canes) at a luncheon organized by the CFL
Alumni Association.
The fight began innocently enough, as one
man offered a flower to the other. The offer,
however, was met with a less-than-kind
response and some direction from Mosca,
telling Kapp where he could shove said flower,
and it wasn’t in a nearby vase.
This exchange was followed by Kapp
stuffing the flower in Mosca’s face, Mosca
taking a swing at Kapp with his cane and Kapp
responding with two solid punches that were
apparently almost 50 years in the making and a
even little bit of trash talking by Kapp once
Mosca hit the mat.
It had the feel of a bad Saturday Night Live
(although they’re all bad these days) skit. The
room was hushed and audience members had
to be wondering when someone was going to
pop out of a hidden room to show them the
hidden cameras.
It might seem redundant now to mention that
these men don’t exactly care for each other, but
it’s also important to note that this feud began
a fair number of years ago.
I’ll take you back to 1963. My parents were
likely in grade school when Mosca, then with
the Hamilton Tiger Cats, laid a sideline hit on
Kapp-quarterbacked Lions running back Willie
Fleming, putting him out of the season’s last
game, subsequently losing the Grey Cup for
the Lions.
In the 48 years that have followed, it’s safe to
say the two apparently haven’t exchanged
Christmas cards.
I personally have always wondered how two
young men can spend five rounds beating each
other to bloody pulps in the Ultimate Fighting
Championship octagon and then embrace one
another afterward, but there has to be a middle
ground between that and the Kapp/Mosca
altercation.
I mean, I can’t imagine just going and
pounding someone into submission and then
hugging them and grabbing a beer with them. I
have to dislike the person to think about
dropping the gloves, but on the other hand, I
certainly can’t imagine hating a fellow athlete
for a sports-related incident for 20 years more
than I’ve even been on this planet.
I’m sure in the coming days the men will
look back on their actions and maybe it was
this blow-up that will be the catalyst of a long-
overdue burying of the hatchet. But then again,
maybe not.
We’ve all been where these two men were
with a decision to make. “Be the bigger man”
was what your parents would always say.
We’ve all wanted to swing a cane at our own
personal Kapp and we’ve all wanted to punch
our Mosca on the other hockey team and some
of us have done it and others haven’t.
It’s just too bad to see a couple of old folks
who just can’t let it go. And it’s just further
proof that being the “bigger man” doesn’t
always necessarily come with age.
We’ve all held grudges. I’ve held more than
my share, but it gets to a point where you ask
yourself whether you want to make peace or
you want to be 73 years old and swinging your
cane at someone or on the wrong end of a pair
of right hooks.
Let it go boys
At a recent North Huron Township
Council meeting gift baskets for
medical professionals were discussed.
The baskets, filled by local businesses,
were intended to thank, and hopefully
retain, the medical workers we have in our
community.
Now, before we get too far into this, it’s
important to note I have nothing against any
local medical practitioners. I’ve only had to
make one visit to a local hospital in the last
handful of years and it was expedient and
great.
As a matter of fact, through a family
member, I spent a lot of time around
hospitals when I was growing up and find
everyone who works in them to be great
people; they’re constantly helping sick people
get healthy and providing other important
services.
However, this idea of gift baskets struck me
the wrong way.
I’m not sure what doctors make working
for a hospital, but I’m fairly sure it’s enough
to pay the bills and put groceries on the
table.
As someone who has to stretch almost every
dime just to do this, the idea of giving medical
professionals gift baskets for simply doing
their job seems a little extravagant and seems
like it would be taxing businesses which could
already be struggling due to current financial
problems.
Giving out gift baskets is a great idea for
people who are volunteering or giving of
themselves when they don’t need to, but
rewarding people for being a productive
member of society in a particular profession
seems unnecessary in my mind.
True, it’s hard to recruit medical
professionals to the area, but it’s also hard to
recruit industry and commerce.
The act of giving these gift baskets is one of
asking industry and commerce to sacrifice to
make it easier to recruit the medical
professionals.
On top of that, there are many people who
move to work in this area, myself included.
It seems short-sighted and a tad insulting to
honour one profession and not another in this
manner.
While I do believe due respect needs to be
paid to doctors saving lives, police officers
protecting people and soldiers defending our
interests both home and abroad I also believe
that everyone who works in a community
contributes to its running and valuing one
person over another simply due to the job they
do is rude.
While I didn’t spend a decade at school as
some medical professionals did, I did
spend a fair bit of time (and money) training to
do the things I do both for my paycheck and
just to help out in the community.
I studied photography in my own time and I
worked on my craft for years before coming to
The Citizen, the same as any professional.
Does that make me more deserving of praise
than anyone else? No. It means I’m doing
what I wanted to do and doing that job should
be reward enough.
For those doing a job they don’t want
to do, I can only imagine that they can still
take pride in being sufficient at their
career to keep their job and come home
knowing the rent or mortgage is paid for this
week.
Why should medical professionals do their
job for anything more than their pay and the
satisfaction of doing the job?
It’s not like communities are forcing people
to study medicine and it’s not like at some
point those people didn’t say, “I could do that,
I want to become a doctor.”
I’ve heard some people say that we need to
be thankful for doctors coming to this area
because it’s not where the action is or it’s not
where they can study and gain prestige.
Well, if those statements are true, they’re
true of every field.
I may never win a Pulitzer Prize for my
work here because I’m not focusing on
international hard-hitting news, but I chose to
come to Huron County.
I chose, when I graduated, to jump right into
hometown journalism feet first.
I’m sure that I’m not the only person in the
world who would rather have the kind of life
Huron County offers than that of a bigger city,
and I have to believe that some like-minded
people are doctors.
I’ve also heard people say that we need to
honour doctors for the time they put into
becoming proficient at the profession.
Well, I disagree with that. Traditionally, the
longer you spend studying something, the
larger the paycheck is going to be for applying
that study.
If they wanted to make minimum wage and
work at a fast-food restaurant, they could have.
Instead, they decided to invest in themselves
by attending school.
I realize that these gift baskets are filled and
maybe even distributed by now, but as a
taxpayer in North Huron, I feel that the
time spent putting them together could have
been better applied and as someone who
tries to shop locally I hate to think how
businesses will recover these encouraged
donations.
I’d hate to see the price the rest of us pay go
up to cover giving someone else something
for free.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The joy of trying your hardest