HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-11-18, Page 15THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2010. PAGE 5.
There’s a photograph on my living room
wall that was taken by a neighbour, of a
neighbour. It’s a head-and-shoulders
close-up portrait of Malcolm, our local, among
other things, veterinarian. Malcolm is also a
farmer and the photograph was taken just after
he’d come in from a morning working in the
fields. We call it “The Potato Digger” and it is
a remarkable portrait. Malcolm looks wise and
weary and weathered.
But it’s his hand that gets me.
He’s rubbing his chin with his right hand
and the fingers, knuckles and nails of that hand
are bemired, begrimed and utterly muckified.
They are dirty. Magnificently, triumphantly,
unequivocally dirty.
Well, what do you expect? The man’s been
digging up potatoes.
You can infer a great deal about Malcolm
from that photograph, but one thing you know
for a certainty: the man is not a mysphobe.
Mysophobe? A 25 cent word for germ freak.
Mysophobes suffer an intense fear of dirt and
contamination, often washing their hands,
clothes and surroundings obsessively. Howie
Mandel is one. The comedian will not shake
hands with anyone unless he’s wearing latex
gloves. (As host of the TV show Deal or No
Deal, however, he has been known to fist
bump, bear hug and even kiss the better-
looking contestants – proving that just
because you’re a neurotic doesn’t mean you’re
smart.)
Another Howie – mega tycoon and certified
nutbar Howard Hughes – was a five-star
mysophobe. He wouldn’t handle money and
ordered that his used bedsheets be burned, not
washed. If he wanted to read a magazine
Hughes had his flunkies buy three copies and
deliver them on a cart. He would select the
middle issue without touching the other two,
which were subsequently burned. He also had
a charming way of dealing with doorknobs.
He simply kicked the door; a signal for a staff
member to open it.
Most mysophobes aren’t that far gone;
they’re just a teensy bit paranoid about germs.
And, not to go all paranoid or anything,
but…could I just put a handkerchief over my
mouth and whisper this in your ear?
I think mysophobes are taking over the
planet.
Increasingly when I enter a store in a
shopping mall the first thing I bump into is a
hand sanitizer dispensing station where I am
cheerily invited to spritz myself free of
contamination. My local supermarket features
tubs of free disinfectant swabs just outside the
buggy corral so I can wipe down the handle of
my shopping cart.
And I don’t know how it is at your health
provider’s office, but if you plan to spend any
time in my hospital waiting room, best bring
along your bedside copy of War and Peace.
Those familiar, dog-eared copies of Maclean’s
and Chatelaine from 1987 have finally been
tossed out. Germs, don’t you know.
Public restrooms? Hah. Any mysophobe can
tell you that you’d have to be a suicidal fool to
walk within 100 feet of a public restroom these
days. Those places are microbial maternity
wards. Festering hives of fetid effluvia toxic
enough to turn an innocent human into a
gibbering radioactive mutant.
Diabolical, too. Sure, they offer sinks to
wash your hands after using the facilities but
you have to use your hand to turn the tap on
and off, right? Just like umpteen-dozen feces-
laden hands before you – and you still have to
open the door to get out of the place.
Where’s a Howard Hughes flunky when you
need him?
Makes you wonder how mankind managed
to muddle through the past couple of hundred
thousand years, often without so much as a
surgical mask or a packet of HandiWipes.
Hundreds of anti-bacterial products crowd
the shelves of our drug stores and
supermarkets – and, as medical experts keep
trying to tell us – they’re at best a waste of
money; at worst, hazardous to our health. Dr.
Stuart Levy, director of Genetics and Drug
Resistance at Tufts University, Boston, says
such products upset the natural balance of
microorganisms in our systems. “Bacteria are
a natural, and needed, part of life” he says.
“Most live blamelessly. In fact, they often
protect us from disease because they compete
with, and thus limit the proliferation of,
pathogenic bacteria.”
A little dirt is good for us. Dr. Levy knows
it. My veterinarian knows it. So do you and I.
Howard Hughes? He may have been a
billionaire genius, but he never managed to
figure that out.
Arthur
Black
Other Views
A little dirt is good for us
We’re more than halfway through the
month of November, or as many
men around the world are calling it,
Movember, and to use a pregnancy term, I’m
showing.
What was initially a concept to raise money
for Prostate Cancer Canada has turned into a
full-blown facial hair affair.
To be honest, it hasn’t been as strange as I
had initially anticipated that it would be. This
has a lot to do with the media coverage that the
Movember initiative has received. Everywhere
I go, entire staffs are Movembering, I’m
hearing about those involved with the
Movember brotherhood on the radio, on
television and in newspapers.
Just the other day I received a call in regards
to the Auburn Lions, as several members have
donated their faces to the cause.
So while for the last few weeks I have been
prefacing conversations with the reasoning
behind my mustache, I found that I no longer
have to. This is a drastic change from even last
year, when Movember was a little-known
initiative, in this country at least.
So while waiting to order food at a local
take-out joint recently, several high school
girls huddled in the corner and giggled while I
waited in line.
My face went red and I became embarrassed
as I was sure they were having a laugh at the
awkward mustache-like growth happening on
my face. Maybe I was just being too sensitive,
which isn’t becoming of someone with a
mustache. They were probably just giggling
because that’s what young girls do.
Lately, I have had people commend me on
what I’m doing, asking how much money I
have raised and inquiring as to the pros and
cons of being mustachioed.
People say they’re proud of me and that I’m
doing a good thing. And here I thought all I
was doing was growing a mustache.
So when viewing the mustache, it’s
important to take a step back and view the
mustache as a whole, and when I do that, I see
that Canada, its mustaches and all those whose
faces are host to these mustaches should be
very proud.
At press time, Canada is the leading
Movember nation. Despite having 13,000
fewer MoBros (registered Movember
participants) than Australia, the nation with the
highest amount of participants, Canada has
raised just over $9 million for Prostate Cancer
Canada. This is $1.36 million more than
Australia, which is currently in second place.
In fourth are our Olympic hockey whipping
boys the U.S.A. with $2.94 million.
This may speak to our country’s skill when it
comes to growing facial hair (colder weather
has to equate to thicker beards) or it could just
mean that we are a generous people.
I have seen this in my own Movember
journeys. As the holiday season approaches,
families are in need, food banks are seeing
unprecedented numbers of recipients,
Christmas Bureaus are preparing and toy
drives are beginning. There are hundreds of
causes that warrant donations from those who
are in a position to do so, so when someone
makes the choice to donate to me and the cause
of prostate cancer throughout this country, I
have found it to be truly heartwarming.
The sun is setting on Movember quicker than
I’m sure we all had hoped, so I truly hope folks
will take the time to visit my Movember page
at http://ca.movember.com/mospace/572980/
or stop into the office to make a donation. No
matter the size of the donation, all support for
this worth cause is truly appreciated.
A mustache in full
Premier Dalton McGuinty must wish he
could fight the next election somewhere
else than Ontario.
The Liberal premier is so low in polls here it
may take a Chilean miner’s rescue capsule to
find him.
But McGuinty invariably attracts lavish
praise where he travels abroad. In the latest
example he was on a trade mission to China
and a Toronto newspaper travelling with him
reported he was treated like a rock star.
Chinese who met the premier, it said, called
him young (he is 54) handsome and
charismatic.
Those who got close enough noted he is an
expert at working a room, able to make those
he met feel interested in and comfortable with
him.
They admired the way he slipped key points
into conversations so he got his messages
across.
They felt his thesis that people have a
collective responsibility to help each other and
that this motivates him, which some Ontarians
consider patronizing and preachy, was
insightful.
They even enjoyed his stories, well-worn
here, about being the oldest of 10 children and
helping raise them and later his own four
children.
A lot of this comes naturally to McGuinty.
He is outgoing and friendly without being
gushing and back-slapping, which has helped
him survive as premier for seven years.
He feels at home speaking to people
individually and in small groups and is more
convincing at these than in platform speeches.
He knows what to say on trade missions –
this was his third to China – trying to convince
others to buy products manufactured in
Ontario and invest in creating businesses here.
McGuinty also knows how to tailor himself
to his audience, which is not always to his
credit. He once criticized his Progressive
Conservative predecessors for going to China
and failing to draw attention to its many
violations of human rights.
Now he holds back his criticisms, unlike
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
who for all his many refusals to uphold human
rights elsewhere had the fortitude to visit
China and criticize its rights policies and faced
its retaliation for it.
McGuinty is on a long list of leaders who
have forgotten or muted their criticisms of
China, the latest being the new British Prime
Minister, David Cameron.
McGuinty has impressed people in other
countries more than his predecessors, who
have rarely been noticed.
A respected British financial magazine
several years ago named him personality of the
year, mainly because he gave industry money.
A newspaper in Britain placed McGuinty on
its list of world “hotties," pointing out
although then still under 50, he led Canada’s
most populous province.
McGuinty responded his wife, Terri, was the
only hottie in his house, showing at least he
kept up with the latest slang.
Most Ontario premiers have attracted little
interest in other countries. A rare exception
was when far-right premier Mike Harris’s
fame spread so British Conservatives, anxious
to restore themselves to government after the
fall of Margaret Thatcher, sent their
representatives to Ontario to study the policies
and strategies that brought Harris to power.
Liberal premier David Peterson impressed
some in the United States who tipped him as a
future prime minister, but soon after he lost his
premiership.
But the words of praise in China are no
guides to McGuinty’s future. The Chinese are
anxious and even regimented to be polite to an
important visitor.
Some Ontario voters of Chinese ancestry
will feel a little honoured the premier visited
their country of origin. All premiers going on
trade missions hope for such side-benefits.
But Ontarians in the election will have their
minds on such issues as McGuinty‘s failures
to safeguard taxpayers’ money, tax increases,
job losses and whether he is an over-protective
“nanny premier” – no one will be treating him
like a rock star.
Eric
Dowd
From
Queen’s Park
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
McGuinty more popular far away
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Final Thought