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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-01-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Oh, how I hope... T his is a bit personal, but, how much TV do you watch? I bet you’d be surprised if you toted it up. In the U.S., the average boob tube browser logs 20 hours a week. I can’t think that Canucks can be very far behind. Phenomenal, when you think about it – that’s nearly three hours a day. Imagine if you spent three hours a day learning Spanish or finger-picking your guitar; writing that book you’ve always meant to start on, or practising ballroom dancing. You’d be pretty damn good after a year. Instead, if you’re average, this time next year you’ll have about a month and a half’s worth of Sex In The City reruns and old Peter Mansbridge newscasts cluttering up your memory banks. Me? I don’t spend three hours a day on Spanish or guitar or novel writing or ballroom dancing – but I also don’t spend it watching TV. I never turn the thing on. I can’t. I don’t know how. I used to be good at TV, back when there were just 12 channels, a pair of rabbit ears and the picture came in two colours – black and white. That was a few technological ice ages ago. The sleek brute that presently sits in my living room boasts shiny, brushed aluminum decks dedicated to VCRs and DVDs. My machine contains, apparently, something called a Four Head Hi Fi Stereo. It is, it boasts, HDTV capable. I can, I am assured, reverse live show action, split the screen into separate channels, and ‘customize’ my monitor for my viewing pleasure. I can tape succeeding episodes of a program that won’t even be on the air until next Tuesday. Theoretically. In reality, I’m paralyzed into immobility by the remote browser. My browser has – I just counted them – fifty-frickin’-eight individual buttons on it. Fifty-eight! Some of them carry embossed legends that read LIST, SWAP, MOVE, FAV, PAGE, AUX and AUD. I don’t know what any of those mean and frankly I don’t give a hoot. Life’s too short. The main consequence of my wilful Luddite ignorance is that I miss a lot of television. Not ‘miss’ in the sense of ‘pine for’ – I just don’t see much television, unless somebody else turns it on and I happen to be walking by. I could always RTFM – read the, ah, flipping manual that came with the TV. But I know how that would go. The old brain isn’t quite as supple as it used to be. What was once Velcro has turned to Teflon. New information – especially new technological information – sluices through my head like a ping pong ball through the Skookumchuck rapids. So when it comes to TV consumption, I’m ‘way below par. Entire TV series bloom and fade without me ever seeing an episode. And I miss a lot of clues in the daily crossword. (Simon Cowell? Who the hell is Simon Cowell?) On the plus side, it turns out that my TV starvation diet might be good for my head. The U.S. National Science Foundation has just concluded a 35-year long survey of the television viewing habits of 45,000 people. Broad conclusion: happy people watch less TV than unhappy people do. Specifically, people who described themselves as ‘happy’ watched an average of 19 hours a week, while self-described ‘unhappy’ people watched 25 hours or more. So, television is a stone downer? Hard to say, it’s a chicken-and-egg thing. The researchers couldn’t say whether TV causes unhappiness or just attracts people who are already down in the mouth. “I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy,” researcher John Robinson told a New York Times reporter. All they can say for certain is that people who spend the most time watching television are least happy in the long run. “We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in,” said Robinson, “and for each one, the people who did the activities more – visiting others, going to church, all those things – were more happy. TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.” As for unhappy people appearing on television – well, that’s a whole other study. All I know is that Stephen Harper was approached to make a guest appear- ance on The Simpsons and he turned it down. “I’ve never been animated before,” said Harper, “and I’m not going to start now.” Arthur Black Other Views TV or not TV: that is the question Women running to become leader of a political party in Ontario have an uphill battle, but one has been given a surprise lift. MPP Andrea Horwath is running against three male colleagues, Michael Prue, Gilles Bisson and Peter Tabuns for the leadership of the New Democratic Party. Women candidates normally are restrained from emphasizing they are the only woman in a race and parties have long discriminated against women by refusing to choose them as leaders, because this might imply they want to be given preference solely because they are women and lack more necessary credentials. But Progressive Conservative opposition leader John Tory has unexpectedly focused attention on the way parties often relegate women to secondary roles. Tory has been without a seat in the legislature since losing an election in October 2007 and persuaded one of his party’s most promising women MPPs, Laurie Scott, to resign so he can run in her riding. Horwath was given an opening to charge Tory forced one of the handful of women in his caucus to give up her career for a man at a time when the province needs more women MPPs and not fewer. Tory has claimed Scott volunteered her seat and he asked males in his caucus to give up theirs. But he took 15 months asking MPPs to yield and this shows some persistence amounting to pressure. Horwath seized this opportunity to remind women make up 50 per cent of voters, but have only 26 per cent of seats in the legislature and are “under-represented at all levels of government,” which presumably includes leader. Horwath obviously cannot ask New Democrats to make her leader simply because she is a woman, and she has shown other talents in frequent contributions to the legislature. But the issue of whether the party should choose a woman leader has now become firmly entrenched in the campaign. The desire among parties also is to “choose change,” Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s winning slogan in the 2003 election, and if a party wants to change its look, the quickest way is to be led by a woman. Ontario’s mainstream parties have had only one woman leader, Liberal Lyn McLeod in the 1990s, and it has to be conceded this did not bring more votes. The party’s establishment picked McLeod, who had been a competent minister, believing the time for a woman leader had come, so she had a relatively easy path to that role. But McLeod had the misfortune to fight an election against Conservative leader Mike Harris at his most dominating, promising drastic cuts in government and spending. She made a huge mistake in refusing, on male advice to reveal Liberal policies until Harris had the election sewn up, and left an impression a woman was not tough enough and could be pushed around. But parties have missed opportunities to choose women who may have been successful leaders. Bette Stephenson, a formidable Conservative minister and former president of the Canadian Medical Association, had the abilities and toughness of the male contenders and should have run for leader and premier in the mid-1980s. However, she judged her party not ready for a woman leader and stayed out. Conservative minister Elizabeth Witmer was a worthy candidate for leader when Harris stepped down, and tough enough, having stared down angry unionists to impose Harris’s hard-on-labour policies. Her party should have given her more of a tribute than an early exit in the voting. In the last NDP leadership race, which chose Howard Hampton, his main opponent, Frances Lankin, had shown as much ability, but critics characterized her as “the large lady” although no such comments are made about hefty men. There obviously are pros and cons in having a woman leader and a party should not choose one solely because she is a woman. But women also are as able as men and have been chosen leaders elsewhere. Can anyone think of a good reason Ontario has not had more of them? Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Dawn was hours away. The stillness blanketed, but offered little comfort as heavy lids and weary body found no respite from an active mind. Curiously seconds ticked by at a snail’s pace, yet the awareness of the precious time being lost before the strident ring of the alarm would officially begin the day increased a mounting frustration. Oh, how I hoped for sleep. The water sputtered from the shower nozzle, then died, as I pondered what now would become of my well-lathered hair. Things went downhill from there the rest of the morning, and oh, how I hoped the day might improve. The drive, along snow-billowed roads, through a haze of buffetted powder challenged driver and car. Oh, how I hoped it would stop. Hope is desiring, wanting, wishing for something that just may actually happen. Simply the act of hoping is often enough to lift and sustain us, like sunshine breaking through the fog, like the hot chocolate on a stormy afternoon, or a leisurely morning in bed with the newspaper and a coffee. The actual fact that we will even hope against hope shows just how much hope we have. Elwyn Brooks White, author of the children’s books Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, once wrote that “Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time.” There is probably no more recent example of that than the story in the United States. Barack Obama, sworn in last week as the country’s 44th president faces a daunting to- do list. Yet, the belief that he can revive the troubled economy and nation even part of the way back from this bad time, could be seen on the hopeful expressions of the millions watching his inaugural address. Hope in a person can be misguided but there is something about this man. Let’s ignore the fact that he is black; he was quite simply the better man for the job. Whether he can do all that he has promised, is unlikely, but if someone is going to try I for one, am glad it’s him. Obama was up and running his first day of office with major policy changes, announcing a freeze on the salaries of White House staff, saying that in these economic times, Washington too needs to tighten its belt. He also imposed rules for lobbying and for the release of public information, has promised to close Guatanamo Bay within a year and made calls to eastern leaders. Unlike his predecessor President Obama has a comforting intellect. He appears to have a sense of fairness, the ability to weigh the pros and cons that are assets to his position. He appears to have sound reason and good judgement. He appears to think before he speaks, which would make one assume that he responds rather than reacts. He articulates thoughtfully and inspires eloquently. And what he inspires most in a time when it is sorely needed, is hope. When life is in turmoil, even if that turmoil seems too great to overcome, the greatest hope is to be confident in the person you have trusted to lead you. And here it would seem is a strong man, a wise man, a rational man. A refreshing change to be sure. Unquestionably, there will be mistakes made. Probably, there will be promises broken. But for now, Obama has restored, not just to Americans but the world, the hope that’s been missing far too long. And oh, how I hope that lasts. Woman gets boost to leadership battle Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. Power does not corrupt men; fools, how- ever, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. – George Bernard Shaw Final Thought