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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-10-22, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Some torrid, tropical afternoon when you find yourself at a folk festival or an outdoor carnival, with the sun beating down on you and your throat dryer than a Stephen Harper press release you will look up and see what appears to be a mirage. You will see, through the shimmering heat waves, a wagon of stainless steel winking in the midday sun. Protruding from its flanks will be 10 fountains, each urging you to take a sip. Press your parched lips to a spigot and you will taste clear, fresh, cold, invigorating…. Water. Ah! Evian water, flown in from the French Alps, no doubt? Or perhaps San Pellegrino from that Papal- blessed aquifer in Italy? Or Fiji water shipped direct from the pristine Yaqara Valley? Might it be Gerolsteiner from Germany? Dasani from California at the very least? Nah. The water wagon will be offering plain, ordinary tap water. And unlike the above named aqueous alternatives, this water will be absolutely free. It’s a service being offered only by Metro Vancouver so far, but I can see it catching on across the country. It’s good PR for municipalities that supply water to their constituents; it’s dirt – well, water – cheap and it’s good for the planet too – because it encourages people to stop wasting their money on those expensive, wasteful, polluting plastic bottles of imported water that nobody ever needed in the first place. And it just might be the coup de grace for a world-wide fraud so lucrative it makes Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi racket look like a back-alley, penny ante crap game. For decades we have all been victims of a water swindle. If it was frozen, we could call it a snow job, but it’s not icy – just ludicrously pricey. It’s the bottled water craze. It was a two-pronged con job: first we had to be convinced we were risking severe dehydration. (What? You’re not gulping down two litres of water a day? MEDIC! Dead man walking here!) Then we had to believe our tap water was poison. Well, how else could they sucker us into shelling out serious coin for a tiny plastic vial of something that came into our homes by the gallon practically for free? It was a confidence trick on both levels. Number one, no one this side of a Bactrian camel needs two litres of water a day. The old ‘8X8’chestnut – eight 8 oz. glasses per person per day – is completely bogus, probably based on a misreading of an old U.S. Institute of Medicine brochure. In any case, the human body takes its water from a host of sources – juice, coffee, beer – even chicken legs and hamburger buns. Nobody with solid medical credentials has ever suggested that we each need to chug down two litres of water a day to stay healthy. It just ain’t true. We wouldn’t be here if it was. Our ancestors would have pitched over and died ages ago, their bleached bones littering the roadsides. As one expert says, “Somehow we all survived without carrying around water and chugging every 10 minutes.” It wasn’t enough to seduce us with glamorous new water options. We also had to be convinced that public water sources were not to be trusted. A spokesman for Fiji water got the ball rolling. At a news conference he airily proclaimed that “processed water,” (that’s what water bottlers call the stuff that comes out of our taps) “is not a real or viable alternative.” He declared that tap water could contain “4,000 contaminants.” He neglected to mention that bottled water brands routinely fail public hygiene standards. Last year alone, two brands – Sam’s Choice (Wal-Mart) and Volvic (Danone) were tested and found to contain unacceptable levels of toxic chemicals. Many bottled waters are, of course, safe to drink. That’s not unrelated to the fact that many companies fill their plastic bottles with municipal tap water, slap a fancy label on it and sell it to gullible gullets at prices that would make a cocaine dealer blush. At any rate, hats off to the city of Vancouver for shattering the myth of bottled water supremacy and for reminding us all that we already pay for perfectly good water delivered right to our homes. And good riddance to that old, phoney, kidney-challenging lie about having to chugalug eight glasses of water a day. Still worried about dehydration? Mark Knepper, chief of the electrolyte metabolism lab at the National Institute for Health has a failsafe guideline. “Take a sip,” he advises. “You can tell if you need the water by how good it tastes when you try it.” Listening to our own bodies. What a concept. Arthur Black Other Views H2 Ho Ho: the joke’s on us Dalton McGuinty is being called the Teflon premier a lot these days, but his protective coating has to be wearing thin. Opponents and news media have pinned the well-worn label on the Liberal leader because his government has been caught repeatedly failing to prevent people on the public payroll abusing taxpayers’ money, but none of this so far has stuck. The Liberals won the most recent test at the polls, a by-election here in September, as comfortably as they had the two most recent general elections. It is worth noting also governments of all parties have been caught permitting such abuse in recent decades, but it did not emerge as a major issue in an election, because most voters appear to accept all parties do it and other issues took priority. But there are reasons to believe the public may get angry enough to make the abuse a major issue in the next election in 2011. McGuinty’s Liberals first have have permitted more of it than earlier governments. In chronological order, they helped fund officials of Children’s Aid Societies to drive expensive, top-of-the-line SUVs, and alleviate the stress of their jobs with $2,000-a-year gym memberships, while they lacked funds to provide essential programs for children. The province, mostly on McGuinty’s watch, has spent $1 billion building a system of electronic health records that still is unfinished and given friends tens of millions of dollars in contracts that were not submitted to competitive tender. Voters will not forget easily consultants on the system were paid $3,000 per day and billed taxpayers $1.65 for a coffee – how eager to feed from the public trough can people get? The Lottery and Gaming Corporation failed to protect ticket buyers from retailers who kept winning prizes and some of its well-paid senior officials billed for golf and fitness club memberships, doughnuts and a back support. The part-time chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, a former Liberal MPP, claimed per diems for more working days than there are in a year and ended many feasting heartily on lobster or rack of lamb, paid for by taxpayers. Cancer Care Ontario, which the province funds, diverted income to parties for staff, a gross misuse when doctors, nurses and patients have to get by in overcrowded clinics and necessary drugs are not provided. These combined set a government record for misuse of taxpayers’ money and the waste on medical records is the biggest single example of misuse by a government ever. The Liberals’ by-election win in September may not reflect how most voters feel now, because some of this abuse has been exposed since then. The Liberals also ran an almost saint-like candidate, a doctor devoted to many good causes, while the Progressive Conservatives put forward the city hall columnist for a tabloid newspaper known only for her shrill, one-sided attacks on the most cerebral mayor Toronto has had in decades, and she had no chance of winning in a riding noted for its better educated voters. The Liberals’ failures to protect have now forced McGuinty to fire a minister, David Caplan, who in health was responsible for some of the waste on medical records, and the public will see this accurately as confirmation of wrongdoing. McGuinty’s image is being weakened further because the opposition parties are switching their criticisms to his deputy premier, George Smitherman, who had been a tower of strength, but as health minister before Caplan was responsible for some of the waste. Voters had not looked much at the opposition parties, but the misuse of money has given the new Conservative leader, Tim Hudak, opportunities to question and criticize and make his name known quicker. Ontario also is still in an economic recession and clearly preparing to cut programs and voters will be thoroughly tuned in to allegations its government is negligent with money – this premier will need all the protective coating he can get. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Tradition is the illusion of permanence. —Woody Allen It is probably that illusion that has made tradition so important to me. How important not even I knew until recently when I thought that a long-standing tradition was going to be missed. It turns out that I’m actually quite sappy about them. It was 1977, one year after having met my future husband. My birthday was approaching and he decided to prepare his only culinary accomplishment to date, spaghetti sauce, for my celebratory dinner. I returned the favour three weeks later for his birthday by preparing a specialty of mine, lasagna. It’s a practice we have continued in the many years since, never missing, not even when the plowing match hit my special day. Though this was also a tradition for him, a long-standing annual outing with the guys, his superb pasta sauce was simmering on the stove before he headed out, then returned later with his pals for my birthday feast. This year, my birthday fell on a Monday, and with the kids home to help me celebrate on Saturday and friends stopping by the next day things were fairly busy around our place beforehand. By Sunday afternoon, however, I was starting to get a little concerned. Time was slipping by and no mention had been made about getting started in the kitchen. Also, knowing that some ingredients needed to be purchased, it was looking as if an established tradition was going to be broken. As was my heart. Seriously. In the big scheme of things this was not a big deal, but at the risk of sounding melodramatic I was sadder than I ever would have imagined. It was nice to discover that keeping this tradition going meant something to Mark too. The next morning, he commented on the lousy weather I’d ordered for my birthday, at which point I asked him if he’d forgotten something. His response was a disgusted yes and no. He remembered but too late, and told me he was taking off work early to get the job done. I laughed; neither plague, petulance nor a Huron County snowstorm keeps Mark from work. But turns out he was dead serious and whether he did it for me or for himself is irrelevant. Keeping traditions alive, as families grow and spread out geographically, as work takes hours, and obligations and social events fill the spaces in between, can be challenging. Things that we did with our children on special occasions that seemed then like they would be part of those times until time ran out, have often had to be adapted or let go of forever. New additions to the family, changing locations and employment have meant that some things we counted on happening may still be important to us, but impossible. It’s not always been easy; I have noticed that each concession has raised a level of melancholy for me. However there has been one good thing about getting older; with age I have come to accept that I have choices here. I can choose to wallow in useless self-pity or suck it up. Once each example has been put into perspective, I have soldiered on with the mantra that nothing stays the same and I must adapt. Besides, with change comes new experiences. However, one thing I always counted on is that as long as there is Mark and me there would be spaghetti in September and lasagna in October. Happy to say that after 32 years that’s one illusion that remains. Teflon wears thin on premier Just an illusion? 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.