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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-06-12, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2008. PAGE 5.Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt OPP or no? The siren dies as the squad car rolls to a cautious stop by a liquor store in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, an area better known as Koreatown. The car headlights pick out the crumpled form of a man lying on the ground with several others around him. The men look Oriental and they look agitated. The guy on the ground lies in a pool of…what? Guy could be shot, drunk or in medical distress. Who knows if anybody else in the crowd is injured? And this is Koreatown – do the LAPD officers in the car speak Korean? Unlikely. One of them picks up a megaphone. In his other hand he brandishes a mysterious-looking gadget. He holds it at arms length, dials ‘Korean’ on the language selector and then says “Medical assistance” into the attached microphone. Immediately the gadget broadcasts a pre- programmed phrase which goes out over the police car megaphone: “IF YOU REQUIRE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, PLEASE APPROACH THE NEAREST OFFICER.” First in Korean, then in English. This is the Phraselator – the newest weapon in the struggle to maintain law and order in a tumultuous city where the inhabitants regularly attempt cross-cultural discourse in somewhere between 92 and 150 tongues depending on who you talk to. Cops, firefighters and medical response teams love the Phraselator. “When it comes to crowd control, natural disasters or medical emergencies,” says LAPD Captain Dennis Kato, “the Phraselator can be a lifesaver.” I love it too – even though I’ve never actually seen one. I’ve loved magical hand- held gadgets like that ever since I sat on the family couch as a kid, watching another Captain – Kirk – lead a team of Enterprise crew members out to explore yet another unknown planet with the crisp directive: “Mister Spock, set the Phasers to ‘stun’.” Well, correction. I go back even farther than that. Anybody out there old enough to remember the comic strip Dick Tracy – about a hatchet- faced detective and his fabulous two-way wrist radio? Now THAT was cutting-edge technology. Imagine! Tracy could bark into his wrist watch and communicate instantly with police headquarters, just as if he had a…err…cell phone. Ah, yes. The cell phone. Now there’s a gadget that has truly transformed the world we live in. Someone once said that goldfish have no idea they’re living in bowls. We’re like that with cell phones. They’re so ubiquitous we barely notice them anymore. I first became aware of the cell phone phenomenon back in the late 1980s. I was in a train station in Rome, smack in the middle of a terrifying viral earache epidemic. Every Roman I saw was jabbering in excruciating pain, a hand clapped to one ear. They were actually jabbering in flamboyant Italian, as I soon figured out. I also deduced that there were cell phones sandwiched in between those hands and ears. I’d just come from North America, where cell phones were rare and usually about the size of Shaquille O’Neal’s left sneaker. In Italy – in most of Europe, in fact, the cell phones were tiny and they were everywhere. Well, it took us a spell, but we’ve caught up. In fact, everybody has. In the year 2,000, only 12 per cent of the global population had a mobile phone. Today, the figure is 50 per cent. That’s right. One out of every two of us now has access to a mobile phone. China alone boasts a half billion mobile users and is adding to those ranks at the jaw- dropping rate of six million a month. Of course, referring to them as ‘phones’is a little bit like calling a Ferrari Testarossa a grocery-fetching device. Modern cell phones (and bear in mind everything I am about to type will be hopelessly obsolete by next Wednesday) routinely text message, take photos, play music, record memos and allow for Internet browsing, e-mail access, online gaming, video downloading and, probably, pants- pressing. It won’t end there, of course. The cell phone is swallowing the universe – or at least cyberspace. David Kirkpatrick, senior editor of Fortune Magazine writes “What we now call the cell phone is becoming the de facto Internet device. It won’t be long before we are all carrying video (transmitting) cell phones.” But communication is a two-way street, which means that while your cell phone connects you to the grid, it also connects the grid to you “After all,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “they know where you are. You’re driving along and it says ‘Eric, you had a pizza yesterday and there’s a hamburger stand on the right.’” I’m ‘way too chicken for this Brave New World. Beam me up, Scotty. Arthur Black Other Views Hello Central? Get me rewind An undignified, unprecedented scene in which opposition MPPs photographed ministers’ empty seats and officials scrambled to seize their cameras has emphasized how touchy elected members are about being seen as absent from the Ontario legislature. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and 14 of his ministers were away attending a first- ever joint meeting with Quebec Premier Jean Charest and his cabinet in Quebec City. This gathering was important not just for historical significance, but because the two provinces, which traditionally representing two-thirds of the nation’s economy have major concerns about the current federal system and agreed to work together. This left only 13 Ontario ministers to attend question period, which is the most useful part of the legislature‘s sittings for opposition MPPs and gives them their only opportunity to hold the government to account face-to- face. New Democrat leader Howard Hampton complained “there’s hardly anyone here” and Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer asked for unanimous consent to have two question periods the next day, when McGuinty and his ministers returned, but the Liberals would not go for it. Half-a-dozen New Democrats then pulled out disposable cameras and started snapping the empty seats of the ministers and others that Liberal backbenchers had started to fill to suggest their party had a fuller turnout. The Speaker, Steve Peters, ordered the sergeant-at-arms to confiscate the cameras, because the legislature has a rule MPPs cannot bring in cameras, and the New Democrats surrendered them. MPPs are as sensitive about not being seen in the legislature as they might be about being seen with someone else’s spouse. They also should be there, because the legislature makes laws and sits only four days a week and less then half the year. The legislature does not take a written record of MPPs’ attendance on the flimsy ground this might cause the public to think some are not putting enough time in their jobs, when they have other legitimate calls on their time. Ministers have duties related to cabinet, for instance, and all MPPs at times have events in their ridings they should attend. The legislature has a rule, guarded as zealously as an 11th Commandment, that an MPP should not mention another MPP’s absence. This gets broken at times, such as when an opposition member draws attention to a minister he wants to question not being there or a minister notes an opponent he wants to respond to is not present. The Speaker invariably leaps to remind an MPP cannot refer to another’s absence. The House leaders of the three parties also informally keep their counterparts informed when any of their MPPs are absent for legitimate reasons such as sickness, bereavements or events in their constituencies, to make doubly sure no-one makes the dread charge they are missing. The last time an MPP tried to photograph opponents in the legislature was nearly 40 years ago and for a different reason. Morton Shulman, a colourful, hyperactive former coroner intent on burying the Conservative government, dashed home and brought back a camera during a night sitting. He snapped two of that party’s backbenchers snoozing close to midnight. Ellis Morningstar was sitting up fairly straight, with his head nodding, and Norris Whitney was sprawled in his chair with his mouth open. Both were in their 60s. Shulman wanted to prove some Conservatives were not alert in their jobs, but Speaker Fred Cass demanded he give up his camera and, after some sparring, he did. The incident did Shulman more harm than good, because many had become weary of his unvarying belligerence and some even felt sympathy for elderly politicians who dozed in dull, late debates. The most efficient solution to the MPPs’fear of being seen as absent would be a daily record of attendance. Those marked as missing could explain why and the public could judge if their reasons were adequate. But the politicians are not all that keen to have such a close watch kept on how they spend their time. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk His name was Merriweather; the ‘children’ who existed with him in the era of headbands and tie-dye playfully dubbed him Happygrass. Amused and amusing he was a bit of an oxymoron in those days — a nice cop. It seemed to me then that police officers often lacked a sense of humour. Const. Merriweather was different than most, accepting no nonsense, but understanding that being young and being a criminal didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. As a small-town teen you soon came to know both types of cops because they were every- where you were. The town in which I grew up was watched over by not just a local police force, but also housed an OPP detachment. Those days are gone. Except, that is, in North Huron. The residents of the Wingham ward have had their own force since the beginning of time. There is also an office at the north end of town from which eight Huron OPP officers work. The Blyth and East Wawanosh wards of the township are policed by the provincial police. With amalgamation the idea of having one force, the OPP, for the entire municipality was discussed. It was reported that there would be projected savings in the amount of $125,000. However, Wingham folks were reluctant to see their beloved police services gone, and members of the Ontario Civilian Commission on Police Services eventually determined that it should remain. The result was that not only were the savings with amalgamation far below what had been projected, it cost North Huron to meet the new adequacy standards. The updates were done and now North Huron is studying the possibility of expanding the Wingham force to serve all of the township. You can easily understand council’s reason. Though the departments work well together when necessary, it makes sense to have one system in place. It also will help tidy things up for administration. Currently for taxation, area rating is done in the wards for the policing services they receive. So now, the study will hopefully provide a clear and open opinion on which system it should be. Granted the Wingham Police Services has been brought to adequacy standards. But to have the resources or expertise readily at hand that the OPP do is, one would presume, going to take a lot of time and a good deal of money. People have complained that they don’t see an OPP presence as much as they would like in Blyth or down the East Wawanosh roads. What they may not realize is all they have to do is ask. The OPP will provide whatever service council requests, though more of anything usually comes with a higher price tag. I doubt it would be any different with an expanded Wingham force. Sometimes we just have to be realistic. The days of Happygrass and the rest, I’m afraid, are gone. Right along with the days of the country squire, the family doctor and a school in which your Grade 1 teacher is still there when you graduate Grade 8. We may not like it, but changes happen to meet changing times. And sometimes they actually make sense though we can’t always see it. I’ve no doubt Wingham officers are capable of providing an excellent service, as I happen to believe the OPP do. Council’s job will be to consider thoroughly which actually makes the most economical and practical sense for them. MPPs sensitive about their absence Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. – Benjamin Franklin Final Thought