HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-06-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2008. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
A theatrical thanks
All big cities have their seamy
underside and Toronto the Good is no
different. The self-designated Centre
of the Universe has its share of shysters,
grifters, hooligans, hoodlums, gunsels and run
of the mill, garden variety thieves.
Late-night truck hijackings are not exactly
unheard of in Hogtown, so the driver of the
tractor-trailer, lately in from California,
shouldn’t really have been all that surprised to
come out after an early breakfast at an East
End Toronto truck stop diner to find only a
swatch of bare gravel where he’d parked his
rig.
Ripped off. An entire tractor-trailer along
with its $11,000 payload vanished into the
Ontario countryside slicker than a Three Card
Monte dealer’s shuffle.
The driver may not have been all that
surprised but it’s a pretty good bet the thieves
were a tad nonplussed when they busted the
locks on the trailer door and got a look at the
cargo they’d heisted.
Broccoli. The geniuses had managed to steal
30 huge skids of fresh, green, broccoli.
Kind of fitting that broccoli would be the
punchline vegetable in a news story ‘brite’.
Wouldn’t have been nearly as funny if the
payload had been carrots or onions. There’s
just something inherently goofy about
broccoli.
Well, broccoli looks goofy, for starters. The
stalks resemble miniature, supernaturally
green and dwarfy deciduous trees on steroids.
A bunch of broccoli looks like a forest for
Smurfs.
It even looks funny as a word. Two ‘c’s’, one
‘l’. Say it slowly: brooooooooccoli. Sounds
like a belch. Who would come up with a word
like that?
The Ancient Romans, actually. Broccoli
derives from the Latin word ‘brachium’,
meaning branch or arm.
Broccoli is, in fact, a branch of the cabbage
family and it has been around forever, or next
to it. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder
mentioned it in his writings a couple of
thousand years ago – and not all that fondly
either.
That’s the other funny thing about this funny
vegetable – almost nobody has a kind word to
say about it. Back in the 1950s there was a
classic New Yorker magazine cartoon that
showed a mother introducing her young son to
the vegetable for the first time.
“It’s broccoli, dear,” she explains tenderly.
The kid replies, “I say it’s spinach and I say
to hell with it.”
George Bush (the other one – Idiot Boy’s
father) incurred the wrath of broccoli growers
throughout North America when he publicly
refused to eat the stuff, saying that one of the
perks of being President of the United States
was that nobody could force you to eat
broccoli.
All this preamble to lead you gently to my
guilty, horrible secret: I actually like the stuff.
Which would not normally be good news – I
also like beer nuts, cheese doodles and peanut
butter and marmalade sandwiches, none of
which add years to my life or brownie points
to my Canada Food Guide healthy eating
profile.
But broccoli, it turns out, is almost
supernaturally good for you. It’s packed with
calcium and potassium, not to mention a
healthy whack of vitamin C, folic acid and
beta carotenes. It also totes a compound called
I3C, which boosts production of anti-cancer
hormones.
And broccoli packs a healthy dose of
something called sulforaphane, another cancer
fighter. If that’s not indecently healthy enough
for you, broccoli is also remarkably high in
fibre.
No wonder mom was constantly pushing the
stuff.
Personally, I don’t shill for broccoli because
it’s good for you or because it tastes divine.
I’m a fan because I (try to) write funny for a
living. And for a humour writer, broccoli is the
only vegetable with legs. Well, aside from
rutabagas.
Funny guy Mel Brooks got some comedic
mileage out of both broccoli and the
insufferably self-righteous health food zealots
who try to guilt the rest of us backsliders.
“Listen to your broccoli,” Brooks intoned
solemnly, “and your broccoli will tell you how
to eat it.”
Another funny guy, Roy Blount, Jr., was less
kind. He penned the only poem I know about
the veggie. It goes:
The corner store is out of broccoli.
Loccoli.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Just listen to your broccoli
Ontario’s New Democratic Party has set
some sort of world record for losing
elections and the road is not getting
any easier.
The NDP, which is choosing a new leader
after Howard Hampton announced he will
retire, has a discouraging record since it
started running candidates first under its
previous name, the Cooperative
Commonwealth Federation, in 1934.
In 21 elections it has managed to win only
one, an even longer losing streak than the
Toronto Maple Leafs, who have had whole
generations of their hockey fans come and go
without seeing them win the Stanley Cup.
The NDP is even going backwards. It has
not regularly elected double-digit numbers of
MPPs in recent elections, as it did through the
1960s to the mid-1990s.
Optimists in the party will argue its sole
victory, in 1990 under Bob Rae, proves it can
win, but that was achieved in extraordinary
circumstances that will not easily be
duplicated.
Voters had tossed the Progressive
Conservatives out of government after 42
years, because they had become out of touch
and arrogant, the last straw being their
refusing to debate with opponents on TV in an
election.
The Liberals under David Peterson replaced
them, but called an early election hoping to get
it over before an economic slump, and voters
saw through their trickery and sent them
packing, too.
They were unwilling to welcome the
Conservatives back so soon, but accepted the
NDP only reluctantly, giving it only 37.6 per
cent of the vote, as unenthusiastic an
endorsement as government can get.
Voters rarely have been turned off by the two
major parties at the same time and anyone
counting on this happening again could be in
for a long wait.
The Conservatives and Liberals have
continued to alternate in government, and the
NDP to labour under its traditional burden of
being seen by many as too supportive of
government regulation and too ready to take
money from the better off to help the poor.
Socialist parties in many countries have
watered these down to win changed images
and votes.
The Ontario NDP also has had to bear – and
this is never hinted at – an extra burden of
being seen perpetually losing, which has
proved heavy. Voters are very interested in
who is winning and news media in reports,
commentaries and polls around elections focus
daily on who is winning and it is never the
NDP.
Some media concentrate much more on who
is winning than the parties’ policies and
records, which they should help voters
compare.
There never has been an election in which
the NDP was seen as the likely winner – even
Rae’s victory caught media by surprise – so
they have virtually excluded the NDP as a
contender every time.
Many voters are influenced in choosing who
to vote for by who is reported as winning or
having a strong chance. They feel if others
support a party, it must have some merits.
Some even vote for a party primarily because
others support it, the well-known bandwagon
effect.
Others vote to keep out a party or candidate
and the media and polls indicate they have to
vote for a Liberal or Conservative, because
only they can win. They hear nothing to
suggest even to be negative they should turn to
the NDP.
Voters told that the NDP has no chance of
winning government also have no incentive to
look at its policies, which might lead them to
support it. Many would be surprised to know
the NDP would give manufacturers tax credits
to protect jobs, instead of cash as the Liberals
have done not always with success, and cut
hydro costs to keep them operating.
Commentators also weaken the NDP further
by trotting out the consolation that other
parties adopt some of its policies, so it does
not need to be elected.
This is not a plea for the NDP and it is true
to say it has lost many elections, but voters
have their choices limited when one party is
called nothing but a loser.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
The damp continues, the chill makes one
think October rather than June. Spring
never did make its arrival, and now
we’ve seguéd suddenly into summer. It’s about
as much of a shock as a splash in an icy lake on
a muggy day.
For those who spent winter longing for the
heat and sun, the promise of nicer weather is
still just that. We wait for the rains to halt, the
sunshine to start and the temperatures to climb.
It’s been a new song of complaint to sing for
sure, as the tune wailing out the agony of
humidity and mosquitoes hasn’t been written
so far this year.
Yet, while we wait for those discomforts and
the blessings usually associated with summer,
there is one sign of the warm season that
faithfully arrived as anticipated.
Blyth Festival opened its 34th season last
week. And Stratford Festival has been back in
business since the end of April.
I was eager for my first visit to both.
A friend attends the Stratford performances
with me and summer wouldn’t be summer
without these dates. Besides our enthusiasm
for the theatre we also have many other things
in common when out on the town — good
food, wine and conversation, preferably on a
sunny patio, and shopping.
So we take full advantage of the trip. We use
the opportunity to experience as much of all of
the above as possible.
It’s a different, though no less enjoyable
situation in Blyth as hubby’s my date. While
he’d probably never attend theatre without me,
I do think he looks forward to it. There are rare
opportunities for such excellent entertainment
so close to home, plus it’s a nice night out for
us.
Unlike the times with my Stratford partner,
however, the visit to Blyth Festival is more
goal focused I suppose you could say. We’re
going to the theatre and that’s where it begins
and ends for Mark.
Yet, a quiet stroll down the street, working
our way toward the gathering crowd in front of
Memorial Hall, taking in the clean night air
while awaiting the bell’s beckoning toll, is
certainly a nice sojourn in our hectic schedules.
And we’re both wise enough to appreciate it.
At home, nights often slide by with hurried
chats and quick updates slipped in between
catching up on chores, phone calls and
appointments. It’s an easy routine to fall into
and before you know it a week has passed and
you’ve barely spent a quality moment together.
I welcome any chance, therefore, that
requires us to step away from the mundane and
usual and just hang out together.
The same is true with my friend and me. She
lives a distance away from me and with work
thrown into the equation, touching base
doesn’t happen as often as I’d wish in a perfect
world. Our Stratford adventures provide an
extended opportunity to indulge ourselves
while apprising each other of what’s revolving
around our particular worlds at that time.
So while I’m appreciative certainly of theatre
because of the work I’m treated to on stage,
there is more to the story. It is much more than
the literal theatre experience that I look
forward to.
These two Festivals herald the arrival of my
season of renewal. They are the core around
which I can build pleasurable agendas. They
take me away from self and the less pleasing
realities of existence.
So, thanks Blyth and Stratford Festivals for
the obvious pleasure you bring to people — but
also for the less obvious too.
The loser image hurts NDP
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Final Thought