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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-10-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2008. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt I could use a rainbow You ever leave anything behind in a taxi? I swear the cab companies must install ‘stuff magnets’ under the back seat to suck your personal effects right out of your pockets. I don’t take cabs any more than I have to, but I’ve still left behind enough loot to outfit a Salvation Army thrift outlet. You name it – books, magazines, ball point pens, groceries, a harmonica or two and once, a bag of dirty laundry. Naturally, I never saw any of it again (and I’m not holding my breath on the dirty laundry – although possibly the cab driver is). I’m unusually gifted when it comes to leaving my property behind in taxis, but I’m not as good as Philippe Quint. Mister Quint is a New York musician, and a very talented one, to boot. Talented enough to give a one-man concert in Dallas, Texas last spring. On his return to Manhattan he flagged a cab at the airport, took it to his apartment, paid the cabbie and retrieved his overnight bag from the trunk. As the taxi pulled away and Mister Quint fumbled with his front door keys, something was gnawing at him. He felt…lacking. Unfulfilled. As if he’d forgotten something. Indeed he had. In his haste, Mister Quint had left his violin in the backseat of the taxi. Actually it wasn’t his violin. It belonged to two benefactors who had loaned it to Mister Quint for his concert. And the violin he’d left in the taxi wasn’t a Japanese knock-off. It was one of only 700 or so hand-crafted by an Italian gentleman some three centuries ago. The violin Mister Quinte had left in the taxi was a Stradivarius. The violin Mister Quinte had left in the taxi was worth Four Million Dollars. Mister Quinte did the only thing a person can do when they have inadvertently left an object worth $4,000,000 in the back of a taxi which has disappeared and they can’t even remember which bloody taxi company it was. He sat down on the sidewalk and cried. And then he sprang into action. Yellow Cab! He remembered that it was a Yellow Cab from Newark that he’d been in. He phoned the head office. Naw, no fiddle’s been turned in here, pal. Hours went by. Philippe Quinte considered changing his name, moving to Tanganyika, jumping out the window… Then his phone rang. It was the Newark police. The driver of the taxi Mister Quinte was in – one Mohammed Khalil – had turned in the violin at the end of his shift. It was at the taxi stand right now. Did he want to come down and pick it up? After he got the violin back, Mister Quinte tracked down Mister Khalil. He thanked him, he embraced him, he pressed a $100 tip on him. Mister Khalil waved it all off. “Anyone would have done the same thing,” he told a New York Times reporter. Well, maybe for a cellphone or something…but a $4 million violin??? “Everything we find is valuable to someone,” said Mister Khalil. “If you lost your pen, you would think it was valuable.” Philippe Quinte was feeling unfulfilled again. How could he show his gratitude? Then it came to him – he would give a concert. Not at Carnegie Hall or the Lincoln Center, where Philippe Quinte usually gave his concerts – at the Newark International Airport under a vinyl canopy covering in the parking lot by the taxicab holding area. And he did. Quinte played the theme from the movie The Red Violin. He played Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So. He played a Paganini Variation and the Meditation from Massenet’s opera Thais. The audience – some 50 cab drivers including Mohammed Khalil – loved it. They clapped and they danced. One of the drivers, a recent immigrant from Ghana, shimmied and moonwalked across the gravel to the music. “I like that he came here,” the Ghanaian said, “And, yeah, the music, I like it.” So did the man responsible for reuniting Philippe Quinte with Signor Stradivarius’s creation. Mohammed Khalil sat front row, centre, resplendent in his best black suit, with pink shirt and matching tie. The day was a double celebration for Mohammed Khalil. Not only was he being honoured for his honesty, he was retiring. It was his last day of work. Talk about going out on a high note. Arthur Black Other Views Hey, buddy … forget something? Ontario’s New Democrats are in a race to choose a new leader that is almost a secret, but a couple of bolts of lightning have emerged from the obscurity. The NDPs search for a successor to Howard Hampton has been almost unnoticed because of the difficulty of whipping up excitement in summer over a third-biggest party that shows no sign of becoming a contender and a federal election that seems to have dragged on forever. Gilles Bisson, an MPP from Timmins, has entered the fray with a battle cry unusual for New Democrats. Bisson said the NDP has much to be proud of in having championed social policies that became law – and many would agree with him. But its success in elections has been modest. One reason, he said, is voters want to be assured the NDP will place as much emphasis on economic and fiscal policy as it does on social policy. Government and society cannot provide social programs, such as improved health care and education, new infrastructure and public transportation that meets the needs of commuters, he said, without a strong economy that provides the money. Bisson said he will focus in his campaign on how to build a strong economy that will create more wealth and jobs and generate money to strengthen public services. This is something of an innovation for the NDP, which tends to talk more of improving services, protecting workers and increasing welfare benefits and the minimum wage, than how to pay for them. One time this was painfully evident was when the New Democrats were elected to govern for the only time in 1990 and had endless promises to fulfill, but had to abandon some, the most famous being public auto insurance, because they lacked money. Such failings, coupled with their willingness to run up huge deficits to finance other promises, set them back and they have never recovered. They still get a much smaller share of the vote than they were able to count on regularly in the 1960s and 1970s. Other parties are having to rein in ambitions. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has warned he will have to move slower than he hoped in tackling some social concerns, particularly poverty, because the economy has slowed and less money is available. Bisson’s candidacy is interesting also for reasons including he is an electrician, largely self-educated, who says he learned a lot by reading, particularly history and economics. Previous leaders have been predominantly from what traditionally has been called the intellectual wing of the party. Hampton is a lawyer, as is former premier Bob Rae, Michael Cassidy a financial journalist, Stephen Lewis almost an intellectual by profession and Donald C. MacDonald another journalist. Bisson notwithstanding holds his own in debates on issues including sub-prime mortgages as well as problems in forestry and mining. He says he does not think being from the north will hurt him, because “it is important what you have done, not where you come from”. As an MPP he has lived part-time in Toronto for 18 years and been immersed in many southern issues. Few leaders of parties have come from the north, but Hampton is from Fort Frances and former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris from North Bay. Michael Prue, who announced earlier for NDP leader, also transcended the monotony of most Ontario politics when he called for a debate on which religious schools the province should fund. The Conservatives under John Tory proposed funding schools of other religious groups in addition to Roman Catholics in the 2007 election, but were rejected overwhelmingly by voters concerned this would further divide children by faith and will not raise this issue again. Prue stressed he is not advocating ending funding for Catholic schools and his record suggests he is having difficulty accepting an inequity that in many ways works and this will harm his chances of becoming leader. Bisson, a Roman Catholic, said he strongly supports funds for Catholic schools, which is safer. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too. — Arthur Hamilton It was my blessing and pleasure this week to have my route highlighted on two morning drives by one of Earth’s most spectacular shows. It doesn’t matter your spiritual perspective on this natural phenomenon, there’s something hopeful in the rainbow’s spectrum of colour. The feeling that in moving towards it I might pass through its majestic arch to a less stressful place and time almost defeated reason. Sadly, more than ever right now, we could use a little hope. The flip-flop of the stock exchange, the loss of major industry, the slumping economy have brought caution to North Americans, an uneasy concern weighing mind and heart. And neither election on either side of the border is doing anything to ease the weariness. Last Thursday night, Canadian television aired a round-table debate among the candidates for prime minister. The American counterparts were showing the vice-presidential hopefuls’ first head to head. What it meant at our home was a good deal of channel surfing, as we are obviously interested in making an informed choice for our own country’s leader, but also because what impacts our neighbour to the south impacts us. I won’t say much about my views on the former here, because as a journalist my politics should at least appear to be unbiased. I will say though I had more difficulty watching the Canadian debate because the policies of one party fill me with such concern for this country that I can barely stomach hearing its leader repeat the rhetoric. So I will use observations from the U.S. debate to offer an opinion. First it was certainly reassuring to see Sarah Palin come off better than anticipated. She was more articulate, informed and polished then she has appeared in other televised interviews. That said, one might assume she had undergone an extensive tutorial following those debacles. However, in listening to the next morning’s news shows where candidates were graded on their performances I was appalled. While they admitted Palin didn’t always answer the questions, she did it smoothly. I knew politicians were slick; I didn’t realize it’s a commendable attribute. Also, one journalist said that Palin wisely played up her folksiness, winning people over with a wink and a smile. Seriously? Have the Americans not learned anything from the past eight years? It was well- touted that George Bush appealed to people as someone they could see themselves with at a barbecue. Now, I don’t think I have to tell anyone where that has gotten the United States. Sarah Palin appears to be a nice person, one who is well-educated and accomplished. She’s attractive and spunky. But, she also comes across as inexperienced. One must keep in mind that there is the potential for this woman to become president. Picture that. A person still on the learning curve, who doesn’t always have the answers. But what the heck. As long as she smoothly sidesteps them that’s all that matters, right? As for her folksiness? I wonder how that translates with other world leaders. Maybe that wink can charm Bin Laden out of hiding. No matter what side of the border, for voters the job is clear. It’s not about looks or how candidates talk. It’s what they say. Listen to their answers, think what they mean and choose the one most likely to bring back the rainbows. Please. Leadership race lighting up 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. Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. – Confucius Final Thought