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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-10-16, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2008. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Breathe, just breathe Anybody remember the shmoo? It was a critter dreamed up by Al Capp, the cartoonist who created the L’il Abner strip half a century ago, give or take. The shmoo was about the size and shape of a bowling pin, except it had tiny legs, a perpetual grin and big friendly eyes. Shmoos ran in packs and liked to hang around with humans. They lived on air and water, liked to be stroked and fondled like puppies, but most of all, they loved to be eaten. Why, a shmoo would jump right into the frying pan in anticipation. Tasted like fried chicken, readers were told. The shmoo was a socialist’s wet dream – a plentiful foodstock that didn’t have to be fed or stabled, cultivated or harvested, taken to market or slaughtered. Most of all, the shmoo was a hot meal that didn’t engender feelings of guilt or remorse in consumers. The shmoos wanted people to eat them. Mother Nature never did give us the shmoo but she came tantalizingly close. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce The Dexter. The Dexter is…well, let’s call it a lawn mower. It runs very quietly, gets excellent mileage with minimal maintenance. The Dexter not only keeps your grass trimmed, it fertilizes it at the same time. And the Dexter uses no oil at all. In fact, it uses no gasoline. Or electricity, or batteries or solar panels. The Dexter runs on – how cool is this? – grass. Big deal, you say. Goats and sheep can eat grass – hell, I’ve got deer in my yard that do the same thing. Yeah, but can you get a quart of milk off them every day? The Dexter is a cow. It moos like a cow, gives milk like a cow, eats grass and grows horns and has calves like a cow. The big difference between a Dexter and, say, a Holstein is that a decent milking Holstein is the size of a Dodge minivan. A Dexter is no bigger than a Labrador retriever. A nasty-tempered or just plain clumsy Holstein can crush you like a grape against a stable wall. If it steps on your foot you won’t walk for a week. Whereas Dexters are affectionate and almost small enough to pick up in your arms. And unlike the shmoo, the Dexter is real. It exists. It is a mountain breed from Ireland that has been around for ages and is now found on farms around the world. More than 4,100 Dexter cows were registered in 2007 by the Dexter Cattle Society. A dozen or so of those cows live on the rolling fields of a 20-acre farm belonging to poet and songwriter Pam Ayres who lives in the Cotswolds in England. It’s a family affair sans bureaucratic interference and that’s just the way Pam Ayres likes it. “The government has no interest in where our food comes from or how it tastes,” she told a Sunday Times reporter, “So it’s nice to set your own welfare and quality standards.” The Dexter is just the opening wedge of the blooming mini-cow boom. The Australian government is getting involved in a big way. They’ve cross-bred cattle strains to produce two new breeds – the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus. The latter can produce 70 per cent of the meat of its big sister, yet it stands only 39 inches high. So what’s the big attraction? Economy of scale, for one thing. As any cattle producer can tell you, the cost of raising conventional cattle is going through the barn roof. Heating, transportation – and especially the cost of feed – are all escalating astronomically. Mini-cattle obviously take up less room and need ‘way less fuel than their oversized cousins. My hunch is that for some consumers these mini-breeds are going to cut out the cattle- producing middlemen entirely. If you’ve got access to a couple of acres of grass, why buy your milk and meat at the supermarket? You can raise it yourself. As one Dexter owner says “as long as you’ve got plenty of grass they will be fine. You don’t really have to feed them…and they have a lovely temperament.” Ah, there’s the rub. These Dexters and Mini- Herefords and Lowline Angus’are, when all is said and done….kinda cute. I have a theory that if some future anthropologist could travel back in time and interview us, the conversation would go something like this: “Let me get this straight. You…ate…your fellow creatures? You actually raised animals, fed them and sheltered them and nurtured them, then you sent them off to abattoirs and slaughter houses and you had them killed and dismembered and separated into gobbets of protein in shrink- wrapped packets on Styrofoam trays and you sat down and…ate…them? And we will say, “Well yeah, we did. Right up until the Dexters. That’s when we all went vegetarian. Those Dexters were just too damn cute to kill.” Arthur Black Other Views The Dexter: too cute to kill When will an Ontario politician pluck up the courage to stand in the legislature and say many of today’s university students are a bunch of hooligans? The evidence is clear. Drunkenness, rowdiness, vandalism and fighting involving students, although a minority, is common and increasing. People living near some universities have expressed fear for their physical safety and homes. A doctor in a hospital emergency room, who has treated many students injured in brawls and other antics, has warned someone will be killed soon unless student violence is curbed. Ministers and MPPs should be concerned, but none in any party has stood to condemn the students or offer a solution, which would include educating students to behave better and making it clear they will be treated like others and forced to obey the law. This would help reduce incidents such as one during a homecoming party at Queen’s University in Kingston, when more than 8,000 revellers jammed a street, police brought reinforcements from neighboring communities to help their 200-strong force and charged more than 600, mostly with alcohol-related offences, and dozens of injured students were treated in hospital. After the doctor warned, “Each year is worse than the one before and loss of life is inevitable if this continues,” the university said it will consider canceling the annual event. Police called to a district of mainly student housing near Fanshawe College in London laid 1,118 charges against students in a month, nearly 300 more than in the entire previous school year. Most were for drinking and rowdiness, which included an incident in which 500 students got out of control at a street party, leading to a series of fights, but two students were charged with sexually assaulting a woman. A college spokesman said this is its worst year for problems with partying and “we’re disgusted.” In Waterloo residents have complained students have turned their area close to the university into a “student slum” by vomiting and urinating on their lawns and the municipality had to send a firetruck to clean one lawn. Police laid 330 charges against students for public nuisance and vandalism in the area in less than a month. Business owners in St. Catharines have complained the downtown area with its 60 bars has become “a university street party” and demanded the city provide late-night buses to get students out of downtown. In Guelph where as many as 5,000 drinkers, mostly students, pour from downtown bars weekends at 2 a.m., a newspaper says the area often is “a sea of drunkenness.” This writer checked and within a few minutes saw a fight involving a dozen young men and blood on the sidewalk. In Oshawa, where there is a new university, residents’complaints of late-night partying by students prompted police to station 10 more officers in student neighbourhoods, but a 19- year-old was stabbed at a house party. Homeowners also sued neighbours renting to students who drank heavily, held noisy late- night parties and had sex in front of curtainless windows and a court ordered the owners to stop using their homes as lodging houses. Ryerson University in Toronto last month imposed a “code of conduct” calling on students to refrain from excessive drinking in public, but unfortunately has no way of enforcing it. Students behave away from home in ways they would never dream of in their own communities, where they are known. Politicians turn a blind eye first because they like to be seen in tune with youth and the times and not as fuddy-duddies. They also feel they were young once and grew out of it and the students will grow out of it and move on, which probably will happen, but they will be succeeded by new students who behave similarly offensively to those who live near them. The politicians also teach the students they are privileged and can break laws and get away with it -- this is not the sort of lesson students should be learning in university. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk The election is behind us. We have chosen a leader who will either lead us from this morass of economic uncertainty or plunge us deeper into the abyss of apprehension over the future. And for many, looking ahead is unquestionably a good reason to feel edgy. It’s not bad enough that making ends meet in the present is a challenge, now we have to wonder if the money we squeezed out of our paycheques to try and ensure at least some level of comfort on retirement will be there. One day last week my husband and I received a letter from a company that looks after some of our investments. Breathe the letter suggested. Just breathe. All will be fine. Kind of felt like I was getting financial wisdom from yoga instructors. Even though listening to the news had given me some indication of what was to come, this obscure attempt to reassure had a less than soothing affect. And when their representative called us that evening and used words like panic and catastrophic before reminding us to hang in there and, good grief, not again, to just breathe, it was lucky for him a phone line separated us. I’ve been a tough sell on investing. I have a problem using the money I work for today, to work for me tomorrow. Especially when it means I can’t always have what I’d like now. It was only the promise of a better return on my income tax that got me started with RRSPs decades ago. But then, the money people started showing up and telling me that it wasn’t enough. The gains were steady but minimal and if I wanted to enjoy the kind of lifestyle I have currently (Now, there’s something to strive for!) I needed to diversify. Take some chances, live a little dangerously and it will pay off. I’ve never been comfortable with risk. But I’ve always trusted expert advice whether it comes from doctor, farmer or electrician. It’s not to say I haven’t been burned by that, but you have to have faith in something. This was not about to be any different. After all, when it comes to investments, I thought, my loss is their loss. So I’ve shut my eyes while my more daring husband has plunged into the market. And I’ve let advisors guide me into choosing this commodity and that commodity, or move me from one to the other when it seemed right. And now, as many others, I watch and wait because to do otherwise isn’t the answer either they tell me. As I see our hard-earned money trickle, or on some days wash away, I’ve been reminded to keep in mind the good times. Think about the gains that I’ve made and the losses won’t seem so great. Nice try. Last night on CNN’s Anderson Cooper a financial expert said that people in their 30s and 40s need not worry, there’s lots of time to make it up before retirement. And for the rest of us? Sure they were talking about the U.S. where the economy is in an even bigger mess than ours, but can we safely assume we won’t be following? Fool that I am I have decided to hope so. At least for now. This past weekend, with family around me and a sky so blue it was difficult not to think positively. Now with the election behind us, time will tell how long that state of mind can hold. Did we choose the government to find a way over the abyss? If not, we have a month to pray the Americans will. And with any luck, if they do, we can hitch a ride across on their coattails. MPPs ignore student hooligans Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. 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