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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-10-23, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2008. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Looking out for me An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo Bang on, Victor. And it’s not always new ideas we need. Sometimes we need to take an old idea down to the riverbank and hold it under the water until it stops moving. Airline tickets for instance. I don’t know whose bright idea it was to foist airline tickets on an unsuspecting world, but somewhere between the Wright boys mucking about at Kitty Hawk and the Concorde swooshing across the Atlantic, some airline nimrod decided that no one should be allowed aloft without a sheaf of paper composed of incomprehensible gibberish reproduced in quintuplicate clutched in his fist. Airline tickets – not a great idea. Too bulky to fit in your pocket and too flimsy to survive rough handling, airline tickets were the last word in pointless paperwork – unless you happened to lose yours. I did, once. I got to the Air Canada ticket gate in Vancouver for a flight to Kelowna, fanned through my pockets for my ticket – gone, lost, disparu. I shrugged apologetically to the ticket agent and prepared to show my ID. “That’ll be ninety dollars,” the ticket agent said. For what? To reprint a piece of paper? Check your computer, I told the agent. You’ll find my name on there. How many Arthur Blacks you figure there are on flight AC 56 to Kelowna? “Ninety dollars,” he said. “Cash or credit card. We don’t take cheques.” This ugly scene played out perhaps 10 years ago in Vancouver airport. It would never happen today because, at some point in the last decade, someone had the bright idea to replace those dopey wads of paper with E tickets. It not only removed a source of migraines for travellers, it saved the airlines a bundle of dough. IATA (the International Air Transport Association) estimates it took about $10 to process an old-fashioned paper airline ticket. Cost of processing an E ticket: about a buck. Savings to the industry: U.S. $3 billion a year. No brainer. Here’s another no brainer – hospital gowns. Of all the humiliations you will endure during your next hospital visit for a checkup – the jabbings, the pokings, the proddings and probings, none will resonate quite as terrifyingly as the dumbass gown they will hand you to put on. The adjective is apt. You know the gown I mean. “Take off all your clothes and slip into this,” the nurse will smirk. It goes on like an apron, with ties at the neck and the waist. Here’s a news flash for the gown designers: All guys – in fact, most people this side of Martha Stewart – are extremely ham-handed when it comes to blindly tying reef knots behind their back. And besides, no matter how deftly you tie the knot of a hospital gown, it still leaves most of your caboose hanging out in the breeze. Whose bright idea was that? No doctor I have ever questioned could satisfactorily explain the bizarre and composure-rattling construction of this garment. “They’ve always been like that,” is the usual rationalization. Yeah, well they’re not anymore. Some genius, working for the firm MIP Inc in Montreal, has come up with a replacement they call the ‘respectful’ gown. It’s opaque and wraps around the body to cover the backside and tie at the (well, duh!) front of the body, rather than at the back. Which means the patient is not involuntarily mooning everybody standing astern. The re-jigged hospital gown isn’t just patient-friendly, it’s a boon to hospital budgets as well. Because they’re made of microfibre, the new gowns wash easier, dry quicker, last longer and look better. A study conducted at five Quebec hospitals which use the new gowns shows an annual saving of $118,000 just from not having to fold the 9,000 new gowns each time they’re washed. Are the new gowns at your hospital yet? Probably not, but they’re on the way. It’s just as Victor Hugo said – you can’t stop an idea whose time has come. If Fate should take you to the hospital for a checkup before the new gowns arrive, try to keep your back to the wall. And for God’s sake don’t bend over to adjust your paper slippers. Arthur Black Other Views Whose bright idea was that? Dalton McGuinty is being suggested as next leader of the federal Liberal party particularly on the ground he has no baggage. But he would need Joe the Mover to help him switch jobs. The Liberal premier is being portrayed by some of his supporters and news media as the ideal successor to Stephane Dion because, they say, he also could pull his federal party together quickly and win a large share of the votes in Ontario, the most populous province. McGuinty has undeniable assets, including having won majorities in two successive Ontario elections, a feat rarely achieved in recent decades, which suggests he has appeal and political smarts. He is young enough at 53, has a low-key manner people like and an appearance attractive enough for a British magazine to call him a “hottie,” although it chose him only through a photograph. And he is articulate, although no spellbinding orator. Some Ontario news media, which tend to be partisan when comparing their home-grown products to outsiders, have been beating the drum, portraying McGuinty as a world-beater the federal Liberals should snap up. But the premier has baggage, the heaviest being he has spent much of the past five years complaining the federal government takes billions of dollars a year more from Ontario than is fair and hands it to other provinces. McGuinty has made this claim incessantly at federal-provincial conferences, in motions introduced in the legislature and meetings where anyone would listen. He tried hard to make this issue a major one in the federal election campaign by speeches, appeals through news media, circulating pamphlets and asking all federal party leaders to support his cause. The premier said he would not endorse a party – normally he endorses the Liberals – unless it committed itself unreservedly to what he called “fair” funding. None did and he stuck to his promise. If there is anything residents in other provinces know about McGuinty it is he wants a lot more money for Ontario and it will have to come out of what Ottawa sends them now. The leaders of federal parties shied from committing themselves to providing billions more dollars to Ontario, because it would have offended many voters in other provinces. Many residents of them will not support a federal leader who wants to send more money to Ontario, which they already view as a fat cat, and a party including the federal Liberals will be hesitant to choose one. McGuinty also has baggage merely in being from Ontario, because many in other provinces view this as a province that runs the country and has too much power and wealth. The last Ontario premier who went on to lead a federal party, Progressive Conservative George Drew half-a-century ago, was unable to win acceptance nationally and lost two elections. Federal parties are reluctant to choose former premiers as leaders also because they have been unable to translate their appeal to the federal scene, particularly being seen as out of their depth or too attached to their province. The last to try, Robert Stanfield, former Conservative premier of Nova Scotia, while much admired personally, could not win in three federal elections starting in the 1960s. McGuinty also is not quite as sure a vote- getter when his record is more closely scrutinized. He won the 2003 election after the Conservative government lost popularity because voters who once were ecstatic over the-tax cutting of premier Mike Harris grew angry because public services became weaker and Ernie Eves, who succeeded Harris, had no chance. John Tory, who followed Eves as Conservative leader, lost the 2007 election because he promised to fund faith-based schools. So the Conservatives threw away both elections more than McGuinty won them. McGuinty is not quite as shrewd and wildly popular as some think he is. But his heavier baggage as a premier who has dedicated a large part of his career to getting more money for Ontario is not likely to be a hero to the rest of Canada. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk There is a notion, one of those “they say” beliefs, that for every person alive there is another somewhere in this world who bears a little more than a striking resemblance to them. Apparently, mine’s not that far away. The other day I stopped at an eating spot in a neighbouring town. There was a line at the counter and I took my place at the end of it, behind two women. The pair acknowledged me with slight smiles, which for one of them soon stretched into a toothy beam of recognition. “Hi Shelley,” she said, obviously thrilled to be seeing me. Her pleasure, however, when greeted by a raised brow and bemused shaking of the head, moved to apology, as with gradual dawning she awakened to this case of mistaken identity. Her acquaintance, I suppose in a somewhat redundant attempt to explain, said I really did look like a woman they know. Really? Standing less than a foot away? Why the resemblance must be uncanny I thought wryly. After all, no one could look so much alike that close acquaintances would be fooled. So with this touch of cynicism I filed the moment in my brain’s stories-to-share section. But when half an hour later, while walking to my car, a woman approaching me smiled brilliantly and said “Hi, Shelley”, bemusement became bewilderment. It’s not so much I’m surprised I have a double (poor girl). Back in the days of the wedge cut and peasant blouses, was the TV show One Day At A Time, starring my apparent dopplegänger Bonnie Franklin. The resemblance was noted on many occasions by many people, with one young girl even going so far as to ask for my autograph. I signed it Bonnie and made her day. Personally I could never see it though. Beyond the chipmunk cheeks, the hair and the given name, I saw few shared traits. Not to mention she had about 10 years on me thanks very much. But, Bonnie Franklin at least, was thousands of miles away. To suddenly hear that almost right next door there may be another who looks enough like me people who know her think I’m her, feels a little odd. The possibility that I might run into ‘myself’is there and that’s eerie. Francois Brunelle agrees. “It’s a bit of a nightmare to meet oneself without warning,” he said in an interview a year ago. A Montreal photographer Brunelle was working on a book featuring pictures he had taken of people who were strikingly alike. He said that even if the resemblance was flattering he found it can shake up a person’s ego. It was also not uncommon he said, for his subjects when meeting not to see the similarity in appearance. Reading the last comment, and recalling my feelings about Bonnie Franklin as my double, I wondered exactly how alike Brunelle’s subjects were. Thanks once again to the world of Google, I found his lookalike project on the internet and was astounded. In some of the photos it was difficult to believe these people did not have some blood connection. What’s perhaps even more amazing is that in this big world, he was able to discover so many mirror images and bring them together. And then, here am I apparently a mere stone’s throw from mine. If it’s true that many of the people in Brunelle’s book didn’t see the resemblance, is it possible that my dopplegänger and I have passed each other already, seeing a stranger while others around us are seeing double? Perhaps. But I’m sure going to be on the lookout for me now. McGuinty does come with baggage 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. 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