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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-10-30, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2008. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Be a guide I could never bear to be buried with people to whom I had not been introduced. – Norman Parkinson, British photographer Unfortunately, most of us don’t get to choose all of our next-door neighbours in the Great Hereafter. But we do have some say in how we present ourselves to them. Which is why I found myself window shopping for wicker baskets last week. Found a beauty in the House Furnishings section down at Home Hardware. Nice and deep, about three feet long and 30 inches wide, made of hand-woven willow. It’s on sale until the end of the month for only $19.95. I figured I could buy a pair of them, glue them together end to end, knock out the middle partitions and have myself a nifty little getaway pod (aka coffin), all for less than 50 bucks. A little morbid, you think? Hardly. Forward thinking, I call it. There’s a cemetery not far from where I live and (currently) breathe that has already set aside a half acre of its premises to exclusively accommodate 284 ‘eco-graves’ – plots in which the environmentally sensitive newly- expired can pre-arrange to have themselves planted in ‘biodegradable caskets’. Makes sense to me. I have never understood the peculiar penchant of my tribe for interring our departed in outrageous circus floats hand- crafted of exotic woods, brushed silk and burnished brass, the sole function of which is to transport said remains from the funeral parlour to a hole in the ground, never to be seen again. It is, perhaps, the ultimate in human folly. One last pathetic stab at immortality. Shakespeare recognized – and nailed the futility of it – more than four centuries ago: Golden lads and girls all must As chimney sweepers, turn to dust As I say, the wickerware casket makes perfect sense to me. What makes less sense is the fact that (a) Canadian law prohibits me from whipping up my own casket, DYI style, down in my basement and (b) once I turn the project over to the professionals, I’m going to pay considerably more than the aforementioned half a C-note. If, for instance, I engage the services of the Evergreen Casket Corporation, one of the world leaders in the biodegradable coffin game, I can expect to fork over a base price of $2,000 for a casket made of wicker (which, on their website at least, does not look a helluva lot more upscale than my fantasy Home Hardware jobbie). Two thousand bucks? For a one-use-only takeout tote box made of dried grass? Such naked avarice would bring a blush of embarrassment to the cheeks of an oil company executive. I could probably get myself a better deal if I lived in Europe. They ran out of cheap and vacant space for expired citizens centuries ago. Consequently, Europeans are much more open to cheap and efficient disposal options. Over there you can choose from a whole line of inexpensive caskets made of honeycombed recycled cardboard – even biodegradable urns. Hey, if I was lucky enough to kick off in India, I could have myself barbecued and pecked into the next world by vultures along the banks of the Ganges… Yeah, well. Some options are just a little too cheap. We’re still getting used to the idea of economical, environmentally friendly burials on this side of the water. “Eco-burial”, as its known, is a fledgling industry in Canada – and our next-door neighbours are just as behind the times. Population of the USA: 300 million. Number of natural burial grounds: 10. There’s an old saying that the only things certain in life are death and taxes, but I’m not so sure about the first one. Even in death, you can’t always get what you want. I’m reminded of the story of poor old Ben Jonson, a dramatist contemporary of Shakespeare. Ben, who thought he had the ear of King Charles I, asked for ‘just a square foot’ in Westminster Abbey for his burial plot. King Charles either didn’t like Ben much or else he had a wicked sense of humour. Visit Westminster Abbey and you can see Ben Jonson’s grave. His gravestone is exactly one foot square and the remains of Ben are indeed beneath it. The King had him buried standing up. Arthur Black Other Views You can’t always get what you want Every time someone looks into a government closet in Ontario a skeleton falls out and residents must be wondering if any branch of government works properly. The recent examples include Ombudsman Andre Marin’s review of the Special Investigations Unit, which was set up to probe incidents in which someone is killed or seriously injured by police to avoid police being shown favouritism. It has boasted it is “a world leader” in this balancing act. The Ombudsman found its investigators, mostly former police officers, are too timid and deferential toward police to do their job effectively. Government after government has been content if they soothe police and the community rather than investigate effectively. This is not much progress when politicians have said that for more than 40 years they want to see residents treated fairly in their dealings with police. A public enquiry by a judge has found a forensic pathologist in the Ontario coroner’s office, Dr. Charles Smith, volunteered inaccurate testimony over two decades, supposedly in his enthusiasm to combat child abuse. It led to at least 12 people being jailed, others wrongly accused and children removed from their parents, devastating many lives. Senior officials in the coroner’s office, part of the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, were found to have failed to supervise the doctor, defended him and in the end tried to protect their office’s reputation instead of the public and made community safety a low priority. When a huge explosion destroyed a privately-owned propane storage depot in Toronto and damaged more than 500 homes at a time workers were transferring fuel illegally between trucks, the province was discovered to have left a little-known body run by the fuel industry, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, to regulate and inspect the depots. The province is now considering taking over regulating, but there is not thorough confidence these days in government being a strict supervisor. The Ombudsman, who has looked behind more closed doors and exposed more skeletons than anyone, has examined the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, responsible for providing financial help to victims of violent crime. The Ombudsman found the board commonly treats applicants with suspicion and indifference and goes out of its way to use technicalities to avoid compensating them, so they wait an average three years for rulings. He called the board a “colossal failure” and blamed successive governments of all parties that have allotted it unrealistic funds, although they express fervently in the legislature their determination to help victims of crime. The Ontario auditor general, who looks mainly at whether the province gets value for money, studied children’s aid societies and found it pays for some of their officials to drive expensive, top-of-the-line SUVs and alleviate their stress with $2,000-a-year gym memberships, although their organizations lack funds to provide children’s programs. The auditor general also cast his eye over whether the province’s efforts to prevent and control infections, including the rapidly spreading C. difficile, in hospitals are effective and found many healthcare workers, particularly doctors, contribute by failing to wash their hands between seeing patients. Virtually whenever a public institution has been subjected to searching scrutiny, it has been found to have serious failings. This suggests most and perhaps all government programs fail to do their jobs as effectively as they should, let down those they are supposed to serve and therefore waste huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. Many public institutions are not subject to such scrutiny. The Ombudsman, the most aggressive investigator, has no mandate to look at complaints about school boards, universities, municipalities except on the narrow issue of closed meetings, police generally, as distinct from the Special Investigations Unit, and hospitals. Marin has asked the province for authority to investigate complaints about hospitals and the opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats support him. But Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has refused, saying this is unnecessary. The premier needs to show there are branches of government that work properly, but he is more afraid of finding more skeletons. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk The screen fades to soft lighting as the couple makes their way to a horizontal position and with the canoodling heating up, the adult viewer begins to sweat. How graphic will this be? What will the child beside her make of what they’re seeing? Will there be questions? Or even worse, perhaps, there won’t and the mysteries of intimacy will leave the youngster confused. Not to worry. The scene shifts in seconds and two armed men make their way into a gloomy building. Gross creatures skulk from dark places and the rapid staccato of gunfire sends some sprawling, while others get through to wreak their own disturbing havoc on the enemy. A friend and I were discussing movies recently and during the conversation she mentioned one she’d been watching with her grandchildren. Having inadvertently flipped it on while changing channels she was surprised to discover it was not just familiar to them, but that they could provide her with a play-by-play as scenes unfolded. The show is an adventure flick, popular today for the fast-pace and special effects. And while a PG-13 rating doesn’t preclude children from watching, it does present its moments. Such was the case here, as my friend noted the frightening characters and action/adventure violence. However, it was the one child’s remark that the next scene was the ‘loving scene’ that made her a little edgy. She was relieved when it turned out to be nothing more than a tender kiss between two people in love. I’ve been in her place. I’ve watched movies with my children when they were younger and now with my grandson, that, because of a level of violence or some scary images, I’ve felt were less than appropriate. But it was always the suggestions of sexuality that made me nervous. Which is a little strange when you consider it. Violence is abhorrent to normal folks. It’s the worst of humanity, unforgivable and aggressive. On the other hand, nudity or love and the making of it are natural. Yet, it is these that make us want to cover a child’s eyes. Perhaps it’s because violence can be explained away as atypical, a depiction in a land of make believe that makes it less threatening for adults when viewed in the presence of a younger person. And perhaps it’s the private nature of intimacy that has us feeling awkward. Often the intimacy comes through words and phrases that are well above the ken of a child. And when a PG movie gets physical it also tends to be subtle, little more than tenderness and touch. There is nothing subtle about swordplay, gunfire and fisticuffs. Nor are words like death and demons over a youngster’s head. So it does kind of make me shake mine. Certainly I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be leery of on-screen sexuality when a child will be watching, just that we should remember it’s a natural part of life and worry more about the violence, rather than the other way around. The simple answer, I suppose, would be to avoid them. Unfortunately, there are very few movies that offer a G rating and appeal for school-age kids. Companies that have been synonymous with family, such as Disney, are making bolder movies to appeal to the mass market. All parents and grandparents can do is remember the PG-13 rating is there for a reason. Learn as much as you can about the movie before you let kids see it. Then if you’re comfortable with the content, watch it with them, watch their reactions and guide them through. Too many skeletons in government closet 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.