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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-12-04, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2008. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Take your best shot Am I the last Canuck to discover the joys of Hawaii? Sure seemed like it after I announced plans to spend a couple of weeks in Maui. Hardly had the H-word crossed my lips when I was inundated with tips from fellow citizens who, as far as I knew, had never ventured beyond the bright lights of Brampton. “Oh yeah – Maui. Make sure you spend a day on the beach at Ka’anapali. Don’t miss ‘Ulupalakua or Ke’anae Wailua. And remember to drive up Haleakala to check out a sunrise.” Check them out? I couldn’t pronounce them. I wasn’t entirely positive how to say ‘Maui’. Well, now I’ve seen a morsel of Hawaii – the outer crust of the former Sandwich Islands as it were – and I’m a believer. White sand beaches, swaying palm trees, emerald valleys swirled in mist…If Walt Disney with his corral of artists was around to conjure up a Cinemascopic version of earthly Eden he’d probably come up with something close to Hawaii. For Frostbacks shivering through yet another Canadian winter the islands have special resonance. Mangos on the trees…mynahs on the balcony….friendly natives who speak English better than you do – all in December? It’s almost pornographic. And there are wonders the average Canadian simply doesn’t have the mental equipment to absorb on first contact. The banyan tree in the centre of the town of La Haina – a tree with multiple trunks and a canopy that covers as much terrain as Toronto’s city hall. The sight of molten lava and snowdrifts. Both dripping down the same mountainside. Or beholding those strange eruptions out on the ocean. Great geysers of water shooting into the air. What’s that about – underwater volcanoes? Incoming meteors? U.S. Navy War Games? Nope. Humpbacks. Whales as big as city buses and as homely as warty, waterlogged turnips. Blue-grey behemoths with ungainly pectoral fins protruding improbably like windmill blades from both sides of their heads, each fin a third of the beast’s body length. Elfin-eyed and fulsomely be-barnacled, rocketing out of the water like gigantic, vulcanized Halloween creatures – breaching, flipper-slapping and generally acting like bumptious teenage boys on a testosterone overload. Which in a sense they are. It’s the male humpbacks who put on the show to wow the cows (and to cow other bulls). Each winter humpbacks come by the thousands, quite literally from the ends of the earth (they spend the rest of the year feeding in the frigid but food-rich waters of the northern and southern oceans) – to make little humpbacks off Hawaii. They are awesome, in the pre-Paris Hilton sense of the word – and quite undaunted by the presence of human voyeurs. Mighty generous of them, considering we humans did our level best to wipe them out. Whalers slaughtered over a quarter of a million humpbacks in the first half of the last century alone. By the time a moratorium was adopted in 1966 there were only a few thousand left in the world. But they bounced back. And they bounce irrepressibly about the Hawaiian waters today, vaulting and crashing, thrusting their jaws, waving their flukes, occasionally flipping a two-storey pectoral into the sky in what looks like a giant ‘finger’ to onlookers. It is impossible to feel anything less than elation, watching humpbacks. Tourists spontaneously cheer and applaud and weep with joy. You can’t help yourself. “Most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales” Melville said of them in Moby Dick. Feeling depressed? Go watch the humpbacks. You’ll throw away your Prozac. But these are big fellas. And they’re horny. Any danger to onlookers? Nah. Humpbacks are 50-ton couch pillows as far as humans are concerned. They couldn’t bite you if they wanted to – no teeth. They suck in their food – krill and tiny fish – through ‘baleen’ – boney plates in their jaws. Even though it’s the size of a subway car, the humpback prefers the salad bar. Why, it probably wouldn’t even try to eat a humuhumunukunukupua’a. Who he? The state fish of Hawaii. Lives in reefs, looks like a Picasso painting with fins and is all of about eight inches from nose to tail. The name is longer than the fish. Hawaiian Islands? Should be called the Surprisin’ Islands. Arthur Black Other Views Of Hawaii and humpbacks Ontario’s north is in danger of being frozen out of a race for leader of the provincial New Democratic Party on grounds that skate on thin ice. Some Toronto-based news media have suggested the NDP will opt against choosing another leader from the north, because it has been spectacularly unsuccessful in winning seats province-wide under Howard Hampton, the MPP for Kenora-Rainy River, who is stepping down. They suggest also the party would do better without a leader from the north, because only a dozen of the province’s 107 ridings could be said to be in the north and this is a small base from which to expand across the province. The NDP would get off to a better start, the argument goes, if it picks a leader from a large urban area with many ridings. Toronto and the built up-area around it have 38 ridings. Gilles Bisson, one of four MPPs running for leader, is from Timmins-James Bay. Reporters invariably ask him how he can win coming from the north, as if he is from outer space. Bisson replies he knows the rest of Ontario and its issues, having been an MPP working and living partly in Toronto for 18 years, but what matters is his abilities, not where he was born. To take these issues in order, it is difficult to make a case Hampton was handicapped in winning ridings across the province because he came from the north. The former Progressive Conservative premier, Mike Harris, from North Bay, won seats in all areas when he swept the province in 1995. There were many stories about his being a small business owner running a golf course and part-time golf pro. But none of this deterred voters in all parts of the province from electing him premier. Where he came from was never an issue. What mattered to voters were his ideas that matched their concerns for reducing the size and cost of government and therefore reducing taxes. Harris dominated particularly the dormitory areas around Toronto, where he was more popular with voters than Tim Hortons. Among other examples of voters not caring where a leader came from, the NDP over decades has won more than its share of ridings in the north, where workers in such industries as forestry and mining have to labour particularly hard to make a living, under leaders from Toronto including Stephen Lewis and Bob Rae. The NDP won fewer ridings in the north under Hampton, but this was part of a general decline in support, because it piled up deficits and failed to keep promises in government under Rae in an economic recession, and Hampton could not be blamed. A current example of how being a local boy does not necessarily win votes is that of the current Conservative leader, John Tory, who is from Toronto, ran a business that is a household name there and won unusual praise when he ran for mayor, although he lost. But Tory has been unable to win a seat in his hometown for himself and has to speak for his party from outside the legislature. The Liberals chose a northerner, Lyn McLeod from Thunder Bay, to lead them in the 1995 election and lost resoundingly. But this does not make a case against picking a northerner. McLeod failed because she ran up against Harris at his most formidable and was persuaded by mostly male advisers to keep her party’s platform secret until days after the election was called on the dubious ground this would prevent other parties criticizing it. By the time she announced it voters had already seen and embraced with open arms Harris’s call for tax-slashing. It was no proof a northern leader is a handicap in an election. Bisson has produced ideas and energy so far that show he deserves to be in this leadership race. There may be reasons not to choose him – but they should not be because he comes from the north. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Say sex! Or summer holiday! Or Christmas toys! Or you can always fall back on the tried and true and simply... say cheese! Whether any of them actually help to achieve that ‘picture’perfect smile or not, every aspiring photographer seems to have their favourite. And with Christmas approaching there will be opportunities galore to put these and others to the test. Photography has been on my mind of late as two good excuses have come my way to foray into my photo albums. It’s been nostalgic fun; that goes without saying. But it’s also been a bit of an eye opener. A pictorial trip down memory lane is a bittersweet journey. Flip the page and there are the dearly-loved faces, gone but never forgotten. Another flip and there are the faces of the adorable babies, later darling children, now perfect adults who transformed life partners, to family. Another turn and there are the places you visited, the occasions you enjoyed, the ceremonies you celebrated. But while the past was clearly part of my search, there were also some revelations. The first was quality, or lack thereof. I was shocked at what a bad photographer I was 30 years ago. While some of this could be blamed on the equipment, I might as well lay some firmly at my own feet. When I picked up a camera in those days there was no thought given to artistry, or for that matter, it seems at times, not even the subject. Many of the shots have been taken from so far back you can hardly discern the features of the person in it. In fairness, though, I’m not the exception here. The point and shoot philosophy, unimaginative and distant, is evident in many people’s old pictures. Something else that I guess I was aware of, but had never really given much thought to before, was how the interest in photography has advanced. Unlike today, 50, 40, 30, even 20 years ago, a camera was not de rigueur. Yesteryear’s pictures are at a premium, precious for their rarity. It wasn’t a given that at any place or time someone would have thought to bring one. And if they didn’t, there was rarely a comment made. Now it’s as much assumed someone will have a camera with them, as it is that someone will be wearing a watch. When I remember the photos I took 30 years ago, there was a purpose to them — posterity. They were the proof of good times, the record of my kids’ perfection and achievements. That part hasn’t changed, but there’s definitely another element now. Perhaps it’s because technology has improved the often grainy, often muddy quality of amateur photos, but for whatever reason these days everybody’s a photographer. The camera, whether it’s a cell phone feature or a digital pops out not just at family functions and tourist spots, but in overwhelming numbers at a variety of functions. And point and shoot seems to be the exception now. More and more people are putting a little thought and energy behind the picture they’re taking. The best work of the average photog is posted on personal web pages. They enter them in contests and win. There are beautiful pictures of scenery and striking shots of people taken by everyone from plumbers, to bank clerks, to homemakers. Photography it would be safe to say, is no longer just about preserving a memory but about taking your best shot at it. North frozen out of leadership race 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.