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The Citizen, 2007-03-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2007. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Ontario politicians have been trying to dissociate themselves from organized religion for years and they are now being asked to give it a presence right under their noses. A New Democrat MPP and United Church minister, Cheri DiNovo, says she will introduce a resolution when the legislature meets next requiring it set aside a room in its main building where staff and visitors of all faiths can pray, meditate or otherwise celebrate their many different religions. Representatives of Roman Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs have said they support this. DiNovo has been an MPP only a few months after winning a by-election, but quickly won a reputation by leading a campaign for a $10 an hour minimum wage that has taken off and knows how to get heard. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, when asked, said he is receptive to the idea, but it is an issue for the Speaker, Mike Brown, who said he certainly is open to it, but MPPs will have to decide. But what else could either say? The last thing politicians want to be seen doing is preventing someone from praying. But most MPPs increasingly have looked for a separation between church and state, feeling issues should be judged on what they see as their factual merits rather than the precepts of a religion. The time also has passed when religious groups had huge influence at the legislature. The ultra Protestant Orange movement ran Ontario for many years. As recently as two decades ago a Roman Catholic cardinal – Catholics had become important – was able to whisper in the ear of a Progressive Conservative premier, William Davis, and get the province to fund Catholic education until the end of high school. But a more recent Conservative premier, Mike Harris, when pressed by churches to provide more for the poor instead of cutting welfare benefits, shrugged them off by saying they did not know the burden of responsibility. Premiers used to stress they were ardent churchgoers. The last Conservative premier, Ernie Eves, let it be known he was an altar boy in an Anglican church and his mother sang in its choir. McGuinty has not talked much of his religious background, but his wife Terri once said he is “a man of integrity, a true Christian.” The legislature still starts each day’s proceedings with The Lord’s Prayer and a second prayer asking “God our Heavenly Father” to guide MPPs. But there is increasing recognition these are essentially Christian in a province growing less Christian. Few MPPs arrive in time for them, anyway. MPPs overwhelming supported changing provincial laws to facilitate same-sex marriage after the courts ruled refusing to allow marriage between two people of the same sex was discrimination that breached the Constitution. Catholic leaders objected, saying the conjugal partnership between a man and woman is a basis of human society, and were joined by Protestant fundamentalists, who threaten to become the same, right wing extremist political powers they are in the United States. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has said it will meet Catholic politicians regularly in their home areas to remind them of their church’s teachings and tell them they have an obligation to uphold them in developing policies. The recently installed Catholic archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins, went further and said he favours refusing communion to Catholic politicians who do not follow church teachings in their work, although only as a last resort. McGuinty also has offended two religious groups, Muslims and Jews, with his so-called Sharia law in which the province will no longer accept rulings of faith-based courts in family disputes because it feels they favour men. The request for a prayer room at the legislature sounds insignificant beside these controversies, although it could produce complaints government would be giving religious groups an inside track denied others. Most MPPs probably would prefer it to go away, but they cannot afford to be seen as anti- religion and would have difficulty voting against it. Inconvenient truth They say that back in the days of the Korean War the first four English words any Korean kid living in the war zone mastered were: “Hey, Joe – got gum?” That’s because (a) our soldiers were easy marks and (b) they always had lots of chewing gum to share. Military leaders like to keep soldiers well supplied with gum. They think that aside from being a mini-treat, gum relieves stress and keeps the doughboys alert. This was one of my early lessons in the inherent unfairness of life because back in the 1950s when foreign kids were walking around chewing great gobs of free gum in Korea, my teacher, Miss Sanford, was thwacking me across the knuckles with a yardstick for doing the same thing in her Grade 5 class. Chewing gum was a no-no in our classrooms – and understandably so, I guess. In my early academic career I left my share of well-chewed stalactites cemented to the underside of a succession of school desks. Teachers didn’t cotton to kids who chewed gum in class. Janitors who had to chisel off our deposits must have really hated us. Funny stuff, chewing gum. Most people assume it’s a North American phenomenon, but Ancient Greeks had the habit too. They chewed a gummy resin they scraped off the bark of the mastic tree – which in fact is where our verb ‘masticate’ comes from. A few hundred years later the Ancient Mayans took up chewing the coagulated sap of the Sapodilla tree. They called their chaw of choice ‘chicle’. Around 1850 a Yankee entrepreneur by the name of Thomas Adams imported a batch of the sap and ripped off the name while he was at it – which is how we ended up with Adam’s Chiclets. PR-wise, it’s been an uphill battle for chewing gum. Teachers and janitors have always deplored it. Puritanical types considered it a morale-sapping addiction. Some gloomy Gus physicians cautioned that chewing too much gum would dry up our salivary glands. But the tide is slowly turning, and chewing gum is finally getting some good press. Experts now allow that there’s an upside to the gum habit. We know that chewing gum during flights can give respite from painful earaches caused by changing air pressure. We’ve learned that sugar-free gum helps to neutralize stomach acidity. Now a cancer researcher by the name of Julie Sharp says that chewing gum helps patients recovering from intestinal surgery by ‘kick-starting’ the digestive tract. Gum, she says, is a cheap and simple procedure that can get patients back on their feet in record time. Still not convinced that chewing gum is good for you? Tell it to Frank Cauley. That would be Flight Officer (retired) Frank Cauley of the RCAF. On March 10, 1944, Cauley and his crew were aloft in a Sunderland Flying Boat over the North Atlantic when they caught a German U-boat on the surface, scrambling to submerge. They attacked, swooping in to within 50 feet of the sub before they dropped their depth charges. They sank the sub but not without a fight. The Sunderland was shuddering as a result of major structural damage from the U-boat’s anti-aircraft gun. “We sustained a big hole in the bow of the plane,” remembers Cauley, “and about three dozen smaller shrapnel holes.” They used up all their emergency leak stoppers filling the gaping rupture in the bow, but the remaining 30-odd small holes were worrisome. The Sunderland was a Flying Boat, which meant sooner or later it had to land on the water. Those small, unpatched holes could put them all at the bottom of the sea. You know where this is going, don’t you? Remember what I said about the military and chewing gum? Applies to the Canadian military too. Frank Cauley was one of a crew of 11 on that Sunderland. Each of them carried – on each mission and as a matter of course – a ration of five sticks of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum. As the Sunderland bucketed along, the whole crew started chewing. Hard. “Fifty-five sticks of gum later,” recalls Cauley, “we had plugged the shrapnel holes with gum. We went up to 3,000 feet where the gum froze.” After that it was a breeze. They all made it back safely to their home base in Castle Archdale, Northern Ireland. And Flight Officer (Retired) Frank Cauley, RCAF has carried a single stick of Wrigley’s in his pocket ever since. Don’t blame him. Miss Sanford? Did you catch that? Arthur Black Prayer sensitive issue for government Forget an extra hour of daylight. What I could really use on any given day right now is an extra hour, period. Since winter made its belated but forceful arrival, a 24-hour day just doesn’t seem to be what it used to be for getting things accomplished. I’m rising earlier to get to work later. No matter how much time I allow it never seems to be enough. It comes down to inconvenience, of course. Where summer allows me to scoot out the door in sandal-shod feet and seasonal cool finery, winter means bundling up in hat, coat, mittens. In summer I fly to my car and in seconds am on the road. In winter, I trundle through snow drifts and glide across ice. Then after brushing and scraping for interminable minutes I flop into my car and take some time to thaw my fingers before finally setting out. Even a trip to the grocery store can be a test of patience and endurance. But we persevere and adapt. We are used to inconvenience after all. Life tends to throw plenty of it in our way. Careful planning means nothing, because you can’t possibly be prepared for everything that might happen. How often have you looked forward to a quiet day at home only to have it turned upside down by an unexpected arrival, phone call or request? Occasionally, the inconveniences take on monumental proportions. Illness or injury can challenge us, actually altering our life, sometimes permanently. And while calling death an inconvenience seems a gross understatement, there’s no question it throws everything into chaos for those mourning a loss. Daily routine can no longer be followed for awhile and no wants to. Usually, however, though inconvenience is ever present, those we face most frequently are relatively inconsequential in the big scheme. The flat tire enroute to an appointment. The lost eyeglasses. The spilled milk on a busy morning. These are all nuisances that serve to remind even when things are going well nothing is perfect. For the most part we barely take notice of the blip in our routine. Not so, however, when that blip is electrical. The hydro outage during last week’s ice storm had me spending the pre-dawn hours in contemplation of how useless we are without power. Certainly if the power is out for any length of time, the consequences can take us well beyond the point of inconvenience, and into the areas of health and safety. But generally at home if we’re left in the dark we can cope for brief periods. Work, however is another story. The first thing I do when I come into my office is turn the computer on. Turning it off at the end of my day is the final adieu to work. There are things that I can do if there’s no hydro, but they can only be taken so far. A power outage shuts down operations here more effectively than holidays. The phones don’t work, the fax machine is quiet and the photocopier sits idle. And worse yet, while no hydro keeps us from getting the job done it doesn’t stop people in other areas. So the e-mails keep coming, thus when everything’s back and running, you’re even further behind than you imagined. It’s probably for this reason that, when the office lights flicker, you hear a collective gasp, followed by “Oh, no!” around the building. What would be a few hours of candles and mild hardship at home is a royal pain at work. It’s one inconvenience that can actually add hours to your day. Other Views I forgive you, Miss Sanford Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk 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.