HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-07-18, Page 5k.d., k.d., k.d.!
How can you
betray your own?
“To the western eye, looking angrily
over the rim of the prairies, the banks
and the manufacturers and the protec
tive tariff and the railroad and the
Ottawa government all merged into one
distorted image - the East.”
Stephen Leacock
Oh, you don't want to get a Western
Canadian talking about the East. Western
ers keep a whole corral full of complaints
about the way they’ve been misled,
bamboozled, and outright swindled by
smooth talkers with soft hands and sharp
suits. The oldtimers even had a word for it:
TOMfoolery - TOM signifying the Eastern
lairs where the misleaders, bamboozlers
and swindlers lay thickest and deepest -
Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal;
The West (as any Westerner is only too
happy to tell you) has been double-crossed
and dry-gulched by the East more times
than Bill Van Der Zalm has teeth.
Bad enough that Westerners have to
i The International
Canada
measures up
in U.N. report
BY RAYMOND CANON
It doesn’t take anybody enrolled in an
economics course too long to get around to
learning the concept of what is known as
the Gross National Product. The GNP, as it
is usually called, is what is used to measure
the prosperity of individual countries but it
has for some time been the opinion of most
economists that, as a system of measure
ment, it leaves a little bit to be desired.
There has to be a better way to measure
the prosperity of a country than just that of
raw economic growth.
It is to the credit of the United Nations
that it has attempted to come up with a
more realistic system of measurement. It
has developed what is called a “human
development index” and included in this
index are the following considerations (1)
Life expectancy at birth (2) adult literacy
rate and (3) gross domestic product per
head. The latter looks remarkably like the
gross national product which I mentioned
above but there is one small difference.
The GDP is simply the GNP without the
balance of trade or exports minus imports.
Using these three criteria, let’s take a
look at how the various countries fared. It
should not come as any surprise to learn
that the lowest countries are all from
Africa. Right at the bottom is Nigeria
followed by Mali and Brukina Faso; all
three are located in the same part of the
continent.
You have to go half-way up the list
before you come to a country which is
located in Europe but finally, 72nd from
the bottom, comes Turkey followed shortly
after by Albania. Those with the highest
standards in that continent are Switzer
land, Sweden and Holland but the winner
in the UN report is none other than Japan.
Its life expectancy is 78 years, it has a
illiteracy rate of only one per cent and it
has an average GDP of about $15,000 per
person.
Now the news that you have been
waiting for. Where does Canada fit in all
this? Well, we come fifth from the top,
exceeded only by Japan and the three
European countries which I mentioned
above. We have an average life span of 77
years an illiteracy rate of one per cent
which, as you can see, is really close to that
of Japan. As a matter of interest, there is
Arthur Black
suffer the smirks and slurs of arrogant
Easterners who don’t know their trembling
aspens from a gopher hole in the ground --
now they’ve been stung by a viper nestled
in their own bosom!
Sorry -- make that a sidewinder in their
saddlebags.
What am 1 talking about? Hah. What’s
nearest and dearest to a proud cowboy’s
heart? Cattle, right? Good solid, western
range, grain-fed beef cattle, whence
cometh plump, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth,
taste-this-and-die Western beefsteak.
Can you think of a better way to earn
yourself a ringside seat in the Albertan
version of Hades than to badmouth beef?
Folks, there’s someone doing just that
on the nation’s TV screens right now.
What’s more, she wears chaps and
fringe jackets and stetsons and sundry
other sartorial affectations favoured by
romantics of the Western persuasion.
Moreover, she hails from Consort,
Alberta - is largely responsible, in fact, for
putting tiny Consort on the Country and
Western map. Folks, I’m talking about the
singer who calls herself k.d. (no caps,
please) lang. The nugget of truth is as
simple as it is brutal:
k.d. lang is a card-carrying vegetarian.
Not a big deal in New York, perhaps -
or even in Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal.
But it is a very big deal indeed in Cattle
Country. As soon as the Canadian Cattle
men’s Association heard that k.d. had done
very little to choose between the top five.
What of the United States? To be honest
it does not fare very well in this report. It is
down to 19th place or 14 places behind
Canada and is located right between
Austria and Israel.
Like any other evaluations, the validity
of the UN report depends on how much you
agree with the criteria used. To cite one
example, a few years back I wrote of
another evaluation which was, if my
memory serves me correctly, put out by the
World Bank. One of the criteria used was
the rate of divorce in the various countries
but interestingly enough this statistic was
used as both a positive and a negative
indicator. That is, if you think that a high
rate of divorce is totally bad, then it is a
Letters
Funds needed for
THE EDITOR,
In order to provide quality service, the
Board of Directors of the Clinton Public
Hospital have found it necessary to replace
their existing X-ray machine.
Equipment such as this, at a cost of
$435,000.00, is a major expense in operat
ing budgets of any hospital.
The replacement of equipment such as
this is not eligible for government funding.
Funds for the project are being collected by
a variety of means; local service clubs,
personal and business donations, special
fund raising projects, Hospital staff and
Board members, national foundations and
local municipalities. To date approximately
$150,000 has been raised.
The hospital provides services for ap
proximately 25 per cent of Huron County.
Our total patient days this past year was
11,910. Our X-ray department took 6413
X-rays. The total number of outpatients
treated was 11,012, which is an increase
over 1988. The care of our people is our
greatest concern.
As co-ordinator of our funding program
and on behalf of the Board of Directors of
Clinton Public Hospital, I am sending this
letter to request your support for our
project. Any assistance you can give will be
greatly appreciated.
Our Registered Charity Number is
0330050-10-15. If there is any further
information you may require we would be
more than pleased to supply same. I would
be available to attend a meeting at your
convenience if so requested. Messages can
a series of anti-meat advertisements for a
U.S. Animal Rights Organization, the beef
producers cranked up their own PR
machine and returned the fire.
“We’re getting pretty fed up with these
celebrities who think they’re experts in
areas where they have no expertise’’
sniffed the CCA general manager.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of
people disillusioned with lang because of
this, and it won’t be restricted to Alberta.’’
From the sound of it, k.d.’s prepared to
take the heat. Just like her music, the ads
pull no punches.
“If you know how meat was made, you’d
probably lose your lunch,” she says in one
ad. “I know -- I’m from cattle country --
that’s why I became a vegetarian.”
“Meat stinks” opines k.d. as she stands
beside a cow, “and not just for animals but
for human health and the environment.”
Well, as a reluctant carnivore who once
worked in the Ontario Public Stock Yards
and has seen more of the inside of a
slaughter house than I needed to, I’d have
to agree with the vegetarian from Consort.
I guarantee that if the shoppers pawing
through shrink-wrapped pork chops and
veal cutlets at the supermarket meat
counter ever saw how that stuff got from
on-the-hoof to in-the-freezer, Canada
would become world famous overnight as
the noisiest nation in the world.
Just imagine the sound of 26 million jaws
all chewing celery at once.
negative indicator. If, on the other hand,
you are of the opinion that divorces are
nothing more than a realistic evaluation of
a marriage failure, then it can be
considered as a positive factor.
The revealing factor about this and the
other reports that I have seen is that they
all rank Canada at or near the top of the
list. We may not be able to get our
constitutional act together, at least not yet,
but we are still one of the most pleasant
places on this planet in which to live. This
may account for the fact that Canada is the
No. 1 choice of the residents of Hong Kong
who want to get out of that crown colony
before it reverts back to the control of
China in 1997.
x-ray machine
be left at the Clinton Public Hospital at
extension 248.
Donald E. Symons
Funding Co-ordinator
New service
welcomes calls
THE EDITOR,
On behalf of the Huron County Health
Unit I wish to thank you for the excellent
coverage your newspaper gave to the
startup of the new Information Service for
seniors and physically disabled adults. Our
communities are indeed richer because of
the work you do to keep everyone
informed.
We a>-e pleased to report that many
persons have already taken advantage of
this new service. The variety of questions
they have asked has been an interesting
challenge to our computer database.
We welcome all calls from anyone
wanting to know what services are avail
able in their communities for seniors
and/or physically disabled adults. It is our
intention to be the answer to the question-
“Where do I call to find out?” Simply dial
482-5666 or if your phone is outside the 482
calling area, dial 1-800-267-0535 and it
won’t cost a penny.
Beverley A. Brown
Co-ormdator.
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1990. PAGE 5.
Letter
from the
editor
People as puppets
BY KEITH ROULSTON
I once sat with an architect on the steps
of a new public building and listened while
he predicted how people would act when
they used the building. First they would go
here, he said, and then there and they’d
gather here to talk to their friends. It was a
little eerie giving you the feeling that the
people who were using the building were
somehow puppets of that designer.
It’s a lot more errie, however, watching
people being treated like puppets in life in
general. There are experts out there who
know how to manipulate us into doing just
about anything whether we want it or not.
When it comes to political issues, it helps
undermine the system.
It was fascinating and frustrating to
watch Canada Post officials in action in
Walton last week, smoothly telling people
they’d get nothing but better service when
the current post office is closed and a Retail
Postal Outlet is opened.
Canada Post has obviously learned a lot
about running these meetings over the
years. A couple of years back when they
wanted to convert the Ethel post office to a
Retail Postal Outlet the Canada Post
representative sent to explain the company
line got pinned to the wall by a hall full of
angry residents. There wasn’t an oppor
tunity for that kind of rebellion at Walton.
There was no specific meeting time, just a
drop-in time from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. It
meant that people sort of straggled in
through the night.
Those who went, came into the Walton
Hall to see three tables set up with a
Canada Post official at each. There was a
feeling of coming into a private discussion,
throwing them off balance a bit right at the
start. The three Canada Post officials
welcomed newcomers warmly and invited
them to join one of the groups where the
discussion was already taking place.
Newcomers could be a little intimidated,
wondering if they would look stupid asking
questions that had already been answered.
There was the kind of anger in many of
the people that there was in Ethel but it
never really had a chance to build under
the meeting format. You’d hear tempers
flare at one table but usually there were no
more than two people who were angry
enough to make it an issue at any of the
tables. The Canada Post officials would be
perfectly calm and perfectly reasonable
and the disturbance would die down. There
was no chance for the meeting to gain
momentum as it often does when one angry
person gives courage to another and then
another and so on until most of the people
are on their feet.
Then there is the practice of being
elegantly uninformed: the “that’s not my
department” syndrome. The Canada Post
officials used it to a tee. They were
perfectly willing to answer any question;
they just weren’t able to give answers to a
lot of them, when some angry residents
asked why the post office was being
changed, they said something had to be
done because Post Master Marjorie Hum
phries was retiring. When some people
argued that she didn’t want to retire but
was in effect forced out of the job, Canada
Post officials said that of course they
couldn’t discuss employer-employee rela
tions in public. And so it went, on and on
over questions of how anybody could make
money under the new arrangements the
post office wanted to put in place and about
how rural mail couriers were supposed to
be able to get all the way to Seaforth to sort
their mail in stormy weather (“we can
discuss that in private later”). There was a
frustration building up in the people at the
meeting but there was no room for them to
put their frustrations into action. Even if
they complain to politicians they’ll be told
Canada Post is a Crown Corporation now
and the politicians can’t interfere.
This kind of fancy footwork by Canada
Post, like the manoeuvrings of railways to
make themselves so unprofitable they
could close their rail lines in all but big-city
locations only works because the people
planning the strategy can count on the
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