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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-08-01, Page 5Arthur Black We need class acts You noticed how grim and grouchy your fellow Canucks are these days? There’s a good reason for it. We’re all living through a collective “morning after’’. Canada is suffering a national hangover. We feel bad. Ernest Hemingway once wrote something useful about feeling good and feeling bad. “What is moral’’ he said “is what you feel good after.” It follows that an immoral act is something that makes you feel lousy -- which I believe is the situation our country finds itself in. Canadians have drunk deeply at the Lake called Meech, and we have a sea-to-sea bad taste in our mouths. Ah ah! Don’t turn that page. I don’t intend to write about the M-word. Too many Canadian forests have already been sacrificed to produce the paper to describe that sleazy spectacle. Suffice to say that when you’ve got a Prime Minister who compares statesmanship to a crap shoot, that’s reason enough for citizens to reach for the Listerine. ^11Ci 1 13* « Ji rf I Scene I A cheese for every occasion BY RAYMOND CANON One of my students asked me one time why it was that the Swiss cheese had holes in it. Not wanting to deprive my class of a good story, I replied that it had something to do with the universal military service which is practised in Switzerland. Warming to my subject, I explained that on the weekends the young Swiss had to get out now and again and take rifle practice since they live in the only country that allows its soldiers to take their rifle home with them. At any rate, so the story went, they used to hang the round cheeses up at the 200 metre mark and let the young soldiers shoot at them. The Swiss are very good shots and so any Swiss cheese that you see has plenty of holes in it. I’m not sure just how many of the class believed it but it was good for a story. Nobody got around to asking where cheese came from so, just in case you were wondering, here for the first time is the inside story. According to ancient legend, an Arab merchant was travelling from one oasis to another. In preparation for the trip, he put some milk in a pouch made of a sheep’s stomach and carried it across the desert. The lining of the stomach together with the heat of the day caused the milk to separate into curd and whey and, at the nightfall, the merchant discovered that the whey satisfied his thirst while the curd went a long way toward curbing his hunger. This must have been a long time ago since records show that cheese was being used as a food as early as 4000 B.C. It certainly was a common food during Biblical times and it is generally thought that someone from these Biblical lands brought the process to Europe. It was made all over the Roman Empire while it w-as the Romans themselves that intro­ duced it in England. During the Dark Ages it was not surprising the monks that improved on the process and by the 10th century these monks, especially those in But there’s more than Meechophobia in Canada’s hangover. We’ve witnessed other un-classy acts. On our TV’s we’ve watched cretinous bigots shredding and burning and trampling flags for the TV cameras. In both official languages. Out in Alberta we’ve seen other redneck yahoos smear and deface the welcoming signs to Consort, Alberta. Why? Because country singer k.d. lang hails fron Consort. And k.d. lang has had the temerity to appear in television ads promoting vege­ tarianism. “EAT BEEF, DYKE” reads the splen­ didly witty message spray-painted on the Welcome to Consort sign. Oh, make no mistake about it -- Canada is hurting. And overdue for a class act or two. So what is a Canadian class act? Well, I’ve always thought Gordie Howe quali­ fied. Off ice, that is. I’ve never had the misfortune to meet Mister Howe cruising along the boards of a hockey arena, which I’m told is something like being bludgeon­ ed by a burlap sack full of tire irons. In politics, I’d finger Dalton Camp as a class act, ‘though I’d never admit to it in downtown Prince Albert. The Cape Breton thrush Rita McNeil always struck me as a class act, as does the dapper, deft and deliciously droll sports writer Trent Frayne. Of course in Frayne’s case, it doesn’t hurt to be married to writer June Callwood, one of the classiest acts this country’s ever dished up. Wayne Gretzky ... the swimmer Vicki Keith ... Rick Hansen ... Elijah Harper ... and that’s about it for Canadian class acts Italy, were at the centre of the entire production process. The cheese we are most acquainted with is known as cheddar, named after the small village in Somersetshire in England where it was first made. However, we are acquainted with literally hundreds of foreign cheese, some of which are imitated here in Canada but all of which are imported. The recipes for each are fre­ quently very complex and are adhered to strictly and in the space that is left I want to refer to just a few of them. First of all, when you refer to Swiss cheese you are usually talking about Emmentaler which is that part of the country not far from the capital, Bern and just north of the main chain of the Alps. It takes about 2,000 pounds of milk to make one-tenth of that weight in cheese. It is a complicated process, taking several bacter­ ial starters and then cured for about three-quarters of a year before being brought on the market. There are, how­ ever, other types of Swiss cheeses such as Appenzeller and Gruyere, the former which is made near the Austrian border while the latter is a French-Swiss cheese. It has a sharper flavour than the other two and, if my memory serves me right, has a Letter Heat can kill pets THE EDITOR, During the heat of summer, many dogs suffer from heat stroke. In fact, many canines become fatalities due to their owner’s neglect. These people do not use common sense and protect their canine companions during the “dog days of summer”. Dogs which are kept in hot, poorly ventilated surroundings, especially if with­ out water, are likely to suffer heat stroke. Short-nosed breeds, such as boxers, Pek­ ingese and bulldogs, to name three are particularly vulnerable to heat stroke. One of the most common and harmful situations where dogs suffer (and often die) from heat stroke is when they are left in a parked car in warm weather. Temperatures inside a parked, poorly ventilated car these days. There’s one other class act I want to tell you about. Kathleen Gooley doesn’t really qualify for my short list, because she’s not Canadian. She lives in Connecticut. Last month, she was going to marry a psycholo­ gist at a fairly posh do. They’d rented a huge room at a well-known catering hall. Then they plunked down a little over $6,000 just for the reception. And that’s when the psychologist got cold feet. He backed out. Called the wedding off. Panic stricken, broken-hearted Kathleen Gooley called to cancel the reception and get her money refunded. No dice, ma’am. The caterers would only refund a fraction of the fee. Which is when Kathleen Gooley unveil­ ed her class act. She went ahead with the reception. But instead of friends and well-wishers and relatives and would-be relatives Kathleen invited all the homeless people from the greater Stamford area. So it was that on Kathleen Gooley’s aborted wedding day, 150 outcasts and indigents came to be sitting down at a feast of stuffed chicken breast, string beans amandine, cake and ice cream. So what, yousay? A wedding reception turned good will potlatch. One of the guests put it into perspective: “Even when you’re homeless, you try and maintain some pride and dignity. At something like this, you can. This woman did a wonderful thing. She made us feel like real people again.” Only six thousand bucks? Cheap at twice the price. / shorter curing period than its more famous counterpart in Emmental. If you want a cheese made from goat’s instead of cow’s milk, may I suggest Feta which is of Greek origin. Make sure you are buying the real thing and not a pale imitation made from cow’s milk. It is a sharper cheese and is sometimes known by the name of pickled cheese. It is also ready to eat at a much earlier stage than the Swiss since anything made on a Monday, for example, can be eaten before the end of the week. If you are interested in cheeses that have the blue mould in them, the best known is Roquefort from the southeastern part of France. The blue mould is brought about by adding spores of Penicillium Roqueforti at some point in processing the curd; the blue veins result from the growth of the mould during the curing period. Don’t be put off by the look; it is actually quite tasty. Some other foreign cheeses you try are Gouda and Edam from Holland, Limburger (ignore the smell), and one of my favourites, Havarti. I’m sure you can add a great many more names to the list but those of us who are cheese lovers can all thank the merchant who was brave enough to try something even though he wasn’t sure what it was. rapdily reach well over 100 degrees fahrenheit on a relatively mild day during the summer even if the car is parked in the shade. Another common problem involves dogs which are left tied up in a shadeless area for extended periods. A dog may initially be in a shaded area but in direct sunlight later on. Never leave a dog tied up in direct sunlight. Ensure the dog has plenty of fresh water. Because the dog’s water may be spilt or becomes too warm to drink, ensure that someone regularly replenishes the water in a non-spillable water dish, in that way the dog always has plenty of cool, fresh water to drink. Dogs in enclosed rooms or small buildings can also be overcome by heat. Continued on page 20 THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1990. PAGE 5. Letter from the editor A day in court’s an education BY KEITH ROULSTON There’s a fantastic education for us all to obtain free of charge in our county but few of us ever see it, and most hope they never will. There’s a whole world most of us never think of unless we find ourselves in trouble. It’s called the justice system and very few people except those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law pay much attention to it. I get to see the justice system in action about one day a month and even with that small exposure you get an impression of how imperfect “justice” is. If you work with the system every day like judges, lawyers and police, you couldn’t help but get pretty cynical. On the good side, it’s reassuring to see the system bend over backwards to try to protect people who could easily be buried. Last week, for instance, a crown attorney was prosecuting a case against a man who was defending himself, and not putting up much of a case at that. But the judge argued that perhaps the case was being prosecuted under the wrong section of the law and the crown attorney more or less agreed. The charges were dismissed but the judge warned the man he was still in trouble if he didn’t resolve the issue because he could be charged under the proper sections and be in deep trouble. Will the man listen? Who knows. If he does, then justice has probably been done all round. In another case the judge had stopped a man from pleading guilty to drinking and driving when he heard the facts being read out. The judge advised the man, who had pleaded guilty and wasn’t represented by a lawyer, that he might want to get legal advice because he might win the case and keep his licence. The man took the judge’s advice and when the case came to trial, the judge ruled there was no direct evidence other than the man’s admission, that he had been driving the vehicle (he was walking on the side of the road when police arrived) and the charge was dismissed. In bottom line justice, the decision may not be regarded as a good one. Here was a man who admitted to drunk driving being free to be out on the road again. Hopefully he’ll realize how lucky he was and think better of it in the future. On the other hand, he might go out next month and drive a car into someone and a person who might be alive if he had been prevented from driving, could be dead. The judge, however, felt he must uphold the rights of the man to proper legal defence. There are other examples monthly of how imperfect justice can be. There was the case of the three friends who went out drinking. One got sick and went out to the car and, because it was cold, turned the vehicle on so he could use the heater. He was found guilty of having care and control of a vehicle while impaired and lost his licence. His two drinking buddies, meanwhile, weren’t in the car at the time and returned after the police had arrested their friend and hauled him off for a breathalyzer test. _ They got in the car and drove it 20 miles when, they admitted while testifying on their friend’s behalf, they were in no condition to drive. But because the police had hauled their friend away, the police weren’t there to catch them. People often feel the courts are too lenient, and perhaps they are. Often the victims of a crime aren’t in the thoughts of the judges and lawyers as much as the perpetrator. But most of these who complain about the courts have never been there to see the dilemma that faces a judge and crown attorney. If the facts of the case are clear and the accused shows no remorse, the judge can often be as tough as he’d like within the law. But other cases aren’t so clear. The judge looks at the accused and tries to balance the hope you Continued on page 19