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