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The Citizen, 1991-08-14, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14,1991. PAGE 5. The art of warping reality When I use a word it means just what 1 choose it to mean-neither more nor less. Humpty Dumpty Let's say you're an environmentalist. Not a tree-spiking, smokestack-scaling, dues- paying activist perhaps, but an environmentalist - someone who cares about the future and the global litter box we've come to live in. Let us further suppose that you've just moved to ... oh, the northern Ontario city of Sudbury, say. And you think that in your spare time you'd like to get involved in something... greenish. What's a budding environmentalist to do in Sudbury? Well you could always join an environmental group. Let's see ... here's one right on the main street. It's called Northcare: Northcare. That's got a nice, ecologically responsible ring to it. A person walking in the front door of Northcare might assume they were in the offices of a typical environmental watchdog group. But a casual perusal of the office brochures reveals a ... rather odd approach. Northcare says that some people worry too The International Scene Things can be bad everywhere BY RAYMOND CANON One of the nicest things about taking a trip out of Canada for a considerable length of time is that it gives you a more detached view of your country. When I left Canada for my annual pilgrimage to Europe, it seemed as if the country were a self­ inspection kick and not liking what was being seen. Good things, it was generally assumed, were those that happened elsewhere. If there is one^country that should be working in fine order, it would be Germany. After all, the Germans have a generally deserved reputation for being industrious, efficient and self-confident to the point of occasional bouts of arrogance. Not so as far as the German railway system is concerned! The German National Railways recently unveiled their system of high speed trains. The introduction was preceded by the most lavish advertising campaign ever launched by the Railways and no less a person than the highly respected President Richard von Weizaecker heralded it as “the renaissance of the railway”. With the above-mentioned German efficiency, you can imagine how the first passengers sat back and prepared to enjoy themselves. It was not to be the case! On the contrary during the first weeks the system was plagued by jamming doors, slow food service and three engine breakdowns, not to mention on and off performances by toilets and beer taps. Of course Railway officials had the usual excuses for all the malfunctions but it can be safely and accurately reported that the passengers were not amused. This is the system that Germany wants to sell to the world. Small wonder that the Germans recently lost .out to the French in competition for a contract to build a high­ speed railway in Texas. Nor have the Japanese fared any better of Arthur Black much about wilderness and not enough about jobs. Norlhcare wants to see more protected forest lands opened up to chain saws and logging trucks. Northcare thinks that Ontario Hydro's plans to sprinkle a few more nuclear reactors along the Lake Huron shoreline is just a dandy idea. Norlhcare cheerfully accepts cash donations from mining companies like Noranda and pulp and paper interests like E.B. Eddy. Judged by its name, Northcare sounds like the kind of outfit Pollution Probe or the Greenpeace crowd might want to be associated with. But judged by its principles, it sounds suspiciously like an apologist for big business interests. The Sudbury Chamber of Commerce in a green plaid biodegradable shirt. Nothing wrong with tooting the trumpets of commerce, of course — providing you're up front about it. After all, David Suzuki doesn't go around impersonating Conrad Black. But Northcare isn't the only example of business trying to wrap itself in a green flag for PR brownie points. They're just aping the actions of their corporate Big Brothers to the south. Want to play some American word games? Okay, what would you assume about a group that calls itself the Washington Forest Protection Association? Sounds kinda protree, wouldn’t you say? Uh uh. It's a lobby group made up of the largest timber companies in Washington State, created specifically to fight against logging late. The country has been rocked by a major stock market scandal and, on top of that, comes the news that some housewives are not what they seem to be. In a highly moralistic society, prostitution is not only frowned upon; it is illegal. Imagine the chagrin when a recent court case revealed that about three-quarters of the women working for an escort agency were wives whose husbands were in what we would consider the high income brackets. It is not that the wives were apparently bored with life; rather their husbands, mortgages and the children's school fees were costing so much that extra income was called for. The fastest way to make money appeared to be in the escort service. Since most Japanese men make chauvinists in this country look like neophytes, one can only wonder what might happen the first time that one of them decided to avail himself of the People sa Play disgusting, writer says THE EDITOR, On July 31, two female friends and I made the journey to Blyth expressly to attend the performance of “The Stone Angel” at Blyth Memorial Hall. Our interest in attending the play and visiting Blyth had been aroused by travel brochures and the media. I find it most difficult to express in words how absolutely disgusting a portion of this Letter to the editor policy Letters to the editor must be signed and the name must also be clearly printed and the telephone number and address included. While letters may be printed under a pseudonym, we must be able to verify the iden­ tity of the writer. In addition, although the identity of the writer may be withheld in print, it may be revealed to parties directly involved on per­ sonal appearance at The Citizen’s offices. restrictions. How about Citizens for the Sensible Control of Acid Rain? Sorry. All this glorified PR Office has done so far is mail out 80,000 letters denouncing a bill to control acid rain. Clean Air Working Group sounds like a pretty positive moniker — until you discover that it's composed of agents of the oil, steel, aluminum, paper and automobile industries created to lobby against the Clean Air Act. These guys aren't interested in a healthier planet. They're interested in Business As Usual. You'll find these image manipulators on your TV screen too. They love to sponsor those big dreamy nature programs that extol our untamed wilderness. Did you see The Living Planet? That was a nice documentary — made possible by funding from Mobil, currently facing legal action in six states for falsely claiming to produce “degradable” garbage bags. Then there was the stirring heart-string tugger Only One Earth. That was paid for by Waste Management — the most penalized hazardous waste company in the history of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. What's the message we're supposed to get from this exercise in corporate euphemizing — that even as they pollute, their hearts are in the right place? Maybe. But the real message is more obvious. The real message is: it's a lot cheaper to polish your image than to clean up your act. services of the escort agencies and found himself face to face with his own wife. The Americans like to brag about their high-tech military forces and look with justifiable pride at how well they worked in the recent Gulf war. One can only hope, therefore, that there are a suitable number of red faces in Washington and above all in the Pentagon when a Cuban pilot, flying one of his country's Russian fighter jets, decided to defect to the United States. The Americans didn't even known he was there until he appeared over one of their important military bases in Florida and indicated he wanted to land. Where was all that modem, efficient radar when it was needed? In short, gaffes, and major ones at that, take place in all countries. We are no worse and no better than any other country. Perhaps we should develop the talent of laughing at ourselves from time to time. show was. It depicted in a very visible manner an act which I will call grossly indecent. I was embarrassed and shocked, I felt quite ill at ease. If this is the type of entertainment that the Village of Blyth hopes to have tourists return to for future visits, I feel they have failed, for I doubt if I will ever again visit Blyth. Mrs. Marjorie Rietzel Kitchener, Ontario. Letter from the editor Canada has too much politics By Keith Roulston Somebody famous once said that Canada is a country with too much geography, I might argue that we're a country with too much politics. By politics, I don't mean Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Bob Rae: since most people would agree we have loo many politicians, that wouldn't be worth a column. No, Canada is plagued not just by politicians but with politics. Politics creeps into everything and complicates every aspect of our lives. I don't mean the right-wing hobby horse of too much government either. I mean simply that every time you do or say something you run the risk of getting into a political situation. Hold a door open for woman and, if she's the wrong woman, you have made a political statement. Independent woman that she is, she may judge you to be a male chauvinist. Everybody in this country seems to have sensors that a NASA space probe could use, all trained to pick up some real or imagined slight. When I went to school we just thought Shakespeare was boring. Today, protesters claim Shakespeare teaches racism and sexism. Even the play Merchant of Venice, with its beautiful thoughts about the quality of mercy, now gets no mercy itself because it's deemed to be anti-semitic. A Chinese-Canadian in the city speaks Cantonese to the person next to her and some native-born people see it as a symbol they are losing control of their own country. A Chinese cop in Toronto says a disproportionate amount of the crime in the Asian community in Toronto is caused by Vietnamese refugees and creates a furor in the Toronto papers. Latest victim of little things being turned into politics is developing hockey superstar Eric Lindros. Big Eric has been stalling signing with the Quebec Nordiques, the team that is so bad, it has finished last three years in a row, earning the right to draft the best available player each year. This year that booby prize was Eric, probably the best player to hit the league since Mario Lemieux. But Eric has made the people of Quebec quite upset. Traditionally, when a player is drafted he slips on the jersey of the team he was drafted by and has his picture taken. Eric didn't. He has also publicly discussed the options he might have to joining Les Nordiques. Probably Eric is just being greedy, but the Quebec media, ever alert to slights real or imagined from those parts of Canada where English is spoken, are now apparently portraying Eric as a symbol of English arrogance. But wait a minute; wasn't the last player who refused to don the jersey of the team that drafted him one Mario Lemieux from Quebec? Were there stories in the press in Pittsburgh about the arrogance of French Canadians? As for the apparent reluctance of Mr. Lindros to play for Quebec, how about his very real reluctance to play for the team that drafted him in junior hockey. He utterly refused to play in Sault Ste. Marie and played American college hockey until he was traded to a team nearer a city (Oshawa) where he could attend university. Wasn't Sault Ste. Marie the last symbol of English arrogance and bigotry because of its English-only resolution? Couldn’t it be argued then that in refusing to go to Sault Ste. Marie Eric was protesting bigotry and that maybe that's why he’s reluctant to go to Quebec loo? Probably not, but that's the way things can get twisted these days. And if we're going to twist things, wouldn't it be nice to assign good motives to something instead of bad ones? Jus: for once.