Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-08-12, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12,1992. PAGE 5. Earth like a sitting duck in galactic shooting gallery Nobody knows the trouble I've seen Old Blues riff You got troubles? I've got troubles. I've got taxes I haven’t paid, letters I haven't answered, chores I haven't taken care of, and friends I haven't hugged. I've got problems. Everybody's got problems. And not just the personal variety. Look at the international scene. Bloodshed in Asia. Starvation in Africa. Unrest in Europe. ADDS, Drugs. One could get really depressed about the range of bummers out there, waiting to bushwhack one. And that's without even addressing the common, garden-variety vipers that besiege us every day - which is to say the oil-backed lawyer, the fog­ spewing bureaucrat and the fork-tongued International Scene Here I am! Take me! When I was young and innocent, I recall reading every week in a couple of popular magazines in Switzerland, a series of ads which were put in by people of both sexes and of all ages. By and large what the people responsible for the ads were looking for was companionship and, if all went well, eventual marriage. I recall bringing this subject up at the supper table one day; it provoked a round-table discussion on the matter. The answer I was given was that there were a lot of lonely people in Switzerland. Either they lived in a small community where there was a shortage of eligible mates or else their work was so arduous and long that they had little time to meet people of the opposite sex. Some of the ads were from Swiss who were living in other countries and who wanted to marry one of their own nationality but, given the circumstances, this was all but impossible to do. Hence the ads. All this took place a good many years ago but I am only now running into the same kinds of ads in Canadian publications. I presume that this practice has been around for a while but I would imagine that it is just another custom that has immigrated from Europe to North America. One thing that strikes me is the outstanding qualities that so many of the advertisers claim to have. I can understand and accept the fact that in the field of courtship you have to put your best side forward but I would have thought that someone with so many sterling qualities politician. A guy could really work himself up into a rant about all the terrible and unpleasant things out there - but a guy should be careful. There's a danger of overreaction. I mean, what if a guy got all hot and bothered over the presence of mosquitoes ... Just before a horsefly came along? Something like that may be happening right now. Here we are, down here on earth, shouting ourselves hoarse about German re­ unification, the cod stocks, civil rights in Zimbabwe, when it looks like we should be paying attention to what's happening upstairs. There's a team of NASA scientists that certainly thinks so. For the past several years they've been training electron microscopes on outer space, with particular attention to asteroids - those chunks of space junk winging aimlessly through the cosmos. Their conclusion? Earthlings should buckle up their seat belts pronto. We're long overdue for a head-on collision. Of course, our battle- scarred old planet slams into intergalactic flotsam all the time. That's what shooting stars are - bug splats on the windshield of Spaceship Earth, as it were. Most of them are harmless - nothing more than space gravel bouncing off the rocker panels. By Raymond Canon would have been snapped up long ago. They must have, instead, kept their light firmly hidden under the proverbial basket. Now and again I have run across a series of rfds from foreign women wanting to marry somebody (presumably rich) from North America who would take them out of their life of poverty. The one that sticks in my mind was a series of ads from the Philippines where a number of young ladies (all of sterling qualities) were telling what they wanted in a husband from North America and what they could offer to any prospective husband. Knowing how depressing conditions can be in such countries as the Philippines, I can understand why young girls would be willing to resort to advertising for a husband. This practice is certainly not confined to that country but is frequently practised in Central and South America. I have no way of knowing just how successful any of these advertisers are. It would seem to me that the odds are stacked against them from the beginning especially if the courtship has to be carried out at long range. But when there is life, there is hope and I would imagine that a few may have actually succeeded. Perhaps some day I will see some statistics on such marriages. I once came face to face with a rather startling proposition from a young lady who was interested in getting out of her life of poverty. I am not quite sure how the conversation got around to the topic of immigration but her face visibly brightened when she discovered that I was from Canada, was young and single and could speak her language. At any rate she was nothing if not forward; she wasted little time in suggesting that she would pay me “a considerable sum of money” if I would marry her and take her to Canada. Once we got there we could work out some arrangement so that the marriage would be dissolved and both of us would be on our separate ways. I must admit that I had heard of things like that happening but, But that's not to say all encounters will be necessarily benign. NASA Scientists calculate that there might be as many as 4,200 asteroids out there that are more than three-fifths of a mile across. What would such an asteroid do if it were to collide, forehead to forehead with, say, downtown Moose Jaw? It wouldn't be attractive. Scientists have pretty well agreed that an asteroid smashed into the earth about 65 million years ago. It blotted out the sun for months and helped wipe out the dinosaurs. It also created a terrestrial pothole big enough to accommodate the Caribbean Sea. They reckon the asteroid was no more than nine miles in diameter - by space standards, a mere bowling ball. Should we all start looking over our shoulders? Probably not, but a glance skyward once in a while wouldn't hurt. Our planet is like a sitting duck in a galactic shooting gallery. According to NASA's Doctor David Morrison, “the risk is real”. Which is not to say we should all immediately make out our wills. Or quit our jobs. Or call up distant loved ones in the middle of the night to babble incoherently about how much we love them. Still ... it does kinda put the Constitutional Debate in perspective, doesn’t it? when I was confronted with it, I was taken aback. It took only a few minutes of conversation to see that she was persistent and would readily have gone through with it. I, on the other hand, had a different approach toward marriage and informed her that, while I was flattered by her attention, I did not believe in marriages of any kind of convenience. Since I started this article, I note that even “Canada's National Newspaper” the Globe and Mail, is running such ads in its personal column. I can actually write away for a list of girls from literally every part of the world. All these girls have impeccable qualities, of course. It is a sad situation, indeed, that marriage has been reduced to such a low common denominator. Since divorce rates have been climbing throughout all the industrialized world, it is not going to make it any better by introducing yet another imponderable factor. Yet I cannot help but think just how desperate many young girls must be throughout the world to have to resort to such an approach to get them out of such a miserable existence. HAVE AN OPINION ? The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and should be accompanied by a . . u The Short of it I By Bonnie Gropp Taking a break on vacation Another summer vacation is history! As my vacation was coming up at a landslide pace, I was trying to think of ways to pul on the brakes. For the first time in my life I didn't want my holidays to start, because I knew when they did that it would seem like just mega-minutes and they'd be over. I tried to come up with ways to slow down time, to keep it from sneaking past. I woke earlier, stayed up later, tried to find more time for leisure and gave myself more time to finish projects in the days preceding. It didn’t work. Before I knew it holidays were here - and worse - gone. As I was mulling this over late Sunday night, I was trying to rationalize why time seems to be going so much faster. I mean, I'm not a complete ninny, so I know that time is not actually moving faster then when I was young, but on the other hand if somebody had a good enough story to back it up, I might be easy to convince otherwise. I read in a reputable magazine recently - though the way time flies it might have been light years ago - that our brain has something to do with it and there really is a sound explanation why the cycle of youth pedals ahead more slowly. Unfortunately, as we climb up in years, the memory goes downhill and I don't recall exactly what that reason is. However, I do know when I think back, way back, to my pre-teen summers, the days and nights seemed endless. There was never the question of having so much to do and so little time. It wasn't that I wasn't busy either or that I had problems finding things to occupy my time. My days were full, with never an idle second. But after thinking back and looking at the holiday my family and I were just on, and others over the more recent years, the pastimes that we pursue reflect the changes in our way of life. Like our day to day living, our relaxation time seems to move at a dizzying pace. When we find ourselves no longer breezing through life, but rather hitching a ride on a funnel cloud, we admonish ourselves for not stopping to smell the roses, but it appears to me that it would take a mighty long holiday before I could slow down to partake of life's simpler pleasures. They say it takes four days to get your brain into holiday gear. I believe it. I took some minutes one day to curl up and read a book in a quiet corner, all the while struggling to shut out those little tweaks of conscience that try to infiltrate a mind and soul at rest. Watching my kids I realized how caught up they are in the frenetic traffic flow on life's highway. Whereas when I was young, enjoyments were simple - hide and seek, tag, cleaning out a chicken coop, or hiking - theirs are hurly-burly activities. If it's not fast, and heaven forbid, doesn't cost money how much fun can it be? I'll take 90 percent of the blame for this attitude. My husband, a former country boy, tries his best to inflict some calmer sense into the family. You had to see the initial look of horror on our faces one day this week when he suggested of all things, a picnic by the river instead of eating in a restaurant. My only excuse is that after juggling work and family, my reaction on vacation is to go for what seems easiest. Looking back, it would have been a nice vacation break for my husband and I and would have probably shown my children that you can have a good time doing nothing for nothing.