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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-10-21, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21 ,1992. PAGE 5. Commercials like black flies clustering round your head "Oh, the days when the radio was new, Wilmer. It was so beautiful. Back then ... radio spanned the continent and radios were built to pull in signals from far away ... These little dinky plastic radios you buy today won't get a signal from thirty miles away and why should they? The shows sound the same everywhere you go. The radio is filled with twenty- four hours of orange peels, cigarette butts and coffee grounds, and it sells the beer, Wilmer, but gosh, what a come­ down . . . Radio used to be a dream and now it's a jukebox ..." -from WLT, a novel by Garrison Keillor You listen to the radio? Most of us do, at some time or another during the day. For some it's a travelling companion, an electronic buddy to sit out traffic jams with. Others listen in the kitchen or the den. I've got a son who's congenitally incapable of A; ; International Scene | j , 8y Raymond Canon The media and the world I am sure all of us have found ourselves in front of a TV set and watched some unfortunate event unfold far away from southern Ontario. In a 30 or 60 second clip we are treated to a scene of starving children, warring factions, protesting people or shattered remains. Some, if not many of these places, we may not even be sure where they are, let alone how to spell them and we are left with the impression that here is yet another place crying out for relief, U.N. mediation and the like. Perhaps it does not even occur to us we might be manipulated by the TV coverage but that is exactly what is taking place. In 30 or 60 seconds there is simply no way you can be given the background material on the situation and, without that, it is very difficult to come to any objective conclusion about the matter. It is not hard, for example, to get the idea that the Serbs are the nasties in the current struggle going on in what used to be Yugoslavia. No doubt in many cases they are, and I would be the last to excuse them from any brutality or wanton killing. The word “Serb” comes up far more often when killing is discussed in that country but a little background of Yugoslav history, not to mention that of the entire region, would soon lead you to the conclusion that (1) there are no innocent bystanders as far as ethnic groups are concerned, only shades of guilt and (2) nobody ever seems to forget anything, least of all a slight, an insult. We hear, for example, that Serbs are taking a shower without his waterproof Walkman sitting in the soap dish. I listen to a lot of radio too - the CBC, mostly. (No big surprise, since I work for the CBC.) But it's not just a case of employee loyalty. I listen to the CBC because, frankly, I can't stand most private radio. It's the commercials. They’re like a swarm of aural black flies clustering around my head. They're loud, they're intrusive and nine times out of 10 they're trying to sell me crap I don't need and don't want. I could even stand that if there was the slightest suggestion of class or artistry in the commercial come-ons, but there almost never is. The radio hucksters yell and yammer and bleat and bray. And they treat the listener like a hard-of-hearing moron. CBC Radio is far from perfect. We air some shows with pleasure quotients that rate well behind root canal surgery. But at least there are no commercials. Which just may be the radio wave of the future. There’s a new firm in Edmonton called DMX/Canada that's fixing to revolutionize the crystal set as we know it. DMX/Canada is offering a service that subscribers can have piped right into their cable system. Among other things, the service delivers 35 all-music channels. That's all music. No chatter. No stock reports. No commercials. Those channels include: a French language music channel, a classics channel, a Contemporary channel featuring Canadian killing Muslims and they undoubtedly are. However, I recall being in the Serbian city of Nis one time and being shown something called a skull tower. This was made up of Serbian skulls from the 19th century when the Muslims, who were the dominant force at the time, wanted to remind the Serbs just who was boss. Do you think the Serbs have ever forgotten that, nor, for that matter, have they erased from their mind what the Croatians did to them in World War II? This is not to excuse them one iota from any carnage of their own, but it does go some way to explaining why everybody seems to like to stab everybody else. The most recent discovery of TV has been the famine of Somalia, another place that few people can locate on a map. There is no doubt there is famine there and a bad case of that; the pictures you see are dramatic proof that people are dying in droves. My question at this point is why it took TV so long to discover this tragedy. If they really wanted to call our attention to something, why did they not start the massive coverage much earlier. Why, too, have they all but ignored Cambodia which, in terms of population suffered genocide on a level to match that of the holocaust? Is it because we do not have an appreciable number of Cambodians around to keep this massacre in front of us. Or are some types of genocide more newsworthy than others? When I came to Canada, the Germans and the Japanese were something you found by turning over a rock. I recall vividly being told that on no account could I submit something in German for the foreign language section of our school paper since German was the language of the “enemy”. I wasted my time pointing out that German was also the language of Switzerland and that I had relatives on both sides of the conflict. When I was at NATO, those horrible Germans suddenly became our popular music ... and something called the Relax channel. When you tune in to Relax, you get environmental sounds - ocean surf, ululating loons, logs crackling in the fireplace - that sort of thing. There is also a channel devoted to symphonic music, still another to chamber music, and one for opera. Sounding a little too long-haired for your taste? Don't sweat it. DMX/Canada also offers channel selections that play hard rock, soft rock, R & B, folk, blues and jazz. There's even a channel for Big Band freaks. The bottom of the line is, for about $9.95 a month, subscribers will be able to listen to uninterrupted hours of whatever kind of music he or she feels like - literally at the push of a button. Not only that, but the hand­ held remote converter that comes with the service has another button. Press it and you get a readout telling you the artist, the song title, the composer and the record label of whatever piece of music you happen to be listening to. I don't know whether the service will fly or not. Times are tough, and folks might resist the urge to fork out an extra $10 a month just for the privilege of hearing their favourite music unsullied by jingles and pitchmen and traffic reporters. They might resist. But if I held a lot of shares in a local private radio station, I think I'd be dialing my stockbroker's number and murmuring “Sell!” allies as did the Japanese and it was the valiant Russians and Chinese turn to become our enemies. Now the Russians are in our good books to the point where we are sending them food parcels and contributing all sorts of supplies to help them over the worst of their crisis. However, you recall the news items. When a nation is in our bad books, nothing good is said about it. When he is in our favour, we bend over backward. Ask Saddam Hussein. He should know. It would be nice if everybody watching something unfold on TV had the big picture but unfortunately the vast majority do not. We are thus led to some strange conclusions or perhaps we let ourselves be led. Do we believe what we want to believe and only look for facts which support this point of view? If that is the case, then we are in no position to arrive at a conclusion containing any semblance of objectivity. Every once in a while I get interviewed on some subject for a TV newsclip. I wish I could say that what I eventually see on the screen is an accurate reflection of what I said. With all due respect to the interviewer, I have to admit that it is not; sometimes it is not even close. Letters to the editor THE EDITOR, During National Homemaker/ Home Support Worker week, (October 18 to 24), we congratulate the staff of the two agencies we work with. Jean Young and the staff of Town and Country Homemakers and Sandi Davidson and the Para-Med Health Services staff provide excellent service to the clients on the Huron County Home Care Program. You are well deserving of the many accolades you receive. Joanne Jasper Director, Home Care Program. More on page 6 The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Life’s a.... ballgame How about those Jays? Oh yes, I know, there are a lot of really important things happening in our world; I could talk referendum, I could talk recession; but I thought it would be more fun to talk about a success story. For those of us who have never given up on our dear beloved boys of summer, this past week's American league championship has to take some priority. As I was watching the sixth game of the series — you know the one where they made history, where they made skeptics eat their words — I couldn't help thinking how much like a ball game life is. (A borrowed simile perhaps, but a dam good one when you think about it) Maybe my fascination with the sport is because of the new perspective it can put on life's grinds. Well, that and the fact that there are some great looking ball players. Take Kelly Gruber for example, the Jays' top-of-the-line, and none too shabby, third baseman. A one-time Blue Jay hero, his batting slump has resulted in much heckling from his one-time fans. How quickly his last great defensive play was forgotten when he struck out — again— at the plate. Then, when amid all the booing you thought they couldn't hate him more, he hits a grand slam I homerun and becomes the immediate golden i boy. How quickly we fall when our i transgressions are visible, when too easily our victories and successes are pushed aside by our inadequacies. Like the Jays, whose many wins of the AL East in the past never progressed further, we are often weighted down forever by the failures of our past. At least their shoulders must be eased now that they have carried that burden over the next step. People who have achieved much in their lives can usually attribute a good portion of their success to tenacity. When someone says it can't be done, these people dig their toes in a little deeper. They don't give up just because some overweight diva can be heard tuning up her vocal chords in the wings. Like the Jays, just because you may be down 6-1 at the top of the eighth inning doesn't mean it's time to punch the clock. Believing in your ability to get the job done and in yourself goes a long way to shaping a winner. Also, it's important to remember it's not always the long ball that wins the game. While power is important, sometimes it's the consistent little guy, chipping away bit by bit who makes the biggest impression. There's seldom an example in this life where one major player can make the difference. The Blue Jays proved this year what team work can do. No matter how much an asset you are to those around you, you're nothing without them and that's something we all forget too easily on occasion. Sometimes, you've got to be willing to drop down a sacrfice bunt for the go ahead run. After the Jays won the pennant there was another similarity between the games of life and baseball which I couldn't help noticing. Isn't it interesting when you become a winner how many new friends you have? Often expectations of our achievements are unrealistic like those who felt the Jays had to win every game. As in life, somtimes you win, sometimes you lose. Our main objective, should be to try, no matter what. And have fun doing it!