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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-01-13, Page 5Arthur Black International Scene tna an THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13. 1993. PAGE 5. Is life really full of dirty tricks? Is it me — or is life really full of dirty tricks? Back in 1963, I felt privileged to have witnessed (if only via my 17-inch Admiral TV) one of the great oratorical moments in history. It happened in Berlin. A young, tousle-haired American president by the name of John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced an enthusiastic crowd of West Germans and declared "Ich bin eM Berliner!" Well, that wasn't too hard to follow. JFK was telling his German allies that as long as the Berlin Wall stood, he would be, in spirit, a citizen of Berlin, right? Wrong. Turns out that in Germany a 'Berliner' is kind of like a bagel or a turnover, only with jam inside. So what Kennedy was declaring on that cold grey day in Berlin 30 years ago was: "I am a jelly doughnut." Well, Lord knows it's not the only international misunderstanding in history — even for U.S. Presidents. Back in 1977, Jimmy Carter caused a few red faces during a visit to Poland thanks to a Not Terribly Newspapers and fish Sometimes you have to have a catchy title in order to get the reader's attention and this may well fall into this category. At any rate you have started reading so bear with me and you might just find what I have to say interesting enough to read to the end. First of all, why the title? Well, I must confess that it was a similar one which caught my attention. I was looking through a British periodical recently, well, more accurately a news magazine, and noticed a chart on newspaper readership. The first sentence stated, "The chart suggests a crude relationship between newspaper readership and the consumption of fish." I read on hoping to find something along the lines that the more fish you ate, the more likely you were to read newspapers or something to that effect. No such thing! All it was trying to do was to call attention to the fact that the four countries whose inhabitants were most likely to read a daily newspaper were also large consumers of fish. The four in question, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Japan, do eat a large amount of fish and coincidentally are also far and away the most avid readers of daily newspapers, with sales of over 500 copies for every 1,000 people. Canada does not even come close! We purchase just about 200 copies for the same number of people which sees us fall just between Australia and Ireland in the rankings and two below the United States. I was not surprised to discover that Switzerland, although not known for its fish propensities, was ranked number five, albeit Good translator who announced that the U.S. President had `abandoned' the U.S. (He meant that Carter had `left' the U.S. that day). The hapless translator also had poor Jimmy talking about Polish 'lusts' (Carter had merely been speculating on the people's `desires for the future'). But translation is a tricky game. I have in my library a classic piece of inter-lingual butchery written by one Pedro Carolino back in 1883. It's called The New Guide of Conversation in Portuguese and English. Right from the title you know this is no ordinary foreign phrase book. Consider Senor Carolino's dedication: "We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the youth, at which we dedicate him particularly." My favourite section is the one with instructions on how to get your money back for a lousy horse: "Here is a horse who have bad looks. Give me another. I will not that. He not sail know to march, he is pursy, he is foundered. Don't you are ashamed to give me a jade as like? He is undshoed. He is with nails up." Scientific experts can screw up too. As the folks in charge of a museum in northern England did a few years back, when they proudly exhibited a Roman sestertius coin, minted, they said, more than 1800 years ago. somewhat below the first four mentioned above. Also in the same league as the Swiss were the Germans, British, Danes and Austrians. At the bottom of the list were Spain and Brazil. Well, what do these foreign papers look like that people read? In some ways they look remarkably like the local newspaper that prints this article except, of course, for all the local and district happenings. In many cases the size is about the same and the number of pictures to be found in any edition is roughly equal. There is some advertising but not a great deal, certainly not to the extent that you find in a Canadian or American daily. There is an editorial page as in the local papers; in some countries the writer of the editorial has to sign it. This is interesting for me since I wrote editorials for 20 years for one of Ontario's dailies in southwestern Ontario. and I am sure that at the end of all that monumental effort, there were only a handful of people in the city who knew who had ben telling them how to think via the editorial page. Not so in some other countries. As in the local papers, while there may be a cartoon, there are definitely no comics. This is something that has not gone over in foreign newspapers as it has in the dailies on this continent. It could well be one of space since, as I said above, dailies elsewhere are more like a local paper in size and rarely, if ever, go to the giant size so prevalent over here. I think you will realize that it is difficult to generalize about newspapers in some respects since, in the newspaper business, variety is the spice of life on both sides of the ocean. One small weekly in Ontario once took my column; it always seemed to be totally incongruent in the paper which was dedicated to either local gossip or want ads. This was something of an exception; in Quite popular it was too, until a little nine- year-old girl came along and piped: "That's not a Roman coin. It's a plastic thing you get from Robinson's Soft Drinks." The little girl was absolutely right. As a public relations campaign, a local soft drinks firm had been handing out plastic tokens in exchange for bottle labels. A red-faced museum curator explained that the museum experts had been taken in by the big letter "R" on the coin. "The trouble was that we construed the letter to stand for 'Roma'. In fact it stood for `Robinson', the soft drink manufacturers." Not that newspapers are immune to the disease. First prize for the all time worst newspaper reporting must surely go to the Wiltshire Times and Chippenham News for a feature article it ran about a local man named Harris. The following week, the paper carried this apology. "Mr. Harris has asked us to point out a number of inaccuracies in our story. After returning from India, he served in Ireland for four years and not six months as stated; he never farmed at Heddington, particularly not at Coate Road Farm as stated; he has never counted cycling or walking among his hobbies; he is not a member of 54 hunts; and he did not have an eye removed at Chippenham Hospital after an air raid on Caine." Oh well. At least they spelled his name right. Europe it would be totally unacceptable. Since there are 11 countries over there that have a larger circulation than the per capita average in Canada, the readers like their newspapers on balance not to insult their intelligence. There are, of course, the tabloids in Great Britain but they seem to be something of an exception. One thing that is quite common over there but which I see rarely in Canada is the practice of having a number of papers available in restaurants to be read by diners before, during or after their meal. They are generally put on a wooden stick designed especially for that purpose and can be hung in a rack. Since I dine a great many times by myself when I am on a business trip to Europe, I find this practice especially attractive. It sure beats looking at the other diners. Eating is done at a slower pace than here and thus the newspapers contribute to the more relaxed atmosphere. Europeans are not as avid as Canadians in writing to the editor. There is some to be sure but not to the extent that we engage in. I'm not sure why this is; one theory I have is that editors over there do not encourage it in general. What letters there are, tend to be broader in scope rather than the concentration on one pet peeve. One nation, however, where the whole concept of writing to the editor has changed is in Russia. After having to be so careful for so many years in not offending the current powers that be, Russians enjoy a far wider scope in their topics. They are taking advantage of it. With all the media competition, I would imagine that there are few countries where readership of newspapers is increasing. This is somewhat of a pity in that few T.V. news items can delve into a topic as thoroughly as a print journalist. I guess the 30 second clip has become too much a part of our life. The short of ►t By Bonnie Gropp Are we spinning out of control? The other day I was speaking with a 'twenty something' person and during the course of the conversation, as it often will with me, the subject of family and children came up. In many cases today, men and women are opting not to have children for many reasons, The choice in this particular case was not to live a childless life, but rather adopt, because, he said, the world is becoming so frightening he would not be responsible for bringing a life into it. While it is difficult for me to imagine life without children, I understand and respect that needs and priorites of those who make different choices. My initial reaction to this person, however, was sadness that someone so young should feel such hopelessness. I couldn't help thinking back to when I was young and what a volatile and strange time it was. With strong convictions the youth fought wars of peace, while the establishment brought them under control, often with force. I remember the older generation saying the world was going crazy. Where would the madness lead and when would it end? Crazy it may have been, but there was passion -and idealism; it was an era when people believed in things. Can we say the same for today? For as long as time has been, adults and youth in particular have never viewed the world in quite the same way. Their confrontations often sent that world into a tailspin. But, this time the question is "Are we spinning out of control?" Last Saturday, I was in Kitchener with my two daughters, when a group of young boys gathered behind us, and while quoting lyrics by the alternative music group House of Pain , proceeded to suggest that a fun way to kill time would be to steal some woman's purse, then kill her. Now, being smugly confident they were going for attention, I opted to ignore them, a move some have suggested since was rather naive. Either way, I couldn't help wondering why anyone, even an immature anyone, would think this conversation entertaining. When did the idea of horrendous acts of violence or ending human life become a cavalier pastime for a Saturday afternoon? While my generation may have been strange, only the insane found death a fun piece of work. In another circumstance this week, my son had set the VCR timer to tape a music spotlight. As the time of these programs is approximate, he managed to capture in the centre of his tape two videos he had not intended to. The one featured a Canadian industrial rock group. The video looks like silhouettes of people stabbing and bludgeoning others. It was on at 7 a.m. ! No matter how carefully you monitor what television your children watch, there is a good possibility this sucker could slip through. While I hate to sound like a fanatic the influence of this form of music on impressionable minds can only be negative and too many are exposed to it. This world has changed and in correcting what we see as the wrongs of the past I can't help wondering if we have gone too far. Children often need more time from us, when with both parents working, there is often less time to give. Moral and Christian values are confused in a world that has become smarter and more cynical. We live in a confusing and often hostile world; that has never really changed. The pressures our young people face are not unlike those we faced. Unfortunately, they carry with them the baggage of our degenerating world, unemployment and AIDS. The media has shown them life's harsher realities and it's little wonder that some may be reluctant to bring new life into it. In my line of work and in my personal life, however, I am confronted daily by young people who are special, who have a great deal to offer and who I believe have the capabilities of turning around the mess we made. I see a possibiliy of a more tolerant, less extreme generation which will hopefully find the balance to the excess of their forebearers and something akin to Utopia for their young.