HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1993-11-17, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1993. PAGE 5.
At the least,
it'll be
a good laugh
The 1993 Canadian federal election
results are already growing mould on the
sanitary landfill site called History...and
already I'm filled with regret.
Not because the new gang of SOBs are
turning out to be no better than the old gang
sobs. I wasn't expecting miracles.
What's made me sad is the realization that
I will probably never again hear the Natural
Law Party. They were big in the past federal
election. They fielded some 230 candidates
from Bella Coola to Bonavista. The Party
spent untold hundreds of thousands of
dollars on newspaper, magazine, radio and
television ads. They vowed that, once
elected, they would end war, pestilence,
disease, poverty, crime, the deficit and waxy
yellow build-up overnight.
They didn't, alas, elect a single candidate.
Canadian voters detected something a
little fuzzy in the Natural Law Party election
platform. Perhaps it was the utter lack of
detail from the Natural Law candidates, who
dismissed all scepticism with the explanation
that Natural Law had been "scientifically
proven". Maybe it was the stated plan to
replace our Armed Forces aircraft with 7,000
meditating disciples levitating cross-legged
in harmonious formation.
Canadian voters may be naive; we did
hoist Mulroney into the saddle two terms in
The best
in its class
I have often said that if I had to be on a
desert island with only one magazine to
read, I would not hesitate to make my
choice. It would be the English
newsmagazine "The Economist". It is not
that the publication is dedicated to articles of
interest only to economists although there
are some of those. What the magazine is, in
effect, is a superb provider of news of
interest from all over the world.
This year the magazine is celebrating its
150th anniversary and, in a recent edition
celebrating the event, published a series of
articles by eminent writers in a wide number
of fields as to what the writers thought the
world would be like during the next 150
years. None of us will be around to find out
just how accurate these predictions will be,
but it is certainly fascinating reading about
them. Living in a world, as we do, that is so
prone to change, and dramatic ones at that,
what can happen in the next century and a
half is stuff of which programs such as Star
Trek are made.
However, in a subsequent edition, the
magazine has published an article that is
certain to tickle the fancy of a great many
Americans, not to mention Canadians.
Entitled "Infiltration of the Nicest Sort", it
goes on to describe Canadians as "the
perfect fifth columnists. They look
American, talk American, blend skillfully
into the background - and often the
foreground - of American life." When two
of the more famous ones, Peter Jennings, as
news anchorman for the ABC network, met
Donald Sutherland, a Hollywood actor, they
a row; but we're not bone stupid. The
Natural Law Party never (ahem) got off the
ground.
And that's a pity. We need all the comic
relief we can get. We always have. Each
decade has given humankind at least one
predominating fad or folly to take our minds
off our troubles. Back in the Roaring
Twenties we had dance marathons and
flagpole sitting. The Dirty Thirties
somebody invented miniature golf and
bathtub gin to help us forget that the country
was broke and so were we. For the more
adventurous there was goldfish swallowing,
wherein the hero (often after having been
over exposed to the aforementioned
beverage) took it upon him or herself to
lower live and wriggling goldfish into their
throats and down their gullets.
In the 1940s some fiend invented the
rotary powered lawn mower while some
other fiend came up with Weed and Feed,
the first combination fertilizer/herbicide that
made lawns grow like Sumatran Jungles.
The Cult of the Lawn was born and North
American weekends were ruined forever
more.
What did the 50s bring us by way of
diversion? In the immortal word of the
businessman to Dustin Hoffman in The
Graduate...
plastic.
Specifically, the credit card. For the first
time in history you didn't have to have
wampum, beaver pelts, gold dust or cash on
the barrel. All you had to have was a wafer
of plastic and sufficient linguistic dexterity
to pronounce the words "Charge it." The rest
on
did not immediately rush over in American
style to greet each other; instead they
"circled each other like errant moose" before
making contact and exchanging news and
views from back home.
Many American Trekkies would be
surprised to learn that it was a Canadian,
William Shatner, who was chosen "to go
where no man has gone before" and to carry
out exploration in the name of the
Federation. History does not record what the
Klingons, Romulans or the Ferenghi thought
of this, let alone Mr. Spock, but if an
American was the first to land on the moon,
it was a Canadian who really got the show
on the road.
Perhaps if we all had French as our native
tongue, the Americans would pay a little
more attention to us but, as The Economist
points out, instead they have grown very
complacent about Canadians and Canada, to
the point of forgetting that we are their
largest trading partner. Even presidents are
guilty of making this mistake, preferring
instead to concentrate on the hordes of
immigrants, both legal and illegal, that come
from south of the Rio Grande River.
Canadians, on the other hand, cannot
afford the luxury of such indifference. They
frequently concentrate on things that they do
differently (or better) than the Americans.
The definition of a Canadian, according to
one commentator, is "an American with
health care and no gun."
Canada, it seems, because of its nature has
always had the need for a greater role of
government in our desire to achieve "peace,
order and good government" as outlined in
our constitution. The Americans, on the
other hand, having gone through a
revolution, are more intent on attaining the
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
referred to in the Declaration of
was magic.
At least until the end of the month.
In the 70s, it was horoscopes. It became
difficult to meet someone and not be greeted
with "Hi, what's your sign?"
It was annoying, but it propelled us to the
80s, which were really a pain in the
astrology department - or rather its related
offshoots of crystal therapy, harmonic
convergence and the chance to be
"channelled" by the ghost of some 8,000-
year-old Mayan priest who knew no better
way to spend eternity than to help you and
Shirley MacLaine get to know your "real"
selves.
Which got us to the 90s, a decade which
showed real promise, what with the Natural
Law Party looking to take over 24 Sussex.
Alas, no such luck. The Party appears to
have vanished more thoroughly than one of
magician Doug Henning's stage elephants.
So what now? Well, I hate to raise false
hopes, but there's a rising young religion in
Japan right now called Taisokyo. It only has
one tenet. Its disciples must laugh. At
everything.
House burn down? Snort. Your loved one
kick the bucket? Chortle. Famine? Flood?
Nuclear War? Stop it, your killing me.
"Laughter is the way to God" says
Taisokyan spokesman. "There is not reason
for sorrow. Only selfish people think about
their own loss."
Do I see a place for Taisokyo in the
Canadian Parliament? Don't see why not. It's
got all the attractiveness of the Natural Law
Party - plus a sense of humour.
At the very least, it'll be good for a laugh.
Independence. That, as much as anything,
has led us to radically different forms of
government, a state that makes it difficult for
people on both sides of the border to
understand what the other is trying to do.
Certainly the list of famous Canadians in
the U.S. is an impressive one. In addition to
the three which I mentioned previously, the
article also lists entertainers Joni Mitchell
and Neil Young, Morley Safer of 60
Minutes, Robt. MacNeil of the
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, actors Raymond
Burr and Dan Aykroyd as well as Jack Kent
Cook, the owner of the Washington
Redskins. I could mention a few more:
Michael Fox, Lorne Green, Leslie Nielsen,
Deanna Durbin, all of Hollywood; there is
also John Kenneth Galbraith, probably the
best known economist in the U.S. who hails
from a farm near Glencoe; he is also the
most controversial. Most Canadians are
aware, even if Americans aren't, of the fact
that, when an American team wins the
Stanley Cup, a majority of the players are
from Canada. This evens out the American
content of the Toronto Blue Jays. Free trade,
it would appear, extends even to sports so
that both sides benefit.
The article ends with the observation that
these days Canadians are prone to move
away from the level of government
intervention in their affairs even while
Americans are moving towards it. Witness
Washington's efforts to come to grips with
gun control as well as a national health care
program, both of which we take very much
for granted.
"The conclusion," says The Economist, "is
inescapable. The penetration of these fifth
columnists has been even more remarkable
than anyone has yet realized. Bill Clinton is
a closet Canadian."
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Is there a way
to beat Father/ Time?
This past weekend my husband and I
attended the wedding of a long-time friend.
It was very nice and gave us the chance to
meet some new faces and get reacquainted
with a lot of familiar ones that we hadn't
seen for a time.
While touching base with old friends is a
pleasant experience it does have this nasty
little way of reminding you how much time
has passed and consequently that you aren't
getting any younger. They exclaim over the
fact that someone is marking their 40th
birthday or over your plentiful grey hairs.
Sharing stories on the escapades of both
yours and their children you become a little
disoriented; the faces may have changed but
the antics you remember well.
Even without the help of family and
friends, however, life has its way of hinting
at the tick tock of the biological clock and at
how quickly those years clicked by. Doesn't
it sometimes seem as if we just moved
straight from teenage acne to tired and achy?
The thing about getting older is that it
doesn't seem to matter how hard you fight it,
it will happen. I remember reading an article
on Jane Fonda, in which she shared her
observations on aging. Despite her regimen
of exercise and healthy eating she found
herself suffering from arthritis. After years
of taking her health for granted she had to
face the fact that this was something she
couldn't control. While a fit body helps, it's
not a fountain of youth.
I always argued that aging is a state of
mind — if you feel 19 that's what's
important. That may be true, but then again,
I've noticed that while my mind feels quite
comfortable with the idea of being young,
the opposition, my body, seems to be
winning. Eventually, you have to face the
fact that you really don't look as good in a
bikini as you used to and those high heels
could kill you. While I used to party for two
nights and feel fine I often now wake up
feeling like the morning after when I didn't
even have the night before.
There are some people, however, who give
me the chance for hope. Take for example,
S. L. Potter. Mr. Potter is 100 years old and
his latest accomplishment was to go bungee-
jumping. That's pretty remarkable in itself,
but what makes this even more amazing is
that to get to the top of the 210 foot tower
before taking the plunge, Mr Potter, who by
the way says his initials stand for stupid and
lazy, walked up the stairs, though he did say
he had to stop about two-thirds of the way
up to get his breath.
I guess it was clear that Mr. Potter was
ready for some excitement; after all, he quit
riding his motorcycle just over 20 years
before when he was a young pup in his 70s.
If you really took the time to think there
are actually quite a few people who seem in
their own way to be giving time a run for its
money. For example, there's comedian
George Burns, now a spry 90-something.
Whether its Bob Hope, still on the road or
Tina Turner, whose energetic stage
performances would be a high intensity
cardio workout for someone half her age
these people seem to have found if not the
fountain of youth then a spring at least.
Maybe it's a love for what they do that keeps
them young. Or then again maybe its just a
determination to enjoy the best of what life
offers and do the best to ignore the rest.
Either way, I think they're great role models
And by the way Mr. Potter, I think S. L.
stands for 'Something L-se'.
Arthur Black
International Scene