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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-01-26, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26,1994. PAGE 5. Radio’s magic not what it once was I'm a lucky guy because I work in the media. Don't let anybody kid you - it's a wonderful way to turn a buck. Sure, I'll never be rich, but on the other hand, there's no dress code. I get to shoot my mouth off. And I meet a helluva lot of interesting folks. I also get to explore the fascinating differences among the "media". I write a newspaper column, I host a weekly radio show and every seven days I do a comedy spot on television. And just as in all families, each brother and sister is as different as different can be. Writing this column is very satisfying. I get to put words together on whatever bee is currently rattling around in my bonnet as best I can, and splay them out on this page every week. Simpson's Sears would pay big bucks for this space. I get it for free. Television? That's another story. It is at once the most powerful and least satisfying of all the media I know. People watch you on television but they don't necessarily listen to what you have to say. I remember the first time I went on the tube. The producers told me I had exactly 90 International Scene By Raymond Canon Will our standard of living die? One of the questions which I get asked most frequently in the 1990s is whether the students that now make up my classes will have to take a drop in their standard of living compared to what their parents and grandparents enjoy. This is an understand­ able concern in that there are any number of stories about graduates of both the community colleges and the universities who have to take jobs, when they can find them, that are considerably below the level of earnings which they envisaged when they were in high school and thinking of a career. Perhaps in the next few paragraphs I can provide some of the answers. The operative word is "some" since I don't think that anybody has all of them. One of the reasons why I would handle such a topic in this column is that Canadian young people are not the only ones asking themselves precisely the same question. It is, to put it mildly, being posed all over the industrialized world. You can, therefore, — pick up an American or a European newspaper and see precisely the same topics being discussed and with the same lack of agreement as to what is happening or what can be done about it. Thus, if misery loves company, there is plenty of it for everybody. The answer is not going to be found only in Canada or the United States; it is something that will gradually emerge on an intentional plane. Whether we like what we see is, of course, another question. You would think that, with the threat of Soviet Communism all but a thing of the seconds to make whatever point it was I was trying to make. I slaved over my words like a poet seducing a lover. I wrote. I got made up. I read my words off the Auto Cue. The next day I asked my friends what they thought. They all replied "Where'd you get that ugly sports jacket?" That's the thing about television. It is enormously, overpoweringly visual. You could go on TV and recite the first four pages of the Hamilton telephone book and nobody would notice - as long as you looked like George Hamilton or Loni Anderson. And radio? Ah, radio. I beg the editor's indulgence - what I am about to type is not what a newspaper editor wants to read...but radio is the most satisfying medium to write for. Because in radio you get to use peoples' heads. There is no need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars constructing a film set of the Nile Delta or downtown Winnipeg - all you have to do in radio is say Yellowknife...January 1945..." - and the listeners brains fill in the details! Radio is magic. Radio is make believe. Radio is, of course, not what it once was. People like to think that radio, like everything else, has gotten better, subtler, more sophisticated as time passes. But actually, radio has gotten worse. The fact is, back in the old days you could pull in marvellous things on your radio set. As Torontonian Ron Haggart, another old past, the rest of the world would be prepared to live happily ever after. Such is not the case. If we do not have a military or political revolution, we are in the midst of an economic one and that touches everybody just as much as the other two. The buzz word here is "rationalization." This means that companies, especially on the international level, (which most of the big ones are these days) are trying to find their place in a new world where there is no longer any guarantee they can even continue to exist. Companies are being bought out, are merging with others in the same industry or are simply closing their doors and going out of business. Pan American Airways used to be a proud name in the airline industry; today it is nothing but a page in the history books. Birks Jewellers, one of the most prestigious names in Canadian business, has recently been in bankruptcy proceedings. And so it goes. Even those still in business are shedding labour in order to avoid the fate of the above two companies. Hardly a day goes by when we do not read of hundreds of thousands of jobs being declared redundant. It all goes'to say that, when this shake-out is complete, industry should indeed be more efficient. Where, then, will the jobs be? There will, for openers, be a considerable number of possibilities for what I call niche companies, that is, those who find a small sector in an industry where they can provide efficiently a particular product or service. The more entrepreneurial of our young people will understandably look to this area for employment, either working for somebody else or setting up their own business. In short, the world is still ready to accept a better mouse trap. If you think that sounds like the old- fashioned work ethic, you are right. One of the mistakes any young generation makes is timer, wrote in The Globe and Mail recently, "As a child in Vancouver...I could easily listen to KSL, Salt Lake City.. .Even WBZ, a continent away in Boston was possible...and of course the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's famous clear-channel station at Watrous, Saskatchewan..." Ah, yes. The good old days. For old-time, dyed-in-the-vacuum-tube radio fans I heartily recommend a book by Garrison Keillor called WLT. It is a paean to the salad days of radio, and it contains this passage: "Oh, the days when radio was new...it was so beautiful. Back then, the radio signal was received all the way to the Alleghenies and west to the Rockies...Radio spanned the continent, and radios were built to pull in signals from far away. The Zenith had a tuning knob as big as a grapefruit. You'd spin that and bring in Nashville and Cincinnati and Detroit and Little Rock and Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh. These little dinky pisspot radios you buy today won't get a signal from 30 miles away and why should they? The shows sound the same everywhere you go...Radio used to be a dream and now it's a jukebox.. .But of course if you climb on your high horse and talk about radio when it amounted to something, people mark you down as an old fart, the sort who grumbles about the decline of railroad travel and circuses..." Amen, And if anybody disagrees, just send your letters to me, care of this newspaper. And address them to Old Fart, if you would. to think that, just because their parents or grandparents talk about it, it must be without merit. What the same young people have to do is keep an open mind on our work habits and attitudes. The history of the world is replete with examples of people having to go back to the basics. This brings me to another point. I'm sure you have heard this before but it bears repeating. At the same time that you are prepared to work harder, you have to work smarter. If hard work were the only criteria, the slave labour camps would be centres of progress. Any country, including Canada, will forget this little bit of advice at their peril. Be prepared for less help from governments. In the 60s and 70s, the same governments went overboard in providing a social welfare net for their citizens. The attempt was admirable but it failed to take into consideration the fact that costs might run consistently ahead of revenues. They have been doing that for some time and hence the necessity of curbing our expenditures in those areas if we are not to become a basket case such as Sweden. In essence, you should be prepared to accept responsibility for more of your security instead of spending a lot of effort trying to discover what welfare program you qualify for. I have no magic cure for what ails us. To paraphrase a famous statement by John Kennedy, ask what you can do to help yourself, not what others can do to help you. This is not a prescription for anarchy, only to make people realize it, whenever there is any change in living standards, there are both winners and losers. Given that governments can no longer afford to throw money at problems as they did in the past, we are all going to have to do more to create our own paradise. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp A driver’s complaint We've all seen them. Their size and power intimidates everything in their path. Like big schoolyard bullies they use that advantage to get ahead and like steam rollers won't let anything stand in their way when they're on the move. You know what I'm talking about, those big tractor trailers that regardless of rain, hail, snow or freezing will let nothing slow down their progress. Neither slick ice nor hazy mist will challenge them. They ride above it and confidently upon it. Unfortunately, the rest of us, don't always feel that secure. I am, admittedly a bit of an overcautious driver. I always prepare for disaster and I have lived long enough to expect as much. The split second mistakes and poor judgment calls I report each week in the paper have made me perhaps a little leery of betting all my chips on lady luck, especially when winter's fury increases the odds against. When traction and visibility are both closer to nil than not, it only makes sense to give yourself a little extra time and take it easy. While the first storm of the year does have me cruising in my car at a turtle's pace, practice makes perfect, so I have, of late, relaxed behind the wheel. The bottom line is I drive at a speed that makes me feel comfortable and in control. Last week, on my way home during one of our frequent blustery blowups, I found myself sandwiched between two, rather imposing transport trucks (Not local I might add). Things weren't too bad in the beginning; I had a fairly good jump on the truck behind me and as the roads were fairly clear and visibilty for the most part good I was travelling at the speed limit. Apparently, that was not fast enough, though, because he caught up, then spent the next few miles doing his best to make that clear. Through the weather's milky whiteness the truck's grill, just about the only thing visible in my rear view mirror, took on a demonic visage and I was reminded of a movie I had once seen where a possessed truck terrorized a lone driver on a solitary road. Then reality returned and I began instead to get quite ticked off. I didn't need to think of what to do in the worst case scenario, this guy was taking it out of my hands. If I had to make a sudden stop, or began to slide there was no way he could stop a rig like that in time, not on a good day and certainly not on that road surface. I couldn't even risk slowing to pull over. Also, while the drivers may feel that they have the advantage of weight and power, these trucks do slide and if the guy in front began to lose it I knew I'd be peanut butter. Let me hasten to add that I know there are some good truck drivers out there, that as usual a few make it bad for the rest. Looking at the way those ones seem to take over a road when they're on it, I have often thought of them as borderline sociopaths. They're probably the ones who picked on little kids, who get a big thrill out of demonstrating power over others and now are revelling in the sense of invincibility they have in their fortress on wheels. Now, I realize that oftentimes the reason for their haste is that truckers are on limited time, that payment for delivery will be greater if the product arrives early. But, I was driving the speed limit in a snowstorm, for goodness sake. Maybe someone should offer incentives for delivering the product in one piece.