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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-02-23, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1994. PAGE 5. The Short Do the world a favour. Chuck the letter It could happen to you the next time you pick up your mail. There, nestled in among the grocery store flyers and the dreaded envelopes with ominous cellophane windows, you spy a letter with a strange postmark and an unfamiliar return address. Curious, you tear it open. And find yourself reading a chain letter. But this one's a different kind of chain letter. It doesn't promise you untold riches or a fabulous sex life or an eternity of foul luck if you don't send off copies of the chain letters to six other unsuspecting saps. No, this chain letter tells you the heartbreaking story of little Craig Shepherd. Craig is a seven-year-old British schoolboy, says the letter. It also tells you that Craig has an inoperable brain tumour and only one wish in the world. Craig wants to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. He hopes to get there by becoming the human being to receive the most mail in history. And you can help, the letter says. Just drop nim a line - or just address an envelope and pop your business card inside. Jeez, it's little enough to ask for a kid Strong PM, weak Presidents I have often thought that in his spare moments, that is, if he has any, the president of the United States must look longingly at his counterpart in Canada and think how much easier his task would be if he only had the powers of the prime minister. This may come as something of a surprise but any prime minister with a majority government in Canada such as Jean Chretien now enjoys, would never have to do the arm-twisting or the wheeling and dealing that Bill Clinton had to do south of the border in order to get the NAFTA deal to be accepted by the U.S. House of Representatives. While Mr. Chretien may have the odd maverick in his party, as does any prime minister, he can expect the rank and file to come together to vote in favour of a government bill. Il is only when the members have a free vote that the differences of opinion would show up; with that kind of vote, it doesn't matter to the government just how members vote. However, let's take a look at what Mr. Clinton has to go through. Although he is a Democrat, he can not automatically call on the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate since he is not a part of Congress as the prime minister is of the House of Commons; he is elected by a separate vote and remains separate. Furthermore, he does not have to pick his cabinet ministers from Congress; he can get them where he pleases and they do not even have to be a practicing Democrat. Thus the President and his cabinet sit aside from Congress and work independently of it. If he wants to have a bill passed in Congress, he cannot assume that all the who's dying, right? Well, I've got five words of advice for you should you receive this letter. Throw it in the garbage. Sound heartless? Hey, if Craig Shergold could talk to you he would beg you to throw it in the garbage. Yes, there really is a Craig Shergold, and he really did have a dream of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records. But that was away back in 1989. Before the dream turned into a kind of nightmare. Craig's letter touched a lot of hearts. Within weeks of sending his request to a few local newspapers, the lad's local post office in Carshalton, England was inundated with letters addressed to Craig Shergold. Before long the post office .was receiving 600 sacks of mail. Eveiy day. Part of the problem was that Craig wasn't just a U.K. phenomenon. His letter came to the attention of a group called The Children's Wish Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia which tries to grant the wishes of terminally ill children. It decided to alert the business executives of the continent to Craig's project. That was five years and tens of millions of cards and letters ago. "We've got a 10,000-square-foot warehouse that is stacked to the ceiling with mail that still hasn't been opened" moans Arthur Stein, president of the Foundation. By Raymond Canon members of his party will vote for it and all the Republicans against it. He is up against a free vote which means that he will get support and opposition from both parties. There are progressives and conservatives in both the Democratic and Republicans and, as is frequently the case in Canadian parties,’it is sometimes difficult to know just where one party leaves off and the other begins. The irony of the recent vote by the House of Representatives over the NAFTA agreement was that some of the most vociferous opposition came from members of the President's own party and he had to buy them off by agreeing to some of their conditions such as trying to prevent what mid-west American farmers consider to be the dumping on Canadian Durum Wheat in the United States. How successful he will be on that promise remains to be seen. The president has to contend with another anomaly of the American system which sees all the members of the House of Representatives elected every two years but only one-third of the Senators. The latter comes about because Senators are elected for a six year term but on a staggered basis. The president himself is elected for precisely four years which means that the Americans have elections every two years but only every four years are they electing congressmen, senators and president. A lot of their time is, therefore, taken up with getting ready for elections, holding them and then getting over them. Even if a president is not up for election, he is expected to get out and help those candidates of his own party who are in danger of losing. There is, nevertheless, one exception to all this. If the president is seen as something of a lame duck, his parly's candidates will not touch him with the proverbial barge pole and he can stay in Washington. That is, however, not a reputation any president understandably wants to have. "There's no way to stop it. Everyone keeps saying quit, and people ignore the pleas." It's become so bad in Britain that British Post has assigned Craig Shergold his own personal postal code - an honour usually reserved for large towns or counties. So has the Craig Shergold letter just been a giant migraine for all concerned? On the contrary. This is one chain letter that actually delivered - albeit in ways no one ever intended. For one thing, Craig Shergold did make the Guinness Book of World Records. It happened in 1991 when his mail topped the 30 million mark. (Guinness authorities shrewdly retired the category so they wouldn't have to go through this again). For another thing, it looks like Craig's condition is cured. An American billionaire, John W. Kluge, read of the boy's plight and paid for him to be flown over and treated by a neurosurgeon in Virginia. More than 90 per cent of Craig's brain tumour was removed and the doctors pronounced him cured. That was three years ago. But the mail just keeps on flooding in. So if you get a copy of the Craig Shergold chain letter, do the world a favour. Chuck it in the recycling box. Craig Shergold would thank you for it if he could. So would the besieged employees of the Children's Wish Foundation. Not to mention the forests of the world. So it is that a prime minister with a majority in Parliament can count on the support of his MPs; a president cannot. Furthermore, the latter is not even a part of Congress and cannot take part in the debate on any particular subject. In fact, he seldom shows up in Congress except for such things as the State of the Union address which is a traditional speech to the elected representatives. He spends far more time engaged in political arm-twisting than does his Canadian counterpart. Finally, there is the electoral system that a would-be presidential candidate has to go through even before he can get his party's nomination. It goes on for the better part of a year and it is, in one word, exhausting. Whether or not it makes sure that the best man gets the nomination is problematical but it is just another load that has to be carried. Frankly I'm amazed that a president gets much done. Bill Clinton is lucky that he has a wife who is just as intelligent as he (some would say more) and can pitch in as Hillary has with the question of universal health care. Most presidents have to fend for themselves and, in their spare and private moments, they must look at the prime minister of Canada with more than a tinge of envy. Letters Continued from page 4 restraint, I can only wish there was a better way than spending $6 million to meet the needs of our educational partners, whether that be allowing religious classes in our present schools or some other innovative solutions. Thank you for allowing me to express my thoughts. Douglas Garniss RR 4, Wingham, Ont. NOG 2W0 357-1939 of it By Bonnie Gropp Gold mettle contender I was recently talking to a young mother who expressed her continued frustration over her daughter's untidiness. The mother, a professed neatnik says every day is a battle between the two, precipitated by the daughter's slovenly habits and the mother's obsession for order. "Her room is just never tidy!” she proclaims. The second party in this personality war however, tells it a little differently. "I can't see the point of going to all the trouble, when no matter how good a job I do, it's never good enough for her." Most of us at some time or another have come up against a person for whom our best is not only not good enough, but who seems reluctant to acknowledge that our performance had any value whatosever. It makes you angry, but worse, if it happens too often, it discourages yob. After watching the Olympics this past week I can't help wondering what inspires figure skaters to go on in an event where the judges' personal preferences for style and their blatant displays of favouritism can tip the scales so heavily. For example, I think most people watching the pairs skating were surprised that Gordeeva and Grinkov beat Eisler and Brasseur, let alone the other Russian pairs, but their reputation, one commentator remarked, precedes them. The ultimate insult to a skater had to have been on Saturday when the Russian judge handed a 5.5 score for artistic impression to Canadian skater Elvis Stojko. Although he skated a near flawless performance, it was later noted that some judges do not care for his style of skating which, unlike others in the competition, is inspired by a love of the martial arts rather than the more accepted ballet. My son argues with me that figure skating should be a performance art, not a sport. Adjudication has no business on a playing field. After this week we may have one less thing to argue about. I'm not sure it’s fair that personal preference, rather than the ability and the talent of the athlete, can determine a winner. As the fastest speed skater wins the race so should the most polished, most technically correct figure skater win the gold. When artistic impression marks come down to a pirouette, it loses its credibility as a sport. The fact that a skater stumbles and wins a gold medal over a dynamic, con­ trolled opponent does definitely raise some questions. It seems to me that it must take a lot of determination to continue working so hard in an athletic field that appears to depend so much on paying your dues and a judge's fancy. As the young girl I mentioned earlier said, what's the point in trying when you know it won't meet the standards? Like one-time Olympic bronze medalist Toller Cranston, who was shunned for his artistic style in- the then predominantly technical world of figure skating, Stojko showed in an interview the following day that he accepts the role as innovator, as one who is breaking new ground for future skaters. Though he's gutsy enough to admit he may have been robbed (when an interviewer asked him if he thought he shculd have been first, he replied that he knew he shouldn't have been fifth where the Russian judge had him) he didn’t whine about how unfair it was. While many would agree that the Olympic gold was taken from him he has accepted the silver with dignity simply proving the mettle he's made of is gold.