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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-05-11, Page 5r S, Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 11,1994. PAGE 5. What’s easy about dialing these days? Here is a non-recorded message from your favourite telephone company: The days of early dialing are numbered. No, I didn't make it up. There was a big story about it in the papers the other day. It was chock full of details about how the good old days of simple telephone use are just about over and we might as well prepare ourselves for the worst. I have just one tiny question. Who are they trying to kid? Easy? What's easy about dialing a phone these days? My office phone, in addition to a punch pad of numbers and digits, has a bank of nine buttons that light up apparently at random. They have legends that read CALL WAITING, CONFERENCE, AUTO REDIAL, and also PULSE/TONE and POWER/RINGER. I haven't the slightest idea what these buttons are for. You want easy? I'll give you easy. I'll give you my parents telephone dialing system, Eighth Line, Schomberg, Ontario, circa 1955. Telephone dialing system consists of a pinewood (yes, real wood) cabinet about the size of a Smurfs coffin. It hangs on the wall and features an iron crank handle on the starboard side. Also, connected by a cord, a ^^International Scene By Raymond Canon A longer lasting Kim Campbell Last June when I was in Europe, I read two pieces of news about newly appointed political leaders. One was Kim Campbell and I don't think anything more has to be said about how long she lasted. The other was Tansu Ciller (pronounced Chiller) who became the prime minister of Turkey, which I would have imagined would be a much harder country for a woman to run than Canada. However, Ms Ciller is still around, although I will tell you now that her chances of continuing were considered to be much less than those of Ms Campbell. I guess that in the field of politics, nothing is certain. Ms Ciller and I have something in common; we are both economists. She certainly needs all the economic savvy she can muster since Turkey is not in particularly good shape at the present time. In addition, there is the question of the Kurdish minority they are trying to solve and the periodic explosion of bombs in tourist haunts attest to the fact that the situation is still not under control. National elections have just been held there and in the run-up to the voting, it was widely predicted that Ms Ciller would no longer be in the driver's seat. Conveniently forgetting that economic measures sometimes have a 12-18 month time lag before they really start to take effect, many people considered her remedies to be ineffective. However, when the votes were counted, Ms Ciller was still al the helm. Her party (True Path) ended up with over bakelite (look it up) earpiece that looks a bit like a large bottle stopper and a mouthpiece that resembles the speaker tube on those old German U-boats. When a person wished to avail oneself of the aforementioned "dialing system", one stuck the ear piece in one's good ear, gave the handle a brisk crank to wake up the operator, and said into the mouthpiece, "Hullo Myrtle, ring up Doc Smithers for me, will yuh? I think the calfs got brucellosis." Now THAT'S easy. It is also, alas, extinct. Myrtle's gone, and so is that father magnificent wooden wall cabinet. Replaced respectively by a disembodied robot voice (THEE NUMBER IS NYUNN...FIYUV...NYUNN...) and a piece of beige plastic too flimsy to serve as a doorstop. Not to mention of course the "dialing system". That too, is a thing of the past, replaced by several generations of "refinements" and about to be transformed once again. When I was a kid my phone number was Cherry 5, 5085. Which is to say, an easy-to- remember five numbers plus a memorable prefix. From that, I graduated to a slightly harder to remember seven numbers - which is what we all have right now. Don't get comfortable, ladies and gentlemen. We are about to be pitched into the world of the 10-digit phone number. "We were running out of numbers so quickly that something had to be done" says a spokesperson for Bell Canada. That's why in the not too distant future, you may find yourself dialing 10 digits just to phone 20 per cent of the vote, a fraction higher than the Motherland Party (the Turks do have colourful names) with the pro-Islamic Welfare Party breathing down their necks. As in most European countries, there is a rather long list of parties so that governments are formed of coalitions and not simply of a single party. In all there were no less than seven major parties, some of which did not exist the last time around but are alive and well now. What problems does the economist prime minister face? For one thing, inflation threatens to go over 100 per cent this year which is not going to make the lower income Turks jump for joy. In addition, the exchange rate of the currency, the lira, has dropped dramatically, more so than the Canadian dollar, and the word "out of control" is being applied more and more to the deficit. Now that the election is out of the way, look for Ms Ciller to introduce a tough budget which will not be helped by the fact that, unlike Canada, Turkey is about to enter a recession. Ms Ciller is western educated (U.S.A.), secular and modem thinking, a contrast with the members of the Welfare Party to which I referred above. The latter tend to be fundamentalist in their thinking (shades of the Reform Party) and their puritanism is in stark contrast to many Turks. They managed to get one of their politicians elected mayor of Istanbul, but he may have his hands full trying to look after the horde of peasants that have been pouring into the city. For one thing the Party adheres to the Moslem principle of not borrowing money on interest. Will he have to look the other way if the demands of the city have to be met with money borrowed from western development agencies? The mayor, Mr. Erdogan, says that he someone who may live less than a mile from where you’re dialing. Sure, it'll be a pain in the butt - not to mention the dialing digit - but the telecommunications experts maintain that it will allow the phone company to increase the general availability of phone numbers sixfold. I, for one, am breathing in shallow, excited gasps. Ah, but why dump on Ma Bell? Complexification, like Hong Kong Flu, is going around. I just returned from a visit to Saltspring Island, a glorious, unspoiled chunk of rock and forest nestled in he Georgia Strait between Vancouver Island and mainland B.C. There are no skyscrapers on Saltspring. No superhighways, no slums, no drive-by shootings, no MacDonalds. There is, however, a post office. Well, fair enough. After all, Saltspring is 20-odd miles long and seven miles across at its widest. And there are some 7,000 people who call it home. So they have their Canada Post. And, just so they don’t get lost, 200 postal codes. Yup, 200. One postal code for every 35 islanders. Which is even more bone-headed when you realize most Saltspringers live in two communities - Fulford Harbour and Ganges. So why 200 postal codes? Don't ask me. Ask the planning genius at Canada Post. And if you can't find him there, phone up Bell Canada. I'm pretty sure it's the same genius. would like the city to become a world convention centre but when you look at the principles of the party he represents, something has to give. Bob Rae might be •able to give him some advice on that matter. Fortunately for Ms Ciller, the Greeks and Turks are not glaring at each other for the time being. The former are looking northward to Macedonia while the latter are looking southeast in the direction of Iraq where the majority of Kurds are located. Being a leader in that part of the world is no easy task and the Turkish prime minister has already discovered that. It remains to be seen in a coalition government what kind of staying power she has. Letter to the editor Continued from page 4 out first! In the "good old days" if a neighbour was hurting financially if he got behind on his payments to whichever bank or institution, the norm was to band together and help out. Today, the majority of one's fellow farmers in the neighbour-hood race to the bank or institution almost colliding with each other in their quest to see who can get that piece of land. This is a sad commentary on our attitudes. We have gotten ourself into a position where material things rule at all costs. We lend to blame everything from government to the weather for all our problems, when maybe the biggest problem lies within. Greed, pure unadulterated greed, that is the root of the problem. Surely there must be a better measure of what a real man is, other than his line of machinery and how many acres of land he farms. The Good Lord Himself must be looking down and shaking his head. I know I am. Stan Chalupka RR 1, Alvinston, Ont. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp I Special day a chance to say ‘Thanks!’ Maybe I'm getting too old but I seem to be growing up. It took awhile, I know, but lately I need less outright acknowledgement for what I do. My eyesight may not be what it used to be, but finding the gratitude behind little things takes less looking. Now, that is not to say that I don't still enjoy those little indulgences, a little ego­ stroking and flattery now and then; it's just that it's not earth shattering anymore if my expectations aren't realized. Take Mother's Day for example. Don't get me wrong this is not a brave face type of column; my children have always been marvellous to me on Mother's Day. They spoil me rotten beginning with breakfast in bed; an indulgence that warms my heart for its tradition, and that I find otherwise highly over-rated. With my plate teetering on my lap, I struggle to keep the crumbs on it and the maple syrup off my bedsheets, all the while trying to figure out why I'm eating in my bedroom and everyone else has gone downstairs. And that’s not all, either. To further mark the occasion my kids grace me with their presence for al least five minutes that day, shower me with gifts and all round do their very best to show me I am as valuable as I think. No, I have no reason to feel badly about Mother's Day. I am pampered and proud of it. One thing I have learned in my 39 years, is that you lake all the little pleasures extended to you. This past Sunday while I reveled in the star treatment, I couldn't help wondering, however, whether most mothers would miss Mother's Day if it wasn't there. The biggest sufferers would be Hallmark I supposed. After all, if your kids need a special day to remember you, that's not saying much, right? Then I thought again. We all know what moms do. From the time they give us life, they never stop giving. We don't always understand them, we don't always see eye-to-eye but life without them would be a whole lot different. Speaking as someone blessed with a great mom, who never gave up on me when I was a bitter teen and now bakes pies for the sweeter me, and a wonderful mother-in-law, whose generosity and selflessness are beyond imagining, I recognize the value of the family matriarch. 1 also recognize that through the course of my life while I have often thought about it, I have seldom told them — there just never seems to be a right time. Even in the most demonstrative families, laying your feelings on the line isn't that easy to do. Also, I've never been one of these brilliant people who instinctively comes up with that little something that gets the message across either. So as I sat pondering my moms on Sunday, thinking of all the mom things they do, it dawned on me that that maybe Mother's Day isn't a pointless little celebration designed to make money for card companies, candy stores and florists. While we shouldn't need a special day to let her know how special she is, many of us unfortunately do need a gentle reminder. Mother's Day allows us the opportunity to be sappy, sentimental and speak from the heart, to say thanks at least once a year for every day of our life.