HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-09-20, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1995. PAGE 5.
I have a confession.
I miss
Keith Morrison
It doesn't come easy to a BoobTubeophobe
like yours truly, but I have a confession to
make.
I miss Keith Morrison.
You remember Keith Morrison. Blonde-
haired, jut-jawed, blue-eyed talking head
who co-hosted the CTV newsmagazine with
Valerie Pringle for many a morn.
Keith was a Canadian icon. You could rise
any weekday morning, shamble across the
living room with your pyjamas drooping,
scratching your belly, stifling a massive
yawn, punch the remote and there would be
Keith, looking like he was just air-dropped
out of the centrefold of Gentlemen's
Quarterly.
Some people like the way he handled an
interview; others didn't. For me, his
journalistic skills were irrelevant.
He fascinated me the way a cobra
bewitches a ground sparrow. I didn't even
hear the words tumbling out of his mouth.
I was watching his Hair.
Keith had a major case of Large Hair.
Great ocean breakers of the stuff arching
over his brow, sweeping down behind his
fArs, swirling and rolling around the sides of
Economists could
use an almanac
I'm not sure just where the Farmers'
Almanac gets its weather reports; at any rate
they seem to be about as accurate at times as
those put out by the most competent of
meterologists.
I got to thinking the other day that we in
the business of making economic
predictions, could use something as accurate.
I'm sure that many of you have heard the
statement that an economist spends half his
time making predictions and the other half
explaining why they are wrong. Yet there is
a great deal riding on these predictions; both
governments and businesses have to have a
fairly good idea what is going to happen and
even homeownefs get into the act.
Have you ever had to decide, when your
mortgage comes up for renewal, how long to
extend it. Six months? One year? Five
years? This sort of things just happens to be
one of the most frequent questions I get,
along with what is going to happen to the
exchange rate in the next six months.
In case you think Canada is going to hell
in an economic hand-basket, I have the
forecasts in front of me of a reputable
organization which states that, of the 21
industrial nations being surveyed, Canada
will be among the top in 1995, coming in at
about 3.7 per cent growth; the United States,
by the way, is number nine.
The leader of the pack is Ireland, both this
year and the next, which will be good news
his head.
He made Elvis look like a Marine rookie.
He made Fabio look like an upended floor
mop with a bad case of the mange.
I doubt there was a man this side of
Samson who had as serious an outbreak of
Large Hair as did Keith Morrison.
But it didn't save his job. Last spring Keith
and his pompadour were unceremoniously
bumped.
By some CTV bureaucrat with a brushcut,
I'll bet.
I have a vested interest when it comes to
hair: namely, I don't have much of it myself.
Oh, I've got hair on my arms and hair on
my chest and hair in all the usual bodily
thickets and underbrushly spots.
Except on top.
It's one giant pink runway for mosquitoes
up there.
Which you might think would make me a
Mansbridge fan. Peter Mansbridge is the guy
who does on CBC television what Keith
Morrison used to do on CTV television, but
Petey's pate isn't all that far behind mine.
A few years ago, Peter started 'going
sparse'. All the King's horses and all the
King's men, plus every cosmetic magician in
the CBC makeup department, were not able
to arrest the fallout.
Nowadays, a lot of folks tune into the Ten
O'clock News just to count the strands.
Mansbridge, to his credit, has not fallen
back on that lamest of crutches for the Hair
Impaired — the toupee.
He just sits there reading every night —
pink and proud.
mond<Ca
for the Irish, who have not had too much to
be happy about in the last little while.
At the bottom of the heap, both in 1995
and 1996, is Japan which says a lot about the
current state of affairs in that country. With
their currency almost out of sight as far as
the dollar is concerned, it is no wonder that
Japanese export industries are in the
doldrums nor that the number of Japanese
tourists in Canada is at record highs. There
are days when Prince Edward Island looks
like part of Japan (I wonder how many of
you can guess why?)
But I digress. One of the problems of the
Great Depression was that most of the
countries (Germany was the exception) went
into economic decline at the same time.
Nobody was trading with anybody else more
than they really had to, a move which
economists normally describe as exporting
your own unemployment.
Right now the situation is not so bad in
that countries go into recession at different
times which means that world trade does not
suffer too greatly. It is only when you
depend so much on one country, as we do
with the United States, that we run the risk
of inheriting their recessions. Given that the
American economy is expected to decline
somewhat in 1996, it comes as no surprise to
learn that the prediction is for Canada to
suffer a drop next year.
New Zealand, which is frequently used as
an example of what can happen to Canada if
we allow our debt to get out of control,
seems to have weathered the storm nicely.
The country is expected to be among the
leaders both this year and next, as is
And why not? It's obvious he has nothing
to hide.
He is an inspiration to follically
challenged men everywhere. A beacon. A
Hero of the High Forehead.
But Keith Morrison? Ah, Keith was the
God of Large Hair.
I often wonder where he is now. And
whether he can still hold his head up without
a neck brace.
On the other hand, a recent news story
makes me think maybe Keith got out of the
TV news business just in time.
It seems a TV news reporter by the name
of Mychal Limric was doing a story on the
science of beekeeping. He was doing a
'standup' as they say, 'on location' — which is
to say about 15 metres from a working hive.
Mychal was just nicely into his
commentary when the inhabitants of the hive
made a beeline for his head. Members of his
camera crew did their best to brush the bees
away. The beekeeper who owned the hive
even slammed a protective hood over
Mychal's bee-leagured noggin.
Regrettably, it turned out that there were
bees in the protective hood as well.
Mychal Limric wasn't mortally injured,
although he did receive more than 30 stings.
All in the scalp.
It turns out the bees were attracted to the
TV hair gel Mychal used on his on-screen
coiffure.
Moral of the story? I'm not quite sure. But
Keith Morrison, if you're reading this, a
word of advice:
Don't take any part-time work in an apiary.
neighbouring Australia. There is something
of a co-relation there, although certainly not
as much as our dependence on the U.S.
I get a report on Switzerland each year
when I attend the celebration of the national
holiday but, although the Swiss consul put
on a brave face, the fact remains that
Switzerland is not doing well; only Japan is
lower and while things may look a bit better
next year, my erstwhile countrymen are in
something of a quandary. They are
surrounded by the European Common
Market and their legendary neutrality makes
them hesitant to join under any
circumstances, but staying economically
neutral does not offer much of an alternative.
At least the French section of the country
is not threatening to break away although I
hear a lot of grumbling when I am in western
Switzerland where the French live.
What this all leads up to is the fact that
most countries have problems afflicting
them that affect their economic performance.
Germany is still trying to swallow the
eastern part, the Italians are hopelessly in
debt, the Spanish government can't do
anything right, let alone fish correctly,
Britain's government's in shambles and
President Clinton can't make up his mind
what he wants his country to do. Now if I
could only find an Economists' Almanac.
For those of you who are still with me and
are still wondering just what the Japanese
are doing in P.E.I., let me be the first to
inform you that the country has seen Ann of
Green Gables on TV and has fallen in love
with her. Going there is tantamount to a
pilgrimage.
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
The good of humankind
After participating in this past weekend's
Terry Fox Run I was pleased to be reminded
once again that humankind by nature, is
generally kind and good.
Everyday, the media brings us stories of
misdeeds, mistrials and misfortune. We hear
of the disgusting and demented, the vile and
viscious, the abused and disabused.
Still fresh to our ears is the horror of the
Bernardo trial, while the O.J. saga is an
ongoing fiasco. Native people are
dissatisfied, Quebec may separate and our
young are becoming disillusioned. We are
living in a society where mothers kill babies
and children kill children.
The news has always been bad. I
remember several years ago when my eldest
and I were ,watching a documentary on the
60s, he was overwhelmed by the chaotic
scenes. "How could you stand to live back
then," he said, as footage of Kent State,
Vietnam, the Kennedys and Charles Manson
painted a less than idyllic picture of the
peace, love and understanding era.
No, what we are hearing on the news these
days certainly isn't new. There have always
been wars, there have always been violent
deaths, there have always been cruel and
horrible people. But somehow I was always
able to feel removed. While I never tried to
ignore it, though I knew it was happening, it
didn't seem to be part of my life, my
surroundings.
It was a naive attitude.
These days, the evil that seemed, in
yesteryears to be an urban blight, is
infiltrating its ways into our rural
communities. This past week the trial of a
19-year-old Chatham man began in
Goderich. Jeffrey Wayne Manley is accused
of the 1994 brutal slaying of seven-year-old
Danny Miller. His beaten body was found in
a shed near some railroad tracks.
In another story last week, the father of a
16-year-old Goderich girl, who has been
missing since May, was charged with her
murder. As of this writing her body has not
been found. If her father is indeed guilty,
what makes this even more distressing is,
that like American baby-killer Susan Smith,
he covered his sinister transgression, letting
on to individuals and organizations working
to find her that this was a case of a missing
child.
What bothered me most after reading and
hearing of these cases was my apparent
narcosis. Experts say that television violence
has decreased our shock factor, and
sometimes, I can't help feeling that the
stories we hear in the media have made me
numb, have eaten at my compassion until
there is only a nibble left for that which is
close to me.
Then, I watch the video of Terry Fox and
feel my eyes fill. I look around me and see
the same thing happening to people around
me. And gratefully, I appreciate that the
species can still be moved and inspired by
the selfless courage, the will and inherent
goodness of someone we don't know.
It made me think of other times when the
media has reported on situations or disasters
that, rather than show the worst in humanity,
has brought out the best; the stories of
heroes, helpers and just plain folk, who,
though strangers, help us remember how
special humanity really is.
International Scene