HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-12-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1995. PAGE 5.
All hat and
no cattle
The Texans, God bless 'em, have a
wonderful expression to describe folks who
get too big for. their britches.
"That varmint," say the Texans, "is all hat
and no cattle".
I think that pretty well sums up the entire
human race, species-wise.
Consider: we live on a planet that is 70 per
cent water, yet we have no gills or fins. We
hang out on a globe where the temperature
can range from 120° in the shade to 60°
below, yet we have no scales to protect our
skin nor fur to keep us from freezing.
We can't outsqueeze an anaconda or
outswim a shark. We can't outrun a
Pekinese, much less a panther.
Why, we humans don't even have
antennas.
Just think how much better life would be.if
we homo sapiens featured a couple of four-
foot long whip aerials sprouting out of our
foreheads just below the hairline. All the
better species — the Monarch butterfly, the
Gypsy, moth, the June bug, — they all sport a
racy set of antennae on their brows, the
better to intercept obstacles, food and most
important, enemies.
Antenna are good enough for cockroaches,
jalopies and all the ships at sea, but not for
you and me. We drew short straws in the
genetic sweepstakes, chum.
Too many
automakers
It is generally agreed that there are too
many companies producing cars for the
world market, but all those presently
competing are convinced that somebody else
should be the one to get out.
There has been a great deal of talk about
proposed mergers but the largest one to date,
that of Renault of France and the Swedish
producer Volvo, fell through because of
incompatibility. It should, therefore, come as
something of a surprise to learn that yet
another company is attempting to muscle its
way into the international market.
Most Canadians have never heard of
Daewoo but the Koreans certainly have; it is
one of the largest conglomerates in that
Asian country. Its sales last, year amounted
to almost $20 billion in a variety of fields
from heavy industry to electronics and
financial services.
It also has an enviable record of
rejuvenating failing businesses and, with
respect to the car industry it wants to
increase its global production to no less than
two million cars a year with a target date for
this achievement set at 2000. This in spite of
the fact that it has lost more than half a
Mind you, it wasn't always that way.
There was a time when we had antennas.
Why, I'm so old I can remember a time when
just about every family in Canada had their
very own antenna.
Usually on the roof, right beside the
chimney.
They were called (gather 'round and take
notes, kiddies) TV antennas. And if you
wanted to.pull'in anything other than
Mondrian railway tracks and closeups of
snowstorms on your TV, you had to have a
TV aerial.
Everybody in my neighbourhood did.
Nobody thought there was anything strange
about having this arthritic looking-aluminum
tree growing out of their roof. I certainly
didn't. Not until I landed in the Spanish city
of Cadiz when I was hitchhiking around
Europe back in the 60s.
I got to Cadiz late at night, tired and
sweaty and hungry. But excited. I knew that
in the morning I would look out the window
of my pension and see the same vista that
Columbus had seen four and a half centuries
earlier, on the morning he set sail to the New
World. fi
It happened too. The day dawned clear and
bright, the sun rose like a giant Seville
orange and there before me was a vista of
the harbour at Cadiz, underscored by tier
after tumbling tier of Spanish, casas, all red-
tiled roofs and whitewashed walls.
Except I couldn't see it. Several thousand
TV antennas cluttered up the view.
Gawd, they were ugly! And they were
everywhere, not just in Cadiz. And I'd never
really noticed them before.
billion dollars in the past four years
producing what cars it presently does.
How long it will be before it gets around
to Canada is a, good question but it has not
been wasting time in other markets. This
summer the company signed an agreement
with the Polish government giving it
exclusive rights to a 60 per cent share of a
domestic car factory which turns out 100,00
Polonez cars a year.
The Polish company's future had seemed
to lie with General Motors with which it has
an agreement to assemble Opel cars from
German kits. However, GM got pushed
aside by Daewoo, which promised the Polish
government that it would spend no less than
$1 1/2 billion to modernize the factory and
turn out 220,0(X) modern cars by 2001, a far
cry from the old-fashioned Polonez cars
currently being produced.
If Poland were the only example of
Daewoo's aggressiveness, GM and the other
manufacturers might not be so upset. The
fact is that they have all been looking at
Eastern Europe as a great growth area.
To everybody's consternation the Korean
company has made similar deals in the
Czech Republic, Hungary and Roumania
with a total investment of over $4 billion.
Not only cars arc being produced; one of
the company's TV factories made over
400,000 sets in Poland last year and the first
of the company's washing machines was
turned out this year while refrigerators and
stereos will follow shortly.
I've never had much good to say about
cable TV, but I will grant it one
accomplishment: it rid us of that hideous
forest of aerials that used to blight our towns
and cities.
True, we had to put up with even uglier
Death Star "dishes" that sprouted like giant
mutant mushrooms. But those dishes are
already obsolete. Technology has already
invented dishes the size of large pizzas that
can do the same job without making your
house look like an outbuilding of NASA.
Which is why it pains me to report that
aerials are coming back, in another form.
You know those cellular phones that
everybody loves? Well, they're not quite as
discreet and compact as you might think.
The cellular telephone companies have to
erect giant "monopole" antennas in order
distribute and monitor their cell phone
empires. And these structures are large and
homely enough to make the old TV antennas
look positively cute.
Ah, but the cell phone tycoons are 'way
ahead of the 50s technology that left us with
a gawky aluminum 'hat rack' on every roof.
A firm of architects in New Jersey is already
manufacturing monopole antennas disguised
as ... trees.
That's right — trees. You can order your
monopole antenna in 'white pine', 'royal
palm', or 'saguaro cactus'. They all feature
epoxy-resin 'bark' and non-metallic 'foliage'
realistic enough to fool the birds.
A breakthrough? Well, I suppose. But to
paraphrase the poet Joyce Kilmer:
"I think that I shall never see
And aerial lovely as a tree.-
Daewoo is determined to be a force to be
reckoned with in Eastern Europe.
But the company's plans do not stop there.
If the professed goal of production of two
million motor vehicles by the year 2000 is to
be achieved, inroads will have to be made
elsewhere.
It has already set up an alliance with an
Indian car manufacturer which is projected
to produce 200,000 cars within two years. It
has targetted Iran, China, the Philippines
Uzbekistan and Vietnam as additional areas
of growth while, closer to home, it is flying
to outmuscle other Korean car producers,
including Hyundai which is probably the
only one known to most Canadians.
Given the above mentioned over-
production in the industry, it should be an
interesting battle. ,
If the company does have an Achilles heel,
it is a lack of advanced technology, since
most of the cars which it has produced so far
rely on unwanted Japanese and American
methods which might sec it through for a
while in underdeveloped markets, but will
hardly cause a ripple of concern in such
places as North America or Western Europe.
However, the same sentiments were
expressed when Daewoo entered other
markets such as ships or computer chips and
those uttering them have been forced to cat
their words.
Those readers with, long memories will
recall that we used to say similar things
about the Japanese. No longer!
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Shouldn't someone listen?
Chelsea was four years old the f;irst time it
happened. Alone with Doug, a teenaged
family friend, an innocent game turned into
a disgusting abuse of her naivety. Co-erced
to strip naked by this brother figure, whom
she trusted, she was forced to watch him
masturbate while he told her lewd stories.
Neither spoke of the incident and for many
years it was never repeated. Until the
summer when Chelsea was 12. The family
friend was now a young married man and he
and his wife,. who had moved away to a
larger city, were hosting the adolescent girl
during a summer vacation.
One evening a nightmare awakened
Chelsea. She cried out in her sleep and Doug
came to her bedside to see what had troubled
her. He began to massage her shoulders,
telling her .how much better she would feel.
As she began to relax, his touching became
more aggressive, more bold. As his hands
moved lower she tried to stop him, but he
held her down and spoke soothingly to her,
telling her how much better this would make
her feel.
It was the most humiliating, terrifying
exprience of her life.
Chelsea is a grown woman now, happily
married, and a mother. But while she feels
the sexual abuse was little to what others
experience, it has impacted her life more
than most could imagine. For example,
though she does not go into great detail,
Chelsea admits she has difficulties with
normal intimacy.
Another effect Chelsea never realized until
recently when she saw some old family
movies. Those taken prior to the latter
incident showed her as a gregarious lover of
the limelight, delighted to be the centre of
attention and wanting to be noticed. In those
movies shot later she is withdrawn and quiet,
a shy girl who spoke only when spoken to,
who hid her face when the camera, or people
were near.
Dec. 6 is a national day of remembrance
and action on violence against women.
Activists have been vocal regarding their
opposition to cuts projected by the
provincial government to shelters and
counselling services for victims of sexual
and physical abuse.
The Chelseas of this world show that
society has much to learn about the walking
wounded. They are real, they are among you
and their numbers, comprised of women and
men, are greater than most would imagine or
many want to admit.
People often disbelieve or are
uncomfortable with victims of abuse, yet it
is simple understanding that they seek along
with respectful compassion. The pain and
degradation is real and has a profound
impact on who and what they are. For adults,
coming forward after hiding from the reality
is a difficult step that needs to be guided, not
presented with stumbling blocks of
animosity or scepticism. The support they
receive at places such as Survival Through
Friendship House and through sexual assault
counsellors can't be measured.
Many of the people who sock help do so,
not to draw attention to themselves, or cause
conflict for their abusers, but rather to hear
someone tell them they weren't to blame,
that they're not alone. If they arc finding
their voice, shouldn't someone be listening?
Arthur Black
international Scene