HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1997-05-28, Page 5I
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J. Arthur Black
Oustanding packaging
no dairy can equal
The British? They don't have sex lives.
They have hot water bottles.
Milos Foreman
Ah, it's a hardy stereotype - the frigid
Brits. Nightclub comedians know they can
always score a cheap guffaw by making fun
of passionless limeys and their prissy, stiff-
upper-lippish ways.
Anglo-Saxon sang-froid is universally
acknowledged, universally disparaged and,
as an Englishman himself might say, a load
of utter rubbish.
The British aren’t passionless, they just
have better manners (soccer louts excluded)
than the rest of us.
As for lacking a sex drive you've got to be
wondering what bushel basket Milos Forman
has been living under for the past quarter of a
century. Did he miss the Profumo Scandal?
Fergie, Duchess of Toes? Prince Charles and
Lady Tampon? The veritable daisy chain of
British Members of Parliament who get
caught - at a rate of about once a fortnight -
with their Oxfords under the wrong beds?
Near as I can tell, the British are about as
randy a lot as this hormonally overcharged
planet has ever spawned. Consider the news
from Exeter College at Oxford University,
where undergraduates have voted to ban
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
France, Canada
marching in step
I have to wonder whether President
Jacques Chirac of France and our Prime
Minister Jean Chrdtien had a long
conversation recently about elections.
Whether they did or not, the fact remains that
both countries found themselves in an
election which was much sooner than it had
to be.
Although Mr. Chirac must envy the ratings
enjoyed by Jean Chretien, he has called the
election for somewhat the same reason. Polls
done recently show that he is enjoying more
popularity than he has in some time and
during the next year it may get worse before
it gets better.
Certainly Mr. Chretien has been inking
along the same lines and, while this is
certainly the way that a lot of politicians
rationalize their action, somebody might tell
both men what happened to Ontario's David
Peterson when he followed that path.
Both France and Canada have
unacceptably high levels of unemployment
and for this reason the elections in both
countries are going to be fought to a certain
degree on the old slogan "Jobs, jobs, jobs!"
France is, admittedly, in worse shape than
Canada; the official rate there is 13 per cent,
while ours is hovering about nine and a half
per cent.
France's rate has gotten worsen over the
past year and, even though there has been a
light improvement of late, it is too soon to
heavy petting.
In the dining room.
They also voted in favour of splitting the
junior common room into two areas: one for
heavy petting, and one for light petting.
Oh yes, and they also supported a motion
banning intercourse in the library between 3
a.m. and 8 a.m. One has to assume that for
the other 19 hours of the day, boffing in the
books enjoys the Exeter College Seal of
Approval.
Doesn't sound like a sex-drive-challenged
nation to me.
The Norwegians - there's another group
that gets held up to ridicule in the Sexier
Than Thou Department. The Norse are cold,
the cliche goes. Distant. Aloof. They got no
rhythm.
Well, you couldn't prove it by the story
that’s rocking Norway right now. Norwegian
media are busy chronicling the ongoing
public quarrel between two women over just
exactly whose breasts appeared in a
Norwegian magazine recently.
Seems an enterprising photographer
snapped a picture of a Norwegian lass
strolling along a Canary Island beach with
only the bottom part of her bikini performing
its function. When the photo appeared in a
weekly magazine back home, a distraught
woman named Aud Sto sued the publisher
for 150,000 kroner, claiming she was the
woman who belonged to those breasts, and
the publication of the photo had subjected
see in it anything like a trend downward. As
for Canada, we will be lucky to see anything
below nine per cent.
Frankly, I wish governments on both sides
of the ocean would stop acting as if they
were responsible for any job creation. If there
is a net increase in jobs in any one month, the
government in office latches on to this
improvement in the same manner as a
drowning man clutching a lifebuoy.
One would think, by listening to the French
politicians on the government side, that they
had been primarily responsible for any job
creation that takes place. "We are going to
create x number of jobs," they confidently
claim and you can be sure that this sort of
statement will be routinely proclaimed in
Canada, as well as anywhere else there
happens to be an election.
As they downsize the civil service,
governments are directly causing the loss of
more jobs than they are creating even
indirectly. I wish there was some way that
we could keep such rhetoric out of election
campaigns.
Messrs Chirac and Chrdtien also have a
major project on the horizon. For the French
it is entry into the single currency club which
is due to take place in 1999 and into which
France has said many times over that it will
enter with the necessary economic
achievements.
For Mr. Chretien it is the future of Quebec
in our federation, but our prime minister
lacks the assurances that seem to be
commonplace with Mr. Chirac. However,
just as Canadian voters are extremely
puzzled by what lies behind Mr. Chretien's
her to ridicule in her rural home town.
Whereupon a second Norse nymph by the
name of Inger Marie Maylam surfaced to say
that her's, not Ms Sto's, were the breasts that
graced the photo in question. Ms Maylam
also said, "The breasts are mine and they are
for free. It is wrong for somebody else to try
to make 150,000 kroner on them."
Sounds pretty sexually well-adjusted to
me.
Nope, if you want to see sexual uptightness
in action, you don't have to leave home.
Pecksniffian prudery is alive and well here in
the Great White North. Just last month, some
upright citizens in Toronto tried to have a
woman arrested for breast feeding her child
in public.
What is the problem here? Why is it I can
turn on my TV and see severed heads, full-
frontal NHL punch-ups and bullet-riddled
bodies on channel after channel, but
something as beautiful, unthreatening and
utterly healthy as human female breasts
instantly tighten the spinchters of Canada's
self-appointed censors?
Maybe it's not the breasts at all - maybe it's
the idea of breast milk that offends them.
Dunno why. We are talking literally about
the staff of life here.
Besides, human breast milk enjoys one
advantage that the stuff our dairies sell us
will never be able to equal.
Outstanding packaging.
vagueness, French voters are not at all certain
that they share their leader's optimism that all
will be ready when the time comes.
One thing that both countries can brag
about is their record level of exports. Canada
outshines France in this respect; its trade
surplus is $36 billion to France's $27 billion,
but both lighten up a less than spectacular
performance. One can only wonder what the
unemployment levels would be like if it were
not for all that foreign trade going on.
But in one area France and Canada are
totally different - their manner in electing
their politicians. Canada uses what is called
"first past the post" system where the
candidate with the highest number of votes
wins regardless of the percentage.
In France it is somewhat more
complicated. There are two rounds of voting.
If a candidate wins 50 per cent plus in a
riding, he automatically becomes the winner.
If the leading candidate has less than 50 per
cent, there is a run-off where only the leading
candidates take part. The winner in the
second round goes off to parliament.
For Canadians who do not like the idea of
candidates winning with less than 50 per cent
of the vote, this is a system which they might
consider. It has been talked about at times
but so far, warts and all, we prefer to stick
with the British system.
A Final Thought
You need to do your own growing, no
matter how tall your grandfather was.
— Irish proverb
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 28,1997 PAGE 5.
The
Short
of it
If elected we.,.
"If elected my party will..."
Oh, really?
Sitting at the Huron County Federation of
Agriculture's all-candidates meeting last
Wednesday night, I heard those first words
repeated on several occasions by each of the
candidates. And each time my cynicism
barometre seemed to rise a little higher.
Each time an answer began with "If elected
my party will...", a peevish whisper intruded
at the back of my mind, chanting "... do
whatever it pleases."
I wasn't always so bitter. Until recently if
anyone had asked me I would have
described myself as an ardent ideallist. I
remember not that awfully long ago,
grasping enthusiastically onto the lifeline of
optimism thrown to me by politicians. They
would represent the feelings, the views of
the majority. They would share a common
vision and together we would work toward
the same goal. The promises they made were
as good as kept.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Many
have discovered that some promises uttered
during campaigning quickly lose their
priority once power is assured. As an
acquaintance of mine said recently, "Why is
it they only really seem to give a rat's ?!#
about job creation when there's an election?"
I believe at the onset that candidates want
to go in and make a difference. I believe
NDP Jan Johnstone wants to create jobs. I
believe Liberal MP Paul Steckle wants to
reduce the deficit and PC Colleen Schenk
hopes to improve the health care and
education systems. I'm certain the Christian
Heritage Party's Dave Joslin believes
government can go back to the basic
principles this country was founded on and
that Reform's Doug Fines wants to ensure a
market-driven economy. And perhaps they
would succeed, but usually when it comes to
government, promises tend to be easier made
than kept. They must generally go with the
flow.
Certainly, there are those who are less
'party' people than others. They stand for the
principles of their constituents and behind
their own, which, while it gets them the
respect of the voters, usually means a falling
from grace with the party faithful.
Remember that Huron-Bruce MP Paul
Steckle lost his committee post after
opposing the Liberals' gun control bill?
Our candidate is to be our voice, but too
often it seems they get caught in the power
trip of the ruling government that dictates
what it believes to be best for us and forgets
to actually listen. We are treated instead as
recalcitrant children who made the mess and
must take the punishment without question.
I tried to recapture a bit of my former
ideallism the other night. When Steckle said
he was optimistic about this country I
wanted to be too. When he noted that
Canadians seem to be the only people who
don’t think this is the best place to live, I had
to admit he was right.
But then I had to wonder why.
Canada does seem to be moving forward
away from, at least in some areas, dark
times. But there are still big issues to
address. Canadians need to believe
government is listening. They need to
believe that the policies they elect their
government on will be promises kept.