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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1997-07-30, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 30,1997 PAGE 5. Arthur Black Nothing silly about that If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf. Bob Hope Old Ski Nose was right - golf is about as far from fun as it's possible to get without employing fragmentation grenades. Whoever dubbed it a 'game' must have been a card- carrying masochist. Golf is a deadly serious business, and so are the utensils golfers use. They aren't called 'clubs' for nothing. Nope, golf clubs are weapons, not toys. Now Slinky - there was a toy. You remember Slinky? The most unlikely- looking child's toy imaginable. Just a wavering stack of thin, coiled wire. No batteries, no wheels, no computer hookups. And kids still go nuts for them. The Slinky was bom 54 years ago, in the brain of a U.S. Navy engineer. Richard James was working on a complicated balancing device for a battleship engine. What he needed was a big spring that would keep the metre level, even at sea in heavy waves. As he hunched over blueprints on his desk, his elbow knocked one of the prototype springs off his desk. But the spring didn't just fall to the floor and roll to a stop. Instead, it hit the floor, compressed, spiraled up and then lilnternational Scene ____________________________________________. __________________________________ Singapore — pearl of the Orient I recently did an article on the international competition for 13-year-olds in the subjects of math and science. While Canadian students placed in about the middle of the pack in both subjects, those of Singapore came first in these two subjects. The question which immediately comes to mind is what they are doing right that we are not. But this topic begs more than a simple question and we might like to look more closely at the Singaporean success and the Canadian apparent lack of it. I would guess that Singapore is not high on the list of topics discussed at the supper table; my students knew next to nothing about it. Some of them did not even know where it was. Let's, therefore, have a little geography lesson. Up until World War II, the city of Singapore, (more precisely the island) was located at the tip of the country of Malaya in southeast Asia. It was, as such, part of the British Empire, and when the Japanese declared war on the United States with its attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, the whole country came under attack by the Japanese and was soon occupied. After the war Singapore eventually became an independent state and, because of its strategic location, quickly became a financial, manufacturing and transshipment \ \ kinda....va.shayed across the floor, end over end. James went back to his blueprint, but his mind was on that weird coil of wire and the way it behaved. That night he took the coil home with him and showed it to his wife. They both sensed that they just might have a toy fad on their hands. Betty James went through the dictionary and announced that she had just the name for the new toy. Slinky. Slinky was a slow starter, mostly because kids had never seen anything like it before, but it eventually took off. More than 250 million Slinkys have been sold in the past half century. Speaking of silly toys ... how about the silliest of all - Silly Putty? That too, was an unexpected byproduct of a serious research project. Back in the Second World War it suddenly dawned on the bigdomes in the U.S. Pentagon that the West was in big trouble. Japan's invasion of the Far East meant that 90 per cent of the world's rubber supply was in danger of falling into enemy hands. No rubber supply would very soon mean no military and civilian components in literally millions of American machines and instruments, not to mention no tires for American cars or boots for American feet. The generals called General Electric and gave them a simple order: find a cheap, synthetic substitute for rubber - quick. One of the GE experts assigned to the By Raymond Canon centre. Since it had to live by its brains, given that there were no natural resources such as we have in Canada, education became a centrepiece of the small country's development program. The bulk of the population living there is Chinese in origin and Orientals have long had a profound respect for education. For this reason it was not hard to get young people into the mood for hard study. They had only to look at their own country to see how handsomely it paid off. If sticking to the books is an Oriental trail, it became positively an obsession in Singapore and it must have seemed at times as if this was the only thing that students did. It should be pointed out that the leaders in the Singaporean government have always taken a paternalistic attitude towards its citizens in general. While still a democracy, the fact is that the people were given a set of guidelines to follow and there were fines in case they were caught not obeying. To give you one example, Singaporeans are not allowed to chew gum; it has been decided that this is not a polite thing to do. Decorum is the order of the day and some readers may remember the American boy who was caned because he engaged in acts of vandalism. There is in Singapore, needless to say, no Young Offenders' Act. All this has not prevented Singapore from becoming a bit smug at times, especially on the part of Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister, now considered to be something of a Godfather for the country. Across the border in Malaysia, is located project was James Wright, a chemical engineer. He thought a mixture of boric acid and silicone oil might have promise, but when he mixed them all he got was a worthless spongy blob. Disgusted, he tossed it on the floor. And gulped as the blob rebounded past his eyes! The blob was definitely bouncier than conventional rubber. It was also stretchier, and had the interesting ability to lift images off newspaper pages. What it couldn't do was any of the things that real rubber was valued for. So it was back to the drawing board, and 'the blob' became a conversational curiosity that Wright would bring out at parties for the amusement of his guests. Fortunately for kids around the world, two of those guests happened to be in the toy business. They bought the rights, came up with the name Silly Putty and the idea of marketing the stuff in plastic eggs - and have so far sold 200 million of them. By the way, just in case you think that that Silly Putty is utterly frivolous, note that athletes use balls of the stuff to strengthen their grip, dry cleaners use it to remove lint from clothing, and head waiters say Silly Putty is the perfect thing to put under a wobbly chair or table leg. Oh yes - and Air Force test pilots swear that Silly Putty makes the best ear plugs. Nothing silly about that. the small city of Johor, which for a while become the domicile of one of Mr. Lee's critics. Lee dismissed the city as being "notorious for shootings, muggins and car­ jackings." It goes without saying that there was immediate reaction on the part of the Malaysian government. The upshot of all this was that Mr. Lee had to issue a public apology for his comments. Since arrogance is a word that comes easily to the minds of many people when describing Mr. Lee, such as an apology must have brought great satisfaction to the Malaysians who were wise enough not to push the matter loo far. While Singaporean students are still beavering away, there are signs that their rigid regime is running into criticism as it is in other parts of the Orient. There is a considerable amount of envy of the ability of North Americans to improvise, create and develop, characteristics that are still relatively rare in Asian. It is not hard to surmise that some of the Singaporeans, not to mention other Asian students, would be glad to exchange some of their exalted placings in the math/science contest for an increased ability to do what Americans do so well. In short, maybe we both have something the other could leam. A Final Thought The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles. No bitter tomorrows Some people just seem to be so bitter, don't you think? I come in contact with a lot of people and after almost nine years in this job, I am still puzzled by the size of the chips on some folks' shoulders. Every slight is personal, not just unintentional mishap. Only they can be affronted, only they can be hurt, only they can bear a grudge. I agree there are days when it's just not that easy to pick yourself up and move off Grumble Corner. It seems that more and more life is work and we're all just tired. Even our social occasions are so squeezed into an already hectic calendar that attending them is just one more effort. But, while many of us aren't exactly Suzie or Stuie Sunshine, we're sensitive enough to acknowledge a break in the clouds when it comes. And for this failing, I feel sorry for those crotchety souls who aren't content to just be miserable in their own lives, but like to rain on everyone's parade. I met my first curmudgeon when I was quite young. He was in his 80s, the parent of a family friend. I visited him several times over the course of a decade and I never recall a smile or a laugh. He spoke harshly, growled about everything and gruffly brushed off any overtures of kindness. And he terrified me. "He's old," the adults explained. "He can't hear well, he can't get around on his own anymore and his quality of life just isn't what it used to be." I find that phrase "quality of life" rather interesting now, because in the years since, I have heard of many individuals who some might argue never had any quality to their life. And they are remarkable. Last April, an Academy Award was presented to Jessica Yu for her documentary Breathing Lessons. The subject of this film is Mark O'Brien, who was left a quadriplegic 41 years ago after being stricken by polio. He now lives 23 hours a day in a 640-pound iron lung. He is also a university graduate, a published poet and essayist who has just written his autobiography. He types on a laptop computer, holding a foot-long stick between his teeth. Those who know O'Brien say he can be cranky, particularly when his caregivers are late coming to assist him. He has little sympathy for politically correct pundits, calling himself a cripple. The term offends some for reasons he thinks are not valid, but to him is more specific than disabled. He also says that what he is, is horrible and monstrous. "But it is still being alive and there are possibilities." That is the quality of this life — there are always possibilities. I would be the first to agree that sometimes it's just very hard to take a positive look at things. Sometimes it's hard to remember, or care, that there are those who have it worse than us. They've got their problems to live with and we've got ours. It's relative. But the strength is to not let every tragedy and trouble consume us, to live in the present and let dreams of possibility help keep biller tomorrows away.