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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1999-10-06, Page 5Arthur Black They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere! Just because you 're paranoid doesn 't mean they aren 't out to get you. Anon I read a bagful of books over the summer, some of them good and some of them lousy - but the flat out weirdest book I read had to be a tome entitled UFO’s, JFK and F.lvis. It is written - weirdly enough by a TV actor, Richard Belzer. You know him? You do if you watch the TV show Homicide: Life In The Street. Belzer plays a sardonic, cadaverous Baltimore detective by the name of Lieutenant Munch. Before his Homicide gig, Belzer was a stand-up comedian - which I have difficulty believing because Belzer scowls and grumbles and looks more like an undertaker than a comic. As for his book, well the title pretty well says it all. Munch - sorry, Belzer - believes in the Grand Conspiracy - he believes the U.S. government is lying to us about UFOs, that Mafiosi routinely call the shots in the White House, that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy and a dupe. Belzer even believes there is a giant sculpture of an alien face carved into the surface of Mars, and that NASA knows all about it. No conspiracy theory is too far-fetched for Belzer. The Warren Commission? A International Scene By Raymond Canon Banks still lack touch . Just when I think the Canadian banks are getting their act together, along comes an experience which convinces me they still have a long way to go. I am not sure whether some of their policies are established from on high or whether the branches are just not with it when it comes to providing customer service. I recently went to a branch at which I have an account because it is very near to where I live. There I asked about getting some French francs. I was not surprised to be told that they did not have any but that they could order them for me. This has been the policy of Canadian banks for years even though one of the local travel agencies manages to have some on hand at any given time. Albeit at a slightly higher rate of exchange. Imagine my surprise when I was told that, if I ordered $100 in french francs, the money would have to be delivered to the branch by Brinks and it would cost me $35 to cover their shipping charges. Compare that to the $1 commission which the travel agency charges for the same amount of francs. I was dumfounded! If the bank’s purpose in all that was to drive away customers, they were doing an admirable job. I checked with two other banks. Neither had government cover-up. The U.S. space program? Run by Nazis. The moon? It’s hollow - and a space station for aliens. As for the assassination of Kennedy - Belzer pulls out all the stops on that one. Number one: Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with it. That’s why the cops let Jack Ruby get close enough to kill him - to keep Oswald quiet, you see. Belzer has a theory as to why Kennedy was killed too. It wasn't because of the botched Cuban invasion. It wasn’t because Moscow ordered it. It wasn’t because the Mafia wanted a more malleable man in the White House. It was because JFK knew the real story about Unidentified Flying Objects. Sure! It turns out (according to Belzer) that Kennedy was secretly briefed by the Pentagon ‘way back when he was a senator. The Pentagon, see, has this huge dossier on UFOs that they’ve been compiling for decades - only they won’t make it public because ... well, just because. So John Kennedy got whacked by the Powers That Be (Communists? Palestinians? Seventh Day Adventists? - Belzer’s coy about this) because he knew too much about flying saucers. And, says Belzer, Marilyn Monroe got killed because JFK might have spilled the beans by way of pillow talk. The closest Belzer gets to actually naming the people behind this vast web of conspiracy are some guarded comments about - wait for it, now, ‘Men In Black’. There were, says Belzer, several unidentified Men In Black in Dealey Plaza the day a service charge but it could take up to two weeks to get the money and even then they would not guarantee delivery within that time. I was willing to believe them; the last time I ordered foreign currency, (Swiss francs and German marks, hardly unknown in exchange markets), it took the same bank no less than six weeks. Three bank employees apologized for the delay, each one giving a different excuse, but two days longer and I would have had to cancel the order and get them at the airport at a higher price. I was, to put it mildly, not amused. I checked in Halifax and sure enough my informant is able to get foreign exchange in two days. It seems that the bank has an international centre in the city and sends the required currency right over to the branch bank. The bank’s biggest international centre is, however, not in Halifax but in Toronto. The 200 kms. between London and there must be a formidable barrier indeed. Another time I bought foreign currency from a downtown London bank (I don’t usually do business with the bank but it happened to be handy at the time) and when I returned' there with my leftover marks and francs, I was told they would only take them back if I were a “regular” customer. In vain I told them I had bought them there and it seemed only logical that, if they sold them to me, they should also buy them back from me. Kennedy was shot. Mysterious Men In Black, he says, frequently show up after any reports of UFOs. In fact, Belzer tells us, Thomas Jefferson was visited by a Man In Black who may have given him the design for the Great Seal of the United States. Come to think of it ... Richard Belzer always wears dark glasses and a black suit. And the only review of his book I’ve seen ran in The National Post - owned by Conrad Black - who has the same first name as the owner of the Hilton chain of hotels - which is where Mick Jagger often stays when he’s on tour. You know Mick - the guy who had a hit song called Paint It Black'! Jagger also had a romantic rendezvous with the estranged wife of Pierre Trudeau. Who liked to paddle a canoe - just like the famous pseudo-Indian Grey (almost black) Owl. Which helps to explain why John Diefenbaker (a known Soviet mole) tried to cover up the LSD mind control experiments that Tommy Douglas conducted in an NDP attempt to overthrow the prairie wheat barons. (You thought all those grain elevators were for storage? You are naive.) Which explains why Ben Johnson had to take the fall as a drug­ using sprinter - to divert attention from the Mountie’s scheme to ... build a secret hideaway for Elvis in an abandoned - blackened - Inco mine near Sudbury! Belzer's right - it all fits together! The clerk kept saying, “I’m only following rules!” Is it any surprise that I throw -up my hands in despair when I see the same banks want to be operators in world banking? They cannot even give efficient service in such a mundane international thing as foreign currencies. As if to rub salt into the wound, the day after I had the experience with my bank, it announced near record profits for the last quarter. With fees like the $35 for a simple foreign exchange transaction, no wonder! Finally, to top it off, while all this was going on, I was doing some research for an article on Somalia which has to be one of the countries of the world closest to anarchy. There was a reference to Canada. It seems that a Somali living in our province can send dollars to the appropriate bank in Somalia and WITHIN 24 HOURS after the money arrives, the recipient in that country, regardless of the community in which he lives, will have the local monetary equivalent in his or her hands. Maybe we should hire some Somalian bankers. r~" 1 • i A Final Thought You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips. - Oliver Goldsmith THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1999. PAGE 5. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp To gentler times* When I was 10 ... This was a topic for discussion during a special afternoon held at the Brussels Legion recently in recognition of the International Year of the Older Person. The idea was for public school students to spend time talking to seniors and learning about what life was like way back then. It all kind of got me thinking. And what really struck me was that while certainly the world had changed from the time of my parents generation to mine, it had nothing on the leaps and bounds taken in the past decade. When the speaker was 10 rural life was one of outdoor washrooms, no hydro and horse- drawn carriages. It was a mile and a half walk to school in all kinds of weather. Food was fresh or not at all and entertainment was by oil lamp or outdoor fun. School was a one-room building with all grades together and the basics were the requisite course of study. Christmas was a time of family and tradition. Gifts were simple and often needed. When I was 10, entertainment was the Beatles and my transistor radio. We had an arena for skating, but kids still swam in the Maitland River dam. Television I watched rarely, preferring instead to expend my youthful energies in a game of chase or pick­ up baseball. Twenty-five cents bought me a pop and a bag of chips and a penny even had some value. It actually got you two bubblegums! Though I lived in town, my walk to school was also a mile and a half in all kinds of weather. Reading, riting and 'rithmetic were still the essential classroom ritual. And while I attended a public school, my country cousin familiarized me with the one-room concept. Raised by people who experienced the depression, I was exposed to a lifestyle in which extravagance played no part. From necessities to frivolities, purchases were considered before made. The biggest gifts of Christmas were time spent with family. Today, entertainment is limitless. From stereo systems to video games, from organized sports to rock concerts, kids are exposed to a diverse world of fun and games. In school the calculators do the math and computers link them to technology their parents never even envisioned. Much of the change has come down to the monetary, I think. The pocket of parents with regards to their children is essentially bottomless. Literally from infancy they are involved — having been signed up for this or that. On a recent radio program a man was remarking on troubled youth, adolescent angst. What he's been trying to figure out, he said, was exactly what today's kids have to be unhappy about. "Have you ever known a generation that had so much?" he queried. Perhaps that is the problem. How can you appreciate simplicity without having ever really experienced it? How can you fully enjoy what life has to offer when you've been able to take it all for granted? Perhaps it would be good for all of us if we found a way to occasionally revisit and introduce our children to those gentler times.