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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1999-11-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1999. PAGE 5. M Arthur Black Laugh? I thought I’d die / said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth: what doeth it? Ecclesiastes 2:2 Laughter is the best medicine Old Proverb Well, which is it going to be, ladies? Is laughter the province of lunatics? Or of healers? Is it good for us? Or is it carcinogous? It’s getting hard to tell. Of course it’s getting hard to tell if anything in the world isn’t a carcinogen. Over the past few years I have grown used to the notion that: Red wine will give me cancer. Cigars (but of course) will give me cancer. Tomatoes ... olive oil ... back bacon ... Great Lakes pickerel - it’s not hard to find some quack somewhere who’s prepared to swear that I’m risking major chemotherapy if I even nibble any of the foregoing. I know that I’m not getting nearly enough sleep to protect me from cancer. That I should be drinking lots more green tea and lots less coffee if I wanted to avoid becoming just another malignancy statistic. And Vitamin C. I know that I am ingesting far too little - or is it far too much? - of the Sunshine Vitamin if I hope to live a happy, healthy sarcoma-free life. Why, I even cashed in my cell phone. Right after I read that I was courting brain tumors with ever call I made. I accept all that. I’m a typical, gullible shlump prepared to shriek and change my International Scene By Raymond Canon Higher gasoline prices As a consumer I am just as anxious as the next person to pay the lowest price for such things as gasoline. I make an effort to find the cheapest gas in the city and that is where I fill up my tank if it is at all possible. With the recent increases in the price of gas, I have my work cut out for me these days but I must hesitate to blame the oil companies this time around for gouging us even though I know they have been guilty of such deception in the past. Let me explain why. Last year about this time I was paying in the neighbourhood of 50 cents a litre. Right now the price at the station nearest my house is just under 65 cents, or about 30 per cent higher than it was last year. Keep in mind that petroleum is priced in U.S. dollars on world markets no matter where its origin is. Furthermore, the bill for a tanker of petroleum, for example, must be settled in dollars. My source of information on this matter informs me that the world price of petroleum has gone up by just under 70 per cent since September, 1998 which means that we could possibly be seeing even higher prices in the near future. What makes it ever more confusing for consumers is that approximately 50 per cent of lifestyle at the drop of a headline. But this time, bygawd, they’ve gone too far. Someone has announced that laughter ... could kill us. I found it in a copy of a British medical journal called The Lancet. It’s a serious, sober report from a gaggle of Dutch researchers that - straight-faced, mind - contends too much laughter can trigger what these boffins refer to as “a failure of the H-Reflex” - a physiological phenomenon that makes muscles contract. Apparently, if something is just too funny, the H-Reflex gets short-circuited. Which brings, and I quote: “many muscles to the point of collapse”. My response is: Yeah, so? This is a common, unscientific condition known around the world as being ‘weak with laughter’ Or more coarsely, “I laughed so hard I peed my pants.” It’s momentarily debilitating, gents. Potentially embarrassing - but hardly life­ threatening. In any case, what’s the antidote - not laughing? Permanent glumdom? Sorry. Sounds a bit too much like Monday morning in Moscow to me. Speaking of which, another gaggle of lab- coated culture vultures has been sniffing around the world, trying to figure out just which nation houses the happiest citizens. Russians, predictably, came out pretty much at the bottom of the heap. With Muslim apartment-bomber terrorists at their neck and economic meltdown on their doorstep, it’s been a while since Russians have had anything to grin about. But apart from that, some surprises. Swedes are gloomy and suicidal, right? Not according to this survey. It shows that by and large, citizens of Sweden are more than happy with the posted price of gas is made up of taxes. That means, if the oil companies increase the pump price, the government take is calculated on the increased price and so it goes up as welt. (How often has any government bothered to point this out to you?) So Messrs. Chretien and Harris are partly responsible for the posted increase in the price. Those who have been to European countries know that the price over there is much higher. In Germany, France or Switzerland, we are looking at about $1.50 a litre. That is because governments tax it more heavily than they do here. Try filling up your tank in France and see what a hole it makes in your pocket book. Compared to those prices, ours are a bargain and this is precisely what Europeans say when they come here. As for the U.S., it is currently about 47 cents Canadian a litre. (I’ll give you one guess why I see so many Canadians tanking up when I am over there; it is not for the purpose of stimulating the American economy. Our snowbirds do a good job of accomplishing that already). Part of the reason behind the steady climb of prices is the ability of OPEC, the off-and-on again oil cartel, to hold its production down and not flood the market with oil. However, with the price as high as it is, there will be an increased tendency of some of the members to cheat, as they have before, in order to make up for current account or budgetary deficits. Nigeria and Venezuela are their lot in life. Ireland, north and south - nexus of “The Troubles”? Assassinations, bombings, violent hatred? Top of the heap. The Irish, according to this survey, are delighted with where they sit and who they are. And Spain? Home of the joyous flamenco and sappy, sun-filled afternoons on the golden beaches of the Costa del Sol? Bottom of the pile. Spaniards says the survey, are, by and large, a grumpy, sullen lot. You’d think they lived in Toronto, for heaven’s sake. As for Canucks, well, we’re kind of in the middle ... on a par with the moderately happy Europeans. That’s what it says in this survey, but I like to think if you examined it more closely, you’d discover that Canadians, under a grey, protective carapace of surly melancholia, are actually, probably the happiest nation on earth. Sure. We’re just suffering from a temporary humour drought, that’s all. Well, consider: in the last 30 years we have exported to the Comedy Sinkhole just south of us: Art Linkletter, George Gobel, David Steinberg, Rich Little, Martin Short, John Candy, Paul Shaffer, Lome Michaels, Dan Akroyd, Dave Thomas, Mike Myers ... and Raymond Burr (You don’t think Raymond Burr is funny? Check an early episode of Perry Mason) . Some of the funniest people in the English- speaking world. All Canadian - all emmigrants. It’s going to take a while for us to ‘top up’ the Canadian humour reservoir. In the meantime, consider the words of yet another Canadian funny guy - a screen writer by the name of Bernard Slade. Bernie said: a laugh is the opposite of a breakdown. It’s a break up. two of the most guilty parties of this type of action but others have not had exactly clean hands. Furthermore, there is also the question how much longer Iraq, with its massive oil reserves and its just as massive need for money, can be kept out of international markets to the extent that has been the case since the Gulf War. However, there is something that governments, both on this side of the Atlantic, and on the other, can do and that is not consider the gasoline taxes as just another fiscal version of the tooth fairy and plough more of it back into improving our highway systems. That is what the gas taxes were meant to do in the first place but somehow this concept got lost just as the income tax, which was, if you recall, going to be a temporary tax to be used to pay for World War I. That war, by the way, ended 81 years ago. Then again, the oil companies can talk all they want about supply and demand but this concept does not bear out all the changes in the price that we see at the pumps. Failure to be more consistent will continue to cause, as much as anything else, consumer mistrust of anything that the gas companies say to defend their actions. A Final Thought Always do more than is required of you. - George S. Patton Feeling well Who’ll take the woman with the skinny legs? I don’t recall the singer, but this enchanting little line from a ditty was the mantra of an old boyfriend of mine when he encountered me in the school hallway. As a teen, I was, to be brutally honest, scrawny. It had little to do with planning, and much to do with metabolism. Topping the scales at 93 lbs, I filled my face in the hopes of filling out my clothes, with burgers, fries and mac and cheese. To no avail. Even in the day of Twiggy, finding apparel in a size 3 was impossible. Now, of course, all that has changed. No longer a waifish nymphet, I am faced when shopping with racks of fashion which appear to be sized for the walking doll I had as a child. The skinny on fashionable physiques is that apparently less is best. People magazine recently ran a cover story on how thin is too thin. The answer appears to be, the way most of Hollywood’s women look. The competition to be sexiest is resulting in unhealthy approaches to obtaining a swizzel stick figure. It made sense to talk about the problems caused by being overweight and wise methods of knocking off a few pounds to achieve a healthy tipping of the scales. Why is it so difficult to accept the harm being done when the pendulum swings the other way? Excess in anything isn’t good, whether it’s eating too much or not enough, too much of one thing or not enough of another. There are many people who look great, but feast on fare fit for no one. While others who look a few pounds heavy may actually make wise food choices. I have a friend who is extremely health conscious. She looks at least five years younger than her age as well as appearing to feel that and then some. I admire her self­ control. But I also question her zeal. Her commitment to exercise goes beyond the suggested 40 minutes or so three times a week. Instead she exacts a grueling minimum one-hour session at least once a day from herself. Eating the right food, the right way she looks great. She is testimony of what she practices. And yet, I wonder. Slipping back to my view that too much of anything isn’t good, I am inclined to be suspicious of fanaticism in any form. Frankly, I hold firm to the notion that I’m here to enjoy myself, but with a little common sense. I want to live a good life for a long time, but not forever. And so I make the choices I can, the ones that make sense to me. I quit smoking years ago. I try not to take medication. I kept my washing machine in the basement so I am required to run up and down two flights of stairs on wash days. I walk the dog, I do some sit-ups. I drink plenty of water, but no longer with my meals. I eat fruit by itself, not in combination with other foods. And I avoid desserts — on weekdays. I am, as you can see, by no means a shining example. But I think I’d rather live as I do and savour some of the delights, like chocolate, wine and potato chips. Or go for a hike because I want to, not because I must. I’ll never again be a size 3, nor would I look good if I was. And I’m too old to feel guilty. I’m happy if what I do just makes me feel well.