HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-04-01, Page 5A Final Thought
Reflect on your present blessing, of
which every man has plenty, not on your
past misfotunes, of which all men have
some — Charles Dickens
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 1998. PAGE 5.
Eat sensibly,
exercise lots . . .
die anyway
The problem with experts is
they don't know anything
Anon
Let's see now...booze is bad for you, right?
Hold on — a recent study shows that two
ounces of alcohol per day might actually be
beneficial to your heart.
Oh. So booze is good for you.
But coffee! We know caffeine does terrible
things to the human body. No quarrel about
that, is there?
Actually, yes. Some experts say that the
stimulating effects of coffee can assist the
digestive process and contribute to alertness.
Oh. So coffee is good for you, too.
And anyway, as long as you get enough oat
bran you'll be fine. Remember just a few
years ago when oat bran was being touted as
the new miracle food?
Well, the experts re-checked their figures.
Turns out oat bran is just ... oat bran.
Not bad, but not likely to add decades to
your life, either.
So what's good and what's bad? That's the
problem. You can find an expert to take just
about any position. Tobacco manufacturers
can even line up M.D.s willing to swear that
Crowded roads
If you have driven in Europe, it does not
take you long to realize that we are very
lucky in southwestern Ontario when it comes
to traffic congestion. The situation over there
is bad and getting worse all the time, so
much so that some governments are now
seriously giving consideration to finding
ways to reduce the number of trucks and cars
on the roads even while the automobile
industry is finding ways to sell us even more
cars and trucks.
I must confess that I find German roads
horribly congested, but in all honesty that
country is not the worst. That honour goes to
Italy which is considerably ahead of second
place Portugal. What makes the situation in
Portugal even worse is that country's habit of
having the largest number of accidents per
capita in the whole continent.
Britain has the third highest density while
Germany, congested as it is, comes a distant
fourth. Switzerland, with all its mountains,
tunnels, etc. is far back in number seven.
France is number 12, while the Spaniards
bring up the rear with about one-quarter the
density of Italy.
I thought it might be worth looking at
Great Britain since they appear to be the ones.
currently most prepared to do something
about it.
I recall being in London a number of years
ago and the talk at the time was building a
ring road around the city as a means of
casing traffic in the core area. This ring road
the dangers of tobacco "have not been
conclusively proven".
Anybody who's ever smoked knows
smoking may be seductive but it's sure as
hell not good for you.
Exercise? It's common knowledge that
exercise is great. Oh yeah? Tell that to
James Fixx. If you can get his attention.
Fixx practically invented the jogging craze
back in the 1970s. He wrote The Complete
Book of Running. He personally ran 10 miles
a day. He gave lectures and made countless
TV appearances extolling the virtues of
jogging and long-distance running.
Right up until he dropped dead of a heart
attack in his running shoes and gym shorts —
aged 52.
Well, at least the experts all agree that fatty
foods are bad for us right?
Cheeseburgers, French fries, pizza,
anything with butter on it ...
Wrong again. Ladies and gentlemen, may I
present one more expert: LuAnn
Wandsnider, associate professor of
anthropology at the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln. Professor Wandsnider has been
studying the eating habits of human beings
over the past several hundred thousand years.
Her conclusion: you might as well enjoy
that slab of banana cream pie. You're going
to have it anyway.
Professor Wandsnider says our hunger for
fatty foods is 'way more than skin deep — it's
imbedded in our very genes. She says that
was looked upon as something of a panacea
and in due course it was built.
That was 10 years ago but, when you go to
London, you realize that the congestion is
even worse. The ring road, which is called
M25 in the British system, is perhaps even
more congested than ever, and Prime
Minister Tony Blair, who is more inclined to
make changes than most other leaders, has
decided that enough is enough. He has made
it public that discouraging the use of cars is
going to be yet another of his "tough
choices."
Over the next 10 years or so, his
government will try to discourage the use of
cars so that a 10 per cent reduction in road
traffic can be achieved in that time frame.
If the British government goes the same
way as others, such as Singapore, in curbing
road traffic, you can be sure that road pricing
will be part of the picture. This means
charging people for using roads and, in
addition, to tax private parking spaces for
businesses.
The railways which have been largely
privatized during the past decade, will be
asked to take part, by such things as
improved service, fewer delays and
competitive pricing. Passenger numbers
have, in fact, increased by just under 10 per
cent privatization, but they will have to
increase considerably more than that if the
congestion on the roads is to be reduced by
the hoped-for 10 per cent.
Right now rail has only five per cent of the
total passenger market and six per cent of the
freight business. Even to double this would
require not only a great deal of planning but
human beings have been giving in to their
cravings for fatty foods since the dawn of
time.
And not just because it tastes so good —
because it meant survival of our species.
Most of us are descended from prehistoric
tribes of hunter-gatherers that subsisted on
roots and berries and' whatever animals they
were fast enough to catch.
There wasn't a great deal of fat in such a
diet, which made our ancestors really-pig out
on fat whenever they could.
Thus, the Plains Indians made a point of
hunting buffalo after the furry critters had put
on lots of fat in the spring. And native
people all over the northern part of the
continent relished beaver — not for their furs,
but for their fatty tails.
Nowadays we may drive to work, sit at a
desk all day and eat take-out in the evening,
but our genes have a long memory. As far as
they're concerned, we're still half-naked,
sleeping in caves and wondering where the
next square meal is coming from.
So when you reach for that Mars Bar,
you're not just giving in to a spur of the
moment hunger impulse — you're responding
to a millennia-old genetic shriek.
A shriek that says "Fat!
MMMMMmmmmmmmm good!" "We're
sort of like fat-seeking missiles" says
Wandsnider. "We just can't help it."
Finally. An expert that tells me what I want
to hear. Pass the gravy.
a large investment.
Fortunately Britain has not yet fallen
victim to the great tearing-up of tracks that
has taken place in southern Ontario and in
other parts of the country. Sometimes you
wonder just how many more trucks can be
squeezed on Highway 401 in the Windsor-
Oshawa corridor.
In Great Britain, as in Canada, the minister
assigned to transport has been very much of a
lightweight, something not actually
conducive to bringing in needed changes.
However, Blair has a huge majority of
Parliament and is trying to develop a
reputation for making "tough choices." Since
the British are wedded to cars almost as
much as North Americans, it will be worth
watching to see if his government can make
more people leave their cars at home and use
public transport, be it buses or trains.
The British must envy the space we have in
Canada as well as the exceedingly low
population density. However, I for one think
very carefully about taking my car into
downtown Toronto. I generally opt for taking
the train from London or driving to the
outskirts of Toronto and switching to the
subway. I certainly save a bundle on parking
fees, not to mention the wear and tear on my
nerves.
The
short
of ►t
By Bonnie Gropp
Being wrong may hurt
Remember when the only thing you had to
fear from classmates was a bit of bullying?
Today the illness called enmity in the
schoolyards and hallways has been treated
with violence. Sweet innocents, once armed
with only books and rulers, are shooting
loaded guns, brandishing knives and
pulverizing with fists and feet.
The news headline last week from
Jonesboro, Ark. still, despite its now too
bone-chilling familiarity, had the ability to
dismay. Two cousins wearing camouflage
clothes, waited behind bushes outside their
school, ready to ambush classmates as they
left during a false fire alarm. Four girls, one
teacher died, 12 were wounded.
What's most shocking? Their ages, 11 and
13, the alleged motive that one of these
children had recently broken up with a
girlfriend, that at least one of them had told
another student he wanted to kill, or the fact
that an accomplice pulled the fire alarm
setting the stage fOr the carnage?
The U.S.'s rather loose gun laws have
always been an issue and can quite likely be
factored into the equation of what has gone
terribly wrong there. In just over a year in the
Land of the Free there have been at least five
fatal shooting rampages at American schools,
three in the past five months.
But Canadians can't be smug. Here the
weapons may not always prove as deadly, but
they are much more personal. Teens are
attacking each other with knives, beating,
torturing and swarming not just their peers,
but adults, including the disabled and seniors.
In the big scheme of thinks the instances
are not many, but to deny that something is
going seriously wrong with a portion of
society's youth is dangerous ignorance. For
every generation before this one, parents did
not have to question what the effects or
repercussions of discipline would be. When
kids were found guilty by their parents of a
crime, they were punished. Adults did not ask
themselves if they were damaging the child's
self-esteem. They did not ask themselves if
they could be arrested for 'their actions or if
their child could be taken from their home.
They simply did what they felt they must to
raise responsible human beings.
Obviously some took it too far, hence the
control now placed on corporal punishment.
But for the most part, parents took action,
and were allowed to, against negative
behaviour. Parents backed other authority
figures such as teachers, so that kids knew if
they didn't pay at school they would pay at
home. Usually they got it from both sides.
Give all the statistics, all the findings you
want about the long-term damage of adults
demonstrating power over kids, but I can't
buy it. Parents can do more damage with
their mouths than their hands, and there's
little Big Brother can do about that.
And really, it's a pretty thick line between
a beating and a spanking. Or, sending a child
to their room without supper is a long way
from locking them in a closet. Are we so
stupid we can't see when a line has been
crossed so must take away any control?
Certainly, corporal punishment is a last
resort, a fact that parents should be constantly
reminded of. Love them first and always, but
kids have got to learn not just that they can
choose between right and wrong, but that on
some level choosing wrong will hurt.
Arthur Black