HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-11-11, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1998. PAGE 5.
Water, water
everywhere
All day I face
The barren waste
And crave the taste
Of water
Song lyric
As I settle into my seat aboard Canadian
flight 1773, Vancouver to Victoria, a woman
sits down across the aisle. She is clutching a
copy of this week's Macleans, a Tommy
Hilfiger sports bag, her boarding pass, and a
larger clear plastic bottle of Evian Water.
Designer water. Don't leave home without
it.
The flight from Vancouver to Victoria
takes 24 minutes, but this woman is prepared
For Any Eventuality.
Consider the humble water molecule. A
straightforward blend of two gases -- two
parts hydrogen to. one part oxygen. Fifteen
hundred passengers on the Titanic died from
too much of it. Many desert crossers would
have traded their souls for a spoonful.
The Dutch spent millions of guilders and
man-hours trying to keep the stuff away from
their homes. Ancient Romans put equivalent
amounts of sweat and money into building
splendid aqueducts to pipe water from the
mountains to their cities:
A great place to live
If I read that a country had been chosen by
the United Nations as the best country in
which to live, I would sit up and take notice.
If I then read that the same country had been
chosen four years in a row as that country, I
would jump up and demand to be informed
of what all the wonderful things were that
had caused that nation to rate such an
elevated standing.
When I tell you that the United Nations
had done just that and that the country in
question was Canada, I would take a great
deal of pride.
That is precisely what we should do!
Given that there are quite a few nice
countries in which to live, to retain the title
four years in a row is really an
accomplishment. We can excuse the
Americans for feeling a bit envious since
they ranked number four in the latest survey.
Between us and them came Norway and
France; after the U.S. came Iceland,
Netherlands, Japan, Finland, New Zealand
and Sweden.
There are a few surprises there but, since I
did not get a complete breakdown of the
measures used to judge the countries, it is a
bit difficult to explain them.
Some countries made a rather remarkable
It is everywhere. It literally falls from the
sky. It winds up in tumbling streams; in a
hundred thousand unnamed lakes. On endless
wheat fields and pinging off the pavement of
dingy parking lots.
You find it in spotty tumblers on restaurant
tables; you find it mingling and subtly
enhancing molecules of scotch in a Bay
Street lawyers whiskey glass.
Given all that — could someone please
explain the concept of bottled water?
Bottled water is the fastest-growing
segment of the North American beverage
industry. It's expanding at double the pace of
drinks like Pepsi22 and Seven-Up.
North Americans can choose from more
than 700 brands. There's one "bar" in
Beverly Hills that stocks 77 different brands
of water and encourages patrons to join a
mail-order "water of the month" Club.
Customers claim they drink bottled water
because they're worried about the quality of
the stuff that comes out of their taps. But the
Consumer's Association of Canada concludes
that most bottled water is neither healthier
nor better tasting than tap water.
In fact, according to the American Dental
Association, drinking-bottled water may
actually be bad for you -- it doesn't contain
fluoride which they say is necessary for
healthy teeth.
rn any case, chances are the stuff you're
drinking out of plastic bottles might be
By Raymond Canon
jump to get into the top 10. Holland, which
was number 11 in the previous survey,
jumped all the way up to six while Japan
went from 12th to seventh.
On the other hand, Sweden fell from third
to 10th, while Australia found itself in 14th
spot, after having been number nine before.
Denmark, for some reason, dropped from
10th to 18th.
The UN Index bases its findings on such
categories as life expectancy, educational
achievement and standard of living. It also
looks at categories relating to gender
differences while the Corporate Resources
Group rates cities in no less than 42
categories, including such things as crime,
pollution, education and political and
economic stability. While Geneva ranked
first in this category, no less than five
Canadian cities (Vancouver, Toronto,
Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary) were near the
top.
This reminds me of some sports teams
which stay at the top of their league for a few
years and then get complacent. We should,
therefore, not rest on our laurels; a few
changes are in order to make sure that we
stay up where we are now.
One thing that bothers me is the brain drain
and the best way to cure this is to reduce the
tax load that Canadians are currently bearing.
We are not even close when it comes to tax
nothing more than tap water.
Last spring, the Kansas City Water
department decided to climb aboard the
Designer Water bandwagon. It became the
first public utility to market its tap water in
bottles. You can find it in Kansas City
supermarkets under the label "City of
Fountains".
The Water Companies Association
dismisses bottled water as "one of the great
cons of the 20th century" — but that hasn't
stopped thirsty customers from lining up at
the cash register. One out of every $10 we
spend on beverages goes for bottled water.
Naturally, this has not gone unnoticed by
the tycoons who are already getting rich off
the stuff. They're expanding. College
students are now being offered a water-based
product called Water Joe. Each glassful of it
contains the same amount of caffeine as a
cup of coffee.
Athletes are being encourage to gulp down
02 Water — "super-oxygenated" water that
claims to boost athletic performance by "up
to" 30 per cent.
Certainly makes you wonder.
I was still wondering as I disembarked
from flight 1773 Vancouver to Victoria. I let
the Bottled Water Lady go ahead.
She left behind her copy of Macleans and
her boarding pass.
But she never stopped clutching her bottle
of Evian Water.
levels and government spending is still out of
line.
Making the necessary changes will not be
easy, as Mike Harris has discovered, but they
have to be done.
When we get finished pointing accusing
fingers at each other as to what is wrong with
our education system, we have to end up
with one that is superior to what we have
now. Most of the countries with which we
compete are trying to do the same thing as
we are — succeed in the knowledge industry.
Simply throwing more money at the
problem is not going to do the trick; we
already spend more on schools than any
other major country. In the case of countries
such as France and Germany, this more is 25
per cent. With the States it is 10 per cent.
Living as we do in an excellent country, it
is easy to take all our benefits for granted and
complain about the aspects that, for some
reason or another, do not reach our
expectations. Maybe we can take time out
now and again to enjoy those things for
which we are rated so highly.
A Final Thought
One man's justice is another's injustice;
one man's beauty another's ugliness; one
man's wisdom another's folly.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Debatable
The great debate.
I have a daughter, whom we lovingly
tease, as one being born to argue. She takes a
stand and as a mother tiger protecting her
babes, will defend it to the end.
It's often annoying, but good for her! The
right to an opinion, to freedom of thought
and expression is everyone's. Conviction is
an admirable trait.
But using the strength of your words with
the power of your beliefs to bend and shape
another's view is a talent. That we agree to
disagree is a fundamental reality of society.
Recognizing the difference between Nit
disciplined coherence of incisive debate and
the erratic rambling of heated argument,
however, isn't easy — especially when
you're the one charging vehemently through
uneven verbal terrain.
While there's no guarantee even in an
informed, intellgent debate that anyone will
listen, they also look less a fool to those who
are paying attention. Thus with my
daughter's talent for confusing people into
submission, she wanted to get it right and
took an early interest in debate as part of
teams in elementary and secondary school.
From my perspective I have judged the
regional debating contest at the secondary
level, several times. So, though I admit
knowing the rules of organized debate
doesn't mean we are capable of using them
all the time, there are occasions when we
have seen the voice of calm and reason make
a fool of impassioned venting.
The other evening we were sitting with a
group of friends, two of whom are
Progressive Conservative supporters, one of
them a raving cheerleader. A third shares my
beliefs that whether the benefits of this Tory
government's reign will outweigh the
negatives are indeed open to debate.
Unfortunately there can be no debate when
one side refuses to listen. To my daughter's
amusement there was reason without proof,
logic based on bias, insult fortunately
without injury, misinformation formed on
propaganda. While two on either side of the
fence attempted to explain their positions,
one amusingly sounded like a sound bite for
Mike's $1 million a week ads.
Clearly, when you care about something
it's difficult to hear it maligned. I found
myself being pulled into the din of
discontent when education became the topic.
When one espouced venom against the
boards of education, I queried him as to how
many meetings he had actually attended to
know so much. The answer was none,
because several years ago, when the
administration building had moved to a
residential area, no one had listened to the
neighbours' concerns about signage and the
negative effect on the estethics of the area.
Hmmm!??!
The other friend had much to say about
education, teachers and the classrooms. His
kids have been out of school for five years,
but he knows what's going on because he has
students working part-time for him.
These frustrating remarks promped a few
incautious swipes on my part. But then I
recalled, "When arguing with a fool make
sure he is not doing the same." So I took a
breath, counted to 10 and decided to
withdraw.
After all, it was clear there were few signs
of intelligent debate here.
Arthur Black
International Scene