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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2001-01-31, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2001. PAGE 5. Other Views This is strictly bush league 1 t's a daunting prospect: here we are, poised on the knife-edge of a new millennium fraught with peril. Russia is in full meltdown mode. The Middle East, as usual, is a steaming cauldron of violence and hate. India and Pakistan are wagging their nuclear arsenals at each other. China is stirring. Africa is convulsing. And the most powerful man in the world is a bumbling idiot. I refer, of course, to Dubya. The smirking, Alfred E. Newtnanish ex-underachieving Governor of Texas, dumped by an exceedingly. dubious electoral screw up straight into the Oval Office. It's not like we haven't skidded on this banana skin before. Dubya's Daddy (no beacon of brilliance himself) chose one Danforth J. Quayle as his vice-president. For four years the man who was only a heartbeat or an assassin's bullet away from the presidency, served up such howlers as: "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in the air and water that are doing it." "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure." "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being wasteful. How true that is." We thought it couldn't get much dumber than that. We were wrong. Along came Dubya, who last year announced to an audience in New Hampshire: Idoubt whether there are many topics of conversation more frequent than that of the weather. That may be the only thing we talk about when we meet somebody, at least it is a relatively safe topic. It has become so popular that you have probably noted there is a TV channel devoted solely . to informing us about things meteorological; I must confess what the Canon household consults it if only to verify that Jay Campbell has to tell us on the local TV station. I always have to laugh when I am in the United States and hear some American make a snide remark about all the cold air from Canada. 'I point out in reply that it actually originates in Alaska and we have to let it pass over due to the Free Trade Agreement. I also add that the States is the origin of many of the storms- (and the odd tornado) we get in southwestern Ontario. I have to confess that I taught meteorology a number of years ago when I was instructing fledgling pilots under the Flying Scholarships Program of the Air Cadets. It was very enjoyable and they learned such things as when you stand with your back to the wind, the lower pressure areas is always to your left. They thought that was neat and went around the next few days standing outside and pointing to the low and high pressure areas. One of the secrets of teaching is to get the students to do what you want them to do and to enjoy it at the same time. This one worked to perfection. • Fine! Now that we have this simple test out of the way, let's take a look at something that has conditioned our weather to a great extent over the past few years. I refer the wind called "El Nino" which, I am sure, you have read about at some time. First of all, it is a Spanish word pronounced Ninyo and means either little boy or the Christ child, the latter because the wind frequently materializes about Christmas time. It is a warm west wind that blows across the Pacific and in "This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve." Which may have been true - if irrelevant. Dubya was supposed to be talking about perseverance, not Preservation Month. He has also opined in public that "we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun"; and "a tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illness"; and "we ought to. make the pie higher". Dubya has a particular talent for mangling metaphors. He told a group of reporters: "The senator has got to understand if he's going to have - he can't have it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road." As befitting a frat boy with a predilection for giggling at fart jokes, Dubya's grasp of international affairs is a little tenuous. He has referred in public to the people of Timor as "East Timorians'; to residents of Kosovo as "Kosovians" and to Greeks as "Grecians". Not that you have to go overseas to watch Dubya trip over his tongue. At a press Raymond Canon The International Scene so doing causes the level of the ocean to be about half a meter higher off the coast of Peru that it is in Indonesia. The temperature of the weather is also different in the two areas. Now, when El Nino does not perform normally, all sorts of weather problems crop up along the west coast of North and South American and these problems spread into such areas as, you guessed it, Southern Ontario. As if this were not bad enough, there is a secondary wind called "La Nina" (Ninya-the little girl) which is a cold wind. This wind follows El Nino and, when it is anything out of the ordinary, it only compounds the weather anomalies and we have even more to complain about than Usual. At this point you might be asking if the unexpected changes in El Nino (la Nina) have anything to do with global warming? That is a fair question and I wish I could answer it but, since even the experts cannot agree on what is happening on that front, your question will have to remain answered, unless of course, The Farmer's Almanac, that impeccable source of long range forecasting, has something to say about it. The other thing that might be of interest to Final Thought Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them. — Thomas Mann conference, he turned to New Jersey's secretary of state, the Hon. DeForest Soaries Jr., and intoned "You might wanna comment on that, Honorable." I know, I know - it ill behooves a Canuck to make mock of leaders who can't spit out a coherent sentence. After all, this country is led by a prime minister who answered a high school student's question with "I intend to incline wit' you." He hastily assured the startled female student that he meant to say he was inclined to agree with her. This is the same guy who once answered a legal question at a press conference with, "Well, I am not a lawyer." Actually, Jean, check your wallet. You are a lawyer. Have been since 1958. Not that lawyers are necessarily brighter than, well, U.S. presidents. There is the story of an aggressive prosecutor cross-examining a coroner. Lawyer: "And prior to declaring the victim dead, did you check his pulse?" Coroner: "No." Lawyer" "Well, did you perform CPR?" Coroner: "NO." Lawyer: "Did you do ANYTHING to determine whether the victim was still alive?" Coroner: "No:' Lawyer: Then isn't it possible that the victim may have been alive, and that your negligence, in fact, caused his death?" Coroner: "Possible, I guess. Seeing as his brain was in a jar on my desk, I suppose he could even have been practising law. you is called the jet stream, a high and fast west wind that flows over Canada and the United States. Planes flying the Atlantic to Europe try to utilize it whenever possible. I was once on a plane to Zurich from Toronto and it seemed we landed in Switzerland only shortly after we took off from Toronto, thanks to the jet stream. This stream moves up and down, twists and turns; what it generally does is act as a dividing line between the cold air of the north and the warm air of the south. We may, therefore, nave cold weather in southwestern Ontario simply because the jet stream has moved southward and effectively blocked the warm air from reaching us. Well, with this you have graduated in amateur meteorology and can now dominate conversations on the matter by uttering comments such as, "Looks like El Nino is acting up again" or "I wish the jet stream wouldn't deviate so much from the norm." With statements like that, people will think that you are either a genius or crazy (I think the politically correct word for that is 'meteorologically challenged'). Considering that there is frequently a fine line between genius and insanity, who knows which word is more apt. Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right .o refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. Give them some TLC She sits, anticipating nervously the inevitable, her face a study of anguish. Regardless of all she has done, all she has accomplished, all her preparations, she is convinced she is not ready. Then it arrives. Her stomach knots, sweat breaks out on her brow, she panics, her mind blanks. The nemesis is before her, waiting, teasing, challenging her to prove who is the better of the two. It's exam time. I admit, more than somewhat shamefacedly, that this little scenario is actually a downplayed version of the reaction I had to high school examinations. To complete the true picture you would see this terrified teen actually having to leave in the middle of the exam to be physically ill. There was, you see, a lot of pressure for me in acknowledging that this summation of my entire school year could ultimately be my downfall. And often was. In the beginning, at least, I took high school fairly seriously. I had big plans for myself, thus I listened attentively during class, kept copious notes, completed homework assignments as required and showed up regularly in mind and body. However, having pretty Touch breezed my way through elementary school I was shocked to discover that I had no idea how to study. Therefore, it became a common occurrence to see a relatively strong average deteriorate because of my final exam mark. The irony is that I don't recall any particular' pressure from my parents to do anything more than pass. In retrospect, I don't know if my frantic panic to meet my standards set it up for me to sabotage a term's hard work. Certainly, it couldn't have helped going in with the assumption I would underachieve. Yet, there was something about being put to the test that doomed me to failure. Not literally perhaps, but I would say that 90 per cent of the time the average I had achieved throughout the term was not bettered by the dreaded final. So it is with empathy, if not downright sympathy, that I think about secondary school students this week. For the senior, semestered grades finals are here. It is the moment of truth, the time to prove that attending school was not just filler, that they actually absorbed what was being taught. Just the thought of it can still cause me to break out in a cold sweat. When I look at my own children over the .. course of the years, I do not remember any of them experiencing the same level of torture that I inflicted upon myself. However, if anyone looked carefully they would recognize the signs of, if not stress, then at least a good dose of nerves. They have more right to this than I ever did. To find a place in this competitive professional world young. people know they must achieve. It takes presentable marks to get accepted to a post-secondary institution. And without a degree or certificate the job opportunities are limited. With success in school one will hopefully enjoy a certain professional freedom. Though there's no guarantee, it's almost a certainty that without that success having the chance to choose a career or trade that satisfies you is unlikely. So, if you have a kid in high school give them some TLC. They deserve it. Whither goes our weather