HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2001-01-31, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2001. PAGE 5.
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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.
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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