HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-04-10, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2002. PAGE 5.
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Watch out for your pants
/I is a hazardous and unpredictable orb of
rocks and gases that you and I inhabit, old
chum. Never mind the omnipresent threat
of rogue meteorites, runaway floral delivery
vans, or raving nutters toting home-made
thermonuclear devices in Kids R Us satchels
on the cross-town bus - never mind all that.
Have you considered the threat of...
Tea cozies?
Toilet roll holders?
False teeth?
I thought not.
According to this report from the U.K.
Department of Trade and Industry which I'm
holding before me in asbestos mitts, there's
been an 85 per cent increase in hospital
admission injuries over the past three years
from human encounters with...tea cozies.
(Tea cozies, for those of you too callow and
untried to have experienced the entire spectrum
of tannic beverages, are little woolen thingies
that one puts around teapots to keep the tea
warm. Folks have been doing it for eons. Think
of them as Iron Age thermal blankets.)
Tea lovers have been unaccountably tripping,
slipping and otherwise maiming themselves on
tea cozies more often in the past few years- and
that's not the half of it.
Toilet roll holders have laid 329 innocent
bystanders (okay, by-sitters) low since 1999,
treacherous encounters with false teeth
incapacitated a further 933 souls.
And a mind-bobbling 16,662 British citizens
required medical assistance after going toe to
toe with...sofas.
Or davenports.
It is almost axiomatic •.that politicians and
economists do not see eye to eye in a lot of
matters. Economists are the ones that have
to make recommendations about policy
procedures while politicians are entrusted with
the jobs of carrying out such policies in the
best interests of the country.
It would be nice to report that politicians
carry out this job with both efficiency and
regularity. The sad fact is that they do not; it is
not hard to get the impression that they are
more intent on getting re-elected than they are
in carrying out sensible economic policies.
In addition, they frequently compound the
problem by saying things that do their cause no
good whatsoever.
I am thinking back to a statement made by
Deputy Prime Minister John Manley earlier
this year about the apparent willingness of
Canadian exporters to hide behind the low
value of the Canadian dollar and let it do the
sell instead of concentrating on increasing
productivity and thereby protecting themselves
from an eventual rise of the dollar to higher
levels.
Hardly were the words out of Mr, Manley's
mouth when the dollar plunged by half a cent
on money markets. This fall was based on the
assumption that the government was not
entirely against a low dollar since it was, no
matter which way you looked at it, helping the
country run up a record trade surplus.
When a country is running a floating
exchange rate where the value of our dollar
changes every day at the slightest provocation,
there are things that the politicians, or even the
governor of the Bank of Canada, can say to put
upward pressure on our currency. What you
want to avoid is anything that can be construed
by the market as negative, thereby pushing the
dollar'svalue downward; it's low enough as it
is. .
Mr. Manley, as have others before him, fell
into the latter trap and paid the penalty. .
Sometimes the only ones to suffer are the
politicians themselves. Two opposition
members of parliament once got up in the
Or chesterfields.
Instruments of the Devil, by any other name.
But tea cozies, toilet rolls, sofas, all of these
societal snakes-in-the-grass pale before the
truly most treacherous and unpredictable
enemy of modern humankind.
I am referring, of course, to men's trousers.
According to this British Department of
Trade and Industry report, there were an
astounding - I can barely type this - 5,945
personal injuries attributed to 'trouser
incidents' in one year alone.
Why, even chain saws accounted for a mere
1,207 injuries!
What kind of 'trouser inciderts'? I quote
verbatim:
Patient had just filled his car with petrol, spilt
some on his trousers, went to a friend's house,
lit a cigarette and his trousers caught fire.
Rushing downstairs to rescue the shepherd's
pie cooking in the kitchen, caught foot in wide
leg of trousers, fell whole flight to hall floor,
landed on wrist.
Playing on pavement outside house, trying to
be Sporty Spice, doing a high kick, fell onto
kneecap on road surface.
Patient ironed trousers whilst still wearing
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
house to criticize the same low exchange rate.
Just to prove their point they cited an exchange
rate that certainly did not look favourable at all.
No wonder! Instead of dividing the exchange
rate into one to get the value of the American
dollar in teims of its Canadian counterpart,
they subtracted from one.
What surprised me what that nobody on the
government side of the House picked it up Until
the next day.
The result? Two very red faces on the
Opposition side of the House.
But Canadians politicians are not the only
Continued from page 4
named Jim. Jim was having difficulty getting to
his family church because of transportation
issues.. Pastor Wayne Toppings was
approached, and he worked with Jim to help
arrange a ride to and from church. It was
realized that Jim could be more involved at his
church in FOrdwich, most recently at elections
within the church community, the congregation
voted that Jim would make an excellent usher.
Jim is very proud of his new responsibility
within his faith community. Way to go Jim!
The most recent success story involved a
man named Bill. Bill needed a ride to church.
A Wingham couple was approached to see if
they could help, they obliged. Thank you to the
Laidlaws for providing Bill with a safe means
to get to church.
Many church leaders, along with the public,
have attended our monthly "Village" meetings.
As a result, theSe ministers were able to learn
them.
Gluing son's toy together with ultra-bond
superglue. Tube of glue burst, patient glued
ring onto finger and trousers to leg.
Oh, there is no end of deviltry that a pair of
trousers won't wreak on an unsuspecting male.
I once knew a forest ranger, one of whose sad
duties it was to haul drowned anglers out of
lakes and rivers each year.
"Know what they almost always have in
common?" he asked me over a beer. "Open
flies. Most of them were trying to pee out of
their boat, lost their balance, fell in and
drowned."
• A cautionary tale. I've carried a tin bucket in
my boat ever since.
Reminds me of the most accident-prone
would-be burglar I've ever heard of.
Back in 1978, a chap by the name of
Christopher Fleming decided to break into a
Chinese restaurant in Devon, England. He
broke a kitchen window, crawled in, and was
making for the cash register when he
lost his balance and fell into the chip fryer. The
chip fryer was full of greak, the night was
cold.
As the grease congealed, and the burglar
alarm pealed, Christopher filled his pockets
with change from the cash register and
attempted to sprint to safety. Alas, the. grease
was getting really hard. His sprint turned into a
trot, then a canter, then a slow-motion
streeeeeeetch.
When the coppers put the cuffs on him, he
was all but statuesque.
One can only hope his fly was up.
ones to suffer front the disease. U.S. President
George W. Bush has had people scratching
their heads on a number of occasions while
Ronald Reagan could not, on occasion,
remember what country he was in. He once -
informed an audience in Brazil how pleased he
was to be in Argentina.
The Brazilians, not to be outdone, • once
played the West German national anthem when
the Communist East German leader was
making a visit. Showing how easy it was to
compound the error, they subsequently played
the East German anthem when the West
German leader came to visit.
Both bands. are presumably still practising
their craft somewhere near the source of the
Amazon River.
The proverbial "foot-in-mouth award"
should go to those American authorities who,
six months after Sept. 11, approved entry visas
for two of the terrorists killed in the aircraft
hijackings on that day. That makes Mr. Manley
look positively angelic.
more about barriers that may be present at their
own church facility. Some have already taken
steps to correct these barriers, so that, everyone
.is able to attend weekly mass and church
functions.
Congratulations to those who have made
changes 'to welcome everyone into their
church. We encourage everyone who reads this
letter, to take a look around their own church,
to see if there is a way that they can help
inclusion happen in their faith community. It is
our hope that positive actions continue to occur
in the future. Keep up the great work!
If you have any questions, or are requiring
more information on It Takes A Village, please
contact me or Jennifer Wall at 519-357-3562
ext. 208.
Sincerely,
Theresa Wilson,
Wingham & Distriet Community Living
Association.
No walk in the park
Imay hibernate in winter, but once the
weather warms the great outdoors beckons
me.
What I mean by the great outdoors however
is a lounger on the deck, the heady fragrance
of a lovely day carried on a soothing summer
breeze, the colours, the warmth, the music of a
robin gently assaulting my senses. A drink
beside me, a book in hand and I am in delight
of all that I have and all that is around me.
Getting back to nature is no walk in the park
for me.
This revelation came to me actually while I
cozied up with a novel, the story of a young
woman, with a past of course, who finds peace
growing up at the edge of a rainforest. As I
explored with her the natural wonders which
comprised her world, I experienced a mild
discomfiture, recognizing that such
uninhibited beauty, such communion with
nature would put me on edge. While I am
awed by the soaring eagle, enchanted by the
graceful deer and mesmerized by a snake's
repulsive beauty, I still like to keep civilization
within reach.
Also, I am peculiar in my taste for
'aloneness'. While others find time among the
unrefined a comfort, I prefer my solitude.spent
in the company of people. I feel less alone
anonymous in the world of strangers. I am
more comfortable, more myself, on a busy city
street than I would be standing in a quiet
country field.
It's hard for the committed rural dweller to
understand, but all of us in this great, wic.;e
wonderful world, are not enraptured by the
tranquility of wide, open spaces.
Uncomfortable with my own company, a walk
in the count' y is not a balm for stress but rather
a mild irritant. I may thrill at the sight of a
hawk, but my sense of alone diminishes the
enjoyment.
As well, when one sets out to walk with
naidre one gets what they expect — nature.
You expect to see and hear wild1 life, to
experience the natural, rather than the man-
made.
I, however prefer my encounters to be
serendipitous — a quiet trail discovered by
chance just off an urban subdivision, a deet at
the edge of (not on) a busy highway, or
looking up while doing dishes and seeing a
cardinal in the tree outside my window.
The buzz of a hummingbird flying past me
as I bask in the heat of a July day. The hoot of
an owl through my open bedroom window on
a steaming summer night.
And yes, even the bats and skunks which
have found their way into our urban paradise
on thankfully rare occasions. •
I respect those who find their peace and
contentment going one-on-one with nature,
who are energized by the sounds of silence,
the hints of an azure sky though a canopy of
lush foliage. I too, have spent special days
hiking and trekking with companions, but the
time was more about bonding with people than
nature. It provided a wonderful opportunity to
communicate without distraction, to unwind
without influence.
But when it comes to my own downtime,
forgive me if I choose to walk along more
treaded paths. I find greater comfort in the
diversity of this amazing world, that even
amidst mad busyness can be found calm, that
the natural and man-made often co-exist and
that while living in the latter we can be
joyously surprised by a glimpse of the other.
Some political foot-in-mouth sufferers
Letter to the Editor