HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-11-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2002. PAGE 5.
Other Views
So I'm sitting in my car at the pump while,.
the gas jockey fills my tank with
unleaded regular. The ignition is
switched off, but I've got the key turned to
"Accessories" so I can listen to the radio.
The pump jockey leans in my window and
says: "I'm afraid I have to ask you to turn your
car radio off, sir."
"Why is that?" I ask.
"Risk of a spark, sir. There was a gas station
in Alberta that blew up because a customer had
his radio on while he was getting gas."
Meekly, (I'm Canadian. eh?) I turn my
ignition key to "Off'. I pay for the gas and
drive away, making sure my wristwatch
doesn't accidentally brush against the window
crank producing a spark that will turn the
entire town into flaming Armageddon.
And then I think...wait a minute.
I've been filling up at gas stations at least
once a week for the last 40 years. Just about
everybody I know has been doing the same
thing.
I can remember seeing guys pumping gas
with cigarettes in their mouths. I have never, in
four decades, heard of ANY fire caused at a
gas pump ANYWHERE by a spark from a car
ignition.
On the other hand, maybe the kid was right.
Perhaps I'm just an aging desperado who's
grown used to living dangerously. By rights, I
shouldn'r even be here. I should have died
from Extreme Carelessness years ago.
When I was growing up, my parents never
strapped me into a kiddy's car seat - mainly
beCaUse there weren't any. In those days, kids
got to bounce around in the back seat along
with the family mutt. We could even roll the
premier Ernie Eves has become addicted
to using stunts to promote his cause, but
he must be feeling he needs to break the
habit.
The Progressive Conservative premier
stumbled badly with his latest gimmick, in
which he announced a freeze on energy prices
in a kitchen, in an attempt to appear a
homebody in touch with ordinary residents'
concerns.
TV viewers could see the kitchen was
spacious, with marble-top counters and a top-
of-the-line fridge with built-in ice-maker, and
the house had a 50-inch TV and double garage,
and this did nothing to further the desired
image.
News media, who normally follow the
premier unquestioningly to background scenes
he thinks will help his image, also rebelled for
once and reported both the setting hampered
their coverage and Eves gave himself a public
relations disaster.
Few in the public will care about reporters'
difficulties covering a story, but newspaper
comments after events on TV, such as debates
between leaders, often influence the way
viewers see them.
Eves's stunts are nothing new and as much a
part of his makeup as his slicked-back hair and
cutaway collars.
While finance minister, he announced a tax
break for small business and rolled up at a
laundry where an aide said he dropped off his
shirts each week and was photographed by a
friendly newspaper being thanked by the
owner.
But the owner later let slip he had never seen
Eves before, because he usually had his shirts
dropped off by his chauffeur.
Eves-held a press conference in a revolving
restaurant 1,150 feet up the CN Tower, pointed
to construction sites all around and had the
restaurant revolve, claiming this was the way
Arthur
Black
windows down and fall out if we wanted to.
The only air bag I knew was an American
Airlines stewardess who lived down the street.
Heck, I was lucky to live that long, really. I
spent a lot of my infancy in a non-CSA-
approved crib and I'm pretty sure my blankets
weren't treated with flame retardant. I know I
spent a lot of lazy afternoons gnawing on the
crib rails with my new teeth. Crib rails sporting
a bright red coat of lead-based paint.
Amazing I don't glow in the dark.
And diet!
Every nickel I could scrape up by cutting
lawns (without safety glasses or noise
reduction earmuffs) went for Hostess
Twinkies, 12-ounce bottles of Kik Cola and all
the bubble gum I could stuff between my jaws.
And if we were really good at home, Mom
might make us our favourite between-meals
snack: a slice of Christie's white sliced,
slathered with butter and then liberally
sprinkled with brown sugar. Sometimes on
hot days she'd even give us a pitcher of sugar-
laced Freshie. Otherwise we'd just drink water
from the garden hose.
Medic! We got a dead man walking, here!
As kids, we suffered from a dreadful lack of
rules and supervision. We had pea-shooters
and home-made bows and arrows.
the Tories were turning around — get it? — the
province's economy..
Budgets traditionally had covers showing a
picture of Ontario's official flower, the
trillium, or a painting by an adult, but Eves
held a competition among nine-year-olds,
chose a drawing by one of a child flying a kite
and put it on his cover with a hint his party
cared more for children, although it was
miserly toward families on social assistance
and the minimum wage.
Eves set up a fund to which residents could
donate to reduce the provincial debt and
emotionally called it. the Chelsea and
Samantha Fund, after two young sisters who
offered the contents of their piggy banks to
help taxpayers.
The stunts followed in the tradition of his
predecessor, Mike Harris, who as opposition
leader had a flatbed truck parked in front of the
legislature with 27 seats on it, the number of
MPPs he would cut to save money.
Harris claimed New Democrat premier Bob
Rae was often absent from question period
seeking votes on open-line shows and took a
cell-phone in the legislature, tried to question
Rae from there, failed to reach him, but reaped
publicity.
But the most common stunt is the one that
got Eves in trouble. TV wants politicians
speaking against backgrounds it feels are more
interesting than the legislature.
Politicians of all parties dutifully comply
Bike helmets? Closest I got was a Da \
Crockett coonskin cap.
Dogs ran free.
We cooked up our own pickup games of
baseball and touch football without a single
coach! We played hockey on outdoor rinks
without dressing rooms or anyone to help us
with our skates. Some of us even got hurt and
had to get over it on our own. It was a brutal
time.
We spent summer afternoons swinging on a
rope tied to a branch of a huge maple tree. You
took a mighty sprint, grabbed the rope, soared
out over the river, let go of the rope and landed
in the swimming hole if you timed it right.
If you timed it wrong, you landed in a
raspberry patch. There was no lifeguard, the
rope was rotten and the branch could- have
come down at any time.
Mind you, by then we had already been
coarsened by years of classroom barbarity.
Kids nowadays won't believe this, but in those
Dark Ages, some of us actually FAILED OUR
YEAR.
That's right - we were held back and forced
to repeat a year's worth of dreary classes until
we got it right.
It was all based on some primitive academic
theory that certain kids were actually smarter
and/or worked harder and therefore deserved
preferential treatment. Thank heavens we've
stamped that kind of thinking out.
We live in much safer times now, but it can
feel a little cramped.
A smarter guy than me once said: "A ship is
safe in a harbour, but that's not what ships are
for."
Applies to humans, too.
and are seen on location more often than
movie stars, in or around schools, hospitals,
seniors' homes, municipal halls, factories,
construction. projects, stores, jails, waste
dumps, rivers and lakes.
They probably feel they are part of a bargain
in which TV gets the scenes it feels it needs
and politicians an image of going anywhere to
help residents.
But they should remember the most effective
political messages ever put on the airw,.ves
were by Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Ijis fireside
chats calling ordinary Americans to rally
behind his New Deal, and Winston Churchill,
exhorting Britons to pull together against the
Nazis, and neither had the benefit of pictures.
Both were more than half-a-century ago and
on radio, when TV was not available.
Eves, a competent speaker, and other
Ontario politicians are not Churchill, but do
they really need to sit beside a fridge to make
themselves believable?
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 to refuse any letter on the basis
of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate
int9rmation. As well, letters can only be
primed as space allows. Please keep
your letters brief and concise.,
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
SAD story
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful
ease,
No comfortable feel in any member —
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
-- Thomas Hood
t would seem that Mr. Hood was as /
enamoured with this abysmal month as 1.
Oh, I know, be grateful I'm still here to
get up and enjoy every one of these bleak,
dreary, miserable days.
But November is the ugly step-sister in
Mother Nature's family. She has all the nasty
physical qualities of winter as well as its
volatile temperament, with none of the
redeeming traits. The first month after
Daylight Saving Time brings a dreariness to
life not so long ago infused with colour and
music. She carries a bitter chill under her drab
grey mantle. A change of mood and her sullen
skies turn ominous, bearing burdened clouds,
which swiftly turn the world to white.
Unlike December, however, there is no sun
to dance off this pristine transformation and
the snow, soon bored in its ineffectiveness to
brighten nasty November, departs.
I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder
(SAD). The arrival of fall presents challenges
which many people cannot understand, yet
many others know all too well.
It is a gradual process for me, a subtle
withdrawal which begins in early to mid-
October. For the next several months every day
I know and appreciate how good I have it, yet
it won't matter.
And I am one of the lucky ones. The
majority of those afflicted can mudole
through. But it is not easy progress.
1 have had people tell me I just need to get
outside. I have had people tell me to get over
it. I have had people tell me to qui' thinking
about it,
An anorexit. will not eat just because yon, put
food in front of them. A broken leg won't heti
just because you will it to. A tumour won't
disappear jAst because you stop thinking about
it.
Like all of these SAD is a medical condition.
It is not in the imagination, not a weakness of
character. Research has proven that_ brain
chemistry is affected by bright light. With the
SAD sufferer the pineal gland will produce too
much melatonin, a condition that can be
helped through light therapy, either a specially
designed light box, or by visiting sunny
climes.
The light box required must be suitably
bright, similar to a sunny spring morning.
Sitting before it every day for less than an hour
wilt be ail it takes to alleviate the symptoms.
With the onset of fall and winter, there is a
tendency to slow our lives down. SAD
sufferers need to sleep more, but the increased
inactivity can lead to increased weight. For
this reason diet and exercise must also be part
of the SAD program.
Considering that the problem is associated
with all of winter, I suppose that earlier I was
a little hard on November. But it is the blackest
of the black months. December brings the
brightness of Christmas. January's snow can
be brilliant, February has shining hints of
what's to come and March is the light at the
end of the tunnel.
November is just November, promising
nothing but more of the same.
Takin a chance on life
Some of these stunts can hurt