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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2003-03-12, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2003. PAGE 5. Other Views Anyone heard from Chicken Little? Back in the bad old days of mining, when underpaid workers crawled and scrabbled through underground shafts with pickaxes and carbon-arc headlamps, the mine owners didn’t spend a lot of time or money improving the air those miners were breathing. So the miners were forced to look out for themselves and they came up with an ingenious method of monitoring the underground air quality. They took down canaries in cages. Why canaries? Because the miners didn’t have to watch them; they could hear them. Canaries sing pretty well all the time. When they’re happy. Canaries’ songs change or stop completely when they’re distressed or frightened. Or when the atmosphere around them turns threatening. Thus, canaries could tell when trouble was ‘in the air’, long before the miners would become aware of it. There’s a school of thought that says we could learn a lot more from animals, if only we could decode the messages they’re sending us. What do we make for instance of the swarm of frogs that recently surrounded a home in Double Bay, Australia? As near as anyone can figure, the frogs were drawn by the cries of a newborn child. Hours after baby Gwen Notley came home from the hospital, the frogs started showing up in the front yard. “By the end of the week, there were millions of frogs on our porch,” says Gwen’s father, Rourke. Scientists were flummoxed. Maybe the baby’s cries sounded like a frog mating call? The Notleys finally moved to a frog-free suburb of Sydney. Here in Canada, we almost didn’t have a Groundhog Day on Feb. 2 - due to an alarming shortage of groundhogs in Ontario. For years, believers have crouched around a groundhog hole near Wiarton, Ontario on Feb. 2 to see if One could say ethnic voices muted Some Italian-Ontarians are complaining Premier Ernie Eves has not given them a big enough voice in his cabinet, but almost every other ethnic group except the privileged British could claim the same. Liberal MPP Greg Sorbara, of Italian heritage, in charge of his party’s election planning and anxious to drive wedges between the Progressive Conservative premier and any group of voters, said Eves in a cabinet shuffle failed to give Ontarians of Italian ancestry the prominence their numbers, after huge waves of immigration, and talents deserve. Eves has only one minister of Italian descent, Tina Molinari, associate minister of municipal affairs and little-known publicly because most announcements of substance are grabbed and made by the minister or premier. Eves has four backbenchers of Italian heritage, but passed them over, and Sorbara accused the premier of ignoring able MPPs and promised the Liberals if they win the imminent election they will have more Italians in their cabinet. An Italian-language newspaper supported his criticisms. Parties traditionally try to appoint MPPs from larger ethnic groups as ministers to suggest they are aware of their concerns and attract their votes, but Eves has been getting away from this practice. His Tory predecessor, Mike Harris, had Al Palladini, a colourful former car dealer, in the more senior post of transportation minister. Palladini, who died in 2001, was known as much for his good humour and gaffes, such as refusing to believe there are Ontarians who do not drive cars, as for his political accomplishments. But he made everyone Arthur Black ‘Wiarton Willie’ would see his shadow or not - legend being that if he does, we’re in for another six weeks of winter. (Or is it if he DOESN’T see his shadow? Doesn’t matter. It’s just a photo op for newspapers and an excuse to have a few beers.) The point is, there has never in all the years of Groundhog Day observing, been a problem with finding a groundhog. I grew up in a rural Ontario that had a lot of shortages — but never of groundhogs. Just about every farmer’s field had a resident groundhog or two - sometimes whole colonies of them. And the rural roadsides were festooned with the remains of some of the slower ones. But in recent years, Ontario’s groundhog population has nose-dived and no one is absolutely certain why. Over in England, they’re less worried about mineshaft canaries singing than the fact that they can’t hear the chirp of a simple house sparrow. It wasn’t long ago that the little grey and brown bird was considered a pest in British cities, towns and countryside. Now it’s almost disappeared. “The population has fallen by 99 per cent since 1980,” says ornithologist Denise Summers-Smith. “This is almost extinction.” So what’s causing the virtual obliteration of a feisty little bundle of feathers that survived the Blitz, air pollution, British housecats AND the music of Herman’s Hermits? Then there are the penguins at the San Francisco zoo. Forty-six of them. They’ve Eric Dowd From Queen’s Park aware Italians were represented in cabinet. New Democrat Premier Bob Rae had Tony Silipo and Rosario Marchese in high-profile posts and Liberal David Peterson in the 1980s had Sorbara, Vince Kerrio and Remo Mancini. Eves has ministers representing the large Portuguese and eastern European and smaller Dutch constituencies. But there was a time when the first priority in appointing ministers to represent ethnic groups would have been making sure Franco- Ontarians had prominent posts. Harris had eastern Ontarian Noble Villeneuve as his agriculture minister and credible spokesman on francophone affairs, but he lost his seat in the 1999 election. Rae had Gilles Pouliot and Shelley Martel in his cabinet and Peterson had Bernard Grandmaitre, Gilles Morin and Rene Fontaine. Tory William Davis’s ministers of French heritage included Leo Bernier, so influential he was known as ‘emperor of the north,’ Rene Brunelle and Fem Guindon. But the Tories have elected few MPPs in the northern and eastern ridings, where most francophones live, in recent years and Eves has only a couple with French names from whom to choose. been lazing around on the banks of their pond in the penguin enclosure for the past five years, preening their feathers and waiting for their three-squares-a-day zoo handouts. Until the newcomers came. Six new penguins were introduced to the enclosure last month. The newcomers instantly jumped in the pond and began swimming. Weirdly, the original 46 jumped in also and began churning around the pond as fast as they could go. ‘ And they’re still doing it. The penguins swim until they collapse from exhaustion. They rest a while, then they get up and start the marathon again. “We’ve lost complete control,” says a zoo official. “They’ve swum more in the last three weeks than they have in the past five years.” The zookeepers even drained the pool in an effort to interrupt the behaviour. The penguins jumped in and marched around the bottom. What’s the deal? It’s like the mass­ ing Australian frogs, the disappearing Ontario groundhogs and the brink-of-extinction British house sparrows - nobody knows for sure. But it might be wrong to jump to apocalyptic conclusions. We mustn’t forget the case of the Massachusetts two-headed toad. This biological phenomenon was discovered by a four-year-old girl in Framingham, Mass., and written up in the town’s newspaper, The Metro West Daily News. “The two amphibians are conjoined, unidentical twins,” read the newspaper report. A week later, the paper printed a ‘correction’. What the girl had found was in fact, two toads. Being extremely friendly with each other. “The male toad was hanging on for dear life” explained a local biologist. Err. Precisely. Freud was right. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The only one he thought worth having in his cabinet is Jerry Ouellette from Oshawa, where you will not hear much French spoken along the main street. Jews are getting into cabinet more than they did in discriminatory times. Eves has David Young, Harris had Charles Hamick, Rae is partly of Jewish heritage, Peterson had Monte Kwinter and Elinor Caplan and Davis had Allan and Larry Grossman. The only two blacks ever elected when their parties formed governments, Alvin Curling in the Peterson Liberals and Zanana Akande in Rae’s NDP, also made it to the cabinet table. Few Ontarians of Asian heritage have reached cabinet considering their large numbers, through the most recent immigration. The only Chinese elected, Liberal Bob Wong, was a minister under Peterson. Tory David Tsubouchi, the only MPP ever of Japanese ancestry, has been a minister under Harris and now Eves. Peterson’s Liberals and Harris’s Tories each elected one MPP from the Indian sub­ continent, surprisingly few considering their huge numbers here and fervour for politics, but neither made it to cabinet. One obvious task for all parties is to get members of such ethnic groups elected and into their cabinets. The cabinet now looks like a roll call from the British Commons, crammed with names like Clark, Wilson, Newman Turnbull, Cunningham, Elliott, Flaherty, Sterling and Cobum. They nowhere near represent today’s Ontario. Bonnie Gropp The short of it As seasons change I suppose one might say I’ve always sort of gone against the flow. Nothing has brought that fact home more than this winter. It all seems so long ago now, but I’m sure you remember. January arrived with all its stark whiteness, its cold, its length looming. Thirty-one interminable days of winter, succeeded only by an equally dreary, bitterly chilly February. Through the first part, it seemed I walked alone in my discontent. Everyone around me, every person passing in and out of my life appeared settled and content, marvelling at the pristine beauty of the new season, while I conversely mourned the lack of warmth and sunlight. And then a gradual shift occurred. With some amusement I began to notice a change in those around me. Those who had formerly adopted a can’t-do-a-thing-about-it-might-as- well-grin-and-bear-it attitude, could now be heard emitting the occasional grumble. By March faint rumblings were heard even from the eternally chipper. I, on the other hand, was healing. The banks and drifts may look like they’ll be here until June, but around me are other hopeful signs. One bitterly cold day, for example, I found myself sheltered from the wind, and surprisingly warmed by a sun which was clearly gaining strength. The days are lengthening, and moving closer to spring. I rise in half light rather than the black of night, and drive home blessed by the same. It is all encouraging and I find my thoughts driven by the livening changes around me, however subtle they may be. A recent heavy snowfall and the resultant sloppy roads were a mild inconvenience to me, rather than the trauma of a similai occurrence in January. Cleaning has come to mind. I want to empty out closets, refresh and resto'e. I want to scrub, polish and paint Thus, while the patience if the vdnter stoics is wearing thin, I am thinking spring, b it do not want its arrival too soon. Much has to be done indoors before the weather beckons me outside. The changing seasons and our preferences say a lot about people in general. What is comfort to one is hardship to another. What builds enthusiasm for someone, can kill it in someone else. What one yearns for, another might choose to forget. And what is bliss to a person, is foolishness to their neighbour. We are all so different in our likes and dislikes. Our expectations vary and our understanding of situations can be equally diverse. Through knowing ourselves so well, we often find it difficult to accept or appreciate the needs and attitudes of another. We often form perceptions which are misleading, basing them on how we would react in a similar circumstance. However, and this comes as no surprise to anyone, we are all so very different. What can warm one chilly mood may not even begin to thaw another. It is our mystery and diversity which makes us both special and puzzling. No one can really know anyone else. Like our reactions to the changing seasons we do not all feel the same way at the same time. However, assuming the best about each other, having compassion for quirks and idiosyncrasies we do not share, can be as heartening as the brightening of a spring day.