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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2003-04-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2003. PAGE 5. Other Views A novel look at the national obsession I don’t often use this space to deliver a book review, but that’s because I don’t often come across a book that I actually think is worth recommending. Today’s different. I just read a book that I think any Canuck would enjoy. It’s called The Good Body. It’s by Bill Gaston, a young writer who lives in Victoria, B.C. - and it’s virtually a patriotic duty for every Canadian to read this book because it’s about a hockey player. Ah ah - don’t turn the page. I realize that you may or may not be fond of Canada’s National Obsession. The first few bars of The Hockey Night In Canada Theme may cause you to tear up, throw up or anything in between. The point is, if you’re Canadian, you’re affected. I would classify myself as a hockey agnostic. Used to love the game, back in the Paleozoic Era when there were six teams and you knew every player’s face, thanks to the absence of helmets, face masks and mullets. The fact is, you didn’t even need to see the faces back then. The players could all have taken to the ice wearing nothing but Stanfield Long Johns and Canadian Tire bags over their heads and you’d still know them. You knew them by their stride, their shot, the set of their shoulders. You knew them because - well, there were only half a dozen teams and you saw every team play at least seven or eight times a year. Gaston’s book kind of bridges that spectrum between the Good Old Days of bare-faced goalies and the Brave New World of multi­ millionaire superstars who hail from Irkutsk. The hero, Bobby Bonaduce is a grinder who’s spent the past 20 years in the minors, Eves needs his own CNN What Premier Ernie Eves needs is his own CNN. The Progressive Conservative premier ' has complained that the news media are not portraying his government sympathetically enough. Eves objected particularly to criticisms of his tactic of closing the legislature before an election to go politicking and unveiling his budget outside it to deprive the opposition parties of their traditional forum. The premier said he could not understand why the media made such a fuss and were preoccupied with procedures surrounding a budget rather than measures in it that affect people. Another time, announcing more spending on education, he charged that the media care more about procedures than children’s futures. Eves warmed to his criticism at a party meeting when he said about the only thing the media have got right in the year he has been premier is that the Tories have to work hard to win an election and he urged them not to be complacent. Public Safety Minister Bob Runciman claimed where the budget is delivered is not a big issue in his riding, but “is an issue with the Queen’s Park Press Gallery, who are trying to get blood out of this thing.” Health Minister Tony Clement called the issue important only to media pundits, professors and the cognoscenti and Tory backbencher Joe Spina scoffed that reporters rarely sit in the legislature when the budget is delivered. He seemed unaware they already have the document, are busy writing stories and obtaining reaction and do not have the luxury of watching it read. Eves’s campaign headquarters also sent a bulletin to supporters saying reporters are not explaining Eves’s policies properly and they Arthur Black chewing cold take-out pizza on the overnight bus between forgettable burgs like Utica, Tulsa, Rochester and Kalamazoo. As the book begins, that chapter of Bobby’s life is over. He knows now he’s not going to make it to the NHL. Instead he’s on his way to Fredericton at the wheel of a wheezy old beater to put a cap on his hockey dreams by playing on a line with his undergraduate son on the University of New Brunswick hockey team. How’s he going to pull that off? Easy. By getting a master’s degree in English Literature at the university. There are just three major obstacles between Bobby and seeing his personal red light go on: he’s plagiarized his way into the course; he’s next to flat-broke and he hasn’t laid eyes on his boy since he was an infant. Oh yes...and the major cross check. The big reason Bobby Bonaduce is skating away from that Utica arena locker room and towards the groves of New Brunswick academe - Bobby is in the beginning stages of multiple sclerosis. This book, The Good Body, is about a body going bad. Doesn’t sound like a thigh-slapper premise for a book - but The Good Body is funny. Funny and dark. In fact, it smudges the line between funny and dark. When somebody Eric Dowd From Queen’s Park should watch his TV commercials, which, as everyone knows, are completely unbiased. Eves has long felt media have been unfair. When he left, after being finance minister, to go into the private sector, he said was looking forward to “a life free of media,” probably half-joking, but it showed what was on his mind. Most media had praised him as competent, but dwelled also on his frequent absences from the legislature and his northern riding, which are legitimate issues, and his slicked-back hair, dandyish dress and acrimonious divorce, which are human traits people like to read about, but have no bearing on his performance. Since returning as premier, Eves has not been lavished with the constant praise from right-wing newspapers his predecessor, Mike Harris, could rely on. These papers have been cooler to him because Eves moved the party toward the centre with such policies as postponing tax cuts and privatization, but are coming back to the fold as he has started edging back to the right and is about to call an election. Eves also is irritated because media focused on revelations ministers lived it up in bars and restaurants on taxpayers’ money, but failed to emphasize almost all this took place while Harris was premier. Eves’s staff in retaliation dumped 12,000 pages of requested expense claims, covering seven years and many barely decipherable, on chastises Bobby for his gallows humour, he gives her his face off stare and says, “Marg? Where we’re all going?...ALL humour is gallows humour.” That’s the thing about this guy - he contradicts all the Big Bobby Clobber stereotypes of The Muscleheaded Hockey Player. He’s big and he’s tough and his face is cross-hatched with scars from hundreds of sticks and pucks and fists, but he s no monosyllabic mutt. Bonaduce is a wicked observer of the world he lives in. He attends a Bob Dylan concert and describes the singer’s voice as sounding like “a hornet in a bean can”. Of his chosen profession, he says “That a puck is a meaningless thing to chase is exactly the point. They might never think of it this way, but hockey fans are drawn to the spectacle of men who are the best in the land at using their bodies to fulfill PURE DESIRE. Pure, because these are guys who will basically kill to get at a puck, this chunk of dumb rubber the perfect symbol of worthlessness. It is so abstract, so pure in its meaninglessness, it is almost Japanese.” So has Bill Gaston turned me back into a Hockey Night In Canada fan? Naw. Any sports enterprise that’s been reduced to naming its franchises after ducks, penguins and coyotes can only be in the final convolutions of a terminal death spiral. I won’t be tuning in to the Ron and Don show anytime soon. But The Good Body has turned me into a Bill Gaston fan. I’ll be looking up his other books. The Good Body by Bill Gaston, is published by Harper Collins. reporters at the end of an already unusually busy day and hampered them in their coverage. The public will not care, but reporters protested. Eves has not picked the safest ground on which to take on media, however, when he claims they are raising a storm about nothing over his unveiling the budget outside the legislature. Almost all newspapers across the province, including many who normally support the Tories and some as far away as Britain, the land of parliamentary tradition, have accused him of an unprecedented violation of rules to hush up opponents. Media are rarely so close to unanimity and Eves would have difficulty arguing so many diverse and often friendly voices are wrong. Eves is following a tradition of premiers complaining news media are unfair, but he is better off than Harris, who is suing one paper for libel, and his predecessor, New Democrat premier Bob Rae, who complained “if I taught my dog to walk on water, the media would say Rae’s dog can’t swim.” Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Bonnie Gropp The short of it Up in smoke To say 1 was disappointed would be an understatement. My outrage, when county councillors defeated a motion to accept the draft smoking bylaw was barely contained. The decision is not an easy one. The amended draft bylaw would have seen exemptions for psychiatric hospitals and nursing and retirement homes. This was a move that may have caused some of the nay­ saying. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Beth Henning along with all other health representatives working on the bylaw have been outspoken in their belief that the bylaw would work best if it was a 100 per cent ban. Some councillors agreed. Unfortunately, and unbelievably, there are others who have been swayed by pressure from businesses and organizations. In requesting that the county consider a bylaw such as the one in Bruce allowing a pub or bar to permit smoking as long as they pay a $500 fee, North Huron Reeve Doug Layton stated he could not in all conscience vote for something that might cause one more business to close. People in North Huron can drive 10 minutes and be in Bruce, he argued. It was not a level playing field. Why are these people so sure that a smoke- free environment would kill business? Layton said that two businesses in Wingham closed this week. Both allowed smoking. I wonder then what was the cause. The one I tried to patronize because I actually quite liked the food. However, the haze that always greeted me when I walked in the door, no matter what the time of day, eventually kept me away. In virtually every other situation smokers have accepted the fact they need to tai e it outside and most do with respect and understanding for others. Non-smokers do not have the option. Right now, we can only stay home. While I sympathize with the Legions and their stance that the veterans deserve the right to smoke in what is essentially a private club, I can’t understand why these otherwise thoughtful people would want to. People who fought for freedom, who Sniggled valiantly to rid the world of a toxic evil, feel absolutely no guilt at poisoning their friends and companions? Because that is exactly what they are doing. They might just as well put arsenic in the drinks. Tobacco smoke puts others at risk for health problems or even death. And if you don’t think so then you are in denial. In a brave move, Huron East Mayor Lin Steffler stood before council, the media and a full gallery at Thursday’s meeting and spoke emotionally of having Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, a result of 32 years of smoking. She explained that she will die “gasping for breath” and asked councillors to leave a “legacy of health ’ for the next generation. I can only imagine her heartbrtak at the defeat of the motion. Chatter among the pro-smoking at county council following the decision spoke of a flawed process, a lop-sided committee, biased to the non-smoking. Well, of course they are. They are trying to save lives. However, perceiving an unfair advantage the tobacco proponents did the right thing - fought for their beliefs. Now it seems it’s time to apply pressure from the other side. I encourage non-smokers to let their representatives know that the right to smoke should not be put above the rights of those who don’t.