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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-01-12, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2000. PAGE 5. Toodleoo, tuvalu Sometimes it’s odd, living on an island. You forget that your options are circumscribed by a moat. That you can’t drive to Winnipeg or Kamloops or Yellowknife. Not without getting your feet wet. My island isn’t THAT extreme. There’s a regular (well, pretty regular) ferry service. There’s a bush plane on floats that I can catch at least once a day. And in a pinch I can always try sweet­ talking a shrimper or a crabber into giving me a lift. The island that I chose nestles in the Strait of Georgia, just a few miles from Vancouver, Victoria and the U.S. border. I played it safe. Other people look for islands as far away from the rest of terra firma as they can get. Gaughin chose Tahiti. The mutineers from The Bounty opted for a gaggle of godforsaken rocks that would become The Falklands. Many of our predecessors decided Newfoundland looked like a good place to be. Others fetched up on Prince Edward and Vancouver Islands. Political correctness gone wild There was a recent decision handed down by the Supreme Court that a decision made in the 18th century about native fishing rights still stands. In spite of the infinitely different conditions which prevailed then compared to now, the natives are apparently able to trap lobster at will at any time while everybody else has to wait until the appropriate season to set their traps, if there are any lobster left by that time. This strikes me as just another unrealistic application of political correctness and, if such a decision can transcend the centuries, let’s do the same thing in different situations. Imagine, if you can, such a court convened in other countries and look at the possible outcome. First to England. “Well, Mr. Shakespeare, it seems that those three plays you submitted to us for approval all have serious flaws. Take, for instance, this one called The Merchant of Venice. You have a Jewish lawyer, Shylock, portrayed in a negative light. You can’t do that to minorities, otherwise people seeing your play might think that all Jews are cut from the same cloth. I’m afraid that you are going to have to change that. Use somebody whose name is Smith, Jones or Brown and people won’t be bothered about it. Then there is this one called Julius Caesar. You have Brutus stabbing him in the back. That just has to go. If you are suggesting that politicians are capable of stabbing people with whom they disagree, this will undermine the whole democratic system of which politicians are an integral part. Finally, this bit of juvenile froth called Romeo and Juliet. See here, Mr. Shakespeare, Could have done a lot worse. They could have chosen Tuvalu. Tropical paradise, Tuvalu, an archipelago of coral atolls that sits in the Western Pacific, just to the northwest of Fiji. Tuvalu is home to 10,000 souls who live an Edenic life on a diet of fish, home grown veggies and tropical fruit. Tuvaluans are utterly unruffled by the pollution, the wars, the overcrowding and all the other turn of the Millennium crapola that you and I deal with as a matter of course. Only one problem with the perfect paradise that is Tuvalu - it’s disappearing. You see, you’d never get an altitude nosebleed on the atolls of Tuvalu. It sits, on average, a mere 91 centimetres above the Pacific Ocean. Ninety-one centimetres. About the height of a decent pair of hip waders. Experts expect the sea level to rise by anywhere from 50 to 100 centimetres over the next century. If the advance hype about global warming and glacial melting is even close to accurate, Tuvalu is doomed. Already the sea is insinuating salty fingers into Tuvalu daily life. you can’t give young people the idea that they can go about committing suicide just when things do not go their own way. Have them go for counselling or something like that. Now take these three plays back and rewrite them so that people will enjoy and appreciate them. You don’t want to be a forgotten playwright in just a few years, do you?” Now over to Spain. “Mr. Columbus, you are telling everybody who will listen that the earth is round, not flat. You have no proof of that whatsoever. When you look out over the ocean, do you see any curve in the horizon? Has anybody ever set sail from Cadiz one way and come back the other way? No, they haven’t, have they? The Flat Earth Society is a reputable organization of which we are member and they are backed up by many of the clergy. If God wanted the earth to be round, he would have said so but can you find any place in the Bible where it says precisely that? Now, if you go sailing westward, you are just going to fall off. Why don’t you go back to Italy where you came from and create some new food, something called spaghetti or macaroni or some Italian word like that. When you’ve got the recipe, come back and maybe the King will try it.” Finally to Switzerland. “Mr. Tell, before we start this hearing, could you leave your bow and arrow outside? Yes, you can keep the apple. Now what is this we read about you shooting an apple off your son’s head and threatening to A Final Thought I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. - Thomas Jefferson Formerly sweet and potable ground water has turned brackish, sour and toxic. The root crops on which the population depends are beginning to die. Effectively, Tuvalu is drowning. And it seems there’s not much anyone can do about it. The irony is we’ve been this way before - if an observer as illustrious as Plato is to be believed. Twenty-four hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher wrote of a huge and fabulous city/state he called Atlantis. Plato said the people of Atlantis were so advanced as to be godlike. He swore the very walls of the city were plated in gold, silver and bronze. Atlantis, alas, vanished. Swallowed up by the sea, the legends say. Apparently that’s how it is with many islands - they come and they go. I know somebody’s going to write and say “Idiot - Plato didn’t describe Atlantis as an island - he said it was a continent. True. But what’s a continent, if not an uncommonly large island. Atlantis. Tuvalu. Australia. North America. Next? do the same to Mr. Gessler if you missed? What sort of nonsense is this? Don’t you know that Mr. Gessler represents the Hapsburgs, the best known royal house in all of Europe. Why would he want to harm you? You want to do what? Form your own country? Don’t you know that there are enough countries already? What do you want to call the people? Did I hear right? Swiss? How preposterous! You want to name them after some cheese? Mr. Tell, if this keeps up, I shall send you for a psychiatric examination. Furthermore, I have trouble understanding you. It is German you are speaking, isn’t it? Oh, Swiss German! There’s that cheese again. Stop making fun of us!” Mr. Tell, this idea of independence is not going to amount to anything. The next thing we know, you people will want to set up a bank or make watches or chocolate or yodel or some other idiotic action. Just go back to your mountain, be nice to the Hapsburgs and no more shooting apples off of people’s heads. Oh Yes, please work on that accent. I don’t want to hear the word Swiss again.” 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 information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Signs of intelligence There’s no question children have many wonderful qualities. Perhaps one of the most endearing is their amazing ability to discover the fun, the humour amidst even the greatest frustration. Looking back at my childhood, I am reminded of the party line. Making calls to my country cousin could be an irritating exercise. Picking up the receiver at an appointed time, settling into a comfy chair, set for a friendly chat or to make plans for a visit to Grandma’s was always anticipated. The mellifluous voice of the operator (yes, a living, breathing human being) asked “Number please.” , and I responded. She thanked me, I waited ... .... and then the busy signal. What always annoyed me was knowing that it was probably her neighbour causing the problem. And worse, when I finally got through, it would be only a matter of minutes when the busy-body would pick up and hearing it was children tell us to get off, she needed to make a call. However, for these rambunctious kids the woes of sharing a telephone line were offset by the entertainment value. What delight there was, during visits to my cousin, in turning the tables on Mrs. Nosy Parker, endlessly picking up and replacing the receiver while she was talking. Or better yet, gently lifting it so our presence was unknown. There was much to be learned eavesdropping on Mrs. P. But I’ve aged. And so has technology. No more party lines, no more childish fun and games. Yet, while the party line is less common, I seem to be suffering the symptoms at my home. Missed calls, busy lines once again plague me. My frustration returns, this time with no recourse. The perpetrator now is the internet and two teens. In the past week, I have been told by several people that they tried to reach me, but I was not home. Several times this week, my calls home have been answered by the hollow, endless drone signifying usually an empty house. But you see, that is not the case, for the answering machine picks up after three rings unless someone is on the internet. We have call waiting, which should disconnect anyone on-line if a telephone call comes through. However, consulting our server offered some rather strange information. It would seem that the reason my calls aren’t winning the battle, is because my modem is “too intelligent”. The explanation is that our modem hears that message coming in but is smart enough to recognize it shouldn’t let it through. I kid you not. There are finally signs of intelligent life in the Gropp household. The only solution is to disable call waiting which would then give us a busy signal and at least the notion that we haven’t left the building. So perhaps, my age has made it difficult to find the humour in this. But, considering my frustration caused by this “party line” problem is compounded by the fact that I’m being one- upped by modem technology I think I’m justified. Thank goodness intelligence was never something we had to worry about with Mrs. P.