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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-04-12, Page 5none o naoA uavtTi'i aur k anAO THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2000. PAGE 5. No claws for complaint I’ve got to make a trip to Canada’s tiniest province coming up soon, and I’m not looking forward to it. Nothing wrong with Prince Edward Island. I love spuds. I read Milton Acorn’s poetry. I’ve got nothing against Anne of Green Gables. It’s lobsters. You can’t make a trip to PEI without being invited to at least one lobster blowout. And I (deep breath, now) ... don’t like lobster. It’s a grievous cross to bear. Cooks and hosts look at you slack-jawed and incredulous when you tell them you’d just as soon have the Cobb salad. Not like lobster? What is this guy - some kinda communist? Nope. And not a vegetarian either. It’s just that I don’t like to conduct autopsies at the dinner table. There can be few more grisly scenes than the gross, bare-handed carnage that is unleashed at your average lobster dinner as claws are wrenched from steaming carapaces and cracked and crushed until they yield the flesh within. The air is thick with eyeballs, antennas, dismembered abdomens — yuck And all this for the bottom-feeding, hyper ugly sea creature that is the lobster. International Scene Monsanto - how not to I would assume that most readers have read of the efforts to introduce agricultural biotechnology in North America and Europe as a means of feeding the rapidly increasing number of people on this planet. One company comes to mind - the American agribusiness corporation Monsanto and the mere mention of this company’s name is guaranteed to evoke either profound criticism or praise; few people in the know are inclined to sit on the fence. If we are going to start with Monsanto, we might as well go a step further and mention the name of its chief executive officer. Robert Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro has been called a genius and that is probably true, but I have met a few such people and the expression “astute businessman” does not come readily to mind. He made a world-wide name for himself in the 1980s with the development of Nutra- Sweet and he followed this with a grandiose plan to bring what is called cutting-edge technology into the field of genetic research and molecular design. According to the company’s motto, this was to bong “food, health and hope” to the world at large. With the proper marketing approach, genetic engineering could have well been a resounding success, however, Mr. Shapiro seems to have played most of his cards in the wrong way or at the wrong time. For openers, he should have realized that Europeans do not necessarily look with awe and reverence on American inventions or Which, let’s face it, is just a big cockroach with attitude. I guess my lack of lobster lust influenced my feelings when the story about Luther caught my eye. Luther. Luther the Lobster. Luther’s an eight-pound crustacean who lived uneventfully in the waters off Rhode Island until his luck ran out. Luther was caught in a trap, hauled to the surface, graded, popped in a bit of bubble wrap, slapped in a box and Fed Ex’d to a fellow in Madison, Wisconsin - a birthday present from his friends. They knew this guy just loved eating lobster. The recipient was delighted with the gift. Lips smacking, he boiled up a pot of water, grabbed the still-healthy Luther just behind the front claws and was all set to pop him into the cauldron when he made a tactical error. He looked Luther in his little beady left eye. That was it. There was no way this guy could kill and eat Luther after that. Fine. Next question: what do you do with a live lobster? They’re hard to housebreak and you can’t take them for walks. Plus they aren’t the brightest critter that ever crawdaddied out from under a rock. Can’t even sit up, roll over or fetch. The fella tried phoning up pet stores. Would they be interested in adding a living lobster to their inventory - conditional on the lobster not ending up on someone’s plate? Long and sustained laughter from the pet By Raymond Canon creations as North Americans are prone to do. Sometimes the French seem to go out of their way to find fault with things American. Just look at their periodic attacks on American culture. At any rate, with the British mad cow disease still fresh in their minds, it would take some careful stroking to gain acceptance of genetic engineering and this most assuredly was not done. Even Mr. Shapiro admits that this was a fundamental flaw in his approach. The fact remains that genetic engineering has not yet either been proven or disproven. It could well be that it plays a role, and perhaps a major one at that, in our drive to find more efficient ways to grow food to feed the ever increasing number of people living on our planet. Then, again, it may have some fundamental flaws in it which will be detected Letters to the editor are a forum for public opinion and comment. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of this publication. THE EDITOR, With the coming of spring, for some people the thought of summer sports starts. This year will be different for Brussels as there will be no minor ball program offered. At this time as past chairman of minor ball for the past 10 years I would like to acknowledge those who supported the program, the past executive, the coaches for their help and expertise, the umpires who took store owners. He tried the local zoo. Not interested. When he called the local branch of the Humane Society, the man who answered the phone didn’t laugh, nor did he question the caller’s sobriety. “Bring ‘im on down,” said Paul Long. “We don’t discriminate,” said Long. “We’ve gotten just about everything here. But we’ve never had a lobster before. The lobster thing just about floored us.” So Luther finally found himself among friends, but he still had a problem. Lobsters need largish bodies of salt water - preferably an ocean — to thrive. Madison, Wisconsin is a long walk from the Atlantic. That’s when the employees at the Dane County Humane Society went the extra mile. They took up a collection, fitted Luther out in his very own plastic foam cooler, complete with a corrugated cardboard box with lots of air holes, plenty of padding and three ice packs to keep the temperature down where Luther liked it. Then they popped the whole kit and caboodle into an American Airlines business class seat and flew him back to Rhode Island where he was returned to his underwater home. “He probably came here in the cargo hold of an airplane,” said Long. “But Luther went back first class.” Lucky Luther. Lobsters usually only come with two claws, but Luther had a third one. An Escape Claws. • ■ if we proceed with introducing it at a more leisurely place. But to rush in, as Monsanto has done, creates yet another example of throwing the baby out with the bath water. The company’s eagerness to get farmers, and indirectly consumers, to accept this new system as the product of infinite wisdom has effectively turned too many people off. They suspect that Monsanto and its supporters may be trying to slip one past when nobody is really looking. Frankly change is coming too rapidly in too many different facets of our society. We do not have time to digest one set of conditions when we are asked to accept another. Because politicians are held generally in such low esteem, when they enter the fray to persuade us to accept one approach, the concept of false gods comes readily to mind. the time to take the required courses needed and all the children who came out to play the game. I hope that in the future, interest will get minor ball going again. Funds and equipment will hopefully still be there to assist anyone at getting the sport going again. John Harrison Past Chairman Brussels Minor Bal). The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp A gift from Grandpa My grandfather was a wonderful man. I never did, nor haven't since, heard an Unkind word said of him. He passed away when I was still a young adolescent, but my memories are vivid. Easy-going, gentle and kind, he always had time for his grandchildren, despite the fact that he continued to work until his death in his 70s. One of my fondest memories is of time spent on his knee in their kitchen while Grandma was preparing a meal. With my cousin on one side and me on the other, he kept us entertained with songs and stories. We would beg him to draw us a horse, and he would willingly oblige. To us, he was the greatest artist in the world, our devotion obscuring the fact that his talent was limited to this one particular animal. It was on his lap too that I first heard “A rig- a-jig-jig and away we go” and “Ride a cock­ horse to Banberry Cross.” But probably what I most remember are his recitations. Without hesitation, he could rhyme off poems from his elementary school years of 60 odd years earlier. It was his gift to us, but I didn’t realize its importance then. This past weekend, as my grandson and I sat for some well-deserved cuddle time, I found myself on the receiving end of his chase-away- the-cares smiles when I serenaded him with the ditties I learned on Grandpa’s knee. And then I remembered the one particular poem that was a favourite of mine, which I have since learned came from my grandfather’s earliest school year. Kind readers of my column, helped me fill in the gaps some time ago so that I can now recite Somebody’s Mother with hardly a flaw. To those who don’t know, the poem tells of an elderly woman trying to cross a busy street burgeoning with horses and buggies and laughing children. One young boy comes to her and after helping her, returns to his friends. She’s somebody’s mother boys you know, for all she’s aged and poor and slow. And I hope some boy will lend a hand to help my mother you understand. If ever she’s poor, and old and grey and bent with the chill of a winter’s day. And somebody’s mother bowed low her head in her home that night And the prayer she said, “Was God be kind to that noble boy who's somebody’s son and pride and joy.” As I reached the end, looking into the eyes of this beloved young child, 1 was, I’m not ashamed to say, more*sentimental than usual. How sad, that neither he nor his father had the pleasure of knowing the dear man from whom I first heard this poem. Its message was instilled in my grandfather as a young boy and he lived it. Yet, while they can never come to know his kindness and gentleness through his physical presence, I realized that through his songs and stories he is part of their lives. By sharing this special memory of him with my children and theirs, they will hopefully see the kind of man he was. It is a gift he gave me that I’m glad to pass on.