HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-02-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2004. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Laugh? I thought I'd diet
m on the Atkins Diet. Again. I first went
on it last spring and it tVas a glorious
victory for me. I lost 19 pounds in just a
few weeks.
I crowed, I strutted, I bought new pants.
Then I started to `experiment' with the Atkins
Diet. They encourage you to do that, after
you've gone through the induction phase, to
find out what verboten foods you can safely
add to your dinner table.
Turned out I have a real talent for food
experimentation. Over Christmas I
experimented with foodstuffs like cranberry
sauce, mashed potatoes, sage dressing, gravy
and Black Forest cake with a scoop of Hagen
Daz on the side.
I gained 19 pounds
I've sat through this movie before. At
various times in my calorie-besotted life I have
flirted with every diet fad from Pritikin to
Weight Watchers to South Beach.
The result is always the same: significant
weight loss followed by period of convenient
amnesia followed by significant weight gain.
All of which has led me to a distinctly
unpalatable conclusion. Unless I am prepared
to wave goodbye to some of my favourite food
'groups (beer, doughnuts, beer, french fries and
beer to name but five) my silhouette is never
going to be mistaken for Brad Pitt's.
Which leaves me with two choices. Number
one: I could move to Houston, Texas. A lot of
cities call themselves Fat City, but Houston has
a serious claim to the title. Experts reckon that
one out of every three citizens of that city is
clinically obese, making Houston officially the
Fattest City in North America.
Premier Dalton McGuinty wanted to
show he is best buddies with Paul
Martin, but he is wishing now he had
kept his distance.
The premier could lose popularity because
of his close links, which he has flaunted, to the
prime minister whose government has made
Liberal a dirty word.
This also is a loss McGuinty can ill afford,
because enthusiasm for him already is fading
ever his inability to fulfill many promises he
made in the October election after being left
with a deficit he should, however, have seen
-.;oming.
McGuinty had gone out of his way to
Jemonstrate he has close ties to Martin. One of
,is first acts as premier was to join Martin at
he head table at a ritzy dinner that raised a
-ecord $2.9 million, mostly from big business,
'or federal Liberals' electioneering.
It is the federal Liberals' fundraising
nethods that have raised fury, because their
;overnment, mostly while Martin was in
tharge of its financial operations, gave $100
million for virtually no work to friendly
idvertising agencies who donated much of it
)ack to their party.
The public will conclude Martin either knew
A this misuse or. much more likely, was
iegligent in failing to watch how money was
;pent.
But either way, McGuinty's opponents in
)ntario will be able to say he seems very
;omfortable with those who raise money for
us disgraced federal party.
Among other lavish praise. McGuinty said
vlartin was genuinely interested in improving
ife for Ontarians and would bring a new era of
' ;o-operation in federal-provincial relations.
vlartin in return said voters would be better off
f they elected McGuinty.
Martin at that time was seen widely as a
'resh face, who would bring democracy and
ipenness to government and would easily win
A move to Houston wouldn't make me any
thinner but at least I wouldn't stand out in a
crowd.
My second choice is much more attractive.
All I have to do is embrace the Ligon Diet.
What's one more diet regime going to
accomplish that all the others didn't?
Hah. Trust me — the Ligon Diet is different.
It owes its name to Robert Ligon; a Chicago
food entrepreneur who sold his popular, low-
fat, low-calorie doughnuts to health-food
stores and weight-loss centres across the U.S.
for years.
HOW low-fat and low calorie'? Very. A mere
three grams of fat and 135 calories per
doughnut. Says so right on the label.
The other thing you need to know about
Ligon doughnuts is that they are flat-out
delicious. The chocolate glazed Ligon
doughnut tastes as good, if not better than Tim
Horton's top-of-the-line chocolate glazed.
Not surprisingly, diet-conscious customers
have been vacuuming up Ligon's sinkers faster
than he could make them.
Bob Ligon made sure that every consumer
understood that his signature chocolate-glazed
doughnuts were really a carob-coated
confection with a yogurt dip. It said so right on
an election this spring against weakened and
dispirited opposition.
McGuinty wanted to bask in his glory, but
there is none since the discovery of federal
Liberals' huge abuse of taxpayers' money and
condemnation led by an unusually expressive
auditor-general.
Martin has already dropped from 48 to 35
per cent in polls, and may barely hold on to
government in an election. There is even a
slight chance he will be defeated. .
Misuse of public money by a federal party
has not always hurt its provincial counterparts
and McGuinty does not have to call an election
for three years.,
But this scandal has caught public
imagination and the opposition parties can
help keep it alive by reminding that McGuinty
was the guy who kept telling the public he has
strong links to Martin.
Federal parties' actions also have hurt their
Ontario parties. As one example of many, the
provincial Liberals led by Robert Nixon
seemed close to winning an election in 1975,
when Liberal finance minister John Turner
resigned in disagreement with prime minister
Pierre Trudeau's economic policy.
This public split among federal Liberals
made it seem the party was in disarray
everywhere and was a major reason the
Ontario Liberals lost. Nixon always blamed
Turner, feeling with some justification he
should have held off resigning until the
Ontario election was over.
the label. And his customers believed him.
They shouldn't have.
Robert Ligon...lied. The doughnuts he sold
across Noi'th America — $500,000 worth in
1997 alone - were oozing with fat and
crammed with calories. As fattening as
anything you could buy from your local
Greasy Spoon.
They were baaaa-aaad. That's why they
tasted so good.
And they were very' profitable for Mister
Ligon. He was buying cholesterol-clogging,
midriff-bulging doughnuts from a Chicago
bakery for 25 cents apiece, relabelling them as
'Health Style Alternatives' and selling them to
gullible chumps for a buck a pop.
Mister Ligon is no longer merchandising his
duplicitous doughnuts. He's doing a year and a
half in a federal pen for fraud.
What's interesting is that Mister Ligon
doesn't feel repentant. "Everybody wanted the
product and were upset they couldn't get the
product," he says, somewhat wistfully.
What's more his customers don't feel
avenged or angry or outraged. They just
feel...sad.
It was such a wonderful dream, eating all the
delicious, low:calorie, minimal-fat doughnuts
they could stuff in their mouths. And now it's
over.
But Robert Ligon has left all diet backsliders
a wonderful and lasting legacy: the ultimate,
100 percent-effective, no-pain food regime -
The Ligon Diet.
How it works is, you eat everything you
want.
Then you lie about it.
When Mike Harris became Ontario
Progressive Conservative opposition leader in
1990, he spent much of his first three years
trying to distance himself from Tory prime
minister Brian Mulroney, who was so
unpopular he soon afterwards bequeathed a
party that fell to its lowest in history.
Opponents accused Harris in the legislature ,
of being part and parcel of Mulroney's'
misdeeds and Harris retorted "you and
,Mulroney are both wrong."
When Kim Campbell succeeded Mulroney,
Harris said he would not automatically support
her in an election, but would endorse policies
he felt were appropriate, no matter which party
advocated them.
Harris later refused both to join federal,
leader Joe Clark and other Tory premiers to
discuss ways to restore their federal party's
fortunes and endorse it in an election.
This refusal to get involved with his federal
party helped Harris, who retired undefeated,
and McGuinty must wish he had been less
cozy.
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.
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
A gift of life
Happy families are all alike; *every
unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way.
— Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi
It's no secret that family is important to me.
It is the rock that I can lean on, the support that
I count on and the drive that propels me.
Weekends too are important to me, because
weekends are the only time that I can get
together with any of my family. There's no one
related to me living around the corner. I can't
take a walk across town and pop in to visit one
of my kids or my siblings.
Hanging out with family involves
scheduling, planning and packing. At best it
will mean a few hours away from home, but
more likely it means moving in for at least a
day and night.
Such was the case this past weekend as my
husband and I travelled hours to celebrate my
father's birthday, then hurried back Sunday to
socialize with some of our children.
So much family time gave me plenty to
think about as the waning hours of the
weekend passed. Families are interesting.
There is first the extended group - the aunts.
uncles, cousins. These are, if we were to be
honest, often people with whom our only
common bond is genetic. Visits to my aunts
and uncles, playing with my cousins was
always a highlight as a youngster. But as we
grew up, as we moved farther apart, as our
time and attention turned more to our own
growing families, we became less connected,
less familiar.
And yet, if we can find those moments,
those times to talk, the history and genetic
bond that connects us can still define so much
about who we are.
This is even more true with parents and
siblings. For years you live under one roof;
flaws must be accepted or the arrangement is
intolerable. The bond you share makes it
easier.
As we get older, move on, we may notice the
flaws more than we had in the past. Still
remaining however is the connection of
history and blood. Obviously, there are times
when we feel exasperated or puzzled by things
parents and siblings may have said or done.
Yet, for me, when I need to get my perspective
back, I know that the first people I think of
calling are the ones who have known me
longest. What they have to say is important to
me.
The in-law situation puts another whole spin
on family. Marriage is often a package deal.
With this may come habits that are foreign or
idiosyncrasies that irritate. You are now quite
literally thrown into a room of strangers and
over time will hopefully blend and accept each
other.
It's not necessarily a natural process, as the
new kid in the house may be the one who has
to lighten up. My husband's boisterous crew
was quite intimidating to this shy gal. I have
come to recognize that in keeping with the
larger-than-life personalities, however, is an
equally big heart.
The ultimate in family, of course, comes
with the one we create, our spouses and our
children. And we now find ourselves once
again living under one roof, connected to yet a
different group by history and genetics.
Families can aggravate, they can tear apart.
That's a sad reality. Even in close ones, family
can be an interesting cycle. But with
forgiveness, tolerance and a sense of humour
it's one of the best of life's gifts.
McGuinty hurt by federal ties