HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-03-04, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2004. PAGE 5.
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Go ahead, bring out your dead...
poor beleaguered Britain. Not enough
that she suffers from a boggy, dank
climate, wretched cuisine, a
tragicomically dysfunctional royal family and
a tiresome houseguest named Conrad who Will
Not Go Home.
Now it_ turns out she's 'got too many dead
people as well. -
Blighty's burial grounds (all 25,000 of them)
have been doing a brisk trade for many a moon
- in some cases for centuries — and they are
pretty much filled to capacity. The boneyards
are so overcrowded that the U.K. government
is presently mulling over adoption of a burial
process known in the trade as "lift and
deepen". Sounds like copy for a brassiere ad,
but it actually refers to a technique of
exhuming coffins already in place and re-
burying them at a deeper level. That way,
several additional coffins can be stacked on top
of them. Kind of a layer-cake approach to
interment.
As usual, Britain is opting for a piecemeal
solution to the problem instead of thinking
outside the...box, as it were.
, Why not just construct a brand-spanking
new Necropolis? An entire city dedicated
solely to dead people?
it's not exactly an original notion. The state
of California did it years ago.
The city's name is Colma. You'll find it
about five miles south of San Francisco. Its
peaceful ambiance and graceful, tree-lined
streets are home to one and a half million
Ontario's cash-strapped Liberals have
revealed how far they will go — and a
lot else — to lure people to gamble.
The Liberals put 50 skimpily-clad young
women' on display- in a so-called beauty
contest that attracted several thousand leering
men to a casino near Orillia.
The women vied for the title Miss Universe
Canada and the right to compete in the full
Miss Universe contest in Ecuador this summer.
They pranced and preened in red bikinis and
spiked heels before the blackjack tables,
roulette wheels and slot machines achieved the
province's real object of relieving the males of
their hard-earned money.
Such beauty contests now find it difficult to
get on mainstream TV, because most people
feel they are crass and demeaning to women.
Premier Dalton McGuinty says often he
wants to uphold family values and his cabinet
includes such stern advocates of women's
rights as Sandra Pupatello and Marie
Bountrogianni, and it sounds out of character
they would lend their blessing.
But the Liberals, like preceding
governments, are relying on money from
gambling to help pay for programs they
promised, and more than most, because they
inherited an unexpectedly large deficit.
They have joined a long tradition of
governments constantly dreaming up new
ways to encourage people to gamble and never
being content to let them make up their own
minds.
The Progressive Conservatives offered some
of the biggest names in show business to coax
residents to casino tables.
Tony Bennett, Wayne Newton and Ringo
Starr have been on stage warbling, Don
Rickles and Don Knotts cracking jokes, Rich
Little imitating and Jay Leno reciting
monologues mainly to pull in older patrons. -
Many of these are said to have money from
long years of work, and feel bored. What
healthier and more stimulating pursuit can a
government offer than the opportunity to fritter
away their nest-eggs gambling?
souls.
And I mean souls. They're all dead. What's
more,' they're mostly out-of-towners. The
large, space-strapped city of San Francisco has
been shipping out its expired burghers to the
smaller city of Colma since 1924.
Are there any live people in town? Yes, but
only about 1,200, all nervously upbeat (most
popular bumper sticker 'IT'S GREAT TO BE
ALIVE IN COLMA') — as befits a citizenry
which finds itself outnumbered more than 100-
1 by corpses.
It all started back in 1901 when San
Francisco city fathers, alarmed at the rate their
cemeteries were filling up, banned the
designation of any new burying grounds within
the city limits.
Not only that, they began clearing out the
cemeteries they did have. Where to put all
those exhumed bones? Oh, how about, say,
five miles down the road?
Thus was Colma's destiny determined.
Today, there are 17 burial grounds in Colma
as well as five more nestled on the outskirts of
town. In addition to non-denominational plots
Creedance Clearwater Revival, Kenny
Rogers and Olivia Newton-John are among
those who have enticed a more middling age
group.
Faith Hill and Trisha Yearwood are helping
bring in the younger set, which is particularly
lucrative for government, because if it can turn
them into regular gamblers at an early age they
may devote part of their incomes to it for many
years to come.
The province has even put on boxing to
attract gamblers, but it lasted only a few
rounds, perhaps because they got exhausted
watching so much real action.
The government organizes cheap bus rides,
one-quarter the regular fares, to attract those
who cannot afford cars, possibly because they
spend too much gambling.
Governments are never short of a new
gimmick when appetite for gambling wanes.
For lotteries, there was the ubiquitous
reminder in TV commercials "if you want to
win, you've got to play," which was true.
But to be more honest, it should have added
even if you play, your chance of winning
anything substantial is less than that of being
hit by a car.
The province has invented new lotteries and
Final Thought
Firmness is that admirable quality in
ourselves that is merely stubbornness in
others.
— Unknown
there are four Jewish cemeteries, also two
Chinese, an Italian, a Japanese, a Serbian and
a Greek Orthodox burial ,ground.
But you don't have to be ethnic to spend_
eternity in Colma. You don't even have to be
solvent. They have a paupers graveyard too.
Colma's underground guest list even
includes a couple of: celebrities. The famous
gunsel Wyatt Earp is planted in Colma along
with his wife Josephine.
So is George Moscone, the ex-mayor of San
Francisco who was offed by. a disgruntled
employee back in 1978.
Of course, back in 1924, California had a
luxury that Great Britain hasn't enjoyed for
some time - oodles of wide open spaces.
Nowadays the whole world is getting
overcrowded and no doubt the day will come
when even Colma will be unable to shoehorn
another cadaver into the ground.
Perhaps by then we'll have given some sober
second thought to the whole barbaric practice
of embalming and rouging corpses; of dressing
them up and laying them out in opulent, over-
priced brass-and-mahogany sarcophagi as if
we expected them to rise up and ask for the
next dance at any moment.
Besides, the graveside is a little late in the
game of life to be expressing our love and
devotion to a party that clearly doesn't have
much use for it any more.
As Calgary Bob Edwards said "Give us the
flowers now and you don't need to bring any to
our funeral".
offered bonus prizes, including cars, boats and
vacations, and cash for those found carrying a
current lottery ticket in their pockets.
Government has even pictured actors
playing prim-looking spinsters buying tickets
from kindly old shopkeepers, trying to show
gambling is respectable.
McGuinty in opposition said he would stop
the spread of gambling and allow no new
casinos, video lottery terminals or slot
machines. But similar promises were made bY
earlier Liberals, Tories and New Democrats;
and broken.
When Liberal premier David Peterson was
elected in 1985, his first act was- to say he
would set up a new lottery called Cleantario to
help finance improving the environment, and
he hacked off only when critics said gambling
is not an appropriate way to fund a war against
pollution.
This new Liberal government has started
with Economic Development Minister Joe
Cordiano saying casinos are an important
industry and he is looking at possible new sites
— maybe the next move will be putting in
wrestlers to draw crowds.
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Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
Life's cow patties
T. call last week interesting might be a
bit of an understatement. It was more
like strolling through a cow pasture:. a
pleasant enough experience until you tread on -
a bovine landmine.
Such is life. Sometimes we just walk along
going exactly where we expected, exactly how
we expected. Then there are those times when
it seems to be just one big cow patty and you
can't miss stepping in some of it.
Actually, regarding last week it might have
been better to say rolling through it. Much of
the dung that's come our way has been car
related.
It all began with a frantic call from Toronto
and yet another breakdown for our son's car.
True this worry is more my husband's than
mine, but not until I get to share it. The
message generally gets to me first, and I, the
control freak, spend fidgety hours trying to
figure out an answer, until my poor
mechanically-beleaguered hubby walks in at
the end of a nine-hour day and one-hour drive.
I pass on the information and the problem,
then blithely move on. It's all yours honey.
Several phone calls and several hundred
bucks later, all was up and running again. Or at
least, that's what one might expect.
Unfortunately just a few days later came
another call. This time it seemed that the
vehicle had sprung yet another leak and the
dance through the patties was continuing.
Then last Thursday night, I settled down to
eat my supper at about 6:20 when the phone
rang. A collect call from my, husband was
accepted; after ail it's the least I can do when
he pays the bill. However, if I knew what Was
coming, I might have left it unanswered.
While it's hard for me to believe anyone would
find him forgettable, it seems that's exactly
what the fellow he drives with did.
There was no passing the buck on this one.
Rather than a quiet night at home I was in for
a long, late drive — that is if I ever wanted him
to speak to me again.
On the trip back, I marvelled at how all his
problems are about cars - he's either fixing
them or doesn't have one. It would seem,
however, as I discovered the next day, that they
may be my problem as well.
Readers of this column will recall a few
weeks ago my complaints regarding bad
driving on winter roads. I believe I mentioned
that it may be slow going for me indie snow,
but give me good weather and I'm confident.
Well, it would seem that I was a little overly-
confident because the officer who stopped me
clocked me at a fairly good clip. You're not
going to hear a diatribe against law
enforcement worrying about speeders when
they should be catching the really bad guys. I
was guilty and I should be punished. This one
was entirely my fault. You're not going to hear
me say anything negative about his attitude.
Though clearly not amused by my
transgression, he was respectful and, I say
with much gratitude, fair.
But it was definitely one misstep I could
have lived without.
All of this said, however, a walk in the cow
patties, while occasionally unpleasant, isn't
the end of the world. Challenges are there and
you may as well learn to make your way
through them. You would soon stop
appreciating a sunset if that's what you always
saw when you looked out the door.
And besides sometimes you need to get a
little stink on you to appreciate the roses.
Government lures gamblers