HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-07-22, Page 5Arthur
44. Black
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2004. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Are you ready for the new golf?
Let me declare my bias right from the
tee-off: I do not golf. I have never
golfed. I never intend to take up golf. -
My reasons are several: for one thing, golf is
too expensive.
Second, I have little inclination to dress up
like a pimp. And third, I've got much better
ways of spending a sunny summer afternoon
than humping around a manicured lawn trying
to push a ball into a hole with a stick.
Besides, golf is too...stuffy. There's the
polyester-heavy dress code, for starters. •
Then there's that fake-jock locker room
banter to endure and all the correct procedures
to observe when you're out on the course.
The scorecards, the dinky gloves. the dorky
shoes — it's all 'way too much like Boy Scouts.
Mind you. that may be changing. That would,
seem to be the lesson to be learned from the
first annual Shoreditch Urban Open
Tournament held recently in England.
You read it right — "urban". At the
Shoreditch Open, the players (there were 64 of
them) swatted golf balls through the streets of
a chi chi section of London.
Naturally, • certain...adjustments have to be
made to play golf downtown. The Shoreditch
Open organizers persuaded the City Fathers
to temporarily close off several streets to
traffic.
The mechanics of the game changed too.
Urban golf balls are cotton-stuffed leather
orbs. They travel only about half as fast
and half as far as your Spalding Three-dot,
but there's no chance of them shattering a
AProgressive Conservative premier
once called an election for mid-March
and a snowstorm prevented the Liberal
opposition leader from flying to northern
Ontario to unveil his policies for that region.
Premier William Davis chortled while Stuart
Smith described his plans for helping logging
and mining at a makeshift news conference in
a Toronto airport.
Davis had called the election for March,
although votes normally are held in weather
more suitable for travel, because he felt he had
already done enough to win and his opponents
would be caught off guard.
Smith attacked Davis for calling a winter
election and said it showed how little the
premier cared for the north, but the Tories still
won, in 1981.
Premiers now have a huge advantage in
being able to set election dates. They have to
call an election within five.years, but mostly
call one after four to avoid an election when
they may be unpopular and have no time to
recoup, and they have plenty of room to
manoeuvre in between.
Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has
moved to end this unfairness and has
legislation being debated under which
elections will be held on fixed dates, on the
first Thursday in October every four years
starting on Oct. 4, 2007. almost four years to
the day after McGuinty won.
No other party when in government had
been willing to surrender this advantage and
the Liberals deserve praise, but are not quite as
generous as they. sound. Two premiers who
called elections early and one who called one
late were punished severely by voters.
Liberal premier David Peterson called an
election in 1990 only three years after he won
a record 95 of 130 seats.
Peterson still had anexceptionally high 50
per cent in polls, but there were signs a period
of strong economic. growth was ending and
Peterson wanted to get re-elected before it hit
window. •
Newspaper kiosks, storm drains, lampposts
and fire hydrants substitute for the usual water
hazards, sandtraps and rough.
The Shoreditch Open didn't throw the entire
rulebook out the window. Players were
required to use regulation clubs. Any shot that
landed on `private property' was ruled out of
bounds. Any player who hit a telephone wire
with his drive had to replay the shot without
penalty.
The object of Urban Golf? To have fun —
which makes it pretty much the polar opposite
of traditional golf.
The winner was a duffer who answers to
'Tuna' and came in at 19 over par.
Shoreditch organizer Jeremy Feakes
explains his motivation: "I didn't like all the
rules and attitude involved with proper golf,
but I like Urban Golf because it's all about
being playful."
John Dean would no doubt agree. Dean's the
publisher of a brand new magazine called Golf
Punk. "It's the golf magazine for the rest of
us," he explains. The magazine is dedicated to
turning the traditional game inside out.
Peterson claimed Canada was going
through dramatic political changes and he
required a renewed mandate to tackle them,
but few fell for this explanation.
Criticisms of his many tax increases also
snowballed and complaints lasted throughout
the campaign he called an election that was
unnecessary and cost $40 million, and
Peterson lost not only government but his own
seat and political career.
Davis called an election in 1977, two years
after one reduced his government to a
minority, fretting at having to go cap in hand to
opposition parties to get laws passed and not
having the absolute power his party had for
tbree decades.
Davis postponed potential irritants, had
difficulty finding an excuse for calling an
election, but finally took the plunge after the
opposition parties defeated his plan to allow
landlords an annual rent increase slightly
higher than they considered fair.
The issue was minor, but Davis claimed he
had been defeated on a vote of confidence and
had_ to call an election, few accepted his
Final Thought
• Are you bored with life? Then throw
yourself into some work you believe in with
all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you
will find happiness that you had 'thought
could never be yours.
—Dale Carnegie
Looks like. the game of golf is changing
faster than Randy White's political fortunes —
and on more fronts than one.
There was a tiny item on the sports pages
last week about David Morris. Mister Morris is
a professional British golfer who's been
accused of cheating.
The man's crime? Seeing. David Morris is
the reigning world blind golf champion.
His detractors are suggesting that he's not
blind at all.
The amazing part of this story to me is not
the possible peccadilloes of David Morris,
champion blind golfer. It's that there exists
such a thing as a Blind Golf Championship.
Blind golf???? Who knew? Not me — and
not my pal Eddie either, apparentlji.
Eddie tromped into a Chicago clubhouse
recently and discovered Stevie Wonder sitting
on a bench, his white cane on one side of him
and a bag of golf clubs on the other.
"You a member here, Stevie?"
"Oh, yeah," replies Stevie, "I try to get in at
least 18 holes a week."
"Oh," says Eddie. "So what's your, um,
handicap?"
"Actually, I'm a scratch golfer," says Stevie.
"I only play for money. Thousand bucks a
hole, minimum."
By this time, Eddie's rubbing his hands
together (A blind guy! A thousand dollars a
hole!)
"Ahhhh, Stevie," he says, "any chance you'd
play a round with me?"
"Sure," says Stevie. "Just pick a night."
reasoning and he fell short again of winning a
majority.
One deficiency in McGuinty's legislation is
that it does not appear to rule out a future
government contriving a defeat on confidence
and precipitating an election.
Peterson also called another election early
and won a huge majority, but the
circumstances were different.
Peterson had led a minority government
from 1985 supported by the New Democrats
on condition he implemented specific policies
and when he called an election two years later
he had fulfilled most of his obligations and
many felt he deserved his own mandate.
Bob Rae, after being elected NDP premier in
1990, alienated a wide range of voters by
massive budget deficits and backing off
dreams such as public auto insurance, and
delayed calling an election until his five years
were up, hoping his prospects would improve.
Rae had to endure many taunts he was scared
to call an election and when he did still was
turfed out, so premiers have not always found
having the power to call an election a benefit.
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High cost of housing
Twenty-five years ago, my hubby and I
were dewey-eyed betrotheds, ready not
just to begin a life together, but to build
one.
The first item on the agenda, of course, a
home. The idea was for a new house, designed
to suit our needs. Plans had been chosen and
final details discussed. Of course, location was
everything and a lot had been purchased that
afforded us the privacy we covetted; having
lived in an apartment for some time; and the
view that our Libran-aesthetic craved.
Then an evening bike ride with a friend, an
off-hand remark and destiny took a re-routing.
Passing by an unremarkable but spacious old
home, my attention was caught when my
friend told me the asking price of this two-
storey Italianate. With nothing to lose; or at
least that's what we thought at the time; Mark
and I arranged a look through and the rest, as
they say, is history.
The house has been the source of frustration
and head shaking. While the sow's ear may
have come cheap, the costs incurred in the
making (still ongoing, I might add) of the silk
purse have mounted. It has been a money pit.
But it has also lived up to the potential we
idealistically dreamed of those many years
ago.
Thus, we chalk it up to a learning eitperience.
And it is with this hard-earned knowledge that
we have been called upon to advise one of our
kids as he and his fiancée strive to become new
homeowners.
For the most part, it's refreshing. Warm
fuzzies abound as we step into a fixer-upper
and remember the rosy naiveté that coloured
practicality. Faded, dismal wallpaper, sloped
floors and peeling paint bring all the memories
back.
However, we're older and tired now, far too
realistic to be fooled; After all, we recall that
while a fixer-upper comes cheap ...
But wait. That was then, this is now. An
aged, simple home with none of the character
of the well-built has an asking price modestly
set at a few thousand over its assessment of
$170,000. Granted, it's 10 minutes from the
city, the yard is spacious and it's close to a
school and playground, but $50,000 more
wouldn't cover all the work.
This explains why more and more people are
driving further and further out of the cities to
try and find affordable quality housing. Lots in
towns not too far away are running in the area
of $100,000. Condos and townhouses sell in
the range of what a fairly decent home went for
not long ago in the city.
It has been a seller's paradise when it comes
to real estate recently and economists predict
that it has to turn around soon. That said,
rumours also abound that interest rates are
going to rise. So the big question for many
people out shopping for a home is which way
to take a chance. .
Personally, I'm still enough of a dreamer to
know that if I wanted a home now, I'd not
likely wait. But I wouldn't be fooled either.
Some places are definitely not worth the price;
others. as we saw in our old gem, have
potential. Perhaps all those years ago we'd
have been better to have built a new home
rather than shovel cash into the money pit. But,
we took our chance and there have been so
many good times, much laughter (generally at
our own expense) while we put it all together
that I've never really cared whether it was the
right move or not.
Premiers have abused the elections