The Citizen, 2004-09-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2004. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Keep it simple, stupid ...
see that WestJet is planning to put seat-
back televisions in all its airplanes. As an
aircraft user and confirmed fan of the
airline, may I offer a word of advice?
Don't.
Seat-back televisions on airplanes are a bad
idea for WestJet. Just like the leather seats
they've started putting in their planes. And
those new-fangled headrests that supposedly
`contour' to the passengers head.
WestJet is getting fancy, and fancy isn't their
strong suit. The Calgary-based company
became successful as the 'no-frills' airline.
People flocked to the WestJet ticket counter
not because they wanted TV sets or leather
seats or hi-tech headrests. They wanted cheap
flights.
And WestJet delivered. Recently I had to fly
from Victoria to Thunder Bay return. Air
Canada wanted more than $2,100 to do the job.
WestJet got me there and back for a little
over $800. WestJet made itself the Volkswagen
Beetle of the skies and quickly became the
most profitable airline in the country. Now it's
tinkering with the very formula that made it a
success.
If they keep it up they'll be as snooty and
insolvent as That Other Airline in no time.
What is it about the human animal that
compels us to constantly fix things that work
fine until we ensure that they don't? Take the
bicycle.
There was a time when everybody rode
simple, one-speed bikes with nice soft seats
and fat, cushiony tires. They were cheap,
durable and they lasted forever.
Today the average bike has anywhere up to
25 speeds. It's made . of space-age
magnesium/titanium alloys and runs on tires
that slew perfectly into sewer grates. It has
Ontario's Progressive Conservatives
don't have leadership races — they are
more like public executions.
The Tories will choose a leader to succeed
defeated premier Ernie Eves on Sept. 18 and
are unable to resist stabbing each other in the
back, as they have done before.
The front-runner by most estimates is John
Tory, a senior backroom adviser who started
under moderate premier William Davis in the
1980s, and who says the party can win with
more moderate policies.
Jim Flaherty, his closest rival and the leading
voice of the party's far right, said Tory sounds
like Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, the
nastiest insult he could find.
Tory retorted he has never been a Liberal,
but Flaherty canvassed for Pierre Trudeau
when he was prime minister and so did not
merely experiment with the Liberals but
inhaled, which he would rather forget.
Flaherty and the third candidate, Frank
Klees, who were ministers under former
premiers Eves and Mike HarriS, have said Tory
has no business running for leader when he has
never been elected to anything and has no
experience governing.
Klees said this is no time to choose a
candidate who has not 'won an election or
sat in - cabinet or appreciates the difficult
decisions it has to make or understands
Ontario is more than Tory's hometown of
Toronto. _
Flaherty claimed he knows about winning
elections, because he was "on the ballot and on
the front lawn," somewhat like John Kerry
pointing out he served in Vietnam.
Klees charged Tory was not seen in their
party during the tough decade when it was
shock absorbers, a sophisticated `braking
system' and a Rube Goldbergish derailleur rig
that breaks down more often than Liza
Minnelli.
Oh yeah, and it costs a king's ransom to
boot.
Kurt Harnett and Lance Armstrong need
bikes like that. You and I would be fine with a
CCM one-speed.
And razors. I happen to believe that one of
the great inventions of the 20th century
was the disposable razor. Unlike the noisy,
expensive and inefficient electric model, the
disposable razor is safe, quiet, cheap and
recyclable.
So what's Gillette doing to the disposable?
Putting a battery in it.
Welcome to the M3 Power Razor. It's got a
slot in the handle for an AAA battery, which,
Gillette says, provides "a gentle, pulsing
action" which supposedly lifts whiskers for a
closer shave.
Price for the M3 kit? $19.99. Which is about
10 times more than I pay for a six pack of Bic
disposables.
Wasn't broken, Gillette. Didn't need fixing.
But then there's LG Electronics. This
company is to Gillette Razors as Microsoft is
to Mississippi mud wrestling. LG Electronics
has just unveiled its latest brainwave: the
Internet Refrigerator.
rebuilding to win the 1995 election, making
Tory seem like George W. Bush resting
comfortably at home in the National Guard.
Tory retorted Klees was silly and he was on the
party executive before Klees joined it.
Tory maintained he was on Harris's
campaign team in 1990 and did a lot of jobs for
it in 1995. But Klees responded "None of us
saw you."
When Tory suggested some Harris policies
were implemented with too much confronta-
tion and not enough consultation, Flaherty
reminded, "You weren't there and we were
there."
Klees said Ontario is different than when
Tory was in Davis's office and in another hint
at his past the Conservatives have to take
control of their party from unelected advisers
who made key decisions and overruled
ministers.
Someone also anonymously made public
allegations Flaherty still owes his hard-up
party $50,000 due from his 2002 run for leader
and his campaign called this dirty.
This squabbling among Conservatives
will provide ammunition for opponents,
particularly if Tory wins Because they will be
able to say even top members of his own party
feel he lacks experience to govern and is not
The new fridge has a cyclopean computer
screen on the front panel and a touch pad
allowing users to, for instance, connect to a
database of 300 recipes, searchable by
ingredient.
Don't have the two ounces of smoked
Gruyere the recipe calls for? No problemo.
You can order the ingredients from an on-line
grocer, right from your refrigerator.
The Internet Refrigerator (hereafter referred
to as Hal) will also remind you when the celery
is wilting and the meat loaf in the far back
corner is growing green fur.
There's a built-in camera, of course, in case
you want to leave a video message for the kids.
Oh, yes...and you can watch TV on Hal
and play downloaded MP3s through its
speakers.
"It's really a communications centre,"
burbles Frank Lee, the firm's online marketing
manager. "The kitchen is the centre of the
home, so this makes sense."
Perhaps to a cyborg, Frank. And a rich
cyborg, at that. The LG behemoth retails for
$11,999.
Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, but I find it
increasingly difficult to watch TV in the
comfort of my living room, never mind
standing at my refrigerator.
And the day I hear P. Diddy emanating from
my vegetable crisper is the day I pull the plug
and go back to an icebox.
Remember the advice of Horace, the Roman
poet who lived and wrote a couple of millennia
ago: "Avoid greatness. In a cottage there may
be more real happiness than kings or their
favourites enjoy."
Amen.
And if you throw in an icebox, you'll be
living in paradise.
around when the going gets rough.
It is another example of how Conservatives
more than other parties run each other down in
leadership contests.
After Eves won, it was held against him that
leadership rivals called him wishy-washy and
a pale, pink imitation of a Liberal who lacked
ideas on how to govern.
Harris became leader partly because his
supporters said the moderates who ran the
party before them had no firm principles and
made policy through four guys sifting through
polls in a Toronto hotel room.
Other parties manage to get through
leadership races without showing such
animosity toward each other and one reason
the Conservatives have such zest is they have
been in government, where they have few
opportunities to express differences of
opinion, for 50 of the last 61 years, and grab
any rare opportunities to let off steam.
Leadership of the Conservative party also
is an awesome prize, because almost all its
leaders in the past half-century have gone on
to become premier, and candidates may
feel encouraged to leave no stone unturned to
win. •
Many candidates in recent Conservative
leadership races also have been right-wing
zealots, who are totally convinced only they
are right and not willing to be moderate even
in language.
Final Thought
It is only the wisest and the very stupidest
who cannot change.
— Confucius
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
Bittersweet return B ack to school. A time of mixecVmages
frazzled working moms, teary
young moms; jaded teens, reluctant
little ones.
It's a time when the focus changes. After
eight weeks of freedom, sun, fun and holiday,
it's classroom, teachers, homework and
routine. Barefeet are covered and backpacks
donned.
I've had a front-row seat for this annual ritual
for close to 25 years due to the proximity of
our house to the school. I have watched smiling
faces, both familiar and unfamiliar to me grow
up and move on.
With 10 years separating our oldest and our
youngest child our personal attachment to back
to school went on for what seemed then an
interminable length of time. Now it seems all
too short.
It was 1977 when my first-born headed out
the door to school. A lively, independent
youngster, he did, I sadly admit now, make the
parting a little easier. He was far too wise for
me and entertaining him was exhausting. I was
ready to relinquish him to more worthy minds.
Three children, and many quiet early
September tears later, .by the time that oldest
was off to university I had gotten smarter. I had
learned that those 14 years since that first day
had sped by far too quickly.
Even today the mental picture I hold of that
little tow-headed boy, gamely skipping off to
his new adventure has not faded with time. Nor
has the one from two years later, of me holding
the hand of my daughter, my little friend as we
trundled down the road together and feeling
like I never wanted to let gt, because now I
knew that once I did everything would change.
These pictures are followed by those of my
babies, my little fme-spirit who danced off to
school the one year, the family charmer, her
little , brother the next. The Memory of the
bittersweet mix of pride and sorrow from those
days still clings to me.
Every year was the same. I remember sitting
with other moms as summer moved on,
listening in stupefaction as they prayed for
school to begin, and wondering what they were
thinking. I dreaded that first week in
September, which heralded not just the end of
summer, but moved my children one more year
away from me.
This past week my youngest returned to
college. All grown up, his presence at our
house now is pretty much hit and miss over the
summer. But, that doesn't mean that same little
sadness at his return to classes has dissipated.
(Though, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say
that it's lessened to a degree by the return of
routine and order to my home.)
However, adding to any melancholy this
September is the fact that our grandson is
making his elementary school debut. It's a big
step for him that will lead him to new
friendships, 'development and experiences. It
will not always be an easy transition,
sometimes even harsh, but I'm sure that as it is
for the majority of children, it will be primarily
beneficial.
Such an important time, a new beginning, a
new stage in life that can only be witnessed
with pride. Yet, I think of his mommy and
daddy, my son, taking him to school that first
day. And I know that head and heart will not
necessarily, be perfectly in sync, because their
little boy is indeed growing up. If everything
gOes according to plan, nothing, certainly not
time, will stop him now.
Race for leader usually nasty
.. ,