HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2004-10-07, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2004. PAGE 5 .
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Not ready for prime time crime
After an incident involving a prison van
and a concrete mixer, police are
looking for 18 hardened criminals.
— 'News report' on The Two Ronnie's' BBC
Easy now, Let us not make mock of British
crooks. They pulled off one of the most famous
and flamboyant heists of the 20th century —
The Great Train Robbery of 1963 in which a
gang of thieves hijacked a train and relieved it
of 120 bags of cash. Two-point-six million
British pounds worth.
Don't underestimate American thugs either.
Ken Lay and his pinstriped pirates at Enron
managed to dump $1.1 billion U.S. in
worthless stocks before anyone twigged.
Even the Norwegians think big when it
comes to crime. Three of them recently
crashed a museum and made off with two
paintings by Edvard Munch. Norway's most
famous artist. Estimated value: $19 million
U.S.
The Brits hijack trains. The Yanks bilk
stockholders. The Norwegians snatch world-
class art
And Canadians?
Canadians steal beer.
True story: police in Grand Falls, New
Brunswick found themselves with a mystery
last month — a transport trailer parked by a
curb with its engine running and no one sitting
in the driver's cab.
Nothing in the back of the trailer either.
Which was alarming, because when the
transport left the loading dock, it had been
carrying 50,000 cans of Moosehead beer.
Canadians are a tolerant lot. We don't utter a
squeak when national icons like Eaton's and
Simpson's and The Bay get gobbled up by
multinationals. We don't protest when tycoons
buy up our NHL hockey teams and ship them
south,
The Ontario Liberals are accusing new
Progressive Conservative leader John
. Tory of winning his job, not on merit,
but because he was born with a silver spoon in
his mouth. The public however may find this
hard to swallow.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's assistants
distributed silver-coloured spoons bearing
Tory's name and buttons showing a cartoon
character noted as filthy rich at the convention
that chose him and prompted the Conservative
leader to reply he worked hard for what he has.
Tory's father is -a lawyer who has long
advised Ken Thomson, whose fortune based
on communications is among the world's
biggest, and a director of a communications
company his son ran, and it would be naïve to
suggest this does,not help open doors.
But, as the son countered, "It doesn't matter
who you are. if you don't get results you get
tired and we had growth year after year."
The Liberals also suggest Tory obtained an
unusually easy entry to leadership considering
he had never been elected to any public office.
But this was understandable because the
Conservatives desperately need a new face to
erase memories of their mismanagement in
government.
It also would be difficult to find anyone who
has paid more dues working on causes in the
community and backrooms of a party — Tory
has been immersed in politics almost since he
could walk. - •
The Liberals anyway should be wary of
accusing others of getting a head start through
family connections. McGuinty is not exactly
the boy next door who made his own way in
politics.
His father, Dalton senior, a university
Take our timber, shoot our grizzlies — even
slap a Disneyland sticker on our Mounties, but
mess with our beer, begad, and you've got a
fight on your hands. The New Brunswick
Mounties swung into action. The first break
came when they found some 5,000 cans of
Moosehead winking in the grass of a farmer's
field near Woodstock. Eyewitnesses reported
that the cans had fallen from a, Beverly
Hillbillies-style makeshift trailer that had
detached itself from a pickup truck barreling
down a country road late at night.
Not long after, they tracked down the driver
of the transport truck. He was holed up in
Lindsay. Ontario.
The cops probably just followed a trail of
empty beer cans.
It's just as well that the theft is coming
unraveled the way it is. The crooks would have
had a hard time selling their hijacked booty —
even on the black market. The cargo, you see,
was destined for Mexico. All the labels were
printed in SpaniSh.
RCMP Sergeant Gary Cameron summed up
the situation with admirable delicacy. "I think
if they had known the labels were in Spanish,
they probably wouldn't have gone ahead. It's a
crime that lacks sophistication."
Hey! Here in the Great White North.
unsophisticated crime is our middle name.
Consider the case of the man known as The
Bungling Burglar of Burnaby.
professor, was a member of the legislatUre and
when he died his reputation in the riding
helped his son to step into his shoes.
The last Liberal premier before McGuinty,
David Peterson, also was no barefoot boy who
had to claw his way from the wrong side of the
tracks.
Peterson's family owned an electronics
business and he and his two brothers sold it
and netted $3 million each.
Peterson trained as a lawyer, but opted to go
in the family business and within six months
made it to president at the ripe old age of 26, a
leap up the ladder that possibly was connected
to his family ties.
When today's Liberals suggest an opponent
has too much money, it is worth recalling
Peterson, while premier was noted for having
a "lifestyle of the rich and famous," a label
lifted from a popular TV show, and it even
helped get him kicked out of government.
The Liberal premier elected in London
needed to spend more time in Toronto and
bought a home in upscale Rosedale and was
pictured almost daily in tuxedo and Liberal-
red bowtie and cummerbund at theatre
openings and book launches.
The opposition parties said Peterson's
Ontario was a non-stop parade of gala
It started with a typical vehicular 'emergency
we can all relate to: a man, eager to protect his
automobile in a high-theft area, locks the
doors, forgetting that his keys are still in the
ignition.
This is especially vexing in this case because
the man had just stolen the car. Ever
resourceful, he begins knocking on doors in
the Burnaby suburb where his car was parked.
"Hello," he would say to whomever opened
the door, "I'm afraid I've locked myself out of
my car. Could you lend me a coat hanger?"
Perhaps it was the rat-like bearing of the
chap, or the fact that it was IQ o'clock at night,
but residents got suspicious, armed themselves
with baseball bats and detained the suspicious
stranger while somebody called the cops.
A cop came. And the first thing the cop said
was: "I don't believe it! This is the guy who
fell through the roof!"
Sure enough, the 31-year-old car thief had
robbed a bank the week previous and been
chased into a marina showroom by three off-
duty police officers carrying hockey sticks
(they were returning from a hockey practice).
While the officers stood around in the
showroom wondering where there quarry had
got to, there was a rending sound above them
and the guy fell through the ceiling right into a
display motorboat.
Hmmm. Being interrupted at work twice
within seven days by groups of hostile men
carrying large sticks. I'd say it's time for a look
at career alternatives.
As to how the Canadian justice system could
allow someone to be in a position to steal cars
just a week after being arrested for bank
robbery...I'm sure some lawyer has a perfectly
reasonable explanation.
openings and arrivals and departures by
helicopters and limousines, as he rushed to
dine with Charlton Heston and Conrad Black,
and the sick had long waits for treatment.
This was among the reasons voters dumped
Peterson — others included his calling an
election a year early.
Politicians around the legislature have not
normally been rated according to their wealth.
Liberal Finance Minister Greg Sorbara
became identified as wealthy recently when a
company of which he had been a director was
investigated by police and Conservative Frank
Klees was similarly described when he ran for
leader in the race won by Tory.
Some of great wealth have found getting
elected in Ontario as impossible as slipping
through the eye of a needle.
They included auto-parts manufacturer
Frank Stronach, who annually has the largest'
income in Canada. Roy Thomson, who
founded the communications empire, and Hal
Jackman, outspoken because he is rich enough
to buy a province of his own.
But Tory is not in the same league for wealth
as these tycoons and how much he has and
whether it made his path easy should not be an
issue.
Final Thought
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is
able to assist, and shrinks from injuring
anything that lives.
— Albert Schweitzer
A phenomenon?
1 t's a bit of a phenomenon. The fire ignites,.
and like me to my grandson, the warriors
are drawn to it.
What is it about guys and barbecues?
Recently during a social time at our home, our
daughter's boyfriend took on the official duty
of outdoor chef. The barbecue had barely
ignited, and the rest of the males swarmed
towards it. Not just one or two to keep him
company, not some who' were continuing an
interrupted conversation, but the majority. The
gas came on, the lid went up, and men from all
corners of our yard, moved trancelike towards
this altar to summer entertaining.
Drinks in hand, they formed their semi-
circle, a protective barrier of machismo closing
off the rest of the gathering from this private
ritual.
The male dominance of the barbecue was
something I noted quite early in life. There was
never any question, when we got our first
barbecue, who would handle this task. To this
day, I have never seen my mother raise a
flipper anywhere near an outdoor grill.
No, my father, who barely knew how to
scramble an egg, was king when it came time
to fire up the coals. The strategy was clearly
outlined, Mom, the strategist, bustled back and
forth between the great outdoors and her
culinary domain while Dad was on the front
line, flipping meat and extinguishing mini-
bonfires.
Perhaps it was the 'danger' and dirt involved
in those early years of barbecuing that fueled
its macho trend. I remember watching Dad heft'
heavy bags of charcoal, then spill a portion of
the contents into the barbecue before throwing
on the match. And of course', a cold bottle of
beer always had to be on hand to keep the
flames under control.
That's not the case anymore. Today's fancy
models usually ignite with a simple push of the
button. And burner controls, make it easy to
keep the food away from the fire.
My warrior figured out early on that the
modern version of barbecuing is a task too
sissified to be relegated to the male species. It.
began innocently enough, nights when his
arrival from work was too late to leave the job
of cooking to him. I had begun the meal, and
would ultimately finish what I started,
Little by little I noticed the responsibility of
barbecuing had fallen to me. He would still
handle the odd burger or two, but with more
full meals being prepared on the grill, it was
generally me preparing them.
That is unless we have company. Then, my
hubby can be counted on to turn on the heat
and test his culinary capabilities. It could be
the busyness of preparing food for guests that
results in a division of duties; When there's
more than two of us planning to enjoy a
barbecued meal, he knows his place.
Yet, I can't help thinking that it's one of
those guy things, though I'm not sure exactly
which one. You might suppose that it's about
misery loving company, emasculated modern
men forced to help with the drudgery of meal
preparation re-affirming their masculinity
surrounded by their buddies.
Or perhaps, it's subconsciously chauvinistic.
the Neanderthal warriors. They are the hunters,
the gatherers, starting the fires and feeding
their families.
The real truth, though, is probably far
simpler. In a world where so much is hassle
and hurry, barbecuing is a non-labourious,
mindless task, a job without stress. The real
truth is, men likely gather around the barbecue,
just simply because they enjoy it.
Silver spoon label unfair