HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-01-19, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2006. PAGE 5.
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Oh gee. How lazy can we get?
Oh, Beulah...peel me a grape.
— Mae West in I'm No Angel
At least Mae showed some pizzazz in
her monumental laziness, appealing to
her maid for masticatory assistance
with the fruit plate.
Three-quarters of a century after she uttered
that line, we've lost her sense of style — but
we're easily as bone lazy as Mae on her most
slothful day. Consider Fake Mud.
Got yourself a Hummer-sized SUV but just
can't find the time to get out and tear up a
mountainside or crash through a bog the way
the way they do in the TV ads? Not to worry.
For 15 bucks you can buy an aerosol can of
gen-you-wine Spray-On Mud.
All you have to do is lather up your fenders,
maybe a spritz or two on the windshield and
you'll convince folks you spend the weekend
up to your axles in primordial goo.
But maybe you're not the macho, motorhead
type. Perhaps you're a sun bunny whose idea
of a good time is stretching out on a beach
blanket to baste like a bratwurst. That too can
be demanding. It's all very well to lie supine in
the sun, Slowly fricasseeing your skin cells to
a golden brown, but how do you know when
it's time to — you know — turn over?
Fear not! The Tan-Timer Bikini is the
garment for you. A British manufacturer has
come up with a two-piece that sports a built-in
buzzer. It goes off every 15' minutes to remind
you to turn over to your un-baked side.
- Sort of like the guy who puts popcorn in his
pancakes so they'll flip themselves.
Still too adventurous for you? Hey, even
beer-guzzling sofa taters deserve a
technological break. That's 'where Matthias
Hahnen's Smart Beer Mat comes in.
Matthias, a German inventor and his beer
Gays win
leader of its Progressive
Conservative party, which for many years had
to be dragged kicking and screaming into
accepting rights for gays, warns a federal
Conservative leader possibly on the verge of
becoming prime minister not to revive a
debate on banning same-sex marriages.
And pillars of the establishment including
Ontario's chief justice, who once was seen by
gays as an enemy, turn out to pay tribute to the
province's best-known gay activist. This is
among the greatest metamorphoses the
province has known.
Health Minister George Smitherman said he
is considering bringing forward a plan to
marry his male partner because polls suggest
Stephen Harper, who has said he would hold a
free vote in the Commons on same-sex
marriage, may win the federal election.
Smitherman is the first openly gay MPP,
although by no means the first gay MPP or
minister. There have been and are gays in all
parties.
Previous gay MPPs and ministers lived in
fear their sexual orientation would be revealed
and hcid against them. Presumably some still
do, because they do not volunteer it, which is
their right.
A respected attorney genet-S9 in a previous
Liberal government, -Ian Scott, was chased
down a legislature corridor by a reporter
demanding to know if he was gay, which
presumably the reporter felt would offend
readers. Scott escaped, but after leaving
-politics agreed he was gay in a sad memoir in
which he listed how many of his friends died
of AIDS.
drinking pal Robert Doerr put their hop-happy
heads together and came up with an electronic
device small and flat enough to fit under the
standard cardboard beer mat.
Minimal though it is, the gizmo uses weight
and motion sensors to detect when the beer
glass it's sitting under is nearly empty.
When that critical stage is reached, the
device emits a radio signal which is picked up
by a receiver at the bar notifying the bartender
that there's a customer in need of a refill.
I tell ya, life is just getting simpler and
simpler. Take shopping. You know how
exhausting and stressful it can be, thrashing
your way through the wilds of the fruit and
vegetable section, trying to decide whether the
Bosc pears are truly juicy or the avocados are
actually edible. All that manual squeezing and
prodding — it's exhausting!
Well, it used to .be. Now, thanks to
RipeSense Ltd., such experiences will shortly
be a thing of the past.
RipeSense has come up with an agricultural
variation on the US Homeland Security
Emergency Alert Code. It's a label that affixes
to fruits and vegetables and turns colour as the
fruit ripens. Red indicates firm; orange is crisp
and yellow means juicy.
According to a company spokesperson, the
label works by reacting to the ethylene gas that
fruit emits as it ripens.
In mitigation of the Conservatives, it should
be said their leader at that time, Larry
Grossman, refused the reporter's request that
he ask Scott if he was gay in the legislature,
where he would have had to respond on the
record.
Grossman, often thought of as hard-nosed,
showed fairness by saying he would ask only
if there was evidence the minister's
homosexuality was harming his effectiveness
in his job and there was none.
Mike Harris, as Conservative premier a few
years later, poured cold water on same-sex
marriage by• saying his idea of a family was
him, his wife, and their children. But it was not
a valid comparison, because he later left his
wife and married a younger, more glamourous
woman.
The current Ontario Conservative leader,
John Tory, chosen in 2004, has supported
Harper vigorously in the current election, but
insisted he would be unwise to revive the
same-sex marriage issue.
Harper is under pressure because many
highly-vocal Conservatives strongly oppose
same-sex marriage. One has gone as far as to
warn it threatens to wipe out society.
Tory, more moderate generally than recent
Conservative leaders, said the issue has been
dealt with by the federal parliament and
legislature, which now allow same-sex
marriage, and courts which prompted them by
"The label senses the 'aroma', as you would
smell the difference with your nose as a pear
ripens", explains company representative
Katie Mclnness.
Oh, yeah...noses. I remember when we used
those things.
There are so many technological
innovations to help us handle the tricky chore
of feeding our faces that a body could get
confused by all the options and maybe make a
bad nutritional choice. Fortunately we have a
Canadian invention that will take care of
that for you. All you need is a cell phone
with a video component and you're good to
go.
Subscribers to MyFoodPhone (it only costs
about 100 bucks a month) can send
photographs of the meal .they are about to eat
to the company, where an on-line dietician will
monitor the food for portion size and
nutritional content.
Why, it's getting so that science will do
everything but chew your food for you.
Actually, they're working on that too.
Check out the latest product from a company
called Hovis, Britain's most famous bread
manufacturer.
It's called `Hovis Invisible Crust' — the
world's first crustless loaf, produced
especially for the 35 per cent of British
mothers who say they just can't persuade their
children to take on the arduous task of
chewing through crust to get at the bread.
Perhaps that explains British guitar great
Eric Clapton's philosophy. He said: "Given
the choice between accomplishing something
and just loafing around, I'd rather just loaf
around. No contest."
With a loaf of Hovis Invisible Crust no
doubt. And Missus Clapton peeling grapes.
ruling it is unconstitutional to exclude some
from rights and freedoms given others.
Tory said governments have other concerns
they need to deal with including healthcare,
crime and finances.
Tributes also were paid recently in a bar here
to George Hislop, who was the best-known
gay activist in Ontario and died at the age of
78.
Hislop had been a leader in Ontario's gay
rights movement for four decades, organized
its first parades and is considered by it as the
first openly gay politician in Canada, because
he ran unsuccessfully declaring he was g'ay for
Toronto city council in 1980 and the
legislature in 1981.
Smitherman said Hislop carved a path and
made it easier for other gays including himself
'to get elected.
Pillars of the community attended, including
Roy McMurtry, Ontario's chief justice, who
Was Conservative , attorney general when
police arrested hundreds of gays in bathhouses
and charged a gay publication with obscenity
and whom gays often accused of harassing
them.
Gays have built a lot of new bridges.
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'conci46,
Sweet talk.
I t's mid-afternoon. I'm starting to feel the
slump. After e-mails ad nauseum and
reams of press releases I am wary of the
election, my cynicism so heightened that I
can't even bother to care anymore.
Shoulders drooping, I set myself down in
front of the computer and begin to ponder this
week's column. With the election just days
away some thoughts on this topic would seem
to be logical.
Yet the very idea of such a thing causes my
eyes to glaze over, my brain to gel. Do I talk
about promises made that we know will never
be kept? Do I talk about the policies slyly slid
past us that we know will be enforced? Do I
look at the way the media manipulates voters,
publishing flattering pictures of one candidate
for example, while his opponent always looks
like he's swallowed something sour? I could
point out that there seems to be a trend to
follow the leader in an election, with the
newspapers letting you know what's the
popular vote and the public getting caught up
in the momentum.
Or I could focus my opinion instead on the
sad reality that a democracy gives us the
privilege of voting, but doesn't insist that we
exercise common sense and logic in doing so?
I could say that I think we should all have to
take a test of some sort before we're allowed to
mark a ballot. After all, there are a lot of
people who really don't have a clue why they
vote a certain way.
I suppose I could discuss the argument of
whether to base your vote on your local
politician or on which leader and party you
want to head the government. Then on that
topic I could argue that it makes more sense to
me that we be allowed to choose our
representative, and our leader.
But no, I don't think so. For the next few
days we will be besieged with the cutthroat
business of political campaigning, the
promises made to be broken and all the 'other
crap we have come to know so' well. We will
be inundated with information that will
simultaneously educate and confuse.
No, with all of that ahead of us, I just really
felt that I needed to talk about something that
made me feel good. But what? . „ ,
Up against a bit ola block, tdeeided OD :take.
a walk to clear the head, and purchase a small•
treat to give me a lift. Then with the first-bite
it came to me — when things become
'overwhelming, when" people start to" take
themselves too seriously, when you'd like to'
forget how bitter life ban make you, and
remember instead how sweet it actually is,
chocolate is as. good as it, gets. ,
The Latin name for chocolate is theobroma
cacao, the translation of which is "food of the
gods". Chocolate has been associated . with
feelings of love ,and comfort." ' In certain
civilizations' it has been touted" as having
aphrodisiacal, powers. An article' in ' a pOpnlar
American magazine a few years ago said that
indeed, a bit of chocolate triggers the same
reactions in 'the female brain as an orgasm will.
And now, research has also proven that
good-quality dark chocolate taken in small '
doses actually has health benefits. It contains
certain vitamins, and is a source of potassium,
sodium and iron. Researchers also determined
that the antioxidants in chocolate may even
help you live longer.
So if this campaign starts to get you down,
go indulge. After all, chocolate may be as
smooth as a politician but it's a lot easier to
swallow..
Ontario has come a long way on gay
rights when a Liberal cabinet minister
says he and his male partner plan to
• marry and adopt a child and no-one raises an
eyebrow.
And the
riends in politics