HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-04-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2006. PAGE 5.
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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
T he newspaper business is the only
enterprise where a person is supposed
to become an expert on any
conceivable subject between 1 o'clock in the
afternoon and at 6 p.m. deadline.
- Robert S. Bird
Hah! That would be my editor that Robert
Bird is talking about. Miss Know-It-All. Miss
How-come-you've-got your-feet-up-on-your-
desk-and-you-sti 11- haven' t-filed-thi s-week 's-
column-yet.
Can't she see that I'm thinking?
What I'm thinking is: what a cushy job she's
got with the big desk and the picture window
and expense-account lunches. Nothing to do
all day but browbeat terrified reporters and
bullwhip the bleeding backs of faithful,
underpaid columnists.
Nice work if you can get it. I wonder what
her first job was - hall monitor on a slave
galley?
Better than Warren Beatty's first encounter
with a regular pay cheque. Beatty may have
ended up as a Hollywood matinee idol but his
employee origins were humbler. He started
out as a municipal rat catcher.
A lot of celebrities began their working
careers in less-than exalted circumstances.
Sean Connery started out a milkman. Mick
Jagger worked as a porter in a mental
institution. Marilyn Monroe twisted nuts
onto bolts on an assembly line in an aircraft
factory.
Madonna's first single? Probably a
monotonous ditty entitled `Didja want fries
with that?' She started out as a waitress in a
burger bar.
politicians closely identified with a
province find it difficult to get to the top
in federal politics and this will be a
problem for Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae.
Liberal Kennedy was Ontario's education
minister until he resigned to run for his federal
party's vacant leadership and Rae is a former
Ontario New Democrat premier who has left
that party to run.
Party members and later voters in an
election will choose particularly on grounds
that in the case of Kennedy will include his
freshness and brightness:
Rae's biggest strengths will be his intellect,
oratory and record of non-partisanship since
governing, although he will have to live down
having been a big spender in government and
a lack of loyalty to a party he once led.
But parties and voters also tend be wary of
choosing someone tied to a specific province
with a record of putting its interests first and
still more apprehensive over candidates from
Ontario, the biggest province suspected of
wanting to dominate.
The concern provincially-oriented leaders
will favour their home areas is a reason they
have not had much success in federal politics.
The last member of the Ontario legislature
to go on to lead a major federal party was
Conservative George Drew nearly 60 years
ago.
Drew as premier had promoted Ontario
interests and particularly those of big business
and lost his seat in an election, but the federal
Conservative leadership suddenly became
vacant and he beat future prime minister John
Diefenbaker -to win it.
He could not, however, oust the entrenched
Liberals.
After former Nova Scotia premier Robert
Stanfield became federal Conservative leader,
but also failed to dislodge the Liberals by the
mid- I 970s, it was said routinely those who
have been leaders of provinces cannot win in
federal politics.
This influenced William Davis, who had
But it's not just movie stars who rise from
obscure origins. As a kid, Charles Dickens
worked in a sweat shop producing tins of shoe
polish. Abe Lincoln worked for tips as a hotel
doorman. Tchaikovsky was in charge of paper
clips in a dingy office.
Even dictators can start out small.
Mussolini toiled in a chocolate factory. Hitler
may have ruled The Third Reich and struck
terror into the hearts of millions, but he began
his working life designing posters for
deodorants.
Speaking of dictators reminds me naturally
of my editor - and of my very first job: editor
and publisher of The Humber Heights Gazette.
That's right - editor AND publisher. Me.
Aged nine.
Well, why not? This country has a long
history of newspaper moguls and tycoons -
Max Aitken who became Lord
Beaverbrook...Roy Thomson...Conrad (no
relation) Black...
And just between you and me, being an
editor - even an editor and publisher - is not
exactly nuclear physics. I mean...look at my
editor. But I digress.
I well remember the first edition of The
Humber Heights Gazette. I drew it myself. By
won four elections as Conservative premier in
Ontario and toyed with running for federal
leader in the early 1980s, but stayed out. _
One deterrent was he had fought to keep
down Alberta oil prices to help Ontario
industry and that province's Conservative
government felt he denied it a fair price and let
it be known it would do everything it could to
block a Davis candidacy.
Sheila Copps, once an Ontario MPP, left to
run federally and years later was appointed
Liberal deputy prime minister. But she did not
switch expressly to run for leader and had only
limited power a prime minister gave her.
Contrast this to the procession of federal
politicians who have descended on Ontario
hoping to lead its parties.
They include Rae, who was the NDP's
admired finance critic in the Commons and
was snapped up as a messiah when he left to
seek his Ontario party's leadership in 1982.
Rae, after switching from federal to
provincial politics, is now trying to make the
journey back and change parties in the same
breath and will be accused of not knowing his
own mind.
Mark MacGuigan, a former law professor
and up-and-corner in the federal Liberal
caucus, lost for Ontario party leader in the
Final Thought
A room without books is like a body
without a soul.
— Cicero
hand.
I even remember the lead story. UNUSUAL
BIRD SEEN ON RUTHERFORD LAWN ran
the headline.
And below that was a picture - well, a
drawing, actually - of what I am now pretty
sure was an English sparrow.
True, I didn't have a splashy murder or a
train derailment or an earthquake for that first
edition, but that's the news business, eh? You
go with what you've got.
Alas it wasn't enough. The Humber Heights
Gazette didn't make it. I had printing problems
(my hand got tired); I had distribution woes
(Tommy Farmer wouldn't let me use his red
wagon); I had a shortage of
advertisers...(well, none); and I was a little
light in the personnel department (I was it).
In the end, The Humber Heights Gazette
folded after just one issue. In fact, after just
one copy of one issue.
But it wasn't a complete disaster. Mister
Rutherford paid me two cents for that single
copy. Perhaps he though he recognized a
sound investment.
Or maybe he just. wanted to read about the
unusual bird on his lawn.
My career parabola seems to have run in
reverse. I started out as a media magnate/press
baron and ended up typing for beer money
from you-know-who.
But you never know where Life is going to
take you. Crooner Dean Martin started out
selling bootleg whiskey. Steve McQueen?
Towel boy in a brothel.
Hey, editor! Ever considered a career
change?
mid-70s to Stuart Smith, whom the party
viewed over-optimistically as a clone of Pierre
Trudeau.
MacGuigan later became federal justice
minister and external- affairs secretary and
showed he had merit.
Norman Cafik, a federal Liberal
backbencher and lively speaker, earlier made a
strong challenge to take the Ontario party
leadership from Bob Nixon, but the durable
Nixon held on and led for the third time
unsuccessfully in an election.
Other federal luminaries who challenged for
leader of the Ontario Liberal party included
Walter Harris, a former finance minister, and
Joe Greene, who made the most rousing
speech at the convention he lost.
Greene also went on to become a senior
federal minister, so the Ontario Liberals may
have missed out again on possible leadership
material.
The statistics show parties and voters mostly
choose leaders who stick to their own levels of
politics — but there is a smaller opening for
outsiders.
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your letters brief and concise.
Spring, a teasing lover
S pring is a teasing lover, wrapping you in
its warm embrace one day, dampening
your ardour the next before turning a
cold shoulder.
Yet we never give up on this capricious
suitor, accepting its less than admirable whims
because the positives are so wonderful. We are
willing to wait for the best it has to offer.
But not without enjoying a little flirtation
when the opportunity arises. There is nothing
like a trip to a greenhouse or nursery, even just
to look, to brighten the spirits and remind you
what there is to love about spring.
I was fortunate recently to have work take
me to a greenhouse. Stepping from the car, a
cool blast of early spring breeze rushed into
my bones, despite the bright sun. It was a
chilly reminder that this season likes to keep
you guessing.
And then I entered that plastic dome.
It's always the warmth that strikes me first,
caressing and comforting, lifting tension as
effectively as a good sigh.
Then it's the colour, long aisles of vibrant
primaries, gentle pastels and rich greens that
make your heart sing and make you eager for
spring's promise.
And always then I think what a wonderful
place this would be to work. Playing in the dirt
like a child, creating new life and nurturing it
like a parent, then enjoying the happiness your,
`baby' gives to others as you send it out into
the world.
But as I strolled, contemplating that idea,
another picture developed. I wondered if
perhaps, as it is with any employment, that
after a time even this job would lose its initial
appeal. Repetition, familiarity, and the
occasional problem is part )f any job and they
will definitely take the bloom of the rose.
That's a consequence I know I wouldn't
want to risk. We do have a tendency to take for
granted what is always there for us. To lose
that sense of wonder when I enter a
greenhouse is too sad to think about.
It's the same question that's cropped up
occasionally when I look on enviously at a
home settled in picturesque surroundings. A
breathtaking view of the mountains from your
back door, or fronting onto the tranquil setting
of a lakeside cottage may seem the ideal. But
I've often wondered when you step out your
door every day to nature's more majestic
creations, if you stop seeing them.
I suspect it might be so. Where a visit to the
mountains impresses me, there's little doubt
that part of the credit goes to the novelty.
Conversely, I know that the lake at the cottages
of family members, though still lovely to look
at, does not have the same impact it did for me
when we first started visiting the properties.
Then the expanse of water was a wonder,
something to gaze at for hours. Now it is there,
not ignored exactly, but not adored in quite the
same way as it was.
It's important to try and look at the world
with fresh eyes. Grandchildren help with this,
letting us see things again through their wide-
eyed wonder. I may observe a butterfly, but
only when Mitchell's with me, do I make a
point of studying it.
And though it's hard to,imagine, even for me
spring year-round might wear a little thin.
While I may hate winter, I appreciate that its
presence helps to renew my love affair with
this season. It can tease all it wants; I will
never stop being thrilled by its arrival.
It can be tough to get to the top