HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-04-27, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2006. PAGE 5
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Confessions of a math moron
don't know Richard Cohen but if I ever /
meet him I intend to plant a big, wet
smackeroo on his forehead.
I know a little about him — that he's a
columnist with The Washington Post for
instance — and that he's lousy at algebra.
Maybe not as lousy as Gabriela Ocampo, but
close.
Cohen wrote a column about Ocampo, a Los
Angeles high school senior who ran away
from home last semester. Reason? She flunked
algebra.
For the sixth time.
Algebra is a required subject in California
schools and according to Cohen, more kids
quit school over algebra than over any other
subject.
His question: why do we put them through
it? Unless a student is heading for a career in
science, engineering or applied mathematics,
knowing algebra is about as useful as having a
second appendix.
Give 'em an extra English or history course
instead, says Cohen. It's more relevant and
unless you're a numbers nerd. a helluva lot
more interesting.
• To the algebra-phobic student he wrote.
"Here's what your teachers failed to -tell you,
Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra.
I have never once used it and never once even
rued that I could not use it."
How true. I too, took algebra in high school
— or rather, I had algebra inflicted 'upon me.
My grand inquisitor was a Hungarian
expatriate by the name of Doctor Etele.
He tried. I'll give him that. I'll even confess
that I thought he'd succeeded. I actually
The poor are always with us, but do they
have to invade Rosedale, the poshest
neighborhood in this city and possibly
the province?
About 150 low-income, disabled or
homeless residents marched though the
upscale area trying to get across the message
they, are unfairly treated and provoked some
tut-tutting.
The demonstrators argued it was time they
took their story to the doorsteps of those they
say benefit most from Liberal government
policies and pushed empty shopping carts to
symbolize they cannot afford groceries.
The hot spot was when they burned an effigy
of Premier Dalton McGuinty outside the home
of financier Gerald Schwartz, an odd sort • of
Liberal who attends party fundraisers, but
flaunted his wealth by demolishing a house
next door that others would feel privileged to
live in. simply to expand his already huge
mansion. Courtly former Lieutenant Governor
Hal Jackman, a financier from old money who
lives across the street. told this writer this size
home was excessive.
These are some of the names that give
Rosedale its cachet.
The only other inflammatory note from a
marcher was a comment the .poor lack
necessities, while "bastards like this can live in
every kind of luxury."
But this was more than offset by a
storeowner, who said the marchers were
hooligans and an indelicate act should be
performed on them with a screwdriver --
hardly a shopkeeper one would want to accuse
of giving the wrong change.
A newspaper said social activists staged the
demonstration to promote themselves and
. gave the poor a had name.
Letters in newspapers mostly took the
hostile theme that the demonstrators refuse -to
work and expect those who work to keep
them.
One said they were spitting in the lace of a
thought I'd aced the mid-term algebra exam. I
waited confidently as the doctor stood at the
front of the classroom and read out the exam
marks in a heavily accented, sonorous drone.
"John Ree chaird son.....Seggsdy-aidt pair
sant."
"Mary-Chain Seempson.... Savanty-vife
pair sant".
"Beel Clark....Savanty-savan pair sant."
"Aster Blek...Eight..."
(I was hugging myself! Imagine! A mark in
the 80's!)
...teen pair sant."
That's right. My final algebra mark was 18
per cent. And I was so clueless I actually
thought I'd scored in the 80s.
My little academic meltdown is several
decades behind me now. Since then. I've lived
on three continents, picked up a smattering of
two other languages, held dozens of
jobs and conversed with thousands of
strangers.
And like Richard Cohen I have never, even
once, been remotely tempted to turn to algebra
for guidance or assistance in any life
endeavour.
He's right, Gabriela. For 99 per cent of the
students who take it, algebra will prove to be
society that helps them instead of being
grateful.
Another said they implied those who
provide better homes for themselves take
money that should go to the poor.
One countered defensively the better-off get
tax breaks that help them keep money. but
deserve them.
Another sniffed the demonstrators would
have been more useful if they had protested in
a city park and picked up litter there instead of
bothering the inhabitants of Rosedale.
None conceded the demonstrators had any
justification for marching through this
neighbourhood close to downtown, which is
home to many who are wealthy, including
-business owners, chief executives of banks and
stockhrokerages, senior lawyers,
entertainment celebrities and medical
specialists. -
But they fail to recognize when the poor
venture into such surroundings, the contrast
draws more attention to their cause.
When the poor complain on these streets the
province pays a single person on welfare only
$536 a month and requires employers to pay a
minimum wage of only $7.75 an hour, this
seems particularly miserly amid such comfort.
Some, not all, in this area earn 30 or 40
times as much and deserve to earn more, but it
is difficult to justify earning 40 times as much.
Many also have tax advantages including
running cars, dining out, playing golf or taking
vacations as a business expense by attending
professional conventions conveniently held in
as fathomless as a black hole. And as useless
as mammary glands on an Iberian toro.
Useless, but not necessarily harmless. I have
a pal named Tony who has been more than
little paranoid about the threat of terrorist
infiltration ever since 9/11. He monitors the
internet constantly and keeps in touch with
various surveillance and law enforcement
operations.
And he swears there was a major anti-
terrorist bust at Kennedy Airport in New York
last week.
Apparently a suspicious individual
travelling as 'a public school teacher' was
apprehended as he came off an Air France
flight. A spokesman for the FBI identified the
suspect as a member of an Al Qaeda offshoot,
the notorious Al Gebra underground
movement.
"Their M.O. is diabolical," he explained.
"They use secret code names such as 'X' and
'Y'. They also make frequent references to
'unknowns' and are- prone to go, off on
tangents in search of so-called 'absolute
value'"
Fortunately, the suspect was apprehended
and divested of his weapons before any harm
was done. Anti-terrorist squad specialists
confiscated a protractor, a slide rule, a
compass and what may turn out to be the anti-
terrorist code-breaking equivalent of the
Nazi's 'Enigma' encryption — a well-
thumbed textbook entitled Introduction to Al
Gebra.
In the, meantime the suspect has been
charged with transporting weapons of math
instruction.
Las Vegas or London or finding other work-
related reasons for visiting attractive
destinations, which are benefits denied the
poor.
Entrepreneurs in business often create jobs
for others, but they do it primarily for their
own gain, not to help anyone else.
Doctors have help from the public to get into
their lucrative profession, because the
province spends hundreds of thousands of
dollars training each of them.
When business wants to get its views heard
by politicians, it donates thousands of dollars
to their parties and whispers in their ears at
dinners and hires people inside them to
promote its interests.
Doctors' organizations hire some of the
most expert professional lobbyists and
constantly remind their members to keep up
the pressure.
The poor cannot afford such aids to getting
their voices heard, so should anyone begrudge
them going where they can to get a better
hearing — even to swanky Rosedale?
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Family connections
They sit stiffly, the faces looking out at
you set in a grim pose that belies the
true nature of the gathering. If the
formality were not so typical of others you
have seen, you might wonder if there'd been
any kind of gaiety or light-heartedness in their
time.
There is a room in my home in which a wall
has been adorned with ancestral pictures.
Occasionally, I actually get around to dusting
them and it was during this exercise that I
found -myself smiling at these people, some
Eve never known, but who were responsible
for my being. They were not smiling back.
I have heard it said that the reason behind the
stern facades worn in these old portraits is
because of poor teeth. Marty people a century
ago would not have been putting their best face
forward when smiling. I've also read, and this
is more likely the case, that people didn't smile
because the exposure time was too long.
Whatever the reason, there's no arguing that
the results are of sternly imposing groups of
people.
Yet, peering more closely at the youngest
child, my Great-Aunt Irene you would see the
hint of a smile, the ingenuous one less
intimidated by the lens of the camera perhaps
than her self-conscious siblings or humble
parents.
You would also see, I think, a hint of
resemblance to the one whose wall these
photos now grace, something in the eyes.
maybe or around the mouth. And it was this
that got me looking even more closely: (That
and the fact that my intense scrutiny was
keeping me from my dusting.)
These pictures have been with me for
awhile, but I've never subjected them to such
close study. Which is strange, really,
considering" I've wanted all my life to find a
strong physical resemblance, a connecti6n to
someone related.
As a fair-haired, blue-eyed'shorty in a family
of brown-eyed towering brunettes, I definitely
had some insecurities. Even though I
eventually recognized my mother's height was
a result of a beehive hairdo and spike heels
rather than a physical trait, I always felt like
the odd one out.
It didn't help that my siblings, eight and 10
years older than me, loved to tell me the
differences were a result of my being adopted.
No matter how many times Mom assured me
they were just teasing, no matter how many
times she pointed out my grandfather was fair-
haired and blue-eyed, his wife a runt like me,
no matter how many similarities to both my
parents I've come to notice over the years, I
looked, and sometimes still do, for that
connection.
People could always see it in my brother and
sister. There is the forehead and mouth so like
Dad's. The eyes, those great legs like Mom.
But nothing ever seemed to be that clear with
me so I decided a long time ago that I'm a
throwback.
With the study of these old family portraits I
came to another decision as well. As I stared at
the pictures, scrutinizing each face to see if
one looking back might be considered similar
to mine, I noticed something else instead. I am
an amalgam. The stature of my great-aunt, the
nose of my great-grandmother, the eyes, the
hair, the mouth, so many parts of others that
are so clearly part of me.
In truth, I'm wondering smugly now, if I just
might not be the most connected person to my
family.
Poor use rich to be noticed