HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-05-11, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2006. PAGE 5.
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All the news that's fit to click
A newspaper...like a fish, should be
consumed when fresh; otherwise it is not only
indigestible, but unspeakable.
— James Reston
S o there I was, sitting on a park bench in
front of the ruins of a 10th century
Moorish castle on the Costa del Sol
overlooking the Mediterranean...
And I'm reading a profile of Canada's
newest PM. Stephen Harper, in that day's
edition of The London Times.
A miracle? Kind of. I was at the time deep
in los boondocks of rural Spain — about 80
kilometres from the nearest Spanish city
where one might reasonably expect to find an
issue of any English-language newspaper.
But here in my hand was an up-to-the-
second edition of one of the best in the world.
It was, of course, just an example of the
ongoing electronic revolution of the Internet, a
phenomenon that is transforming the world we
live in.
Fifteen years- ago, a copy of the London
Times would have taken at least three days to
reach me by post. In 2006. it's as close as the
PRINT button on my laptop.
Closer, even. I wasn't going cross-eyed
staring at the flickering screen of a computer
on that park bench; I was turning the pages of
an actual newspaper. .
I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, I
live on a small island off the west coast of
Canada — no bridges, ' no airport, no
streetlights. On a good day I may spot bald
eagles, sea lions,. even a pod of killer,whales.
On the same day I can stroll down to the
corner store and pick up that day's edition of
The Globe and Mail, The National Post.— even
The first MPP to suggest that wind power
could help solve Ontario's energy
shortage was almost laughed out of the
legislature.
This is hard to believe now, when turbines to
harness wind are sprouting up faster than corn
in many areas of the province and generally
acknowledged to be a useful part of future
electricity resources.
But a powerful, entrenched and comfortable
Progressive Conservative government scoffed
at the idea when it was proposed by a little-
known New Democrat backbencher in . the
early 1970s. Fred Burr could not have received
a less friendly reception if he had urged the
Tories bottle all the hot air they generate in the
legislature and use it to light residents' homes.
This is worth recalling because Burr died
recently at age 95 and it , is a supreme example
of how a lone opposition backbencher took on
all the brains and resources of government and
proved it wrong.
Burr was the NDP's environment critic, a
teacher in his 60s, frail and unimpressive-
looking in his shiny dark suits. The
Conservatives' energy minister was Darcy
McKeough, a former finance minister, young,
. highly influential, considered by many to be
heir-apparent to premier William Davis, but
something of a know-it-all.
Davis had put McKeough in energy because
it was suddenly a key area with the province
running out of new sites for water pOwer, its
old reliable, and oil-producing countries
boosting their piices. . ,
Burr read about alternative energy sources
and tried to get McKeough interested, but the
minister repeatedly shrugged him off.
Burr asked McKeough if he would attend or
send observers- to a conference on wind in
Quebec and McKeough replied sarcastically
he. couldnot reply on such an issue lightly and
would have to ask Davis and managethent
The New York Times.
I can be reading the same news story in the
same newspaper at the same moment as a
reader in North York or Yonkers.
Such an experience is about to get even
easier. There's a company in Ottawa that's
fixing to make it possible for you and me to
walk to the corner, swipe our Visa or
MasterCard through a vending machine and
walk away with a fresh edition of...just about
any newspaper in the world.
The company is International Newspaper
Kiosks Ltd.. an affiliate of Satellite Newspaper
Corporation, which is based in The Hague.
What INK Limited offers is the chanCe to buy
any one of 135 (and counting) different
newspapers any time of the day or night from
a friendly automatic kiosk near you.
And I mean different. Want to read the
Shanghai Daily? It's as close as your credit
card. So is Libero Sports of Peru, not to
mention any of a host of papers in French,
German, Italian, Spanish — even Iranian.
These print-on-demand papers are updated -
throughout the day, just like regular editions of
yotir hometown daily.
What the Kiosk honchos are homing in on is
the comfort factor provided by an actual
paper-and-ink newspaper as opposed to the
board of cabinet if he or a representative could
leave the province for a day.
McKeough as a senior minister would not
need to ask anyone for permission and Burr
said it would be easy for him to send someone.
McKeough then stonewalled that the matter
had not yet been decided.
The Conservatives should have known Burr
would not give up easily, because he ran
unsuccessfully in six elections, federal and
provincial, before finally getting in the
legislature.
BUIT kept asking and McKeough eventually
answered that the province would not send
participants or observers, because the day of
wind energy had not yet arrived.
McKeough said Ontario should not spend
public money on something not yet proven
suitable for it.
Burr asked McKeough if he knew of a study
unveiled before the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission in New York State, which
claimed a wind turbine system near Lake
Ontario could generate wind power equivalent
to a generating station. McKeough said he had
never heard of it.
This reporter remembers the scene vividly
when Burr asked McKeough if he would look
into it and Conservative ministers and MPPs
felt it was so absurd they almost fell out of
their seats laughing and jeering "get all those
windmills going, Darcy" and "the NDP has
enough wind to heat the whole province."
rather sterile on-line virtual experience.
A couple of decades ago, in the heady first
days of the brave new world of the internet,
cyberspace gurus were confidently predicting
the imminent Death of Newspapers. Dailies
were doomed, they told us. People in the
future would get all their news from their
computer monitors. Pretty soon nobody would
buy newspapers.
Well, yes...and no. Millions are relying on
the internet for fast-breaking news these days,
but newspapers haven't gone away.
The one thing the gurus neglected to notice
was that reading anything lengthy on a
computer monitor is a huge pain in the...eye.
Computers are awkward and temperamental
and hard to fold under your arm or stick in
your back pocket.
They are in a word, uncomfortable.
Whereas newspapers are friendly. As
Marshall McLuhan said "People don't read
newspapers; they get into them — like a bath."
Reading a real newspaper is a sensual
experience. You don't haVe to sign on or
log in to anything. There's no worry about
passwords or Trojan viruses lurking in the
background.
All you need is an appositional thumb, a
comfortable place to sit and a good source of
light.
And let me tell you, a park bench
overlooking the Mediterranean ain't half bad.
Nope, newspapers may have to do some
fancy footwork but they're here to stay.
Because they're cheap, informative,
entertaining and just plain reader-friendly.
Besides, you ever try to swat a fly with a
laptop?
Liberals, although rivals, interceded to say
the government should give Burr a chance to
be heard. Liberal Jim Bullbrook, an admired
orator, complained "this is sickening" and
NDP leader Stephen Lewis predicted Burr
would be proven right in the end.
McKeough eventually said he would follow
the U.S. hearings with great interest, but in a
tone that suggested he never wanted to hear
any more on the issue. He never spoke about it
again.
Burr had the last laugh, because he lived to
see wind power gain acceptance by later
governments of all parties.
Ontario new has 200 wind turbines and
eventually wind will supply at least 10 per cent
of its electricity.
But Ontario still is behind some other
jurisdictions, particularly Quebec, in using
wind power and one lesson is don't put all
your trust in the smart, young, confident-
sounding guys in government. They don't
know everything.
Letters Policy
The Citizen welcomes letters to the
editor.
Letters must be signed and should
include a daytime telephone number for
the purpose of verification only, Lettets
that are not signed will not be printed.
Subm ssions may be edited for length,
clarity and content, using fair comment
as our guideline. The Citizen reserves
the right to refuse any letter on the basis
of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate
information. As well, letters can only be
printed, as space allows. Please keep
your letters brief and concise.
Make her day
i So, have you plans to honour your mother
this Sunday'? If you don't might I suggest
you start making some?
Perhaps, you could say I'm a little prejudiced
in this area, what with being a mother and all.
But my sentiments also come from my position
as a daughter.
And the fact that I wasn't always an
exemplary one.
There are many blessings in my life, the
obvious being my husband and children, health
and a modest but comfortable lifestyle. But I
am also fortunate to have had the years to make
amends with morn.
My mother was no longer a young 20-
something woman when she found out her
millionaire's family was about to become
richer. I came along and for many years
discovered myself coddled and indulged much
as a cute, cuddly pet would be. By the time I
had hit early adolescence, however, you began
to recognize that the pet was a black sheep.
And by my teens, you would likely have
thought that the sheep was rabid.
Most of that frothing at the mouth was
directed towards my mother in those days.
There was little it seemed that either one of us
could do right for the other, and of course .as a
know-it-all adolescent I had to assume the
blame was entirely hers.
Well, things change when you get older and
what I didn't know then, I know now. What ,I
have come to realize is that I was a bit of a
challenge for mom. In addition to feeling
perfectly justified in carrying out my misdeeds,
I also felt perfectly justified in blaming mom
for them. She may have had her faults, humans
do. But since enjoying motherhood myself,
I've come to see that Mom's faults sure weren't
as plentiful as I thought then.
Through time I have come to understand my
mother more, to see why she behaved the way
she did in some situations. They didn't make
sense when I was 16, but they certainly did
when I was the mother of a 16-year-old.
There's nothing like having a few kids of
your own to help you gain perspective on
parenting.
Now, years of pretending I was nothing like
her are gone. These days I have fun discovering
the many ways we are alike. We share a love
for cookbooks and sunshine. We are happy
when our family's around us and both of us
seem to be the object of teasing when they are.
So I am glad to have had the ensuing decades
to try and make amends and enjoy a pretty
good relationship with my mother..
And maybe even more than other 'kids' do, I
like to give her a little extra attention when
Mother's Day arrives. Even though there have
been times when I haven't actually been able to
see her on the actual day, I have made it a point
'to visit sometime in the week prior. And there
will also be a gift because Mom, I need to say
thanks. Raising Bonnie did not, I know, come
easily.
Actually, raising any child isn't easy. No one ,
holds your heart more solidly than your
offspring, and even the most perfect angel is
capable of breaking it at some point, whether
on purpose or inadvertently. Parenting is about
sacrifice, about humility. It is a job for which
you are extraordinarily grateful, but which can
be the most thankless.
So take some time this week to show
appreciation for your life by honouring your
mom. She won't love you more for it, because
more is impossible. But you will make her day.
Wind pioneer has last laugh