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The Citizen, 2005-04-21, Page 5Other Views THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2005. PAGE 5. Dickens was right: the law is an ass The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed. I’m not exactly sure which disgruntled lawyer-to-be scrawled those words on a marbled bathroom wall in the innards of Osgoode Hall in Toronto more than half a century ago, but I think I know what he was driving at. The law. as Dickens warned us, is an ass. An idiot. Three recent cases of jurisprudence gone nuts (ail. mercifully, from south of the border) illustrate the point. Case number one. Meet Daniel Provencio, aged 28. a two-time loser incarcerated in a California prison who is about to take a called third strike. Unwisely, he decides to participate in a prison uprising and is promptly shot in the head by a guard firing foam bullets. Daniel Provencio is swiftly taken to the prison hospital and, in accordance with routine penitentiary procedure, securely handcuffed to his hospital bed. He is also assigned an armed prison guard who is instructed to stand by Provencio’s bed around the clock. The only factor that makes this entire procedure slightly Kafkaesque is the fact that a prison doctor has already declared Mister Provencio clinically brain dead. Aha. But he is still, dead or alive, an inmate. Therefore according to prison rules he must be shackled to the bed and guarded by certified prison officials 24 hours a day. Sex and booze come first Do we really need to know so much about the sex lives and drinking habits of political leaders? A new biography of John Robarts, Progressive Conservative premier from 1961- 71, focuses almost as much on the excessive drinking of himself and his first wife and rows with his second as on his political achievements, which were considerable. A family-approved biography written by an academic has existed since the 1980s, but friends of Robarts felt it was “too dry” and persuaded TV commentator Steve Paikin to write another. Public Triumph, Private Tragedy - The Double Life Of John P. Robarts (Viking) plunges deeper into what is generally considered a politician’s private life than any book this writer has seen in 41 years covering politics. Sometimes it reads like Desperate Housewives or Valley Of The Dolls. Robarts married Norah McCormick in their hometown London and she opposed his entering politics and after he became an MPP refused to live in Toronto. She did not want to leave her bridge-playing friends and criticized him more than the opposition parties, saying one public event she attended was “boring” so loudly some in the audience heard it. Robarts had been a hearty drinker and began having a scotch in the morning and bar­ hopping at night to the point friends feared for his health. But he was at his desk working each morning. His wife started drinking heavily and became an alcoholic. The biography recalls Robarts, considered a stuffed shirt, once asked this writer “how are your lovely wife and five lovely children?” He explained he had noticed them drawn up waiting in a railway station where politicians and media were returning from a trip and seemed to envy a reporter with a normal family life. Why the armed guard nursemaid for a man who can’t move a muscle? “Potentially, someone could come in and wheel him out,” a 'prison spokesman explained. Err, okay...but why the handcuffs? “If we were to unshackle him, we’d have to consult with the prison guards union”. Cost of the around-the-clock guard: $1,000 a day. Ironically, Mister Provencio resolved the dilemma by dying outright after two and a half weeks in the hospital, leaving behind just a little over $160,000 in unpaid medical bills. Case number two: Daryl Atkins, 27, of Yorktown, Virginia. A convicted murderer who turned out to be a little too smart for his own good. This was no mean feat, when you consider that Atkins had officially been declared intellectually disabled. In fact, it was his designation of intellectual disability that saved him from the electric chair. The state of Virginia has a law making it unconstitutional to execute any criminals whose IQs register below 70. Daryl was home free with an IQ Eric Dowd From Queen’s Park When Robarts quit politics, he asked Norah again to join him in Toronto, but she refused and they divorced. Robarts at 56 met a “very sexy” nurse, Katherine Sickafuse, only 28, when he struck up a conversation in a restaurant, and they married. One of his friends explained he wanted sex and she wanted his power and position, but both were disappointed. She sunbathed nude at their cottage and his friends thought her domineering, but he was putty in her hands. Robarts’s son, Tim, upset by an irrational mother and largely absent father, drank, took drugs and shot himself dead on a riverbank and Robarts felt guilty. Norah not long after got drunk while home alone and choked to death on her supper. Robarts, once physically powerful, had a series of strokes, walked with a cane and was depressed because he looked feeble. His wife prevented some of his friends visiting him and most of the things that made life worth living, including “sexual relations with his beautiful young wife,” were gone. Robarts told a friend she refused to make a meal for him and when he tried, shoved him so Final Thought If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton reading of 59. At least he was until he started a long and complicated series of appeals against his conviction. On a hunch, the state’s legal experts had Atkins take the IQ test over again. He scored 74. A Virginia psychologist speculates that the jump in Atkins IQ could be attributable to the ‘mental stimulation’ resulting from frequent talks with his team of lawyers. Sometime in the spring of this year, a jury will somberly convene to decide whether Daryl Atkins has become intelligent enough to be worthy of execution by the state of Virginia. Not bizarre enough for you? Then consider the case of John Taylor, an inmate at Utah State Prison. Imagine you are standing with John Taylor in the exercise yard on a blustery January evening in 1998. It is bitterly cold, and Taylor is hunched against the wind, desperately trying to light a Marlboro cigarette. He is handcuffed and surrounded by two prison guards who wait impatiently, stamping their feet against the cold, as Taylor gets his cigarette lit and smokes it hungrily down to the filter. When Taylor is finished, he grinds out the butt with his heel, turns and re-enters the Utah State Prison. Where he is escorted to the execution shed, stood against a wall of sandbags and shot to death by a firing squad. Capital punishment in Utah is still in effect. But smoking in public buildings? That’s a no-no. in biography he fell on his back and threatened him with a knife, but she denied it. He said he and Katherine both wanted a divorce, but could not afford to live separately and later they agreed to try again to make their marriage work. But soon after he took a shotgun in their bathroom and shot himself dead through the roof of his mouth. Robarts’s brother Bob’s first question was “did she do it?” and Katherine complained one of her husband’s friends wanted her arrested for murder and she tried to bar several of his friends from the burial service. This makes engrossing as well as sad reading and reminds being away from home can strain politicians’ relations with wives and the mighty are not immune from tragedy, but both are well known. Most of the more sensational events also happened after Robarts stopped being premier anyway and there is no evidence any affected his job. But all the concentration on them leaves less room for examining Robarts’s policies, which were important — but not as exciting as sex and booze. 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. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Ciariband^ntemn7u^n ^Xmmenfas 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.L-ZL, Bonnie Gropp The short of it Time to appreciate As you read this I am wrapping up a bit of holiday with my hubby. While someone else moved in to tend to home and pooch for (he week, we were soaking up a new environment and climate. I’ve never been a big traveller; more of an armchair tourist. Through books I have visited many places. I’ve admired the rolling hills of the England countryside, climbed the Eiffel Tower, smelled magnolias in Louisiana and struggled in a Congolese jungle. But with a claustrophobic aversion to airplanes and not enough time to enjoy a cruise or ride the rails, I don’t physically stray too far from home. Actually the only reasons this adventure happened were because of a rare opportunity for it to be inexpensive and its proximity to home turf made it accessible by car. Add the fact that we hadn’t enjoyed a vacation like this in over 20 years and well, it just seemed the time was right. The silly part of it, however, was that while we were preparing, neither of us could admit to any great excitement. Certainly we were thrilled to be having the time to hang out together away from our normal everyday life. We were looking forward to a visit with family members with whom we’d be staying. And yes, the promise of days away from work to recharge our batteries was definitely attractive. But we just didn’t have that I- wouldn’t-miss-this-for-the-world feeling. It got me thinking that perhaps there’s more to my lack of touring than my aversion to flying. The thing is there are so many wonderful things to see and do close at hand, that I’m not sure why anyone travels too far. While leafing through a recent Ontario tourism magazine, I was struck by the beauty and variety within our own province, from butterflies to art galleries there are spectacular exhibitions for our aesthetic pleasure. Hiking trails, golf courses, beaches and fishing spots offer a bounty of opportunities for active living. It made me proud. But I was somewhat nonplussed that while the magazine suggested it was looking at Ontario as a whole, its focus was strongly on the GTA, Niagara and Ottawa regions. It left me with an urge to tell them a little secret they seem to be missing. Anything you want to do can be done in Huron County. It is home to two summer theatres, an eclectic mix of artisans, museums and galleries. You can commune with nature or rejuvenate your senses with a spa treatment at a first-class inn. Expanding our horizons just a little further, within our nation’s borders, gives us a hint of so many places. You want to see France? Visit Quebec City. Looking for the romance and wines of Tuscany? What about a trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake? From the fishing villages of the east coast to our Chinatowns to our mountain resorts Canada is diversity at its best, a relatively safe, friendly country with history, culture and variety. But no one here was offering free accommodation and food, so it was across the border for my guy and I. For someone still sun-starved, with the dampness of spring permeating my bones, the change in climate was obviously a welcome treat too. Sun and warmth, after all, is often in short supply here. They’re the only thing, I can think of how­ ever.