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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-08-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2005. PAGE 5 Other Views Why not take it all off, eh? I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch - Gilda Radner expect Sharon Smith would agree with that fashion statement. Ms Smith - make that ‘Mayor' Smith - she became the first female mayor of her town when the citizens of Houston, BC elected her a couple of years ago - celebrated her ascension to office by posing for an official photograph. It shows her in the mayor’s chambers, sitting in the mayor's chair, wearing her shiny new chain of office, a radiant smile... And nothing else. Which would have been a fine and private joke between the mayor and her photographer husband, had not some unnamed party guest discovered the photos on the Smith home computer, downloaded them onto a CD and subsequently cast them across the Internet for the rest of the world to see. Outrageous behaviour? Perhaps by the standards of the Houston citizenry, but the notion of going to work in the buff isn’t all that radical in other environs. Two flight attendants with Southwest Airlines were recently nonplussed upon responding to an in-flight summons from the cockpit of their Boeing 747. “Bring some paper napkins and soda water,’’ they were told. They went to the cockpit and found the pilot and the co-pilot at the controls, wearing their headphones, big grins.... And nothing else. Back in the dot.com glory days of the late 1980s. there was one computer programmer Premiers blossoming as sexy symbols Ontario’s premiers were long thought of as having a passion for kissing only babies but suddenly are blossoming as symbols of sex. The traditional image of premiers used to be men - there has never been a woman — in dark suits and sexless as the statues outside the legislature. But Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has been rated by a British magazine among the 'hotties’ in world politics, meaning those who have sex appeal. His wife. Terri, also has called him the sexiest man in Ontario’ and revealed when he is away the last thing he does at night is call her. He also reads her poetry and wrote a poem saying how much he appreciates her. Here is one politician trying to write something more memorable than legislation to improve tile drainage. McGuinty has responded his wife is the only hottie in their house, which shows he is up with the latest slang and may have substance, because earlier a radio show host called her hot’ and asked for a hug. Mike Harris, Progressive Conservative premier until he stepped down in 2002, also boosted premiers’ reputation as romantics when he invited 150 friends to his home for a barbeque and announced he was marrying attractive blonde Laura Maguire, his companion for several years, and the ceremony was performed on the lawn. It was Harris’s third marriage and, after his second broke up while he was premier, he was seen quickly with another attractive blonde, a former TV anchor, whom he even took on an official foreign tour. Harris, tall and burly, has a craggy face reminiscent of the late actor John Wayne. He also ran the province for seven years, was sometimes admired for being decisive and had vacations with fishing buddies including a former U.S president, which gives him an famous throughout the length of the Silicon Valley. The man was a cyber genius. Every major player from Microsoft down was itching to hire him. He could name his own price and he did. Forget the megabucks, stock options or a candy apple red Porsche in the parking lot. His non-negotiable clause: he insisted on working in the nude. So his company let him. Mind you. they put him on the night shift, solo and kept the blinds down, but still... There was a brief moment in the dwindling years of the last century when it looked like corporate drones everywhere might one day shuck their pinstripes in favour of birthday suits. In her book. Work Naked which was published a few years back, author Cynthia Froggatt argued that it was high time the traditional workplace was overhauled from top to bottom - including employees going topless and bottomless, if that worked for them. Alas, it didn’t. The Back To Basics Labour- In-The-Raw movement fizzled faster than a popsicle in a steam bath. That naked c^ber-geek genius programmer in Silicon Valley? He freaked out a fellow Eric Dowd From Queens Park aura of power that adds to his appeal. Ernie Eves. Conservative premier briefly after Harris, split from his wife while finance minister and became what he called the life partner’ of Isabel Bassett, a photogenic former TV commentator turned MPP and minister. When Eves ran for party leader and in a general election, he took her everywhere and they never made any attempt to hide their relationship. It was something totally new in traditionally strait-laced Ontario - a premier asking for support with his common-law wife beside him. Eves lost the election, but for many other reasons than his romantic status, and the couple left an image as being dignified and devoted, composed in defeat. A new biography of John Robarts, Conservative premier from 1961-71, presents a picture of passion and tragedy previously only hinted at. It had been fairly well known Robarts did not get along well with his first wife, who preferred to stay home in London. He spent a lot of time in nightclubs, was suspected of having affairs, after retiring married a woman 28 years his junior and a few years later Final Thought If you want to make a friend, let someone do you a favour. - Benjamin Franklin employee who complained to securitx who made him put on some clothes al gunpoint Those bare-bottomed Southwest Airlines sky jockeys? They claimed that they'd splashed some coffee on their uniforms, and had taken them off to clean them, but the flight attendants didn't buy it and neither did their bosses at Southwest Airlines. The naked flyboys have been permanently grounded. Turns out that most folks aren't all that crazy about the idea ol toiling in the buff - or about working next to colleagues similarly un- atlired. And I have to say I agree with them. Ol all the people I worked beside down the years. I saw more than enough ol their naked essence from the neck up - and I daresay they fell the same way about me. Mind you. 1 spent most of my working years with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where the idea of a formal dress code was about as foreign as pork chops at a bar mitzvah. If your ratings were good. CBC honchos didn't care if you showed up for work in a rhinestone thong and a Batman cape. Now that I'm retired from the nine-to-five and scribbling in comfort out of my own house, the dress code is even more relaxed. Hugh Hefner spent his working years cranking out Playboy magazine while dressed in silk pajamas? I’ve got that beat. Sitting here, typing out the final words of this column I happen to be wearing... Well, you probably don't want to know. But Mayor Smith would appreciate it. suffered several strokes and shot himself. An attractive young woman reporter once told this writer Robarts pinched her bottom during an interview, but she did not want this made public and news media those days were wary of discussing politicians’ sex lives. The biography describes how he met his young, second wife when he introduced himself to her in a restaurant, which shows him to have been a politician of rare enterprise, and wrote romantic letters to ‘my dearest Kasia.’ Robarts’s physical powers including his ability to have sex were diminished by his strokes and it was a reason he killed himself. David Peterson, Liberal premier from 1985- 90, was the first premier whose love life was discussed publicly. His actress wife Shelley described his putting flowered sheets on the bed for their honeymoon and a newspaper called him a ‘lean, mean, sexy machine.’ Earlier premiers must have had some associations with sex somewhere in their lives - Conservative William Davis had five children - but it was not the sort of thing people talked about. 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. Submissions 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 inaccu.ate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. Bonnie Gropp The short of it Going up! Could someone please tell me exactly where this is going to stop? Mom always said that what goes ^.ip must come down. But we all know that with some things we may not live long enough to sec it. In 1939 the price of a house was $6,400. The average annual income was $1,850 and the price of gas was 19 cents a gallon. Things had changed by 1955. A house could now cost you $17,500. while the average annual income was in the range of $5,000. We now had minimum wage set at 75 cents an hour and a gallon ol gas could set you back 29 cents. Fast forward to 2005. A so-so home in the city is over $200,000. Though we see no more. 11 not less for our money, taxes on properties continue to climb to the point where many in urban centres can no longer afford to pay them. Salaries, particularly in the public sector, keep stride or surpass the cost of living, with employees getting annual raises. Even those lower on the pay scale, but above minimum wage have come to expect hourly salaries in the $13 range. And then there is gas. Last week, when I first noticed the $102.5 a litre sign, my gut reaction was “No. I’m not paying it.” It only took seconds, however, for a return to reality and the sad fact that 1 have no choice. And that is without a doubt the biggest frustration. Despite the fact that these days my husband and 1 are pretty much working to pay auto insurance and gas bills there’s not a thing we can do about it. First there’s work and because we chose to live the rural life, work for both of us means travel. Then there’s family. Every one of our loved ones lives at least a half hour away, most of them more. With one child still in college and a grandson we love to visit, there are frequent trips we can’t avoid, and wouldn’t want to. I work hard for my money And feel totally helpless as I fuel up each Monday morning, spending what my budget will allow, and knowing it won’t see me through. I can t afford not to work, but with these prices I can no longer afford to go to work. Gives new meaning to highway robbery doesn’t it? If it’s not technically theft, however, it sure feels like it. They take our money, knowing we are powerless to do a thing about it. Some have tried to come up with solutions or at least to send a message. A radio announcer said this past week that there had been several cases of people filling up at the pumps, then taking off without paying. Tempting, but truly only a problem for the regular folks as the real loss of revenue falls on the gas station owners who aren’t the villains here. There have been e-mails circulated suggesting everything from a boycott of the top two oil companies’ stations, to everyone filling up on the same day. As it takes a lot of people for these kinds of things to work, and as people are inundated with e-mails so often ignore many, such strategies historically ‘run out of gas’. So we continue to line up and pay the price. One radio announcer recently noted with shock the huge amount of traffic at a station where the price had dropped to 96.5 cents a litre. “I never thought I’d see the day when we'd be hurrying to fill up at that price.” Get used to it. No doubt gas prices will drop in the near future, but it'll never be to where they started. The pattern's been set and while what goes up must come down, there's no rule as to how far.