HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-09-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005. PAGE 5.
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Evolution?
America ... just a nation of two hundred
million used car salesmen with all the
money we need to buy guns and no
qualms about killing anyone else in the world
who tries to make us uncomfortable.
- Hunter S. Thompson
Ah, Mister T., thou shouldst be living at this
hour.
Unfortunately, that option is not in the Tarot
cards. Hunter S. Thompson blew his own
brains out in the kitchen of his fortified
compound in Woody Creek, Colorado last
February. The drug-chugging, gun-toting,
invective-slinging colossus of Gonzo
journalism, whose motto was “When the
going gets weird, the weird turn pro’’, finally
had to say ‘uncle’ to Uncle Sam and throw in
the towel. His country got too weird even for
him.
I’m sure the folks at Imax know exactly how
he felt.
You know Imax? One of the great Canadian
cinematic success stories. Imax is to movies
as the brontosaurus is to the lizard family,
which is to say huge, unforgettable and
famous around the world.
Imax was the brain-child of three Canadian
filmmakers who got together after Expo 67 to
work on a concept they called ‘giant-screen
technology’. Simply put, they came up with a
complicated method of projecting a film on a
screen 10 times the size pf a conventional
movie screen.
Anyone who has ever seen the result will
never forget it. Imax films are drop-jaw
gorgeous and incredibly lavish, with vertigo
inducing shots from helicopters and close-up
encounters with wildlife and scenery that are
enough to give cinema-goers the vapours.
Too many statues and monuments
Do we really need so many statues and
monuments — or are there more
useful ways of expressing gratitude
and affection?
The Ontario government is spending $1.8
million on a new monument in the grounds of
the legislature to honour veterans of war and
peacekeeping.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said at the
ground-breaking ceremony it will help keep
alive the memories of their heroism, bravery
and sacrifices in defence of freedom.
The memorial will include a 30-metre-long
granite wall etched with scenes from Canada’s
war history and texts illustrating them, as well
as a paved seating area, where it is hoped
people will come and reflect.
The monument was promised by the former
Progressive Conservative premier Ernie Eves
in the throes of an election and was continued
by McGuinty’s Liberal government.
A statue and wall of honour that
commemorates firefighters killed in the line of
duty, built with the help of a donation of
$500,000 from the province, was unveiled
outside the legislature in June.
A memorial to police killed on duty was
constructed earlier outside the legislature with
$675,00 donated by the Conservative
government. Some Liberal MPPs want a
workers’ memorial built there to honour those
killed in their jobs.
Toronto’s Jewish community also is asking
the Ontario and federal governments to help
build a 25 metres high. $5 million memorial to
Jewish war veterans in a Toronto suburb, next
to an existing Holocaust memorial.
These are thoroughly worthy causes and
those who gave so much should be
remembered. But there already are cenotaphs
built to commemorate those who served in
wars in Toronto’s city centre and suburbs and
many communities.
Watch your mouth
Arthur
Black
If there’s a knock on Imax films, it would be
that the scripts are Reader’s Digest bland.
They don’t rock any boats.
That’s because Imax films are inordinately
expensive to produce. Consequently, they
have to appeal to the widest (read lowest-
common-denominator) audience possible.
And that’s the reason Imax films never, ever
offend anybody.
Until now.
Imax is in deep trouble south of the border.
Theatres in several American states -
including some theatres attached to science
museums — are refusing to show several Imax
films on grounds that sound like something
out of the Salem Witch Trials. The objectors
claim that the Imax films are blasphemous.
What sort of films are we talking about?
Well, Cosmic Voyage, for one. It’s an animated
journey through the universe. Then there’s
Galapagos, a documentary about the famous
islands where the incredible variety of wildlife
led Charles Darwin to begin formulating his
famous theory.
And there’s another Imax film called
Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, which is all about
strange creatures that flourish near hot air
vents at the bottom of the ocean.
Why have these films attracted the attention
of America’s self-appointed censors? Not
Eric
Dowd
From
Queens Park
There are also already memorials to others
scattered around the legislature building and
few know they are there. They includes statues
of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, John
Graves Simcoe, Ontario’s first lieutenant
governor; William Lyon Mackenzie, a leader
in the struggle for responsible government and
several premiers.
Governments have renamed existing
buildings in the legislature complex after
former premiers, including John S.
Macdonald, James P. Whitney, Oliver Mowat
and Mitchell Hepburn, which preserves their
names, to some extent anyway, without
costing new money.
McGuinty recently renamed an office block
the McMurtry-Scott Building, after two noted
attorneys-general, one Conservative and one
Liberal.
Governments also have built or helped build
edifices and named them after luminaries. A
Conservative government built a centre near
Dorset to help studies in natural resources and
named it after premier Leslie Frost, although
the Liberals recently ordered it closed.
Government helped build a research centre
to find cures for illnesses such as heart disease
and strokes at University of Western Ontario,
and named it after premier John Robarts. He
also is remembered through the fortress-like
Robarts Library at University of Toronto and
once commented good-humouredly “it's the
ugliest building in the city and it has my
because they use the F-word - you’ll never
hear that in an Imax film.
It’s because they use the E-word. They talk
about ‘evolution’ - and evolution is
profoundly potty-mouth talk in George W
Bush’s America.
The odd thing is, the U.S.A, has already had
to sit through this movie. More than 80 years
ago the state of Tennessee put a 24-year-old
science teacher named John Scopes on trial for
daring to teach Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
to his students.
Famous lawyer Clarence Darrow defended
Scopes and technically lost the trial, but he
exposed the inherent inanity of the prosecution
case and humiliated Scopes’ prosecutor,
William Jennings Bryan to the point that
Bryan actually died five days after the trial
ended.
Where’s Clarence Darrow when we need
him?
Come to that, where’s Hunter S. Thompson
when you need him?
Here’s another Thompson quote:
“He knew who 1 was, at that time, because I
had a reputation as a writer. I knew he was part
of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he
offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He
had no humour. He was insignificant in every
way and consequently 1 didn’t pay much
attention to him. But when he passed out in my
bathtub, then 1 noticed him. I’d been in
another room, talking to the bright people. I
had to have him taken away.”
That’s Hunter S. Thompson recalling his
first meeting with George W. Bush at a Super
Bowl party Thompson threw in Houston in
1974.
Where’s the bathtub plug when you need it?
damned name on it.”
Two rival groups are arguing whether to
name an existing stretch of a highway west of
Toronto after Alexander Graham Bell,
inventor of the telephone, who lived in the
area, or Joseph Brant, a respected Mohav k
chief.
Highways also have been named after
others, including the Macdonald-Cartier
Freeway, commemorating two giants of
history, and James Snow Parkway, after a
former Ontario transportation minister.
A sports arena in Toronto has been named
after Larry Grossman, a former Conservative
opposition leader, who died of cancer at 53»
and would be pleased because he was
passionate about sports and coached kids’
hockey there.
A park in eastern Ontario was named after a
police officer stabbed to death and the local
chief aptly called it “a living, growing,
honour.”
When a 10-year-old boy was killed recently
on a field trip, his family established a
scholarship and basketball court at the school
in his name.
Could Ontario’s most travelled highway be
renamed Veterans Highway or funds to honour
police who gave their lives used to help
educate their children? It would be a way of
remembering them usefully every day.
Final Thought
When one door closes, another door opens;
but we so often look so long and so
regretfully upon the closed door, that we do
not see the ones which open for us.
' - Alexander Graham Bell
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
With honour
Walking With Grandpa
1 like to walk with Grandptl, ,
His steps are short like mine.
He doesn't say "Now hurry up!”
He always takes his time.
Most people have to hurry,
They do not stop and see.
I'm glad that God made Grandpa
"Unrushed" and young like me.
— Author Unknown
It’s been a long time since my life has been
blessed by their presence, but when I hear
this poem they're only a memory away.
Both my grandfathers passed away when I
was in my very-early teens. Yet, when I think
of them they are as real to me as they were
almost 40 years ago. They always had the time
for me, whether it was dropping everything to
draw ‘horsie’ for a persistent little one, or
chuckling over my botched attempts al
German.
The same too could be said of their wives;
actually I have seen the above poem both ways
recognizing Grandma as ‘unrushed’ too.
Amidst the flurry of Christmas dinner it was
never too hectic to make those little extras for
the picky eater or to answer a question.
Raising one’s own children is a day-to-day
job that requires a balance of so many things
it’s often difficult to actually enjoy your kids
the way you should. Grandparents however
have been more greatly impressed by time’s
quick passing, and see the importance of
priorities perhaps a little more clearly. They
aren’t facing the daily grind of a houseful of
young children, but rather are treated to their
presence from time to time. Those occasions
are precious and grandparents like to make the
most of them.
Little ones quickly pick up on the fact that
Grandma and Giandpa have a tendency to stop
lhe world on tneir behalf. Last week, while 1
was slugging away in the kitchen, my five
year-old ‘grand’ boy asked me if I would
please bring one of his favourite, but heavy,
toys downstairs. Knowing that they were
leaving soon, and thinking it may not be worth
the mess, I suggested he ask his father.
His response? “Actually, no, I’m not sure
he’ll do it. 1 know you will.”
He’s right. I am, after all, Grandma and it’s
my job and my pleasure.
National Grandparents Day, which falls this
Sunday was adopted in Canada in 1995 as a
time to acknowledge the importance of
grandparents to the “structure of the family in
the nurturing, upbringing and education of
children.”
The intent for Marian McQuade, the West
Virginian who first initiated Grandparents Day
in 1970, was not to overly commercialize the
day, but to celebrate families. She wanted that
Sunday in September, which was officially
proclaimed in 1979 in the U.S., as a time of
gathering together to share values and dreams.
With families spread far and wide these
days, it can be difficult getting together. I was
fortunate when I was little that I could see my
grandparents regularly. I have never had
happier memories of childhood than the ones
that involve them. They connected me to a past
that shaped the values I was raised with. They
were able to love and guide me without the
concern of daily responsibility and I never
doubted that love or guidance. Nor have I ever
forgotten those gifts to me.
Therefore, as their grandchild it’s my job and
my pleasure this Sunday to honour them still.