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The Citizen, 2016-09-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2016. PAGE 5. Other Views Ground control to America: wake up Here's a quote from Carlos Beruff, a Florida businessman: < < or seven -and -one-half years, this animal we call president — because he is an animal, okay? — has destroyed the country and dismantled the military..." Think about that. A mature American citizen is talking about the elected leader of his country. Beruff also happens to be a career Republican and a candidate for the United States Senate. Roll that around in your mouth before you spit it out. There was a time when even the sleaziest politicians at least tugged their forelocks in the direction of civil speech and respectful pronouncements. That of course, was BT — Before Trump. The Manhattan megalomaniac never actually called Obama an animal, but he did spend the past five years slyly insinuating that Obama was born in Africa before grudgingly admitting it wasn't true. He also called the 44th president of the United States a traitor, a fool, a friend of terrorists and, in fact, the head of ISIS. And we are just weeks away from finding out whether — I can't believe I'm typing this — whether this lying, cheating, misogynistic, ranting, racist, bullying, possibly psychotic balloon of noxious gas will become the 45th AOArthur Black president of the United States. Yet for all his transformative appallingness, it isn't Donald Trump that should cause us to shudder. It's the fact that millions — millions — of Americans regard him as a saviour. T' was ever thus. As another huckster, P.T. Barnum said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Or any other `people', come to that. Consider Joseph Stalin in Russia. In just one year, 1937-38, loveable old Uncle Joe ordered a million countrymen to be murdered by his henchmen. He also sent at least 18 million Russians to Gulags — brutal prison camps in Siberia. And he let somewhere between five million and ten million peasants starve to death for failing to meet his agricultural quotas. An unqualified monster, right? Reviled from Moscow to Minsk? Wrong. In 2015 a poll found 45 per cent of Russians believed the great' achievements of the Stalin era `justified' the toll of victims. Then there's China. In the late 1950s, 45 million Chinese died in the Great Famine that was caused by Mao's so-called Great Leap Forward. His Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution snuffed out another two million citizens. Most historians would rank him among the top criminals of the 20th century. Yet earlier this year 2.5 million admirers took part in an "online flower -laying campaign" to honour The Great Helmsman. Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot. Putin in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines. Something there is in humanity that loves a brute. Which brings us back to Trump, a cartoon villain straight out of a Batman movie. Except he's real and election day is almost here. Solution? Obama said it. "There has never been a man or woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as the next US president." No, she isn't warm and fuzzy. Neither was LBJ. He was possibly the nastiest SOB the White House ever housed. But he got more civil rights legislation passed than any president before or since. Trump is an unqualified nightmare, but nightmares can be dealt with. All America needs to do is wake up. Utilities are redefining date ni while a 'date night' is likely not going to happen around my home for a little while with a five-week old baby in the mix, I can't help but look forward to a night with my wife Ashleigh. No, I'm not throwing in the towel on this whole dedicated father thing and no, I'm not starting to feel like the odd man out in the house. We're a happy family, the three of us. An exhausted family without a doubt, and, due to that, a sore family from my standpoint, but a happy family nonetheless. No, the reason I can't wait for date night is because I like to joke with my wife that we should go somewhere expensive and enjoy ourselves. It's a joke because we both know that, with a mortage, student debts, a car loan and now the mounting expenses of a child, it's a little outside our reach financially. That joke, however, is about to take on a whole new life with the changes coming down the pipe to how much utilities are going to cost in the near future. Between the Green Energy Act and cap -and - trade programs instituted at the provincial level, prices are going up whether people utilize gas or electric to keep their toes from going numb in the winter. The two programs are guaranteeing that Ontario utilities are going to cost more and more in the future and that increase has already started with several Ontario gas companies being given the go-ahead to increase the cost of natural gas usage in homes. Enbridge, Natural Resource Gas and Union Gas were all given the go-ahead by the Ontario Energy Board to increase rates as of Oct. 1. You know, just in time for the cold season so us lucky homeowners have barely a month to get ready for the increase in costs. Southern Ontario gas customers could see an increase of $2 a month while our northern Ontario counterparts could see as much as $3.50 a month. It may not seem like a lot but, combine it with the ever -rising price of electricity and the fact that Ontarians are expected to have another $5 per month added to their gas bills next year as part of the cap -and -trade Denny Scott &A Denny's Den. programs and those nickels and dimes start adding up. I've written about electricity before — about how our service providers have requested the right to charge more to fix infrastructure and, after being approved for increases, failed to fix the infrastructure. I try my best to stay neutral in fights about politics (or at least try to blast everyone equally) but it's getting to the point that we have to point at someone and say fix this mess. Is that person going to be Premier Kathleen Wynne? I doubt it. I'm not a zealot. I realize that Wynne was handed a big bag of refuse by her predecessor and told to present it as Sunday dinner, but she doesn't seem intent on making things better, at least not for people in my income bracket. The Green Energy Act, however, has companies renting out the land in our backyard and getting paid much more for the energy produced (and subsequently sold to the United States at a loss) than we pay for using it. That system is going to have to be balanced at some point and I get the feeling that, once again, we will be left holding the bag. We are also paying huge amounts of money to have our power "delivered" to us and, in case you haven't noticed, that delivery service, at least in Blyth, is sub -par at the best of days. We had entire weeks this summer where the power didn't go out and let me tell you, that's amazing. We reset the clocks in our home due to brownouts and blackouts more often than we change the bedsheets, and we do that at least once a week. If Hydro One wants to charge me a delivery fee five to six times what my actual usage is, ht they better get themselves in gear and guarantee reliable delivery. Add the problems with our electrical system to the fact that the provincial government's cap -and -trade system is going to cost me even more money to own my home and I'm starting to see why renting is such a popular option in places outside of Huron County. The answer might be another political party put in power but, here's the problem with that: just like Wynne, they are all going to be bound by the decisions of those that came before them, whether they are Liberal, Conservative or otherwise. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced that, if I ever were to become a politician, I'd want to be a member of official opposition. I would hope that my party would never get into power. Why? Because it's easy to stand there and say that the government of the day has screwed up. However, whenever that government gets replaced, very little ends up changing due to the agreements and contracts that accompanied the change. For example: if the Liberals were to abandon their offices right now and the Conservative Party's Patrick Brown were to become premier, the Green Energy Act would still exist, turbines would still be spinning, cap -and -trade would likely still end up being put into place and gas bills would still go up. I guess that's the one benefit to all this, regardless of what happens in any election in the near future, I'll still get to tell my new joke. When it comes time to have a nice night out, and I say let's go somewhere expensive, I'll have the joy of shaving, showering and getting dressed while Ashleigh puts on her date clothes, taking her by the hand and taking her to the most expensive place I know: our living room in front of our gas fireplace. Final Thought If you don't build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs. — Dhirubhai Ambani Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense A personal connection Three times this past week I've had folks I hold in high regard in this community approach me and compliment one or more of my column installments of recent weeks. I don't say that to bring attention to how great of a columnist I am, but rather just use it as a reminder that you're all out there. That may seem like something that's pretty hard to forget, but it certainly can be. I think I've commented on it in this space before. Very often in this job you can feel like it's the old days and you're in some sort of writing sweatshop. It can feel like you're huddled over a typewriter, sucking down coffee after coffee, likely smoking a lot, and just writing a story until it's done. You rip it off the typewriter and hand it to someone who takes it away and you start on the next one. Of course, it's not actually like that. Our office has windows, we use computers and it's quite often that Denny and I run into readers on the street. We can, however, often be found sucking down coffee after coffee. Hey, the hours are long and you must be alert and have your wits about you at all times. With news stories, our readers are always on our minds. When we have a controversial story that will get a lot of people talking, or if we have a scoop that no one else has, we can't help but envision how the story will land with you folks once the newspaper hits your laps, kitchen tables, etc. However, for me anyway, when it comes to my column space, it's all about me. Every week I sit here and think. What annoyed me this week? What absolutely confused me this week? What impressed me this week? Or, maybe, what inspired me this week? So it's always nice to talk to someone who took the time to read what it is I came up with that week. If I've made a point and that person agrees, or maybe I've made a point with which they disagree, but either way — that's the reader (you) giving me the time of day. Furthermore, I've had people recall columns I've written months and years earlier. To create something memorable like that for someone is a great feeling of connection between the writer and the reader. When you read one of The Citizen's news stories, it's unlikely that you care who wrote it. If it was Denny or me or Publisher Keith Roulston, you're looking for the facts and seeking an understanding of a situation — and it's our job to provide that understanding, regardless of which one of us is writing. When it comes to opinion pieces like this one, there is a connection with the person writing. You look at the picture atop the column and think you'll be reading a piece of that person (my picture is rather old, but you get the point). I had a woman one time tell me that my column wasn't exactly her favourite because she didn't like sports (I guess at the time I was writing a lot about sports) and I've had people tell me they like Denny's because he gets angry about stuff (although maybe being a new father will mellow him out a bit). But when it comes to an opinion piece, there's a personal connection that happens that isn't there with a regular Citizen news story. So when I write a column, I write something I want to say and I certainly don't have delusions of grandeur thinking the entire world wants to hear exactly what that is. I've been told that my physical voice rings clear through my column, and that to read my column is like having a chat over a beer with me. So when I receive a compliment about my writing here, I can't help but smile.