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The Citizen, 2009-10-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2009. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt Zombie: (zom-bee) noun; the body of a dead person given semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose. Back in the Jurassic era, when dinosaurs browsed, pterodactyls soared and I was trying to grow a decent set of sideburns, I put in a stint as a bar boy in a nightclub in downtown Toronto. I learned a lot there, such as how to tell the difference between a quiet drunk and a mean one; how to carry a full tray of rye shots and beer chasers without spilling a drop and…what The Jug was for. The Jug lived under the bar out of sight of the customers. It was a big one, maybe 20 gallons, and it had a funnel jammed in its neck. One of my last jobs each night was to upend every supposedly empty bottle we had sold that day into the funnel. Beer, rum, wine, whiskey, absinthe, lemon gin, crème de cacao, sherry, port – all the dregs of every pint, mickey and 26-er went down the funnel and into the jug. Sounds chintzy, but you’d be amazed at the gallonage all those drips and drabs would add up to at the end of the day. The resultant admixture was something to behold. It’s colour varied from mud-brown to a sulphurous blue-green and sometimes it bubbled and smoked like a living thing. Even the fruit flies would have nothing to do with it. Mostly The Jug just sat there fermenting evilly, but every once in a while a customer – a college kid, usually, or someone else profoundly green – would order a specific drink and one of the bartenders would swing into action. He would grab a tall glass, squirt in some pineapple, orange and lime juice, perhaps a shot of cheap bar brandy, a spoonful of sugar, a fistful of ice and then…. He would siphon off about three ounces of the vile magma seething in The Jug and add it to the glass. The drink was, of course, a Zombie. A truly horrid alcoholic concoction designed for the Not-Too-Bright, the Suicidal or those determined to lose their virginity no matter what the cost. It is called a Zombie because it renders the drinker near catatonic. We topped our Zombies up with sludge from The Jug because we knew anyone idiotic enough to order a Zombie couldn’t tell Mum’s Extra Dry from Mennen After Shave. All this preambling reverie to pose a question: what’s with all the zombies these days? Google ‘zombies’ and you get over 21 million hits – and that’s without getting into zombie games, zombie songs, zombie movies, zombie wars – even zombie baseball. We live in zombie times, I guess. Look at the world financial situation. It cratered last year, only to be resurrected with massive transfusions of supernatural plasma (read, taxpayers’ dollars). And there it stands, tottering on the world stage, grunting and snorting incoherently. Our banks and money markets are being ‘run’once again by the same geniuses who took us over the cliff in the first place. Dead? Hell, no. Zombie bankers walk among us. Down in the U.S., zombie politicians thought to be dead and buried after the Obama victory have shoved back their tombstones to once again roil and heave across the landscape, muttering darkly of Kenyan passports, Marxist takeovers and (shudder) Canadian medicine. And here at home? We have our ongoing engagement in Afghanistan, the zombie war that won’t lie down. We have a zombie deficit, a zombie health care crisis and I haven’t even mentioned the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Zombies on skates – the horror, the horror). And then we have our leaders: Stephen ‘Our-Lady-of-Perpetual-Minority’ Harper; Michael ‘the Undead’ Ignatieff, survivor of more knives in the back than a beef brisket at Swiss Chalet and Jack Layton: standing firm in the polls at 15 per cent. And still unaccountably breathing. The Irish mystic W.B. Yeats was ahead of us all. Nearly a century ago he wrote a poem called The Second Coming. It prophesied the appearance of a man-like creature with ‘a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun’ stirring in the sands of the desert. The poem asks: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” My money’s on a zombie. Arthur Black Other Views What’s with the zombies? One way to identify who matters most in the Ontario legislature is where they sit and MPPs have shuffled around between seats a lot lately. The first moves were because the opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats changed leaders, which led them to change their seating arrangements and indicated something of the pecking order in their parties. The Liberals have changed theirs, because they fired a minister, David Caplan, after he failed to protect ticket buyers as minister in charge of lotteries and later the public, generally from waste in setting up an electronic health records registry. Caplan, once in the front row, where the heaviest hitters in all parties usually sit, has been banished to the third, but Premier Dalton McGuinty may still restore him to cabinet one day, because in the same breath he brought back once-fired environment minister Laurel Broten in a different role. Education Minister Kathleen Wynne has been promoted to the front row, first because she is generally on top of her job, which is one of government’s biggest, and gets good marks for its education policies. McGuinty also owed a large debt to Wynne, because she defeated then Conservative leader John Tory in her Toronto riding in the 2007 election, eliminated a possibly dangerous opponent and plunged that party into two years of uncertainty and quarreling over its leadership in which it virtually stood still. Leaders try to deploy their MPPs like troops going into battle and McGuinty has arranged his seating so his women ministers are very much on display whenever the TV cameras focus on him, which normally is half the daily question period. Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best and Caplan’s replacement, Deb Matthews, can be seen because they sit directly behind the premier and sometimes the cameras also show Tourism Minister Monique Smith, Children and Youth Services Minister Broten, Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur and Citizenship Minister Michael Chan, all close to the premier. Best also is black and TV viewers get an impression of a cabinet in which women and visible minorities play key roles, which is good for votes. The Conservatives’ new leader, Tim Hudak, an extreme right winger, has Christine Elliott sitting at his right hand in the front row, which is an attempt to suggest he respects those in his party who have more moderate views. Elliott ran third in their leadership race, but was the only candidate who expressed moderate views and Hudak is hoping seating her next to him will appease some the party is in danger of losing. Elliot is the wife of federal finance minister Jim Flaherty and competent, but has yet to show she has her husband’s instinct for going for opponents’ jugular, which will be a necessity when Hudak is away and she leads their party in the legislature. Hudak has shown he appreciates experience by installing veteran Bob Runciman in the front row to his left. Runciman was interim leader twice and kept the party showing some semblance of unity and purpose during its trials without a permanent leader and knows where the bodies are buried and how the legislature works. The New Democrats with 10 MPPs have only four front-row seats and leader Andrea Horwath and former leader Howard Hampton automatically have one each. The party’s House leader Peter Kormos, who besides being the most entertaining MPP raises the most damaging questions, has another and Rosario Marchese, a well- informed critic on education, has the fourth. But it is difficult to think of an MPP who contributes more thoughtful commentary, particularly on municipal affairs and the growing influence of developers, than Michael Prue, who ran for NDP leader. Prue blew it particularly because he wanted to revisit issues such as the province unfairly funding some faith-based schools and not others, which other politicians more concerned with their own self-preservation steer clear of. Prue remains stuck in the second row – don’t judge MPPs’ worth solely on where they sit. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk Apparently, I have an old 1950’s automotive relic rusting away over the fence in my backyard. Technically the analogy used by the Avon Maitland District School comparing our area schools to 50-year-old Chevrolets was delivered in the broad sense. But with Brussels Public School on the list in the Huron East/North Perth accommodation review primarily because of its condition, one has to assume it’s the comparison’s primary target. Granted an old automobile doesn’t come equipped with modern safety standards, and even restored will still be lacking. The same cannot be said of a building, however. An updated facility done properly can be as good as new. Yet, despite the fact that Brussels is over- capacity it seems unlikely it will be saved. The board has recommended in its first, albeit tentative proposal, that it, along with Grey Central be closed, leaving the four schools in Perth — Elma, Listowel Central and Eastdale and Wallace — open. In speaking with AMDSB superintendent of education /operations Mike Ash following the ARC’s organizational meeting last Thursday, I was told that the seemingly Perth-favoured option was not in any way deliberate. Not that I ever actually thought it was. Unfair, absolutely, but not deliberate. I don’t envy the board and believe that they are doing everything that numbers and government allow. The province’s rules around funding and how it’s spent limits their options while putting them on the hot seat. They can’t be faulted that “big brother” puts stringent rules on their allowance. They can’t be faulted either, that Listowel has seen tremendous population growth in recent years. However, that the option would kill any potential in Huron East shouldn’t be overlooked. While the committee can look at the area and say that it has been developmentally stagnant, while they can use their outside researchers’ projections to determine enrollment, what they can’t do is predict the future. No one can be certain what development may come. What one can predict, however, is that the loss of both Huron East schools will probably guarantee none does. Ash and his colleagues stressed several times that the first option is a starting point, and that never has the starting point been the final recommendation approved by the trustees. Also re-iterated was the intention for open and honest communication. Unfortunately, they might be off to a rocky start on that one. Part of the problem with last year’s North Huron review was the feeling that things were not always as presented. Sadly, many feel the trend is continuing. The idea of moving Brussels students into the new North Huron elementary school for kindergarten to Grade 6 was conditional on funding from the Ministry. With Ash’s statement Thursday that they had not yet received approval for the Brussels application, people felt that they were being asked to work on a scenario based on “what ifs” rather than reality. Parents were curious too as to why Brussels wasn’t involved in the North Huron review if the intent is to send the students to that school. Ash said Brussels had been mentioned but was not included because they didn’t know there would be funding for a new school at that time. Ash described the review process as “a work in progress.” MPP Carol Mitchell last week, however, said it’s a process that’s already working. Maybe somewhere I suppose, but not here. Seat placement shows clout This is not working Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. 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