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The Citizen, 2007-11-29, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2007. PAGE 5. Bonnie Gropp TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt No lord of the manor One of the distressing byproducts of writing books for a living is that you get shanghaied into going on book tours. Sounds glamorous – gallivanting across the country, free room, board and airfare, allowing rapturous fans to prostrate themselves before you and kiss the hem of your Tilley travel trousers. Doesn’t usually work out that way. This latest book tour took me to a lot of bookstores in Toronto, Ottawa, London, Windsor and – oddly (little I knew just how oddly) – Sarnia. It went pretty well. Nobody heckled or threw tomatoes. Many even bought books. Then the wheels fell off. Somewhere between Toronto’s Pearson and Sarnia’s Chris Hadfield Airport, my trusty driver’s license fluttered unnoticed from behind my boarding pass and disappeared forever. I’d had it out as “Photo ID” of course, which you have to show to get on airplanes these days. I reported the loss to Air Canada’s lost and found and I went on to appear at the Sarnia Library to read from my latest book. The next morning I plopped my bags in front of the Air Canada ticket counter, ready to board my flight home. “Photo ID, sir?” said the attendant. I explained how I had lost my driver’s license en route to Sarnia the previous evening and reported it – to this very counter, in fact. “Photo ID, sir?” repeated the attendant. Well, no. But I did have my Visa, MasterCard, health card,Air Miles, CAA, CO- OP membership, Royal Canadian Legion, Air Miles, Library, ACTRA – even, dammit, my own Air Canada Aeroplan card. “Anything with your photograph on it, sir?” Umm….my COSTCO card? Uh-uh. I even had copies of my two latest books featuring my name in capital letters and my mug in full colour plastered across the front cover. “Sorry, sir. Not acceptable.” One wants to scream out for a reality check. One wants to ask how much trouble Air Canada’s vigilant minions think a Taliban fanatic would go to, to infiltrate the steely perimeter of Sarnia, Ontario in order to – I don’t know – blow up a Tim Horton’s? But one doesn’t. One opts instead for a frantic $50 round-trip taxi ride to the local cop shop, hoping the Ontario Provincial Police will check one out and certify one as an unlikely Islamofascist agent in time to still catch one’s flight. The cop on duty shrugs.“You’ll have to wait until Monday and see a justice of the peace,” he says. Monday? It’s Saturday morning! Back to Sarnia Airport – an airport that lacks so much as a coffee vending machine. I use the one and only pay phone to call my partner on the other side of the country. She faxes copies of my passport, my social insurance card and my birth certificate to the airport fax machine. The fax copies ‘aren’t clear enough’. My partner, still on the other side of the country, drives into town to a photocopying store and repeats the procedure. This time the copies are ‘adequate’. I am finally allowed to board a flight out of Sarnia and wend my way home about 12 hours later than planned. Bitter? Who’s bitter? Besides, look at it from Airport Security’s point of view. There they are in Sarnia, Ontario, third only to Kabul and Baghdad as a hotbed of insurrectionist turmoil, confronting a pudgy, Caucasian, bald, geezer with barely over a dozen pieces of identification. Classic suicide bomber profile. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t all so damned stupid. It would be excusable if it wasn’t such a massive waste of everyone’s time and energy and money. Because this is a dreary one-act play repeated in endless, mundane variations at airports large and small right across the world these days – octogenarian grannies being forced to remove their shoes. Half-spent tubes of Colgate being assiduously quarantined. Retired farmers from Estevan being disarmed of their nose tweezers. And God help you if you check in with a suntan, no ID and a name like Abdul. If Osama bin Laden is still alive, I know exactly how he’s going to die. Laughing his bony ass off. Arthur Black Too many facelifts being done The day begins pretty much the same as any other for the young parents. Up and showered before the little ones tumble out of bed, they cram hours of activity into minutes, scurrying to get the family set for the day. A house full of children makes for a busy schedule, which most certainly in modern families requires not just the participation of one parent but both. With mom and dad usually employed outside the home, getting kids to caregivers or school, to appointments or extracurricular activities, becomes an organizational quick step. For that matter, it’s not much easier for mid- lifers either as they await retirement and see to the needs of older children, not yet completely independent, and aging parents, also no longer completely independent, and perhaps living some distance away. Thus today’s couples need a true partnership. These thoughts were inspired by a recent e- mail, one I’d seen a few times before . “The good wife’s guide” was apparently published in the May 1955 Good Housekeeping. For anyone who hasn’t seen this little gem allow me to share some highlights. A good wife should: • Have dinner ready... This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. • Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. • Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it. • Over the cooler months you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. He will feel he as reached a haven of rest and order and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction. • Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first — remember his topics of conversation are more important than yours. • Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax. • Don’t complain if he’s home late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through all day. • Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down. Have a drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice. • Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him. And finally “a good wife always knows her place.” Okay, like so many of these e-mails this one too is probably a joke, in this case the brainchild of a cranky misogynist. Even 50 years ago, I have to hope that no rational person could see this as a good thing. Call me hopelessly ideallistic but I’d prefer to believe that even men, well at least most, are more satisfied with an equal partner in their marriage. It makes them a lot manlier than those who would argue otherwise as far as I’m concerned. Other Views The saga of Arthur in Limboland You may not be able to find a doctor to help save your life, but you can get one to make your lips more kissable in a heartbeat. This is wrong, because the public spends a huge amount training doctors and they should be where they are most needed, treating the sick. The issue is not being addressed so far in an investigation the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is conducting, with a nudge from the province, into doctors performing cosmetic procedures. The College is concerned primarily with protecting patients’ health, particularly after a woman died after being given a liposuction, which draws fat out of the body. Plastic and other surgeons and increasingly family doctors are conducting a wide range of cosmetic procedures and the College is concerned these include some for which they are not qualified. But the bigger issue, which never seems to get raised, is why so many doctors are spending their working hours getting rid of wrinkles and re-shaping noses, when they could be better used treating illness. The number of doctors making people look prettier is booming and newspapers here, particularly community newspapers, are packed with their advertisements. They typically offer surgical weight loss, breast augmentation, reduction and reconstruction, skin and facial rejuvenation, face, breast, brow and eyelid lifts and nose re- shaping. Some of these procedures are totally justified, because people are born with deformities or disfigured in accidents and deserve to have them remedied so they can live normal lives, but most are just to make normal people look better. Their ads are designed to catch such people, promising to make them “look 10 years younger” and asking “are you tired of always looking tired?” which has some meaning for most of us. Some are almost poetic. A doctor who describes herself as “a cosmetic physician and artist who will transform each canvas into the masterpiece waiting within” adds more mundanely she alters faces by using the latest in fillers. Ads often suggest they are endorsed by today’s ultimate arbiters, TV celebrities A doctor boasts his skin-tightening method has been “endorsed by Dr. Phil’s wife and featured on Oprah Winfrey.” They can be sharply competitive. One plastic surgeon warns while he provides painless facelifts, many other surgeons continue to use techniques that subject patients to a lot of pain, bruising and swelling, not a great testimonial to his profession. Another plastic surgeon may do patients a disservice, because he advertises people who are not losing weight in the gym should get one of his tummy tucks, which may lure some away from exercise from which they could benefit. Plastic surgeons, like some other professionals, are not necessarily literate. One promises plastic and cosmetic surgery “in a discrete atmosphere,” but probably means discreet, because doctors offering facelifts usually promise total privacy. Making people look better is profitable. Doctors do not make public their individual incomes, but a plastic surgeon who was in court recently for failing to support his ex-wife and children was said to have earned between $656,000 and $915,000 annually. Plastic surgeons often are reportedly among those living a particularly high lifestyle. Family doctors are at the bottom of the pay scale. The doctors cost the public an average $500,000 each to train and family doctors are in such short supply in Ontario many, including 130,000 children, cannot get one. Ontario also feels it needs doctors so desperately it lures them from Third World countries that need them more. The World Health Organization complained last year Canada and other wealthy countries entice doctors from poor countries such as Angola, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Libya protested Ontario was recruiting its doctors right out of medical school. Ontario and some of the world’s poorest countries are being deprived of doctors they need partly because they are being used here to try to make everyone look 20 again. This is the health problem the province and its doctors should be curing. Eric Dowd FFrroomm QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk 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 inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.