Loading...
The Citizen, 1991-09-18, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18,1991. PAGE 5. Arthur has jokes to brighten your dg,y Consider the humble light bulb. Just a few cents worth of cheap glass, thin brass and wispy filament slapped together in the shape of an inverted teardrop but it changed the future of mankind just as surely and thoroughly as did the discovery of fire, gunpowder or the wheel. When Thomas Alva Edison invented the lightbulb, he gave us the power to turn night into day. Oh, sure — before Edison we had torches and gas lights and kerosene lamps and they were okay, but they couldn't, um, hold a candle to the lightbulb. If you doubt me, try browsing through the yellow pages by lantern light. Yessirrcc, it’s a great little innovation, the lightbulb. Without it we might never have known the joys of red light houses, theatre marquees or the hi-beams of a 16-wheeler bearing down on us on the Trans-Canada. In a lightbulbless world, how would we ever know what was in the darkest comers of the refrigerator? How could we tell when How to be an instant millionaire BY RAYMOND CANON I think that, after all these years, it is time for another one of my modest confessions. I would not want you to think that I was just another run-of-the-mill economist who talked a great deal about money but never did leam that I have been a millionaire twice in my life and, should I choose to become one again, I can accomplish that the next time that I am over in Europe, which is likely to be next year. Having got^your attention, I am sure that you are anxious to discover my secret. After all, you have probably been buying lottery tickets for many years but without too much success from a financial point of view. You have, fortunately, not come across a copy of one of my periodic diatribes entitled - “Lotteries, A Tax on Idiots.” From that title you will know that my method of becoming a millionaire does not depend on a secret method of buying lottery tickets. No, my plan is the essence of simplicity. I was travelling at the time in Jugoslavia examining the system of communism prevalent in that country after Tito kicked out the Russians. I decided to continue my journey down into Greece and lo, when I exchanged my money at the nearest bank in Thessaloniki, I discovered that I was a millionaire many times over. This should not be taken that the Greeks, prone to lake pride in their ancient mythology, had suddenly decided that I was Zeus come back to life. It was simply that at the time the Greek Drachma was trading for some 30,000 to the dollar. Thus, when I traded in about the equivalent of $100 Canadian in Swiss francs, I received no less than 3.33 million drachmae. I must say that, unlike some people that I Gretzky soored, if the goal light didn't go on? I'm not sure humankind could summon up the spunk to survive in a world without lightbulbs. Never mind the inconvenience. Forget the perpetual darkness. How could we ever hope to get along with Lightbulb Jokes? You know Lightbulb Jokes? I heard my first one back in the early '70s: How many Torys does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Five. One to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder. It wasn't long before the Lightbulb Jokes were coming thick and fast - and slamming just about every social group you could think of: How many NDPers does it take to change a bulb? Twelve. One to screw it in; eleven to write the environmental impact statement. How many Californians does it take to change a bulb? Ten. One to screw it in; nine to share the experience. How many Teamsters does it take to change a bulb? Twenty-six. You gotta problem with that? How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? That's not funny. know, I handled my money sensibly. Not for me the instant spurt to the nearest Rolls- Royce dcalersh or real estate agent. Instead I decided to see what all this new-found wealth would buy and it didn't take long to discover that it wasn't much. I wrote back home to Switzerland to tell everybody the good news and, to my dismay, the stamp and the post card cost about 20,000 drachmae. The ultimate in despair came when a shipping agent demanded no less than 1,2500,000 drachmae for a ticket from Athens lo Italy by boat. Needless to say, I left Greece and the ranks of the millionaires at precisely the same moment. Hope, however, springs eternal and especially when I found out that in Italy I had become a millionaire once again. Admittedly it took considerably more of my Swiss francs to reach this exalted state but then how many people can claim to having been a millionaire not once but twice before they were 25. Unfortunately it became clear to me that the Italians were just as adept as the Greeks in separating me from my millions and it was not long before they had reduced me to something approaching the ranks of the impoverished. Was I ever glad to get back to Switzerland where, if I was not exactly in the ranks of the filthy rich, neither were the Swiss inclined to separate me from huge hunks of my money. You knew there was a lesson in all of this, didn't you and you have been waiting patiently for it to come. Well, here it is! Cancer Awareness Night planned THE EDITOR, In order to make people more aware of the services available in this area to cancer patients and their families, a Cancer Awareness Night is being held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25, al the Hensail United Church, Hensail. A general practitioner, a surgeon, a member of the V.O.N. and a representative And — how many Canadians does it take to change a bulb? Just one. Of course! The Lightbulb Joke. Something I'm certain even the protean brain of Thomas Alva Edison never envisaged. They've been bouncing around for at least 20 years that I know of — though I haven't heard any new ones for quite some time. Which I guess means that either they've run their comedy circuit or I'm out of the lightbulb loop. How about you -* you heard any good new Lightbulb Jokes? Send 'em on in. I'd be glad to hear them. In return, let me leave you with a lightbulb actuality. Not a joke. Question: how many Pennsylvania State employees does it lake to change a lightbulb? Answer: two -- plus a $10,000 machine. According to a recent editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer, a ceiling light fixture in a new government building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was judged to be too far from the walls to be reached safely by ladder. Therefore and henceforth, when the bulb blows, two count 'em two state employees will wheel the $10,000 mechanical device into position below the defunct bulb. One employee will step into the hydraulic basket which will then be raised to the light fixture. He or she will remove the dead lightbulb, insert a fresh one and ... grasp it firmly while the other employee rotates the device! Nah. I'm just joking. I think. Being a millionaire is to a considerable degree a state of mind and it begs the question of what real wealth is. I can't say that, once the initial euphoria wore off, I was any happier being a millionaire in Greece and Italy than I am being a hard working taxpayer in Canada. Being a millionaire is easy if you live in a country that has experienced a great deal of inflation such as Italy or Greece and, had you lived in Germany before the rise of Hitler, you would have been a multi-trillionaire many times over with nothing to show for it. Anyway, you may be surprised to leam that the government, should it decide that there are far too many millionaires around, can choose to divest you of your wealth by carrying out much needed currency reform and replace the inflated bills with ones of much lower denominations. That is what the Germans, Greeks and now the Argentinians are doing. This all gels back to one of oft-forgotten laws of economics, namely the Quantity Theory of Money which slates that prices will rise in roughly the same proportion as the amount of money in circulation. This means that, if there is enough money out there to create hordes of millionaires, prices will undoubtedly be out of sight. I discovered this in Greece and Italy and so will you in any country in a similar situation. Still it was nice to experience, if only briefly, being a millionaire twice in my life. For a modest fee, I will tell you the countries where you can experience that today. of other service groups will be available. A display of assistive devices, as well as various pamphlets and information on cancer will also be available. We hope to have a question and answer period and refreshments will be served at the end of the evening. This evening has been arranged by members of a cancer support group to make Continued on page 6 Sending kids confusing signals By Keith Roulston It's hard being a kid, having to leam all the rules of what we can do and what we can't, what we should do and what we shouldn't and, though no parent should ever be caught admitting it, I think maybe today's kids have a more confusing lime than we did as youngsters. I got thinking about the confusing signals we send our children the other day as I was writing an article for Townsman, our sister publication. The article was giving tips on country walks to take to enjoy the fall colour in the coming weeks and it required me to read literature on conservation areas from four different conservation authorities. It struck me that all four had excellent education programs for young people like the one at the Wawanosh Nature Centre. The Nature Centre and similar facilities, are set up to help kids leam more about the fascinating world of nature. Its programs also show students how inter­ connected the world is and how their careless actions can cause problems in other areas of nature. No generation in history has been given such a thorough grounding in the environment. But that's only a few hours a year. The kids will get more education in a single week on the importance of the consumer society by watching television. They're bombarded with ads for the latest toy that they'll be totally unhappy if they don't get. They watch shows full of the newest fashion and buy magazines that tell of nothing but how to dress and how to apply makeup. At the movies, and on television, they are tempted by a glamorous world of fast cars, big houses and rich surroundings. I remember doing a seminar in a Toronto high school some years ago and talking to the teacher afterward about how hard it was to carry on any after-school activities because nearly every student had a part-time job. A survey in the school had shown that the largest percentage of students worked at least 20 hours a week. I got thinking about that. Twenty hours a week at, say, five dollars an hour means the student has $100 a week. Some students may save part of the money for university fees but I have the feeling that the majority just have it as spending money. Think about it: $100 a week with no taxes, no grocery costs, no rent. How many adults can have that kind of luxury. Is this a world that's sustainable? Will growing up for these teenagers be a step down because they'll never again have the kind of mad money they have today? Or will these kids be our striking because they figured adults should live even better than teenagers and they expect their jobs to create a bigger cushion. That lifestyle we're encouraging, or at least permitting, our teens to live, is in direct conflict with our avowed interest in the environment. We all know that cars pollute. We know you can’t have more electricity without more power stations that either fill the air with smoke, claim more territory for back-up water at dams or create uranium wastes we haven't found a way of getting rid of yet. We know that there are industrial wastes from nearly every consumer good we make, some of those wastes being incredibly toxic. In short, we're teaching our children on one hand that they should be good stewards of the earth and on the other hand, we re showing them the glamour of more, more, more. Which argument will win out? Two guesses. All I can say is good luck to those teachers and conservation authority officials who are trying to teach kids, in a few hours a year, how to be responsible human beings while the rest of their lives teaches them to consume, consume, consume.