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The Citizen, 1992-02-19, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19,1992. PAGE 5. TheShort Good laughs among the gloom of the news Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction. -Adlai Stevenson Ah, newspapers. History as fishwrap, their critics call 'em, but I love the imperfect little beggars. For me, newspapers do far more than deliver the news. They give me pleasure, leisure, provocation and, every once in a while, a belly chuckle or two. And I don't mean the comics. Some of the best wits I know toil in the bowels of dailies and weeklies across Canada. Some of the biggest bozos too. It makes for a heady and unpredictable brew. It also makes for a lot of humour, much of it unintentional. Not that it's an exclusively Canadian phenomenon. Back in the days when doughty little Britain was a major international player and the European Common Market had never been dreamed of, the newspapers of the Island Kingdom were famous for their, umm, insularity. As typified by the headline that appeared in a London daily following a blizzard. HUGE Wl International Scene A little bit of laughter BY RAYMOND CANON I recently saw an article in Maclean's magazine to the effect that Canadians needed more laughter; too many of the current crop of politicians were almost without humour. The writer concluded with the statement that it would be a marvellous 1992 project to unearth some new leader who would make us feel good about ourselves and perhaps let us laugh a bit more than we have in the past. It is beyond the scope of this article to analyze the situation other than to say that I couldn't agree more. Politicians have so frequently got to the point of examining each economic or political chicken entrail with the same solemnity that they would the Dead Sea scrolls and many of the voters are not far behind. Tell a funny story and you are immediately considered to be guilty of gross indecency. Well, if we cannot find humour at home, we can certainly find it elsewhere and for this reason, with the expressed purpose of guiding the nation in the correct direction, I would like to relate a few recent happenings abroad that indicate that all is not hopeless. There is life out there in the political world. We start out by turning to our neighbour to the south. There is an election coming up which means that we shall be witness to any number of cases of foot-in-mouth disease. One of the first has come from Pat Buchanan, a journalist who is running STORM. CONTINENT CUT OFF. Then there was the parochial approach used by an Aberdeen newspaper to report the sinking of the Titantic. The Scottish headline read: ABERDEEN MAN LOST AT SEA. But those are laughs at the expense of the newspapers. I enjoy it even more when a headline writer or a caption slinger takes a look at a story or a photo, scratches his or her ink-stained mandible, and comes up with the perfect typographical summation. Such as the New York Times headline that ran above an article about timekeepers at male track meets. Over a photograph of a half dozen men earnestly peering at their stopwatches, ran the headline THESE ARE THE SOULS THAT TIME MEN’S TRIES Then here was the photo of an unusual lower mainland snowstorm reported in a Vancouver paper a few years back. It showed Vancouverites slipping and sliding across a slushy road, heads bent into the chilly wind. The caption read: MANY ARE COLD, BUT FEW ARE FROZEN And there is one fabled headline that I have not been able to verify. I'm not sure I really want to, because it's probably too good to be true. The story goes that Gloria Swanson's New York premiere had to be postponed from a Sunday to the following Monday, because of a flash flood which crippled the bus and subway systems. The headline that supposedly summed up the situation? By Raymond Canon against George Bush as leader of the Republic party. In order to attract attention, he concentrated on immigration control, always a good subject. “I think God made all people good,” said Mr. Buchanan, “but if we had to take a million Zulus next year or a million Englishmen and put them in Virginia, which group would be easier to assimilate and cause less problem for the people of Virginia!” The thought of a million of anybody descending on Virginia is far-fetched to say the least but it did not occur to Mr. Buchanan that the governor of the state is, after all, black. We turn now to the French. The mayor of St. Etienne decided that he was going to put his city on the map as it were in order to attract new industries. One of his initial projects was an $8 million Museum of Modem Art which is saying something for such a small place. His piece de resistance was, however, a $10 million golf course which covers no less than 250 acres and at which there are an astounding 800 children learning how to play the game. All this has left the city with one of the highest per capita debts in all of France but that seems to have gone unnoticed. Can you imagine paying that much for a municipal golf course? It is hard not to laugh at the Japanese these days. They had a prime minister, Kaifu, who had been put in by the strong interests groups in his party because they wanted somebody as a temporary leader while the party sorted out its priorities. Somebody seems to have forgotten to tell Kaifu about it since almost from Day One he acted as if he were meant for the job. To the dismay of the party bosses he actually did not do too badly at all; in fact he became the most popular prime minister since the end of World War SIC TRANSIT, GLORIA MUNDI From the glorious to the infamous: this double-barrelled story from the pages of The Enterprises of Brockton, Massachusetts. In June, the newspaper ran a story in which it named the male customers who had been arrested in the company of hookers. In August, The Enterprise ran an editorial saying that it would continue to publish the names of arrested prostitution customers despite the fact that one man had just killed himself as a result of having been named in the previous Enterprise article. And the name of the dead man? Sorry, The Enterprise has a policy of protecting the identity of citizens who commit suicide.... My all time favourite, albeit somewhat gruesome journalistic zinger appeared in the Chicago Daily News in an obituary of Richard Loeb back in 1936. Loeb was a college-kid-turned-convicted-child-killer who, while serving his sentence, made a pass at a fellow inmate. The inmate rebuffed Loeb's advances somewhat brusquely, killing Loeb in the process. The lead sentence in the Daily News obituary read: “Richard Loeb, the well-known student of English, yesterday ended a sentence with a proposition.” On a less morbid note, I look forward to the day when this wretched recession is over and the Good Times roll again. Then some Hogtown headline writer can liven up the front page of the Globe and Mail with the singing headline: TO-RON-TO-BOOM TODAY! II. Hardly the type to be categorized as “lame-duck.” However, as soon as the party members got around to sorting out all their differences, successful or not, Kaifu had to go. In came the “people's choice” (for people read “party”), a very successful politician by the name of Kiichi Miyazawa. His reputation, as a matter of fact, was about as impeccable as it was possible to get. Guess what? To date Miyazawa has done little but fall flat on his face and has achieved little but make Kaifu look little short of brilliant. The Japanese may be able to build cars; as politicians they leave something to be desired. Our old friend, Saddam Hussein, caused little more than a great laugh when he bragged, during the recent Armed Forces Day in Iraq, what a positive effect lobbing his Scud missiles into Israel had had on such things as Arab unity. Unfortunately for Saddam, there were no missiles to show off at the parade. There wasn't even any parade since most of his military equipment had been left in ruins in Kuwait or southern Iraq. If there is one bittersweet taste about the whole statement, it is that Saddam is still around to make silly statements. At least we know now what a country has to do to hit rock bottom. It is when Canada Post refuses to deliver mail to it any more. That has now happened Zaire, an African country that has got itself into just such a mess these past few months. How Mobuto, the dictatorial leader of the country, will live that down is anybody's guess but he should at least have the sympathy of Lhe Canadian people. Canada Post refuses periodically to deliver mail to any of us. Finally, and I hope I have saved the best until last, countries have got around to Continued on page 6 of it By Bonnie Gropp It's time to wake the giant Like a sleeping giant, Huron County has looked at the AIDS epidemic with the same indifferent eye with which we view the violence in cities. We know it's out there, but feel relatively distant from it in our rural isolation; it can happen, but not so often enough that it appears threatening. But, it is time the sleeping giant woke up and faced a frightening reality. For a year- and-a-half, the number of people infected with the HIV virus remained the same. Then in just a third of that time, the number suddenly increased by four. That doesn't seem like a huge amount, but for our little community it has a definite impact. And that number only signifies the cases that have been reported. Dr. Maarten Bokhout, the Medical Officer of Health for Huron, has expressed frustration that people are not responding with reason and common sense. His biggest concern is the young people in the county. Despite numerous AIDS education programs, Dr. Bokhout claims there are still many students in the schools who are participating in unprotected sex, which, translates into sex without a condom. And though he is not aware of any cases in the schools, this will begin to change if we can’t make young people understand the days of "frenchies" are gone and we are now discussing life and death preventative medicine. Just as you wouldn't play hockey without a helmet, or laugh at the idea, it is both immature and stupid, today, to view condoms with derision. I admit, they were a great source of amusement to teens in my time, but I was appalled the other day to leam that students, upon receiving a complimentary package in a health course, used them as balloons in the halls afterward. The idea that these children even consider themselves mature enough to think about sex is frightening in itself, but the fact that they can't take the medicine seriously is worse. Things pertaining to relationships and intimacy have always been a source of discomfort for morally restricted humans. There are many parents not pleased that then- young people are being handed what they believe is an open invitation to participate in sex. However, since a good number apparently don't use condoms anyway, I can't believe they are a temptation. And, unless things have changed, often an open invitation from adults takes the excitement away. The bottom line is, like it or not, if kids want to have sex they will. That is the way it has been since the beginning of time. It was always a dangerous game, but now it's like playing Russian Roulette and losing can be fatal. Human beings don't like restrictions, we do like to play the odds. But, everybody has to become more conscious of what is happening. Anyone who is beginning a new relationship has to tread not just carefully, but responsibly. Dr. Bokhout says that in establishing a meaningful relationship, it is hoped sex is the last thing in one's mind. By the time that inevitable step happens, a couple should be familiar enough with each other to know that they can make not only a true commitment, but a life-long one. But, there will always be those in search of lhe "one night stand" and they need protection. We are challenged to make the young people of this community listen. It's not an area where adults have experienced a great deal of success but we must find a way. The chances of contracting the HIV- virus in Huron are still low, but those numbers are changing. The giant can't sleep any longer.