The Citizen, 1992-12-02, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2,1992. PAGE 5.
The
Yesterday’s
threads,
out of date
Can you remember wool?
Do you go as far back as cotton and
flannel and silk?
Are you venerable enough to remember
REAL fibres manufactured by actual flesh-
and-blood sheep and mandible-to-the-
grindstone silkworms and sturdy, upright
cotton plants photosynthesizing like
troopers, row on downy-headed row?
Yesterday's threads, I'm afraid. Irish
linens, Harris Tweeds and Egyptian cotton
are as out of date as brass cuspidors and
whalebone corsets. Today, our clothes are
more likely to trace their pedigree to a row
of test tubes or some obscure Erlenmeyer
flask in a chemical research lab. Today's
clothes spring from plastics - weird and
soulless polymers with Star Trekkish
monikers like Lycra, Neoprene, Fibranne
and Polypropylene.
It all goes back to a fateful day in the
1870's, when a New England manufacturer
of billiard balls offered a $10,000 prize to
anyone who could come up with a cheaper
substitute for his increasingly expensive
ivory imports. A young printer from Albany,
N.Y. won the money with a flexible,
transparent substance that he called
“celluloid”.
International Scene
By Raymond Canon
Keeping the
Marxist
lid on
When you have a population of over one
billion, how much over nobody is quite sure,
not even the government of the country, you
are a force to be reckoned with and that is
precisely the case with China. The task of
making sure this huge number of people has
enough to eat and wear, not to mention
adequate housing, is a gigantic one at the
best of times and, since the late 1940's, the
path to this achievement has been charted
along the road laid down by Karl Marx, with
help from both Vladimir Lenin and more
recently Mao Tse-tung. Even more recently
the Chinese, like their communist brethren in
Europe, Vietnam and North Korea, have
discovered this road can be a rocky one
indeed, and it does not necessarily lead to
the promised land of official dogma.
Thus the Communist government in
Beijing (formerly spelled Peking) has had
the task of trying to keep the Marxist lid on,
while similar regimes all over the world
have been collapsing in total disorder and,
Phoenix-like, are trying to establish forms of
government that can rise from the ashes of
the old and provide citizens with an adequate
standard of living which had been evading
them for so long.
This lid was slammed most tightly at the
time of the Tiananmen Square killings in
June of 1989. However, from the point of
view of the ruling clique in Beijing, it was a
question of too little, too late. The regime
had already instituted in such places as the
regions of Canton and Shanghai the
rudiments of a market economy and the rate
In Biblical fashion, celluloid begat
bakelite which begat cellophane, which
begat acetate which begat ... well, suffice to
say that by the Dirty Thirties, the developed
world was awash in vinyl, plexiglass,
Melmac, Styrene, formica and polyester.
Then, in 1940, the Dupont Chemical
Company announced the development of yet
another new plastic “passing in strength and
elasticity any previously known textile
fibres”. In fact, early claims promised that a
pair of women's stockings made from this
“magical synthetic” would “last forever.”
The new plastic was Nylon and
predictions of its immortality were
somewhat optimistic. But it was still a smash
hit when it landed on the notions counter of
New York department stores on May 15,
1940. Dupont researchers allotted 72,000
pairs for the test marketing. Sales were
limited to two pairs per customer.
They sold out in eight hours.
The nylon stockings should have been an
utter failure. They developed ladders and
runs and rips and tears faster than cobwebs
in a hurricane.
But women loved them. They lined up to
buy them faster than Dupont could turn them
out.
That opened the floodgates for plastics
manufacturers. For the first time in 100,000
years man wasn't taking nature's raw
material - rock, wood and animal fibre - and
turning it into something serviceable. For the
first time he was “playing God” - taking
long chains of molecules and bending them
to his will.
Which begat whole new textile mutants.
of growth there compared with the
stagnation in the rest of the country was
ample evidence of the failure of communism
to provide growth. Thus the current great
conundrum in Peking - how to establish as
much of a market economy throughout the
country to continue this growth, all the while
maintaining the form of a communist
political system and, not coincidentally
keeping the current clique in power.
As we have already learned, even in
communist countries there can be
differences of opinion and Beijing is no
exception. There is currently more than one
point of view about how fast all this
economic liberalization and growth should
take place with amazingly the more
progressive wing being led by 88-year-old
Deng Xiaoping. Even octogenarians can, it
seems, be something less than reactionary.
In fact there is nothing less than a
gerontocracy in power in China since the
less progressive forces are led by 87-year-
old Chen Yun. They all pay lip services to
Marxism-Leninism-Mao-thought although it
is a good question as to whether all three are
rapidly turning over in their graves at the
thought of what is currently going on in
China.
With all this concentration of thought on
domestic economic policies, it might be
thought that the Chinese government has
withdrawn from world politics. They may
not be busy throwing their weight around in
Asia and elsewhere with the same intensity
as, say, the United States, but that should not
be taken to mean they are ignoring the
matter. Rather they are biding their time; it
has not escaped their attention that the
United States is no longer able to play off
China and the Soviet Union. Relations
between the two remaining superpowers is
still relatively friendly although there are
Banion. Orlon. Viyella.
And rayon.
Rayon is my nomination for the Synthetic
From Hell. Rayon shirts for men came out in
the ’50s. The big selling point was you could
wear a rayon shirt all day long, wash it out in
a motel sink at night and in the morning -
hey presto - ready to wear.
Which was true, I guess. But there was a
penalty. In the winter, a rayon shirt was so
cold it welded to your nipples. In summer, to
wear a rayon shirt was to have your own
portable sauna.
And the smell. Phew! Without getting too
graphic, let's just say that the odours rayon
coaxed from the human armpit were such
that you pretty well HAD to wash those
shirts out in the motel sinks every evening.
Lunchtimes too, if possible.
Not that the revulsion of rayon detracted
from the popularity of synthetics. People still
lined up to buy the stuff. Which is why
today we have such mutations as Lyocell,
Ultrasuede, Viscose and my favourite -
Spandex.
Spandex. That's the elasticized, second-
skin garment that looks like it came out of a
spray can. You see Olympic gymnasts and
bicycle couriers wearing it. Which would be
fine if they were the only folks who donned
Spandex, but inevitably you see if on folks
who have no business wearing anything that
outlines their figure. In Spandex they look
like a sackful of bowling balls.
Not that I'm making fun of them. Hey -
me? Make fun of fat? That's me over there in
the shadows.
Wearing the tweed muu muu.
still points of friction, especially over the
future of Taiwan, which domiciles the
descendents of the Chinese government
which fled China along with its leader
Chiang kai-Shek when the Communists took
over in the late 1940's.
However, right now the attention is
focused on the economy. The people have
had a taste of market driven consumerism
and obviously like what they see. In places
such as Canton and Shanghai, it has almost
reached the point where they are forging
ahead in this area with or without Beijing.
There is no doubt they agree with the
Capital's recent statements to the effect that
foreign investment is welcome, that the
bureaucracy must be reduced, not to mention
state run industries which, it is tacitly
admitted, are holding growth back. But all
this liberalization will still be directed
toward the preservation of the Communists'
monopoly of power. In short, no democratic
elections.
It is not hard to be fascinated with what is
going on in China. Given that the two
leaders which I mentioned above are not too
long for this world, the word “fascination”
also comes to mind when one contemplates
what will come after their departure from the
scene.
Dec. 6 a day
of remembrance
The federal government has declared Dec.
6 a national day of remembrance and action
on violence against women to commemorate
the anniversary of the 14 women killed in
Montreal at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.
Locally, SWAN (Stop Woman Abuse
Now) The Coordinating Committee Against
Woman Abuse in Huron County will
remember their deaths with a candlelight
vigil on Sunday, Dec. 6 from 7:30 to 8:00
p.m. at the Court House Square in Goderich.
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
We better
appreciate it
before it’s gone
Many times while listening to people talk
about their grandparents I find myself
remembering mine.
They were a very unique quartet, as
diverse in personalities as in lifestyles. For
that reason I was able to gain much
knowledge from their wide range of
experiences. They offered me a good deal
and I greedily took what they gave.
However, as is often the case, I found
myself taking them for granted. I knew they
would be there for me when I needed them,
regardless of how reckless or careless 1 may
have been with their affections.
Then they were gone and what can never
be replaced is now, too late, no longer taken
for granted.
Human beings often take a lackadaisical
approach to relationships which are familial,
those we think can be sustained without
nurturing. When they are gone we are bereft,
thinking of missed opportunities which
would have improved the quality of our
lives.
It is not just people, however, who suffer
from our neglect and indifference.
Negligence is a disease killing something
dear to us, yet it is often pushed aside for
other issues. This past week the North Huron
Environment Group held a meeting at which
a guest speaker, Dr. Jim Hollingworth, was
going to discuss re-greening our planet. He
told the nine people present that researchers
and scientists have stated we have until the
end of the decade to tum things around or
the story of Mother Earth may soon begin
with "Once upon a time".
I don't pretend to be a committed
environmentalist; I don't automatically seek
out the "green" alternative, but I do know we
must begin to educate ourselves and for that
reason I was appalled at the low turnout to
the meeting. I can only imagine what effect
this has on the enthusiasm and commitment
of the Environment group.
The meeting was advertised for several
weeks in various local papers. The group
with its small numbers has, since its
inception over a year ago, achieved some
monumental projects, most recently the
Environment Fair held this past October.
They instigated a button battery program for
collection of used hearing aids and watch
batteries and have hosted a variety of
speakers to come and educate the public.
However, it must appear to them the
public doesn't want to be educated. They
have strived to understand why attendance is
not improving, to find solutions, of which
none seem to work. I don't understand why.
The meetings are informal and infrequent—
once a month at the most. I have attended a
few and take it from me, environmental
ignorance is not thrown back in your face.
Dr. Hollingworth ’s presentation, for
example, was entertainingly low-key. He did
not try to ram his ideas down your throat; he
simply presented common sense facts of
which everyone should be aware (such as the
fact that pesticide use in urban areas is 15
percent greater than in rural areas).
We are all busy, we all have many, many
causes to champion or meetings to attend,
but none of these will matter if we don't tend
to the greater need of saving our home. This
is everyone's problem — not something that
can or should be solved by a small group of
enthusiastic people (who may soon lose
some of that enthusiasm without support). If
each of us could change one practice in our
life each year it would make a monumental
difference. We made this mess for our
children, it's up to us to clean it up.
If not, we must ask ourselves whether or
not this is something we can afford to lose
by taking it for granted.
1 know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But, tell me where do the children play?
written by Cat Stevens