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The Citizen, 1994-09-28, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1994. PAGE 5. Arthur Black Make sure the undertaker gets all of you I don't know if you've made out your will yet, but if you haven't here's a piece of advice you might want to consider: Make sure that the undertaker gets all of you. Many folks - some of them famous - neglected to write that proviso into their check-out contracts. They subsequently paid the price. You could check it out with Galileo if he were still around. The celebrated astronomer shuffled off his mortal coil back in 1642, but his finger is still with us. If you visit the Florence Museum of History and Science in Italy you can view a special display that shows the poor man's blackened digit pointing eternally skyward. It is Galileo's middle finger, significantly enough... America's most famous president, George Washington, was buried with all pomp and ceremony back in 1799, but someone neglected to throw his teeth into the coffin. Actually, it was George's fault - he had mailed his extracted teeth to a dentist for use as a model for his dentures. The dentist hung on to the originals for souvenirs. He used to take them with him to parties as a conversation piece. ^^International Scene Overpopulation and the Cairo conference If you love controversy, you would have a field day following the deliberations of the recently concluded United Nations conference held in Cairo, Egypt and which discussed the thorny question of overpopulation on our planet. There is little doubt that we already have too many people in this world of ours; there are currently 5.7 billion with the number increasing by 86 million a year. It is expected that there will be no less than 7.9 billion in about 50 years but it could be even higher, as high as 12 billion. With famine very much a way of life in many parts of the world, it is obvious that something has to be done about it and hence the conference set up by the United Nations. If you were following proceedings and they seemed to be sidetracked at times by the question of abortion, you were right. They did! This is unfortunate since other aspects of population control needed to be studied more thoroughly. One that seemed to be frequently overlooked was the necessity of providing more education for women throughout the world since they arc understandably an integral part of any solution. At the present time twice as many women as men arc illiterate and the ratio is getting worse. Illiterate young girls tend to marry early and have many babies. The young daughters arc expected to stay at home and help look after other siblings and thus a vicious cycle is bom. A World Bank study revealed that, when They're still out there somewhere, so if you're at a soiree and somebody offers to show you George Washington's molars...don’t be afraid to bite. Nothing as trivial as teeth or fingers for Jeremy Bentham. The English philosopher who died in 1832, left all his money to the London Hospital. With one small catch. Bentham insisted that his body be dissected and the remains "mummified". What's more, he directed that his preserved corpse was to be arranged sitting in an armchair at the board of director's table in the London Hospital in perpetuity. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a bequest is a bequest is a bequest. For the next 92 years, members of the London Hospital board got to share space at the table with the desiccated carcass of Jeremy Bentham smiling over them. Mind you, to avoid any confusion, they placed a sign in front of Jeremy. The sign read NOT VOTING. And then there's Speedy. Few deceased persons have spent as long between the mortician's slab and the grave as good old Speedy. His real name was Henry Atkins. He was a black labourer in a tobacco factory in Paducah, Kentucky, back in the 1920s. In 1928 while fishing on the Ohio River, Henry fell out of his boat and was drowned. He was poor, with no next of kin and no real friends. Not yet anyway. By Raymond Canon women are denied the opportunity of going to secondary school, they are likely to have seven babies; if only 40 per cent of them finish high school, the number drops to three. In addition not only do educated mothers have fewer babies, but they care for them better. It is a pity that not more attention was paid to this aspect; it would have been time well spent. The Roman Catholic Church came in for a considerable amount of criticism some of which, I think, was misplaced. I heard questions as to why the Vatican was there in the first place, but it had every right to be, since it is considered by the United Nations to be a "non-member state" with the status of a permanent observer. It is, to be sure, the smallest stale in the world, with about 200 inhabitants living in an area about a half a square kilometer. It has diplomatic representation in over 100 countries, including Canada and its permanent observer status allows it to participate fully in conferences which are set up by the United Nations. So far, so good. However, the Vatican runs into a problem when one has to decide whether it is speaking as a state or as a religion. It is extremely difficult to distinguish between the two when it comes to such topics as birth control, family planning and the like. Certainly many of the delegates al the conference were under the impression that there was far more church than state present in the Vatican's position and Egypt's Population Minister was rather strong in his criticism. Even some predominantly Catholic countries were rather confused by the Vatican's stand; some tended to support it while others joined in the criticism. However, loo much should not be written Speedy's corpse was about to meet A.Z. Hamock, a Paducah funeral director who happened to be fascinated by the Egyptian practice of mummification. Since nobody had claim and Speedy's remains, Hamock decided to try a little experimental embalming. It worked. Although he turned the colour of a russet apple, Speedy did not undergo the usual process of decay. Over the next 66 years, Speedy, an itinerant labourer, became probably the most famous citizen Paducah, Kentucky ever spawned. The Hamock family adopted him. Three times a year he was carefully washed and dressed in fresh clothes. Sightseers could come to the funeral home and see Speedy, free of charge. TV camera crews showed up and put Speedy on national TV. Museums and carnivals send agents to try and buy Speedy. They offered lots of money but the Hamocks turned them down. Speedy was family. Finally this summer, the descendants of A.Z. Hamock decided it was high time to treat Henry Atkins like a real member of the family. They laid him out in a black tuxedo and showered a blanket of red carnations on his coffin. The church choir sang a half dozen spirituals to Speedy and the minister at the local Baptist church gave him a rousing send-off sermon. Sixty-six years after he tumbled out of a boat in the Ohio River, Henry Speedy Atkins finally went to his grave. Rest in peace, Speedy. into the strong stand taken by the Vatican since there are other obvious disagreements that will retard any progress. If women are to see their living conditions improved or as Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland put it, "women be given the means to make economically independent decisions free of male prejudice," this will take some doing in Arab Muslim countries where such a thing will not take place in the near future, let alone tomorrow. Ask any woman who has lived in such countries as Saudi Arabia how much of this is prevalent today. While the Muslims share certain views with the Vatican, not too much of this alliance was apparent at the conference. Perhaps some of the changes that are required to bring the growth in the earth's population under control will come from the people themselves, not from the dicta of a conference. A good 80 per cent of the Catholics in North America do not follow the church's teachings in such things as birth control and this could spread. Then, too, the church could change its viewpoint. Il can be pointed out that the Vatican took about 400 years to forgive Galileo for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun. Yet only two ycars^ater the same organization was issuing a stamp honouring him. It should be realized that the Cairo conference was only the first of a scries of steps which have to be taken to gel real momentum to any population control program. Next March the U.S. will hold a summit on social development in Copenhagen; this will be followed by one on the role of women in September, 1995. We will have a much better picture then just how things arc shaping up. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp I’ll leave no milestone unturned There are some birthdays people like to forget. This week, according to the majority who are having a good lime at my expense, I am going to be celebrating one of them. While I have no problem divulging what this milestone may be, I have, based on the fact that most don't care and the rest already know, opted to be less than forthright. Let's just say that I was bom back when Listowel held its fall fair in the fall. Actually, I was bom on Fall Fair day, a fact that dimmed the significance of my arrival somewhat in the eyes of my 10-ycar- old sister, who proclaimed to all she met that she had "won a budgie at the fair — and, oh yeah got a baby sister all in one day". That was the celebration of my first 'birthday' and since then there have been — a few. While it's tradition in most families that a person's birthday be recognized, whether in a large way or small, it is the milestones which attract the most attention it seems. What I find interesting is that in our early years we marked the passing of our life with many milestones. In the beginning, we age in terms of weeks, then months until we turn two. Afterwards each year becomes important until our fifth birthday, our first age of independence, then the excitement is reserved for special ones such as the one marking our passage into adolescence. (Though why angst and trauma should be celebrated is beyond me!) The 16th is also a big one squeezed in there, important only, I suppose because we can now legally drive, followed by the 19th when we celebrate that we can drink — again legally. There has always been special significance attached to 21 as well, for what reason I'm not sure. It's interesting though that as we approach mid-life we seem willing to let our birthdays slip past. Milestones now become spread out over a decade, and often to the chagrin of the celebrant. While everyone else is tickled to tease, the birthday person most times would prefer to pass the big event demurely. At 60 we digress in our celebrations beginning to turn full circle, as we pay special tribute al five year intervals. Then when, or if, we reach 90 we'll find ourselves marking the course of our life one year at a time as we did at the first. I've always found it rather absurd that some people can be so concerned about turning a certain age; after all it sure beats the heck out of the alternative. I've never quite understood either, those people who choose to freeze time. Why would anyone want to look 45 and have people believe they’re 39? Personally, if I were going to lie about my age, I think it would be much more complimentary to turn those numbers around. And when you're time is up, what difference is it going to make how old you were? Okay, I ll admit to a certain bewilderment that I am really an adult. I'll even admit to a bit of denial; not with regards to my age, but rather to the limitations it has placed on me. My 20 something mind doesn't always reconcile to things like the fact that this 40- ycar-old bod can't sit cross-legged on the floor for extended periods of time anymore. But when it comes to my birthdays I intend to enjoy and admit to everyone of them. I shall leave no milestone unturned.