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The Citizen, 1999-02-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3,1999. PAGE 5. Image-in that! The words of the prophet are written on the subway walls Simon and Garfunkel lyrics My favourite statistic of the decade emerged from the wreckage of the federal Tory meltdown in 1993. The statistic, made public in the wake of the federal election, revealed that percentage-wise, more Canadians believed Elvis was alive than voted for the Progressive Conservatives. Actually, the statistic tells you more about Canadian gullibility than it does about the slapstick suicide of the Ottawa Torys. Elvis died an exceedingly public death 25. years ago. His funeral was covered on interna­ tional television. Die-hard fans have been mourning at the gates of Graceland virtually night and day ever since. How could anybody - this side of a brain­ damaged groupie or a certified psychotic - possibly continue to believe that Elvis is still alive? It shouldn’t really be surprising, I guess. Given the proper circumstances, people will believe anything. (After all, we did give Mulroney's Tories two back-to-back landslide victories.) And then there's Jesus of the Donut Shop. Last year, hundreds of otherwise rational Canucks made pilgrimages to a Tim Horton's Donuts outlet in the town of Bras D'Or. They were drawn by what they saw as a likeness of Air travel still safe I was totally shocked when I received an e- mail from my wife telling me that a Swissair MD-11 had crashed near Halifax with a total loss of life. For me it seemed like a personal tragedy since I have frequently flown on Swissair and consider it to be the safest since they look after their airplanes with such tender, loving care that it has become almost legendary. It may be as much as two years before they determine the exact cause of the crash. My wife also sent me details of the memorial service in Nova Scotia. That is her home province and I can assure you Nova Scotians are extremely hospitable and would do as good a job as anybody in Canada in looking after friends and relatives of the victims. Certainly the Swiss newspapers reported very favourably on their kindness as well as the professionalism of the investigating authorities and the chief coroner. Dr. Butt, whose staff has now managed to identify all the victims. In the aftermath of such a horrible crash, it is understandable that many people might question the level of safety in air travel, even to the point of finding alternative transportation. For this reason I would like to Jesus on the outside wall of the shop. Connoisseurs of the phenomenon claimed that "the clearest image" could be seen by standing behind the floodlights of a nearby chicken restaurant called (I am not making this up) The Lick-A-Chick. Well, I didn't see it myself, but I do know that we Canucks seem to have a knack for spotting the Son of God in the least obvious places. A few years ago, Josephine Taylor of Constance Lake, Ontario announced that she had the image of Jesus Christ on her bathroom floor. She told the media one morning "I just looked down and there it was, plain as day." The local minister was more skeptical. He said that as far as he could see the image was nothing more than some worn spots in the linoleum adhesive. Other viewers disagreed - more than 3,000 Canadians dropped in to Josephine's place to have a gander. Not that discovering the Lord in unusual locations is by any means an exclusively Canadian trait. Our neighbours to the south have an even stronger flair for Extreme Religious Experience (witness snake chuckers, suicide cults and half of the evangelical nutbars on Sunday morning US television) - and they manage to find Christ's image in the most amazing places - everywhere from ceiling plaster to the backside of a fried tortilla. In 1987, thousands of wannabelievers lined up to reverently file through Arlene Gardner's trailer home in Estill Springs, Tennessee. They were there in order to gawk at the silouhette of By Raymond Canon shed a little light on the whole question of flight safety. First of all, pilots and other aircrew are better trained now than they were only a few years ago. Nowhere is this more true than with Swissair. Their pilots have not only extensive experience as airline pilots but have also served in the Swiss Air Force. Pilots of other airlines, whether they have done military training or not, have had to undergo rigorous training before they can sit in the left seat in the cockpit. Pilot error undoubtedly does happen; since they are human, it can be expected to. However, the level of professionalism is so high that it rarely takes place. One real improvement during the last decade or so has been in the performance of jet engines. There was a time when only planes with four engines were allowed to fly the Atlantic. Now twin-engined jets routinely make the trip. Engine problems are, as a consequence, almost non-existent. In North America there are over 15,000,000 commercial flights each year and the number is growing. In spite of this increase, the number of accidents remains about the same: three to four major accidents a year. Of the 1,000 deaths recorded in North America each year, almost all are from private planes where the level of competence is not an Old Testament-style face that appeared on Arlene's General Electric freezer. Arlene had it on good authority that this was the Real Deal. She claimed that Christ came to her in a dream and told her personally that "he turned my freezer into a TV by electricity. He made it into a television set. That's how I knew he wanted this vision on my freezer for all the world to see." You'd think if Christ was really looking for exposure he'd have dialled up Larry King Live - but never mind. Arlene's convinced. And so were hundreds of credulous visitors. Whatever the cause of the fad, it's definitely contagious. A farming family in Taft, Texas swear they've got the image of Christ embedded in the swirls of plaster on their living room ceiling. In Fostoria, Ohio, more than a dozen people reported seeing His Face on the side of a soybean oil tank. In New Mexico, a Latino housewife is certain she saw the face of Jesus smiling back at her from the surface of a tortilla that she had burned in a frying pan. And in Santa Fe Springs, California, a home owner got so fed up with the noisy crowds that gathered nightly to study what they said was an image of Christ being crucified, that he installed floodlights to dispel the Image. "It was just a trick of light cause by two streetlights’shining on a real estate sign" the man grumbled. Yeah ... but maybe it was a really spiritual real estate sign. nearly as high as of that of the commercial airlines. In my flying days I had to make one forced landing, due to a malfunctioning carburetor. The farmer in whose field I landed was not too impressed with what happened to some of his com. I was, since I had safely brought the aircraft down without loss of life. Fortunately, I was single at the time. My wife was not so sanguine; when I used to take my boys up with me, she was, to use a well- known expression, not amused. However, I tell her and anybody else, that the most dangerous part of any flight is the trip to the airport. You are six times as likely to be killed or injured in the car as you are during the flight. I know that is small consolation to any readers who have lost friends or relatives in a plane crash such as the ill-fated Swissair plane. While the risk of flying commercially is relatively low, as those friends and relatives realize, this risk is not zero. I remember that every time I get into a plane OR a car. A Final Thought No smile is so beautiful as the one that struggles through tears. Acceptance — unconditionally I descended the stairs in the early morning hours, the evidence of what was to be a bad hair day clearly visible, eyes cloudy with sleep, disposition in need of a boost from nothing less than a distemper shot. I was a mess and I knew it. Yet, while my family skirted past me, avoiding both my flawed appearance and personality, there was one who saw no imperfection — our new puppy. Ani was ambivalent to my disheveled dress, helter-skelter hairdo and disgruntled demeanor. And as her sloppy, insistent greeting warmed my cool morning temperature and lifted my spirits, I found myself wondering when humans lose this wonderful capacity to overlook failings in others. We were bom with it after all. Look at little babies, infants, toddlers. They love you whether you walk into the room in a sweatsuit or evening gown. Their easy smile, completely genuine, open and heartfelt, they give with no thought to your motives or your mood. A disarming giggle makes everything wrong, everything right. And whether you're rich or poor, their chubby arms will reach for you reminding you what real wealth is. Yet, at some point, something occurs, and this ingenuous ability to forgive often disappears. It seems to hit about school age, and ironically those beautiful innocents can suddenly become transformed into the crudest little creatures on earth. Whether it's knowledge acquired at home which they realized they could now apply in a social atmosphere, or led by bad examples among their peers, they can make the schoolyard one of the unkindest places a child will ever know. They ostracize for insignificant things, usually beyond their target's control, like wearing glasses, being too tall, too round, too smart, too slow. Or sometimes they punish someone for simply being different, for hearing a pan flute when their classmates are marching to the drum. A cruel jab can gain force, and what begins as a taunt from one, can become the chant of an entire class, isolating a child and diminishing their self-esteem more than anything else they will ever confront in life. But kids, of course, aren't the only ones guilty. They tend to follow by example. Defective creatures that adults are, oddly enough often expecting those around us to please accept us warts and all, the warts on others disgust us. Also, to make it even worse, it's not bad enough we re bothered by them, we usually like to make sure that everyone else sees them too. We gossip, we ridicule, we attack, cutting at the most vulnerable at worse. At best, we complain about another's weaknesses, questioning why anyone would behave the way that individual does. Sadly our intolerance is not reserved for casual acquaintances. Often we are at our worst among those we love most. A husband’s untidiness, a child's poor grades, a parent's interference can prompt outrage. Yet, if we were to look harder at why we love (hem and a little less at what we probably do to make them crazy, perhaps we could find at least some of that unconditional acceptance with which we came into this world. Then apply it to everyone else.