The Citizen, 1998-07-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1998. PAGE 5.
Hooked on a feline
There's a report in a recent edition of The
Los Angeles Times that would seem to
indicate that Yuri Kuklachev is a miracle
worker. Kuklachev, says the story, is an
animal trainer in Moscow. He is in charge of
something called the Moscow Cat Theatre,
which has been doing Standing Room Only
business for over a year now.
Cash-strapped Russians are somehow
finding the rubles to buy tickets to see
Kuklachev's nightly shows, in which he
presents trained cats - housecats, mind -
climbing poles, walking tightropes, pushing
toy trains, leapfrogging over human backs
and balancing on tiny platforms.
That's what it says in my copy of The Los
Angeles Times.
And I don't believe one word of it.
House cats??? Performing tricks99 ???9
Get serious.
If Yuri Kuklachev's got domestic cats
doing what the paper says they're doing, then
Yuri Kuklachev's cats are stoked up on more
drugs that the old East German Women's
Swim Team.
Either that, or his audiences are.
Anybody who has ever (and I use the term
loosely) - 'owned' a cat knows in their
unworthy bones that house cats simply do not
"perform" tricks - unless the spirit moves them.
Cats don't even come when they're called.
They only come when they feel like it.
As a matter of fact, cats do not do
ANYTHING unless it happened to be their
idea first.
Needless junket
The prime minister recently went off on a
trip to Europe to do a variety of things and,
while he was there, managed to fit in a
business trip to Italy. The reason behind this
was ostensively to improve the 1.5 billion
dollar deficit in trade with that country and,
accordingly, about 75 businessmen went
along at their own expense.
What really annoyed me was the fact that
Mr. Chretien saw fit to bring along 14 MPs,
all Liberal, at the taxpayers' expense, to help
generate some business. I'm not sure how this
was going to take place since none of these
14 has any real experience in generating
trade, with the exception of Sergio Marchi,
who happens to be the minister for trade in
the current government. Perhaps Mr. Marchi
is behind all this but that is just conjecture on
my part.
Some of the 14 do not even speak Italian
that well, which makes it even more difficult
to generate any business. At any rate, even
the government had to admit that not much
was done in that respect. Any agreements
announced had been in the negotiation stage
for some time and had nothing to do with our
14 stalwarts.
One of the 14, Joe Fontana, lives in
London, and he did not make me feel any
happier by blithely stating that he did not
think that taxpayers would mind paying his
airfare and expenses for the trip. Well, Mr.
Fontana, here is one who did and in spades!
Having worked in External Affairs and
having had about 25 years experience in
foreign trade, I have a certain amount of
I speak as a dog lover and a cat .„
tolerator. The truth is, I like most dogs and I
like ... some cats. I refuse to feel guilty about
this because I know that cats couldn't care
less what I think of them in any case.
I have no illusions about the dogs I love,
either. Put baldly, dogs are the chuckleheads
of the pet world. If dogs were human they'd
drink draft beer, wear their ball caps
backwards, go bowling and root for the Leafs
and the TiCats.
Cats are not like that. Cats are aloof.
Reserved. Cats are like royalty. Throw a ball
and a dog will retrieve it until he drops from
heat prostration.
Throw a ball for a cat and the cat will just
swivel its head so it can look down its nose at
you, as if to ask:
"What? You thought that I would
actually... fetch ... that ball for you?"
"You humans are so amusing in your own
oafish way!"
I take some comfort in knowing that its not
just losers like me who get bossed around by
their cats. There's a story about the
millionaire industrialist Howard Hughes and
the lengths he went to keep a cat happy.
Apparently his wife, Jean Peters, came to
him one day with the news that her beloved
cat had disappeared.
Hughes unleashed a huge, quasi-military
operation to track the cat down.
He had minions stationed at all veterinary
hospitals and animal control offices.
He ordered other staff members to comb
the hills around his mansion. Hughes
personally directed the whole operation from
his desk, insisting on progress reports every
knowledge of politicians in such matters.
They rank right at the bottom the list as far as
efficiency is concerned. Far too often they
are more concerned with getting their picture
taken or a write-up in the local newspaper
than they are with dealing with the nitty-
gritty of trade negotiations. When pictures
are about to be taken or the press is in the
immediate vicinity, they are front and centre.
We have an excellent trade commissioner
service at each of our embassies abroad and
certainly the one in Italy is as active as any. I
have found them to be an excellent help
during my many trips to Europe, including
Italy.
Companies who wish to develop or initiate
trade with another country can send their
own representatives, who then call upon the
trade commissioners when necessary. No
MPs are needed at any stage of the
negotiations, unless the government requires
representation during the discussions and the
MP in question is either the trade minister or
else well versed in government trade policy.
I would really like to know how much time
each of the 14 MPs spent in sightseeing and
the like, compared with the amount of time
in serious trade negotiations in which they
played an integral part. I would certainly
hazard a guess that the latter took up far less
time than the former, if any at all.
The art of selling Canada's products and
services abroad is not an easy task; it is
frequently done in competition with similar
products from other countries. When you get
down to the bottom line, you need all your
wits about you and the presence of one or
more MPs is far more likely to be distracting
than helpful. If these politicians really want
hour on the hour.
Finally the cat was tracked down to an
abandoned barn a few miles away.
Hughes examined the found cat and
decided it was 'unsuitable' as a member of
the household.
(Hughes was a neatness and cleanliness
freak -- the cat was a mangy old tom). But he
still had to mollify his wife. So Hughes
interviewed several prospective 'adoptive
parents', but decided that none were suitable.
In the end he enrolled the cat in a posh,
expensive animal 'hotel' where it was
installed in its own private room, complete
with a television set.
The luxurious cattery accepted pets with
the stipulation that former owners not only
shell out enormous wads of money to keep
the pets comfortable - said owners were also
required to write to their pets once a month.
Howard Hughes actually hired an
Australian named Harry whose sole job was
to write a letter to Mrs. Hughes cat once a
month, on behalf of Mister Hughes.
Harry (not to mention the cat) was still on
the payroll when Mister Hughes died in 1976.
They still are, for all I know.
Not all cats are so lucky, of course. Many
tomcats with incurable wanderlust eventually
suffer 'the cruelest cut of all' under the vet's
knife.
I must confess, I had that done to my own
cat Ditty-Wah-Ditty, when he wouldn't stop
roaming. A friend said: "Poor Ditty ... I
suppose he just hangs around the house now,
eating and sleeping?"
"No" I told him, "He still goes out every
night. But now he's just a consultant."
to be useful, they could stay at home and
make sure that the government policies they
are supporting are conducive to good
business in international markets.
One example right now is the hefty surplus
there is in the Unemployment Insurance plan.
While it might be politically popular to use it
to reduce taxes, it would be far more
advisable to reduce the premium that
business has to pay. This reduces costs and
thereby makes our products more
competitive. Any economist will also tell the
14 gondolieri that, the more you reduce the
horrendous national debt the federal
government has, the more effective your
fiscal policy becomes, not to mention
downward pressure on interest rates.
Last year when I was in the Czech
Republic, I held seminars on how to do
business with Canada, all at no cost to the
Canadian taxpayer. Perhaps Signori Marchi,
Fontana and the other 12 illustrissimi signori
e signore might consider doing the same
thing. If so, they might find that Canadian's
level of respect for federal politicians was
above that of rock musicians and car
salesmen rather than below it, as it currently
is.
Finally a few direct words to the 14: Invece
di passare un dolce far niente in Italia, vale
meglio restare in Canada per risparrniare it
nostro danaro et aumentare it rispetto dei
votanti canadesi.
A Final Thought
Try saying "Good Morning" as though
you really mean it.
The
Short
of ►c
y Bonnie Gropp
At the risk of offending
At the risk of offending 'womyn'
everywhere, I have been wondering recently
if the idea of career over motherhood is very
definitely not the popular choice.
Born in the 1950s, I was reaching my
teens at a time when the women's lib
movement was escalating. The knowledge
that females need no longer opt for domestic
engineering over civil engineering was
gradually rooting itself in society's pysche.
But ironically, while young girls were being
told to dream and achieve, that they could be
anything they wanted to be, the suggestion
that that goal might be home and family was
looked on with, if not abject pity, than at
least bewilderment.
From my perspective, yes, I came of age
in a time when women were coming into
their own. But I also was surrounded by role
models of the other vein. My mother had to
work out of the home and as a result had
little rest from morning to night. Business,
home and a teenage daughter added up to
exhaustion, not reward.
On the other side, my sister, who is 10
years older than I, married at 19, had two
sons almost immediately, and her role as
wife and mother seemed enviable to me.
So among my sometimes worldly career
goals I also was driven by less emancipated
ones. Being as I'm not a foreign
correspondent I guess you can safely assume
which of these won out.
Yet, the idea that I had not taken
advantage of all the options available to me,
that I had, in some eyes, 'settled', admittedly
caused me frustrations over the years. I have
been on the receiving end of the question,
"So you're just a housewife?". I had, despite
strong convictions that parenting is the most
important job in the world, many times been
made to feel that mothering couldn't possibly
be my only goal.
But I did stay at home until my children
were all in school and I am grateful that I
was able to. Others are not.
And this is where my first suspicion that
women (and again, I stress, for the most
part) aren't career-oriented. For every one
that I have heard say they are working
because they like it, I have heard at least 10
say they work because financially they must.
Another interesting thing that I seem to be
noticing of late are the actions and
comments of the next generation. I have
seen many 30-somethings struggle with their
emotions as they prepare to return to work
after maternity leave. What was satisfying
before motherhood, seems less so after.
In the past week alone, I have heard of
three 20-somethings who know exactly what
they want for the future — babies. They
have finished college and university, they
have found work in their chosen field and
now state they just want to stay home and
have babies.
In retrospect I congratulate them for
getting it right. Having an education, having
a career path to follow or at least look ahead
to, is extremely important for young women
today. The generation before them cleared
the tangled views of narrow minds that had
previously blocked the way. And in doing
so, it created a confident generation of
women, who assured that they can be
anything, freely make their choice -- even if
it's motherhood.
Arthur Black
International Scene
By Raymond Canon