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The Citizen, 2003-02-19, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2003. PAGE 5. Other Views\ Just, put on a happy face The year 2003 is still a babe in swaddling clothes, but it already qualifies as an annus horribilus for B.C.’s premier, Gordon “One-for-the-road” Campbell. He’s taken a lot of lumps for his high-octane bob and weave down that Maui highway - but one mistake he should be forgiven for is that goofy smile he wore in a couple of his police mugshots. “I cannot bear it that our premier had been arrested for drunk driving and he just stood there, laughing at the camera,” sniped a Vancouver writer in a letter to the editor. C’mon, lady - that’s not a what-the-hell smile on Campbell’s face. That’s a sickly leer. A weak grimace. A hand-in-the-cookie-jar, oops I stepped in the cowpoop smile. Gordon Campbell may be an arrogant SOB in the rest of his life, but that is not an arrogant grin he’s wearing in the photographs. That is a pathetic simper. A wheedling plea for mercy. Having put myself through a few ohmygawdwhatwaslthinking scenarios myself, I’d recognize it anywhere. Strange critter, your garden variety smile. My dictionary defines it as “a change of facial expression involving an upward curving of the corners of the mouth” - but a smile is ‘way more than that. There’s the Mona Lisa smile, enigmatic, inscrutable, almost not there; and there’s the maniacal, thousand-megawatt leer that transformed the face of Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick. There’s the earnest, needy, nervous grin of sad sack salesman Willy Loman in A Death of a Salesman (“He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine..”); and A time for prognosticators to be wary Everyone is predicting an Ontario election within months, but no-one is predicting the winner. This unusual state of uncertainty exists because issues keep popping up in rapid succession that piake assessing the outcome more difficult. One is the Progressive Conservatives have a premier, Ernie Eves, leading in an election for the first time, which normally would not be a worry. The Tories have gone into elections three times after they changed premiers in recent decades and continued winning and their only loss was when Frank Miller could obtain only a minority government and was forced out. But Eves’s ascension has raised many unanswered questions. Eves could be hurt if he is seen as too close to his predecessor, Mike Harris, once worshipped by many for cutting taxes, but less popular after services weakened and he was seen as confrontational. Eves has tried to look more moderate by such acts as postponing tax cuts, increasing spending on services, freezing hydro rates instead of allowing them to rise with the marketplace, cancelling a planned privatiza­ tion of the hydro transmission network and talking to unions. These will endear him to some groups, but still provide dangers. Everyone wants hydro rates kept down, but common sense sees it as only a stopgap solution, because new power stations are needed desperately and no-one will provide them while rates are held artificially low. Unionists will feel more accepted having a premier who speaks politely to them, but want more significant concessions, such as Eves repealing some of Harris’s labour laws that give employers the upper hand. Eves at the same time has offended his own Arthur Black there’s the wall-to-wall grin of toothy Carly Simon, displaying more ivory than a Steinway Grand. There are a lot of portraits of George Washington including the one on the U.S. $1 bill - but you’ll never see one that shows Washington smiling. Richard Nixon, on the other hand, was captured in a famous photo that showed him almost convulsing, mouth wide open, eyes bulging, tongue hanging out. The Nixon grin was so incongruous on the face of such a normally sullen man that for years, the magazine Esquire ran the photo once a year, with the caption “Why Is This Man Laughing?” There’s something about leaders and smiles and the uneasy tension that lies between them. Winston Churchill said that Russian prime minister Molotov had “a smile like a Siberian winter”. French president Francois Mitterand described Margaret Thatcher as having “the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe”. The odd thing is, smiling for public consumption is a relatively recent social phenomenon. You don’t see statues of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great with big grins plastered across their pusses. For centuries, oil portraits of notable figures showed their Eric Dowd From Queen’s Park party’s right-wingers, who complain he is reneging on Tory ideals. Will any feel alienated enough to sit out an election? Eves in his switches to moderation has led more retreats than the Germans pulling back from Normandy in World War II and any premier in memory. Some will see him as open-minded and ready to listen. However others, will see him as quick to bow to pressure, lacking principles he will stand on and even weak and ready to change anything to win an election. The Tories have long boasted they are prudent .wath taxpayers’ money, but have been exposed as wasting hand-over-fist on programs by the nonpartisan provincial auditor, as well as living it up on hotels and dining which prompted the unprecedented firing of a minister. Surely some of this has to stick? Eves’s government has seemed in disarray at a time when voters will look for competence and confidence. Premiers also normally take their wives campaigning to show good examples on family values, but Eves has only a girlfriend after his acrimonious marriage breakup. Will anyone care? The Liberals have been ahead in polls, but not comfortably, because they led at the start of the last three elections and lost, and they do not communicate any confidence they will win. Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty has subjects with serious, solemn visages. Right up until 1787, when a French artist by the name of Louise Elizabeth Vigee-LeBrun painted a self-portrait that showed her pleasantly smiling back at the world. The world was scandalized. One critic of the time sniffed, “An affectation which artists, art lovers and persons of taste have been united in condemning...is that in smiling, Mme Vigee- LeBrun shows her teeth. This affectation is particularly out of place in a mother.” And therein lies the reason our ancestors and predecessors look so grim in those paintings and photos - bad teeth. Up until the 18th century Europeans had no toothbrushes, no tooth powder or paste and no concept whatsoever of dental care. Consequently, most of them had mouths full of rotten teeth by the time they were teenagers. George Washington didn’t smile because he had a gobful of carved, discoloured wooden dentures. Smiling would have made him look like a beaver caught in mid-chew. And Mona Lisa, even when she smiled, was careful to show no teeth. As a result of that one evening in Hawaii, Gordon Campbell has a lot of ironies that he’ll live with for the rest of his life. Like the fact that he could have said to his hosts “You know what? I’m hammered. Mind if I sleep on the couch?” Or the fact that calling out one four-letter word - “Taxi!” - would have spared him a world of grief. Or the fact that, if he’d had a worse set of teeth in his mouth, chances are he’d have looked better in those mug shots. announced policies at a more acceptable earlier stage including freezing university tuition for two years and increasing the long overlooked minimum wage. But he has become almost as noted as Eves for changing his mind. He supported privatizing hydro transmission, as one example, but now opposes it. McGuinty seemed to have a catchy issue in the Tories’ excessive spending on booze, but may find it watered down because he has been caught spending hundreds of dollars on his favourite orange juice. There will be worry about how he will stand up in the TV debate between leaders, because in 1999 he was caught off guard when attacked for hiring his brother briefly - one good squelch could have been two Tory ministers had relatives on the government payroll. The Liberals also will be less able to attract discouraged New Democrats by arguing the polls show only they can beat the Tories, because the NDP has mildly recovered. Most reporters covering the legislature normally would have picked a winner long before now, but they have been given a lot of issues to digest. Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise. Bonnie Gropp The short of it Don’t be shy When it comes to our kids there’s no gauge for feeling proud. There’s no guideline suggesting that this act or this deed warrants this much pride, no meter indicating a fair level of exaltation for specific accomplishments. When it comes to being proud of our kids we are generally as proud as we can be. Someone telling you that your son or daughter is one of the nicest young people they’ve met can puff out your chest as far as that of the mom or dad who’ve heard their offspring just copped the top award. Yet, being proud, when one considers the definition, doesn’t sound like a good thing. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “feeling or showing pride or proper pride; haughty, arrogant; feeling one’s self greatly honoured.” Pride is a “feeling of elation or satisfaction at one’s achievement or qualities or possessions; high or overbearing opinion of one’s worth or importance.” The Bible admonishes “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” No it sure doesn’t sound good. But it can’t be all bad either. Being proud of someone else isn’t the same as being proud of one’s self after all. And when it comes to our kids if they deserve it’ they have every right to know they’ve made us proud and we have every right to feel it. Last week I spoke to a mother who was justifiably as proud as she could be. It was several years ago that I had interviewed her daughter, a rabid women’s hockey fan, but more importantly an outstanding goaltender/ for both local girls and boys teams in her own right. In 1999 she was selected as the recipient of the Brussels Minor Hockey’s Don Higgins Memorial Award for most outstanding goalie. Also, at that point in time, Brooklyn Wheeler, a poised, intelligent young girl of 13 was considering attending high school at Culver Girls Academy in Indiana, where she had tried out for the hockey team and been accepted. Now, four years later, having been courted by 30 universities and colleges in Canada and the U.S, including the respected Harvard and Princeton, Brooklyn has accepted a hockey scholarship to the smaller, though no less prestigious Colgate in Hamilton N.Y. Knowing Brooke as a youngster, meant knowing a kind, confident, mature child. I doubt that her years away have changed that in any way. Her parents should be quite proud of her, not just for this newest achievement, but for the lovely young woman she is. What is also nice about seeing a young person’s success, however, is that it serves as a reminder to us of the inherent promise in so many of our children. Unfortunately in this business, it is too often the misdeeds of youth that we hear. Official reports and forums help us to make this information public, because let’s be hones,t misdeeds are news. However, it is equally important that we learn the good stories. Yet, ironically, people often seem reluctant to come forward with them. It was a College Prospects of America press release that informed us about Brooklyn Wheeler. Her parents did not call to share the good news with us. Every day there are kids doing great things and their stories are never told. But, take my word for it - people want to hear the good news and our kids deserve its telling. After all, every parent will understand your pride. Don’t be shy about it.