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The Citizen, 2003-12-10, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2003. PAGE 5. Other Views You can call it the rise of the yobs Earlier this year, the American magician David Blaine spent 44 days suspended in a see-through plastic cube over London’s Tower Bridge. I was amazed when I read about it, but not by the feat itself. London, after all, is a huge, cosmopolitan metropolis with more than its share of oversized exploits and freaky feats of derring-do. Why, I once saw a man parasail off the cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral, myself. No, what amazed me was the behaviour of the crowds that gathered underneath David Blaine’s Plexiglas cocoon. They were frighteningly hostile. Some of them played loud music on boom boxes to prevent Blaine from sleeping. Others tried their best to shine red laser lights in his eyes. The less inventive mob members merely jeered him and mooned him and threw eggs or beer cans at the American suspended over their heads. That’s what amazed me. When I read that I said to myself: “People can carry beer cans in public in London??” That’s a far cry from the orderly, structured London I remember - but then the London I knew existed nearly 40 years ago, back in the heyday of The Beatles and Carnaby Street. Which is to say. Pre-Yob mobs. ‘Yob’ is a British word, as is the phenomenon - young, unemployed, semi­ literate white males dedicated to binge drinking, public lewdness and smashing as many people and things as they possibly can en masse. We don’t have an exact equivalent in Canada, although the biker goons in Montreal Names to make actions more palatable Ontario has its own versions of friendly fire and Operation Enduring Freedom and unfortunately not even a change of government is doing away with them. These are names used to make actions that may offend more palatable. Friendly fire is military mistakenly attacking allies, as when U.S. bombs killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, and Operation Enduring Freedom was the U.S.-led invasion of that country. Operation Iraqi Freedom was the assault on Iraq to secure regime change, words which also carried no implication many objected and thousands would be killed or injured. Collateral damage is when smart bombs are not smart enough and miss targets and kill civilians. Such euphemisms are not used solely in war. Companies firing people are rarely so cras§ as to say so and more likely to talk of downsizing, reductions in force and involuntary attrition. Pornography has become more acceptable described as adult entertainment and when this writer lived in Britain, bookmakers started hanging out signs calling themselves turf accountants, while rat-catchers re-named themselves sanitary engineers. The Progressive Conservatives under premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves jumped on this trend after being elected in 1995 by giving their new laws names that suggested they would provide only benefits. A change in legislation on tenants previously would have been titled prosaically an Act to Amend the Landlord and Tenant Act and one giving tax breaks to parents with children in private schools an Act to Amend the Education Act. But the Tories brought in a law they called the Tenant Protection Act, although its main impact was to give landlords, formerly restricted to regulated annual raises, the Arthur and the ‘swarming’ incidents in Toronto and Victoria could signal early attempts at transatlantic cross-pollination. Ah, but the Brits are ‘way ahead of us on this one. Recently, British local police precincts received 66,000 complaints about hooliganism - everything from broken windows to street brawls to terrorized commuters on trashed traincars. That’s 66,000 complaints - in one day. Which translates into about 16 million ‘low level’ offences per year, carrying an estimated price tag of $3.5 billion to clean up after. What’s especially alarming is that British yobism appears to be viral. It used to be confined to soccer hooligans who followed their favourite teams, drank themselves into a stupor and beat the living hell out of anyone who wore the colours of the other team. But it’s no longer just soccer thugs, it’s almost an entire generation of Brits who seem to be bent on displaying the most swinish behaviour they can devise. And not just at home. The Departments of Tourism of Greece and Spain have been so outraged at the disgusting behaviour of vacationing yobs that they’ve lodged official complaints with the British government. Eric Dowd From Queens Park opportunity to raise rents to whatever the market will bear when apartments become vacant, which provides no protection for incoming tenants. They called another law the Equity in Education Act, and equity is desirable. But it gave tax breaks to parents, often wealthy, who refuse to send their children to public schools and choose to send them to private and sometimes religious schools, and gave them money that could improve the public system for all. The Tories had a Fair Municipal Finance Act — who can oppose fairness? — that requires all homeowners to pay tax based on the market value of their homes. But this means in a municipality like Toronto, where values vary sharply depending on location, many owners of downtown homes pay two or three times as much tax as owners of identical homes in the suburbs. The Tories had Good Financial Management and Tax Cuts for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity Acts, but did not mention that the tax cuts reduced services and residents’ protection against such dangers as pollution and helped cause deaths. Nor did they encourage Ontario companies to make capital investments, so the province is behind other jurisdictions in increasing productivity, according to a new report. The Tories had a Sale Streets Act, which implies residents can walk home at night free Hard to believe for those of us who knew a different Britain. I remember attending an anti­ Vietnam war rally in Trafalgar Square back in the ‘60’s. Some speaker was ranting, inciting the crowd to ‘take back the streets’ and you could feel a current running through the crowd. Something was going to happen. Something was going to burst like a pent-up dam and we were all going to be swept along with it whether we wanted to be or not. And holding back all this violent energy? A lone British constable - a bobby, maybe 25 years old, of average height and build. He was utterly unarmed and apparently unconcerned. He stood in front of us, facing the speaker with his arms crossed behind his back, Prince Phillip style. The crowd was twitching now, almost undulating like a vast malevolent amoeba. Someone brushed against the bobby’s back, he whirled around. Here it comes, I thought to myself and braced my legs. “Roight, then lydies and gentlemen,” said the bobby calmly, “If you would be so koind as to move back five pyces, we’ll ‘ave room enough for all.” No threats, no bluff, no brandishing of truncheons or sidearms. Just a calm and irresistible appeal to reason. And we all did step back five paces, obediently, like some giant, domesticated pachyderm. And the demonstration went on as planned. And everyone had their say and no one’s skull was cracked. And it was just as the bobby had said: there was room enough for all. from danger, but its main effect is to prohibit squeegee kids from offering to clean car windows. The Tories’ name that appealed most was their Fewer Politicians Act, which reduced the number of members in the legislature and implied less spending and talking, but never explained residents would have more difficulty reaching their MPP. If the Tories had been retailers, they would have been in court for mislabeling their products. The Liberals in opposition criticized the Tories for using names that misled and promised to end the practice after winning the October election. Their new minister for infrastructure renewal, David Caplan, said the Tories gave laws such as their Tenant Protection Act gimmicky names that deceived residents and the Liberals will change this because Premier Dalton McGuinty wants to “give people the straight goods.” But the first legislation the Liberals introduced was an act respecting fiscal responsibility, which implies Ontario never had such a thing before. Government use of flattering names to sell its products has become an addiction. 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 The short oj it All that and coffee too There is a quiet that settled in the early morning hours. Things are still, no doors are banging, no voices competing for superiority or attention. It is a moment and I assuredly seize it. I cherish my coffee time on Sunday mornings. Generally, as a whole day stretches before me, there are no immediate demands which I must meet. Others too who may be in the house are waking to the world, each in their own way, but usually unobtrusively. There is a sense of relaxation that does not exist in the work week or during Saturday’s hectic schedule of catch-up. And so, I languish. As I hear the quiet, I respect it. Cup in hand I head for the chair and with a deep sigh settle in for a bit of reading. Forgiving if you would a slight touch of hyberole, with the exception of my family this time with a good book is what I live for. There are fewer pleasures in this dizzying life than some calm moments spent with a good book. Heck, even a bad book is better than none. There are those, of course, who wouldn’t agree. The idea of sitting with a book is a waste of time to them, precious moments better spent, foolishly idled away in a useless pursuit. For those with hobbies that involve manual labour, and result in some sort of finished product, such as quilting or woodworking, it may seem that sitting in a chair, flipping pages, is a lazy pursuit. But they’re wrong. Certainly while J read for pleasure, it’s not that I’m reading to avoid work. Actually having reached an age when concentrating can be a challenge, reading is hardly effortless. Becoming absorbed in a good book, therefore, stimulates my p.ind and thoughts and trains me once again to maintain a focus. After all, even those who don’t like reading know that it’s good for you. And there is no other relaxing pastime that allows hours to slip by so effortlessly. Avid readers know that once ensconced in a comfortable spot with a book, time will disappear. Thi.s has occasionally been a problem, times when I’ve looked up at the clock and rather than an hour’s passing my whole morning has become a thing of the past. A love of reading ensures as well that one is never alone. Knitting may occupy you, working on a car may challenge you. But between the covers of a novel you find friends. When stories are well-written you learn to like or dislike the characters. You root for them or wait in eager anticipation to read their downfall. The importance of books was stressed to all my children. Well stressed may be the wrong word; it wasn’t like there was an emphatic command. But from their earliest days until they got too cool, I read to them. It was what the experts said to do, but also what I wanted to do. Some of the best moments in my long- ago memories are bedtime stories. A more recent enjoyable memory is having them ask me for books. It is gratifying that most of my kids share my fondness for literature. Ultimately, I suppose, though I am dazzled by the wordsmith whose phrases are poetry, whose sentences paint vivid scenes, reading is an escape. When I’m feeling a little blue, when I’m overwhelmed, daunted or lonely, picking up a book can turn the page. For a few minutes or hours I am, through another’s words, taken into their world and given the chance to forget about mine. All that and a comfy chair and coffee too. You really can’t beat it.