The Citizen, 2006-02-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2006. PAGE 5.
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What am I bid for this paperclip?
It didn't have to turn out like this you know.
I didn't have to wind up as a lowly scribe
pecking out a weekly half page of verbiage
just to put a cup of tepid Nescafe and a heel of
pumpernickel on the table.
I had an option. I could have been fabulously
rich and internationally famous.
I had an idea.
I even had a plan.
I hatched it 'way back in primary school,
while my colleagues were carving graffiti in
their desks or lobbing spitballs at each other.
The teacher was droning on about Canadian
history. "The current population of Canada is
15 million..." he told us.
Fifteen million, I thought. What if each and
every Canadian....sent me one penny!
What an idea! Brilliant in its simplicity!
Who couldn't afford to give up a cent?
Even a Mormon polygamist with four
wives ,and twenty kids would only be out a
quarter!
Fifteen million pennies! That would be
like..,$150,000! I was on my way to becoming
a,..a thousandaire!
Alas, my clever concept crashed and burned
aborning. I-couldn't think of any way of
convincing each and every Canuck to actually
send me a penny. I fell back into the ranks of
unenlightened serfdom and wound up as the
pathetic pauper/hack whose words you are
reading right now.
Not like Kyle MacDonald. He had a great
idea too. He wanted to get himself a house and
he was willing to swap for it.
Unfortunately all he had was one red
paperclip.
But did Kyle throw up his hands like I did?
He did not. Instead he went on his website and
Alot of people with influence use it to
jump the queue for healthcare in
Ontario. It now can be seen this
includes celebrity journalists.
This can mean ordinary people with no
special pull wait longer.
The way journalists can use clout has
emerged because two of the most prominent in
Toronto wrote about their involvements with
the healthcare system.
Margaret Wente, a columnist in The Globe
and Mail, described how she was helped to
obtain a hip replacement quicker partly by
"pulling strings."
She said her doctor told her she needed a hip
replacement and the first surgeon she
consulted was very grim and told her his
waiting list was a year long.
The columnist decided to obtain another
opinion and called "a well-placed
acquaintance," who contacted another
surgeon, who squeezed her in for an
appointment within two days.
"At first, I felt uncomfortable pulling
strings, but I got over it," she wrote. "After all,
I would pull them for my mother."
"I found shortcuts. I asked for favours. At
first, t felt guilty, but I was in pain and the pain
was destroying my life."
Through these and other means she found
another specialist, who told her she would
have to wait six months for the surgery, but she
cried and he took pity and cut the waiting
period in half.
She added her "spiffy" new hip probably
cost taxpayers around $4,000.
Christie Blatchford, now also a columnist on
The Globe and Mail, actually did pull strings
for her mother earlier, when she was writing
columns for The National Post. She used one
to help her obtain a bed in the nursing home of
their choice.
announced to the world that he wanted to
'trade up' for a house. So what
would somebody give him for his red
paperclip?
Two girls in Vancouver offered him a
ballpoint pen shaped like a fish. Deal, said
Kyle.
Now what would somebody give him for his
fish-shaped pen? A door knob, said someone
in Indiana.
You got it, said Kyle.
And the door knob begat a Coleman camp
stove, which begat a one-thousand watt
portable generator which Kyle traded for a
neon sign, which he swapped for a beer keg,
which...never mind. It will just make you
dizzy.
Point is, Kyle MacDonald eventually traded
his way up to an all-expenses paid trip to the
town of Yahk, B.C. — and a big, honkin' cube
van in which to make the trip.
All from a single paperclip (red).
Kyle doesn't just trade items; he does it face
to face. He has met each and every person who
has swapped items with him. So far he's been
to Seattle, New York, Amherst, New
Brunswick, and the Camp Pendleton Army
Base in California.
The only mistake Kyle's made so far: he
didn't patent his brainwave. Hordes of copycat
Blatchford wrote that her mother was 83 and
suffered from serious lung ailments including
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and
emphysema.
Her condition was deteriorating rapidly and
she had been shuffled between several
different nursing homes.
She wound up in a home in Toronto, which
she liked and felt comfortable in and had five
empty beds.
She asked for one of the empty beds and the
home was willing to give her one, but a
community care access centre allocated beds
throughout the area and prevented it. It said
there was a waiting list of about 8,800 for beds
in Toronto, her mother was on that list and the
journalist presumably would not want
someone to jump ahead of her.
They offered the mother a bed in a far-flung
suburb, but Blatchford looked at the empty
beds and could not see the logic in her mother
having to go elsewhere.
The columnist wrote about this and charged
the system was mismanaging beds and was
able to report in another column a few days
later it wallowing her mother to stay in one
of the home's empty beds.
"It turned out that health ministry staff read
the piece and worked all day to find a better
solution," she concluded.
The Ontario health minister of the day,
Progressive Conservative Tony Clement, also
traders have sprung up — including some disc
jockey on a radio station in Vancouver. He
started out offering to trade an ordinary rock.
At last report he had traded up to a set of
custom drums.
Does Kyle resent the imitators? Hell, no — he
gives them space on his website. The more the
merrier, says Kyle.
Not surprisingly some big-time advertisers
have smelled a lucrative opportunity here.
Kyle. has been approached by several
companies eager to see their brand names
appear on his insanely popular website.
No dice.
"There is no amount of money you can offer
me to appear on this website," says Kyle. I will
not put up your ad for Coke or Nike even if
you offer me $1 million. Try me — I dare you.
The only way I will ever post anything even
remotely resembling an ad or banner on this
website will be if you help out the project in
some way, shape or form."
How to do that? Two ways:
(a) Get on the trading block. Offer some
service or product that moves Kyle along to
his goal of owning a house.
(b) Come up with your own trade scheme.
As long as it's for charity, Kyle will give you
free space on his website.
But act fast. Right now, Kyle MacDonald is
just an ordinary, beer-chugging guy like you
and me. Pretty soon he'll be a home-owner.
And after that — who knows? What can you
trade a house for these days? A candy-apple
red Ferrari? A summer in St. Barts? A date
with J-Lo?
That Kyle MacDonald. To think I knew him
when he only had one red paperclip to his
name.
phoned to check everything had turned out to
her liking, not a service anyone can get.
The outcome turned out well for the
columnist and her mother, who was in
circumstances that deserve sympathy. But
while there should be no empty beds, it also
can take some time to transfer in the
appropriate patients.
Those who have jumped healthcare queues
include Mike Harris, when Conservative
premier, and he got some flak for it.
Many doctors also allow family members,
friends, friends of friends, other doctors,
nurses, medical secretaries, laboratory
technicians and government officials, among
others, to jump their queues.
One argued recently this is no different than
knowing who to call to obtain a table in a
crowded restaurant or tickets to a sold-out
concert.
But there is a difference, because healthcare
is an essential service and there should not be
better access to it for a privileged few — even
if they include such highly-valued members of
society as newspaper columnists.
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Isn't it romantic?
Romance is in the air — the ambient
glow of candlelight, a table set fop two,
soft music.
Or at least it is if Valentine's Day means
anything to you. And if the research from
Hallmark is any indication, it does for many
people. According to their website more than
180 million cards are exchanged for Valentine's
Day making it the second largest card giving
holiday. A survey concluded that besides
greeting cards which garnered 65 per cent in the
ratings for top ways to celebrate Valentine's
Day, there are still plenty of people taking
Cupid to heart. From date nights, to candy and
flowers, to perfume and jewellery, Valentine's
Day remains a popular time to express one's
affection.
Yet, for everyone who does celebrate there is
probably another who's not interested. While
some of these are simply not the romantic type.
others believe that to keep a love alive you can
never let a day pass without working at it. For
them Feb. 14 is just another day.
As anyone in a solid relationship knows,
falling in love is easy, it's sustaining it that's the
challenge. And that means working at it day
after day.
I read a magazine article recently that said
Valentine's Day should be every day. Using real
stories it showed that committed couples
dedicate every day to maintaining and
improving their love. The simple act of taking
out the garbage when it's typically the other
partner's job can be seen as a gesture of
Valentine proportions. A bouquet of
wildflowers picked simply because you were
thinking of your spouse is the kind of action
that puts the bliss in marriage. A regular date
night is sure to keep the passion alive and
making the time to be alone and talk is a key to
couple contentment.
This was a view I too shared for the past
several years. I hadn't put too much stock in
Valentine's Day since the bloom of first early
love had long ago dissipated.
When you meet your one and only, and for
several months afterwards, there is a certain,
let's call it energy, attached to the relationship.
There are expectations and not a small amount
of emphasis placed on the idealistic side of boy
and girl together. While it might be hyperbolic
to suggest panic if your Valentine overlooked
the day, it was definitely a sensitive point.
Then you marry, have children and suddenly
the whole idea starts to seem a little silly. After
all, aren't you proving your love each and every
day that you stay together? At least in most
loving relationships there are examples of
tenderness and unconditional ardour shown
with regularity. Familiarity and trust wrap you
in security; you don't need chocolate or flowers
to know you're loved. It's the little gestures that
count and these should come randomly.
All true. But I am starting to rethink
Valentine's Day. With the emptying of the nest
more of a person's fOcus centres on the spouse.
The distraction of children, their friends and
pastimes is no longer there. There is an
innocence again in time together and a freedom
that comes with the knowledge there is only
each other to worry about. Tender gestures are
easy as roles and responsibilities blend.
And with only two of you in the house, every
meal can be a dinner date.
So I guess I'm kind of back to thinking
celebrating Valentine's Day isn't such a bad
idea. It's kind of like putting the exclamation
point on your personal story of romance.
More people jump healthcare queue