The Citizen, 2006-06-08, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2006. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Groucho for prime minister
Personally, I'm against political jokes.
Tiro often they get elected to office.
- Henny Youngman
Announced your candidacy for the
leadership of the federal Liberal Party
yet?
What's holding you back? Everybody else
has. The last time I looked we had enough
declared Liberal leader wannabes to play a
crowd scene in Lawrence of Arabia.
Hopefuls include several lawyers (Of
course), an ex-NHL goalie, a lawyer, an ex-
NDP, another lawyer, an ex-Tory, a
Cape Breton fiddle player and some more
lawyers.
My tipping point was breeched when Hedy
Fry, MP for Vancouver Centre and former
junior minister in charge of KKK sightings,
threw her chapeau into the ring.
Please, God. Not Hedy Fry. I'm willing to
pony up a C-note to start an Anybody. But
Hedy movement right now. I'd even vote for a .._
lawyer first.
What's wrong with False Alarm Fry? Not
the moment she's most famous for -
announcing breathlessly in Parliament that
racism was rampant in her home province of
British Columbia and that "crosses are burning
as we speak" in Prince George.
They weren't. Barbecues maybe. but not
crosses.
But I'm okay with goofball leaders who
make idiotic statements. Personally, I disagree
with the•Henny Youngman quote I used at the
top of this column. I vote for my politicians
based on their entertainment value, not their
political stance.
I like my pols to be silly, pompous and
blustery. No deeper than the froth on a
Starbuck's double lane and as two-faced as an
open Denver sandwich.
When cops
The second most powerful politician in
Ontario has lost some faith in police -
who generally do a good job - and
there are times ordinary residents- feel the
same way.
Greg Sorbara was removed as finance
minister for seven months because police
named him without justification, a judge
concluded, on a warrant searching for
wrongdoing in a company he was involved
with.
Others feel police let them down at times in
more mundane circumstances that never make
headlines. ...
This writer, a few days ago was cycling
home after 10 p.m.. uphill and slowly with
lights clearly showing front and rear, when a
car emerged from a side street and struck his
rear wheel. which indicates he had almost
crossed the intersection. The bike fell to the
ground and the car kept moving slowly.- The
writer. clearly identifiable as a cyclist because
he wore a helmet, grabbed a handle and held
on, shouting to the driver to stop, while a
bystander also shouted and wrote down its
number.
The driver continued edging forward slowly,
,topping and starting. for several minutes
before grudgingly pulling to a sidewalk.
. A police officer Caine and asked me for
identification and in his rush to move on cut
me off before I could describe fully what
happened. I said I. and the independent witness
would 'like to giveful I details later.
The officer then spoke briefly to the car
driver and told him he could leave and no
charges would he laid.
I reminded he had not heard from me fully
and from the independent witness at all. He
replied if I felt he had not investigated
adequately. 1 could appeal.
Which is where Hedy Fry fails to make the
grade. Oh, she's pompous and blustery alright
- but she's not funny. She talks like a Gatling
gun on full auto and lectures like Nurse Rachet
in One FleW Over the Cuckoo's Nest. When
she launches into a tirade in Parliament she
sounds like a kid running a hockey stick along
a picket fence.
We've already endured Chtetien, who
mangled both official languages every time he
spoke, and Paul Martin, who sounded like
Elmer Fudd caught in a leg-hold trap.
We need a leader who doesn't make our ears
bleed every time he/she opens his/her mouth.
I nominate Silvio Berlusconi.
I know, I know - there are a couple of
stumbling blocks. For one thing, he's Italian;
for another, he's shown.no interest in moving
from Rome to Ottawa.
Mere details! Don't forget that Italy
permitted Italo-Canadians to vote in the last
presidential election. We can't return the
favour?
Number two: Silvio's. ahhh...looking for
work right now. He lost the Italian presidency
in that same election.
And he would be swell! Listen: here's a guy
who greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair
wearing a Pirates of Penzance bandana on his
- noggin. Reason: he'd just had a hair transplant
(plus a face lift).
But never mind the hair plugs and the eye
The police officer investigated inadequately,
because he decided charges would not be laid-
without interviewing one witness fully and the
only independent witness at all.
Police also are quick to complain witnesses
do not come forward, but this one waited more
than an hour late at night in rain to ensure
justice was done and may have been deterred
from being so public-spirited again.
The inadequacy of the investigation
reminded of a visible minority friend who
spoke little English and was working alone..in
a store-when a customer sold what appeared to
he cocaine to an undercover officer.
Police also chaiged the store clerk with
trafficking, because' they saw _the trafficker
hand him a $20 bill. The clerk had put it in the
till, however. There was evidence the trafficker
was buying a pop and sandwich and part was
returned to him in change.
Police still kept the charge over the clerk's
head for two years until this writer found him
a new lawyer and the prosecutor conceded the
Crown would never win the case and dropped
it.
There was the time this writer saw five
security guards rain punches on a bicycle
courier they knocked to the ground because he
parked in the wrong spot.
Two police officers who arrived pulled the
courier to his feet, handcuffed him behind his
tucks, Foreign Relations is where Berlusconi
genius really shines. This is the guy who
publicly:
...claimed that Chairman Mao boiled babies
and used them as fertilizer.
..suggested a German deputy minister
should audition for a part in a Nazi movie.
...insisted that Mussolini "never killed
anyone".
...confided that he had used "all his
'Playboy arts - to woo and win political
support from Finland's female president Tarja
Halonen.
When reporters (and much of Finland) took
umbrage, Berlusconi smirked and said that
anyone who'd seen a photograph of Prime
Minister Halonen would know he had been
joking.
The guy is, in short, a classic sleazeball,
with the brain of a fruit fly and an ego the size
of Mount Etna.
But he's entertaining. Who wouldn't want to
turn on Question Period and see this clown
choking 'on his own Gucci's? Instead of Ken
Dryden droning on about child care cost
ratios or (shudder) Hedy Fry talking about
anything?
Besides, Berlusconi has that one other
quintessential political quality - he's as
crooked as a string of penne rigate.
He's been charged with fraud and conflict of
interest a half dozen times and got off on
technicalities. Now he's being prosecuted for
bribing the husband of a British Cabinet
minister to lie on his behalf.
Berlusconi - he's a natural! Reminds me of
the politician that accosted Ann Landers at a
party and brayed: "So you're a columnist - say
something funny!"
Landers looked at him and deadpanned: "So
you're a politician - tell me a lie."
back, threw him heavily back on the concrete
floor as a reminder not to mess with guys in
uniform and charged him with assaulting a
security guard:
The writer collected names of five spectators
who went to court and the judge ruled if there
was an assault, it was not by the courier.
An MP a few days ago said he wanted to
question how a, man was shot dead in police
custody, but people warned him police would
get angry and retaliate.
It reminded that this writer recently was
among cottagers who successfully opposed a
police officer's plan to develop his property
and some who backed the officer said it could
be dangerous to oppose a police officer and
even more darkly that police "stick together."
When a reporter -leading an uneventful life
comes across so many examples of police not
being good guys, many' more obviously are
happening and they make the job of policing
more difficult.
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How the garden grows
Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants and wholesome
harvest reaps.
— Amos Bronson Alcott
my maternal grandmother's garden,
was an Eden. Or at least it's as close
to it as anywhere I've ever
visited.
Understand this was not one of those formal
photo-ready landscapes that are all about curb
appeal these days, but rather a labour of love
for a woman who simply enjoyed seeing
beauty spring from the earth. Memories of that
other world behind the white picket fence are
as vivid as the palette splashed against it.
Aromatic peonies, vibrant gladioli, glorious
roses and brilliant snapdragons bordered a
vegetable garden that was lushly verdant. Any
weed that dared to rear its ugly head was given
little hope of survival. The earth between
flowers and vegetables was systematically and
regularly plucked clean.
Playing amidst the vibrancy and fragrance as
a child I took for.granted the paradise she had
created. Yet, I wonder if somehow I
understood because it was my favourite place
to-play.
And I have missed its beauty so much in the
years since.
Regrettably I have not inherited my
grandmother's green thumb. Or at least, I've
come to the world of horticulture in such
ignorance that any natural talent is having a
difficult time shining through.
I was not one of the fortunate people who
had their grandparents with them for a long
time. I never had a chance to learn from-
Grandma. And her daughter, God love her, has
never met a plant she liked, so had nothing to
offer me in that area.
But I am learning' now. Nothing ambitious,
but I've started modestly and am finding such
pleasure. I have discovered that I like to play in
the dirt. There is a comfort in that, rooted I'm
sure in childhood. I like to see things grow and
realize that I have in some small way played a
part.
I am becoming familiar with some plants
and am discovering and learning about others.
One particular treasure this year came about as
a result of a conversation. A woman who
remembered my maiden name was Ott said
that Circle Dance Seeds outside Brussels had
Grandpa Ott's Morning Glories. She wondered
if there was a connection.
I wasn't aware of one, but it piqued my
interest. Turns out the seeds were given by
Iowanian farmer Baptist John Ott to his
granddaughter, Diane Wheatly, in 1972.
Interesting, but a connection? Who knows.
Still it felt as if I should have some of those.
seeds. With my grandson's help they have now
been planted and appear to be thriving.
My little buddy's interest has extended as
well to my herb garden. He sat with me, asking
the names of each of them and helped plant the
more fragile ones that had been waiting for
warmer weather. Mitchell has also been quite
interested in the rabbit problem we are
experiencing and even suggested a solution,
albeit a rather messy one.
His attention to my little. Eden went straight
to my heart. My Grandma's garden has held
such a long and lasting place there that it only
takes the scent of a peony to bring her and that
magical space back to' me. Won't it be nice
when he's my age if a morning glory or the
scent of rosemary will do the same for him?
don't get it right