There is nothing new about the battle over water. The story of the Newfoundland developer who wanted to ship water in bulk from a pristine lake in Newfoundland came up again. This time it was at a little-noticed water conference held in Toronto. It echoed the national sentiment: Canadians are very protective of our water. But the story has “legs” that go back generations.
Remember the brilliant movie “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson? It was based On the reality of cities versus farmers in California. The Imperial Valley is the biggest single vegetable patch in the world. It exists only because farmers were allowed to pump millions of gallons of underground and reservoir water to irrigate what had been an arid valley. (That they still irrigate spraying water wastefully in the air is another story.)
The people of Los Angeles were thirsty for water. The farmers were even thirstier.It was a tawdry story of gangsters and crooked politicians. The majority of fresh water in California goes to agriculture. Today, because so much ground water has been pumped out, sea water has seeped into the aquifer making the water brackish. The other aquifer, the Ogallala, that made the plans of Kansas and Oklahoma the corn basket of the world, is also running dry. Still they pump. Water may be in short supply but the rush to populate the desert with places like Las Vegas and Phoenix has put a huge strain on water supply. No one seems to want to close golf courses. In Florida, where rainfall was never huge, the Everglades are being pumped dry. Now there is trouble brewing between Egypt and Ethiopia. The Nile, which runs through Ethiopia before it gets to Egypt, is being threatened. Ethiopia wants to build huge dam. The Egyptians, who have already built the Aswan dam, are furious. In Israel there has always been tension between Jordan and Israel over the water that flows in the Jordan River to the Sea of Galilee.
Something’s gotta give! Conservation doesn’t work, at least not in Canada or the U.S. Some European countries have primary water filtration systems in homes so that the lawns can be watered, the toilets flushed, and cars washed with “used” water. Here we have no such facility. We have the Great Lakes. But has anyone noticed that the water levels keep going down?
There must be other solutions, I am not an expert in Hydrology, but it seems to me that we miss a chance to recover water. I have always wondered why we do not excavate enormous lake-sized cachement basins into which floodwaters could be routed, instead of having them ravage the countryside then flow into the sea. The principle of flood diversion is not new. Winnipeg has deep canals that are supposed to accommodate the high water levels that come to the Red River every spring. Israel, which battles constantly with Jordan over Jordan River water has confronted the shortage with massive desalination plants. However, I don’t know what that will do to ocean levels. Given that we are experiencing serious climate change (in spite of the Tea Party naysayers) and there may soon be enough melted ocean water to flood coastlines everywhere, maybe we should be using more seawater.
There used to be a wild idea to create a new sea in the middle of the arid Egyptian/Libyan desert in a place called the Qatara Depression. A canal could be built from the Mediterranean Sea and water would flow into this empty space, a space of nearly twenty thousand square kilometers. It would be salty and unfit for agriculture, but what if at the same time a huge desalinization plant were to be set up? There are already swamps there which contain some brackish water.
As I said, I am not expert, but it seems to me that we are not exploring water supply ideas beyond exporting the stuff that is easy to get to. Therein lies the answer. We do it cheaply, even though the gains are short-sighted. In an age when the marketplace tells us how to live, no one likes to suggest (horrors!) spending public money to create potable water where there is a shortage.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
LEFTOVER. A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS
None of these items is big enough for a whole blog. Like the latest on the august CBC News. A news reporter on the CBC Evening News did a “stand-up on the new and renovated Bloor Street West sidewalk. It’s wider and there are hot dog wagons. And the surface is made of “granite.” Except she pronounced it as if she had never seen it written before: “Gran-Eyt” I suppose she was thinking of other "ite" words like lucite and calcite. Almost as good as the other reporter who referred to the river that runs through Budapest as the Dah-Noob. (Accent on the first syllable.)Accent on the first syllable.
Maybe this next thing is worth a blog. I have to explain. I left the tender embrace of the NDP several years ago. I didn’t abandon my left-leaning social, political, and financial ideas. I left because they were in lockstep over issues. They were stuck in an ideological straight jacket. Every position had to “fit” the ideology.
I think it is fair to assume that the official Left takes the position, in support of all those environmentalists who say they are part of the Left, that nuclear power is bad. It is bad because of Chernobyl and bad because no one knows what to do with the accumulation of spent fuel rods. So the Japanese disaster offered a perfect chance for the ant-nukes to come flooding out of the woodwork. Everyone from the President of Germany to Ontario Power Generation went on high alert after the still unresolved nuclear power problem hit Japan. We are pushing the panic button. Instead of learning from the mistakes the Japanese made, and who could have predicted the horrible tsunami, we have pressed the emergency signal.
I still believe in the future of clean power from nuclear. I also believe in wind and biomass power. But for now, nothing does it like nuclear. Many of those who have risen up against the nukes have always opposed them, The Japanese crisis adds fuel.
As for the spent fuel rods, I understand the Chinese are very close to finding a way to use those “spent” rods to create more energy. In the face of opposition, do not curl up and die.
I went to a fabulous concert with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin. I so love music that unless it is very obviously badly performed, I am enraptured. Hamelin gave it to me. Sitting in front of me was a woman who, the last time I saw her at a concert, literally did not applaud. On leaving, she commented that the performance was “dilettantish.” How she managed to sit through it I don't know. I suspected that she had reservations about Hamelin. I wanted to say to her” Why don’t you save yourself the misery and not go to concerts?”
I was reminded of my father and his brother, the once-eminent Maurice Solway, who never went to a concert they liked, unless it was Heifetz of Horowitz. They carped and complained. I have notice that classical musicians tend to be less than generous to some of their colleagues. It isn’t that was with jazz.
A few random items.
Maybe this next thing is worth a blog. I have to explain. I left the tender embrace of the NDP several years ago. I didn’t abandon my left-leaning social, political, and financial ideas. I left because they were in lockstep over issues. They were stuck in an ideological straight jacket. Every position had to “fit” the ideology.
I think it is fair to assume that the official Left takes the position, in support of all those environmentalists who say they are part of the Left, that nuclear power is bad. It is bad because of Chernobyl and bad because no one knows what to do with the accumulation of spent fuel rods. So the Japanese disaster offered a perfect chance for the ant-nukes to come flooding out of the woodwork. Everyone from the President of Germany to Ontario Power Generation went on high alert after the still unresolved nuclear power problem hit Japan. We are pushing the panic button. Instead of learning from the mistakes the Japanese made, and who could have predicted the horrible tsunami, we have pressed the emergency signal.
I still believe in the future of clean power from nuclear. I also believe in wind and biomass power. But for now, nothing does it like nuclear. Many of those who have risen up against the nukes have always opposed them, The Japanese crisis adds fuel.
As for the spent fuel rods, I understand the Chinese are very close to finding a way to use those “spent” rods to create more energy. In the face of opposition, do not curl up and die.
I went to a fabulous concert with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin. I so love music that unless it is very obviously badly performed, I am enraptured. Hamelin gave it to me. Sitting in front of me was a woman who, the last time I saw her at a concert, literally did not applaud. On leaving, she commented that the performance was “dilettantish.” How she managed to sit through it I don't know. I suspected that she had reservations about Hamelin. I wanted to say to her” Why don’t you save yourself the misery and not go to concerts?”
I was reminded of my father and his brother, the once-eminent Maurice Solway, who never went to a concert they liked, unless it was Heifetz of Horowitz. They carped and complained. I have notice that classical musicians tend to be less than generous to some of their colleagues. It isn’t that was with jazz.
A few random items.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
ANYBODY? I NEED ANSWERS
I have promised (well at least I have tried) not to sound like an old fogy who simply refuses to understand that yesterday is over and what matters is today. O.K. I need some answers. I want to try to better understand today’s “culture.”
Why do hundreds of otherwise sane people start lining up at 3 a.m. to buy the newest IPad? What is the compulsion to be first? Do these people know something I don’t know? Is the IPad a prestige symbol? Is anyone waiting to see what the new pad from RIM will be like? Will IPad buyers stay faithful as if they are cheering for the home team or something?
Can anyone tell me why tattooing has become rampant? I have a certain bias about it being the domain of a certain class of people. My closest friend’s grandson, a math teacher in Florida, and apparently wildly popular among his students, is tattooed from wrist to armpit. I asked him why? He just looked at me. Watching the Food Network (a passion of mine) I heard a really good chef describe how he dressed to suit himself – jeans, Tshirts – all the stuff that made him the individual he wanted to be. But he too had joined the tattoo herd – covering his forearms with what the Druids called Woad. Maybe that’s the answer. It’s some kind of atavistic desire to return to pre-Christian roots?
Can anyone tell me why hundreds, probably thousands of people are, right this minute, walking along the sidewalk with their heads down as they read all their “important’ text messages? Can anyone explain the madness of a young woman I saw recently so intent on the contents of her smart phone that she stepped off the curb against a red light narrowly missing the fender of a turning car. She jumped back. Did she lose her text message?
Can anyone tell me why so many women still put their purses in the shopping cart as they cruise a supermarket? It was years ago that someone reached into my wife’s purse and made off with money.
Can someone please explain, and this is about my most boring topic: cell phones – what seems to draw people to the screen? A few weeks ago I sat in a hospital waiting room readying my EBook. Next to me a young man was vigourously working at something on his Smart Phone. What could it be? His thumb was flicking back and forth as the images spun madly across the screen. I was tempted to ask him to tell me what the attraction was. I’d have received the same blank look I got from my friend’s grandson when I asked him about his tattoos.
Finally, and I have asked this before in different ways: why does anyone who is 20-something or 30-somthing always seem amazed that my wife and I continue to be active? Have they never known anyone over the age of 40? How are they with their own parents? Grandparents?
Can anyone tell me why, given the rising price of gasoline and the continuous griping about it, do so many (maybe most) drivers pull away from stoplights like frightened rabbits? Drive way over the speed limit on highways? I ask again: do they know that slowing down will more than make up for the increase in the price of fuel, and it’s kinder to the environment.
So many questions? So few answers. But in my life, especially when I was more in the public eye, I always said that the most important thing was not the answers – it was the ability to develop questions.
Anyone???
Why do hundreds of otherwise sane people start lining up at 3 a.m. to buy the newest IPad? What is the compulsion to be first? Do these people know something I don’t know? Is the IPad a prestige symbol? Is anyone waiting to see what the new pad from RIM will be like? Will IPad buyers stay faithful as if they are cheering for the home team or something?
Can anyone tell me why tattooing has become rampant? I have a certain bias about it being the domain of a certain class of people. My closest friend’s grandson, a math teacher in Florida, and apparently wildly popular among his students, is tattooed from wrist to armpit. I asked him why? He just looked at me. Watching the Food Network (a passion of mine) I heard a really good chef describe how he dressed to suit himself – jeans, Tshirts – all the stuff that made him the individual he wanted to be. But he too had joined the tattoo herd – covering his forearms with what the Druids called Woad. Maybe that’s the answer. It’s some kind of atavistic desire to return to pre-Christian roots?
Can anyone tell me why hundreds, probably thousands of people are, right this minute, walking along the sidewalk with their heads down as they read all their “important’ text messages? Can anyone explain the madness of a young woman I saw recently so intent on the contents of her smart phone that she stepped off the curb against a red light narrowly missing the fender of a turning car. She jumped back. Did she lose her text message?
Can anyone tell me why so many women still put their purses in the shopping cart as they cruise a supermarket? It was years ago that someone reached into my wife’s purse and made off with money.
Can someone please explain, and this is about my most boring topic: cell phones – what seems to draw people to the screen? A few weeks ago I sat in a hospital waiting room readying my EBook. Next to me a young man was vigourously working at something on his Smart Phone. What could it be? His thumb was flicking back and forth as the images spun madly across the screen. I was tempted to ask him to tell me what the attraction was. I’d have received the same blank look I got from my friend’s grandson when I asked him about his tattoos.
Finally, and I have asked this before in different ways: why does anyone who is 20-something or 30-somthing always seem amazed that my wife and I continue to be active? Have they never known anyone over the age of 40? How are they with their own parents? Grandparents?
Can anyone tell me why, given the rising price of gasoline and the continuous griping about it, do so many (maybe most) drivers pull away from stoplights like frightened rabbits? Drive way over the speed limit on highways? I ask again: do they know that slowing down will more than make up for the increase in the price of fuel, and it’s kinder to the environment.
So many questions? So few answers. But in my life, especially when I was more in the public eye, I always said that the most important thing was not the answers – it was the ability to develop questions.
Anyone???
Friday, March 25, 2011
A GENERATIONAL ABYSS
This is a story of the gulf between a young and helpful physiotherapist and an elderly woman who is determined to walk. The young therapist, I don’t think she’s even thirty, comes to our house once a week to supervise Shirley’s recovery from her hip replacement operation. She is startled and amazed by the speed of her recovery! And we see what the generation gap means. Sadly, it reflects the notions of the young about the ailments of the old. (By the way, Shirley is home recovering because she hated the thought of spending a week in a rehab hospital.)
“It has been only two weeks and you’re walking.”
“She was walking the day after the surgery.”
“But this is unusual for anyone who had had a hip replacement, especially for a woman who is over 80.”
“Well that’s the secret of being old.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when you get older you can expect to have aches and pains. You can choose to crawl into bed and hope it will all get better. It rarely does. All you get is older. Then there is the futility and frustration of thinking magically you will wake up and be thirty years younger.
This was more or less the conversation I had with a wide-eyed twenty-something, a physiotherapist who works with many cranky elderly people who moan about getting older and letting it turn them inwards. She says she has never come across anyone like Shirley. I assure her that we have many friends who are as old as we are, and they work and play through whatever pains and slowing down occurs naturally, One thing we, and most of them do not do, is complain about getting older. She tells me that if she asks what many of her patients want it is always – with a long self-pitying sigh: “To be twenty years younger,” or advice: “Don’t ever get old.”
She has been seeing old people and hearing their laments. Her own father, she says, who is only in his 60s, is already heading for the ash heap. He has no interest in going, in doing, and perhaps in being. Maybe he simply doesn’t know how. Maybe this young physiotherapist has more to teach than body-healing exercise.
She told me she had never heard this approach to aging before. She has never heard anyone tell her that people like Shirley look forward, not to a sedentary life, but to more going and doing and being – more traveling, walking the streets of strange cities, seeing new sights, reading new books, enjoying big fat books of Sunday Times crossword puzzles. (By the way, has anyone visited “Cricklers.” Log on. It’s better than television.)
She is completely surprised. She wishes she could have more of this for many of her older patients. Then she had to leave and as she left she said: “You’re young at heart.” I said: “That’s an ageist comment. My heart is not young. It is the same age as the creaking. aching rest of me. What you have just said is that somehow you can only enjoy life if you are young, or persuade yourself that you feel young. I hate all the platitudes like: “Age is just a state of mind,” The hell it is! The fact is that ageism prevails among the elderly because they don’t know how to square getting older with continuing to enjoy life. I am also getting a little tired of all those ads promoting “assisted living” where people who are descending into their so-called “Golden Years” can still be active, even if it is just semi-somnolent exercise and wheelchair athletics. I am not against “retirement living” but first everyone should try adventurous living. If not adventurous, at least more than the sedentary resignation that seems to come with aging. By this I don’t mean you have to go sky-diving for your 90th birthday.
She was startled by my words. But I meant them. For them (the rising generation) to share our lives they have to learn understand us. We also have to learn to understand ourselves. There is a huge gap, an abyss that separates us from the young. It is real and I for one don’t regret it. I have things to do and places to go, and “miles to walk….”
P.S. I told Shirley about writing this piece. I told her I also thought that unconsciously she was willing herself to walk without assistance so that we can get our lives back.
“It has been only two weeks and you’re walking.”
“She was walking the day after the surgery.”
“But this is unusual for anyone who had had a hip replacement, especially for a woman who is over 80.”
“Well that’s the secret of being old.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when you get older you can expect to have aches and pains. You can choose to crawl into bed and hope it will all get better. It rarely does. All you get is older. Then there is the futility and frustration of thinking magically you will wake up and be thirty years younger.
This was more or less the conversation I had with a wide-eyed twenty-something, a physiotherapist who works with many cranky elderly people who moan about getting older and letting it turn them inwards. She says she has never come across anyone like Shirley. I assure her that we have many friends who are as old as we are, and they work and play through whatever pains and slowing down occurs naturally, One thing we, and most of them do not do, is complain about getting older. She tells me that if she asks what many of her patients want it is always – with a long self-pitying sigh: “To be twenty years younger,” or advice: “Don’t ever get old.”
She has been seeing old people and hearing their laments. Her own father, she says, who is only in his 60s, is already heading for the ash heap. He has no interest in going, in doing, and perhaps in being. Maybe he simply doesn’t know how. Maybe this young physiotherapist has more to teach than body-healing exercise.
She told me she had never heard this approach to aging before. She has never heard anyone tell her that people like Shirley look forward, not to a sedentary life, but to more going and doing and being – more traveling, walking the streets of strange cities, seeing new sights, reading new books, enjoying big fat books of Sunday Times crossword puzzles. (By the way, has anyone visited “Cricklers.” Log on. It’s better than television.)
She is completely surprised. She wishes she could have more of this for many of her older patients. Then she had to leave and as she left she said: “You’re young at heart.” I said: “That’s an ageist comment. My heart is not young. It is the same age as the creaking. aching rest of me. What you have just said is that somehow you can only enjoy life if you are young, or persuade yourself that you feel young. I hate all the platitudes like: “Age is just a state of mind,” The hell it is! The fact is that ageism prevails among the elderly because they don’t know how to square getting older with continuing to enjoy life. I am also getting a little tired of all those ads promoting “assisted living” where people who are descending into their so-called “Golden Years” can still be active, even if it is just semi-somnolent exercise and wheelchair athletics. I am not against “retirement living” but first everyone should try adventurous living. If not adventurous, at least more than the sedentary resignation that seems to come with aging. By this I don’t mean you have to go sky-diving for your 90th birthday.
She was startled by my words. But I meant them. For them (the rising generation) to share our lives they have to learn understand us. We also have to learn to understand ourselves. There is a huge gap, an abyss that separates us from the young. It is real and I for one don’t regret it. I have things to do and places to go, and “miles to walk….”
P.S. I told Shirley about writing this piece. I told her I also thought that unconsciously she was willing herself to walk without assistance so that we can get our lives back.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
LOOKING BACKWARD
There is always going to be a yearning for the past. I know, this blog is supposed to be about “Looking Ahead” and not wallowing in what used to be. This is not just a lament for what used to be – it is a warning that we are becoming something I don’t think we should become: a timid copy of someone else.
I remember doing a program on my old radio talk show about pronunciations. I wondered (as I still do today) how much Canadians seem ready to replace our speech with more popular Americanisms. I started simply. A question: do you pronounce the final letter of the alphabet “zed” or “zee.” I was astonished ant the number who responded with “zee.” I felt then, and I still do, that our identity as Canadians rests on some pretty shaky foundations. The principal problem is that there are thousands of Canadians who would rather be American; who would rather identify with the majority culture; would want to sound less parochial and more “with it.” (The exception of course is French-Canada, where they are passionate about their own special culture, and fight against having it diluted by the presence of the world’s biggest economy.
I come down on the side of the Quebecois, except for the fact that in “protecting” their culture, they seem determined to eliminate the competition. I would prefer to have the competition and to survive in spite of it.
It’s a battle we are losing. I have lamented before, not that I am opposed to progress, but that the source of much learning seems to come from media, which is this country (the English-speaking part) is American. The songs are American. The movies are American. And most of TV is American. So the urge to sound like them translates in Canadian TV announcers talking about the “pre-meer” of a new TV show. (Soon we’ll start calling the head of our provincial government “pre-meer.”) I think it’s because thousands of people never heard the word pronounced until they heard it on TV – which would be American TV. I also do not know where America has derived some of its pronunciations and syntax. I have carped about this before, and this time it is all in the interests of preserving what is still uniquely Canadian. I would not go back to early Anglo-centric schooldays when we were taught to pronounce “clerk” as “clark.” But in that long-gone learning time my English teachers were adamant that people “lie,” and hens “lay.” Canadians now say “I was laying down.” Saying it makes it right, unless you want to have something to preserve.
The Brits are perhaps even more idiosyncratic in their pronunciations. Why they pronounce the city “Los-Ange-lees” is beyond me. Why does “Jag-war becomes “jag-you-ar.
They won’t change it because it is neither right nor wrong; it is “them.”
So what I want to do is preserve what is “us.” Watching our CBC TV evening news a few nights ago I heard the male news-reader refer to “thuh urge.” Americans, rightly or wrongly, do not use what we grew up using: “the” pronounced “thee” when it precedes a vowel. I think that habit kind of crept up on the Americans. It sounds more like something that comes from the inner city not from schools. But I can’t object. If that’s what they want – good for them. But I don’t think they should be exporting it as the definitive way to speak the language.
I still want to be Canadian, and to use the English language the way Canadians do. We have so little to set us apart, it is a shame to see what is left withering because of indifference.
And if that is “looking backward” I do not apologize.
I remember doing a program on my old radio talk show about pronunciations. I wondered (as I still do today) how much Canadians seem ready to replace our speech with more popular Americanisms. I started simply. A question: do you pronounce the final letter of the alphabet “zed” or “zee.” I was astonished ant the number who responded with “zee.” I felt then, and I still do, that our identity as Canadians rests on some pretty shaky foundations. The principal problem is that there are thousands of Canadians who would rather be American; who would rather identify with the majority culture; would want to sound less parochial and more “with it.” (The exception of course is French-Canada, where they are passionate about their own special culture, and fight against having it diluted by the presence of the world’s biggest economy.
I come down on the side of the Quebecois, except for the fact that in “protecting” their culture, they seem determined to eliminate the competition. I would prefer to have the competition and to survive in spite of it.
It’s a battle we are losing. I have lamented before, not that I am opposed to progress, but that the source of much learning seems to come from media, which is this country (the English-speaking part) is American. The songs are American. The movies are American. And most of TV is American. So the urge to sound like them translates in Canadian TV announcers talking about the “pre-meer” of a new TV show. (Soon we’ll start calling the head of our provincial government “pre-meer.”) I think it’s because thousands of people never heard the word pronounced until they heard it on TV – which would be American TV. I also do not know where America has derived some of its pronunciations and syntax. I have carped about this before, and this time it is all in the interests of preserving what is still uniquely Canadian. I would not go back to early Anglo-centric schooldays when we were taught to pronounce “clerk” as “clark.” But in that long-gone learning time my English teachers were adamant that people “lie,” and hens “lay.” Canadians now say “I was laying down.” Saying it makes it right, unless you want to have something to preserve.
The Brits are perhaps even more idiosyncratic in their pronunciations. Why they pronounce the city “Los-Ange-lees” is beyond me. Why does “Jag-war becomes “jag-you-ar.
They won’t change it because it is neither right nor wrong; it is “them.”
So what I want to do is preserve what is “us.” Watching our CBC TV evening news a few nights ago I heard the male news-reader refer to “thuh urge.” Americans, rightly or wrongly, do not use what we grew up using: “the” pronounced “thee” when it precedes a vowel. I think that habit kind of crept up on the Americans. It sounds more like something that comes from the inner city not from schools. But I can’t object. If that’s what they want – good for them. But I don’t think they should be exporting it as the definitive way to speak the language.
I still want to be Canadian, and to use the English language the way Canadians do. We have so little to set us apart, it is a shame to see what is left withering because of indifference.
And if that is “looking backward” I do not apologize.
Monday, March 21, 2011
VAST WASTELAND.
Three days ago I started writing this piece to praise Oprah for her thoughtfulness and innovation. I quoted Newton Minnow, former head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who said, and this was in 1960, that television was a “vast wasteland.”
After I had written all this I found room for adjustment – like the practice of not publishing the first thing you write, but “sleeping on it” before you let it out. Glad I did.
Minnow is still around. In fact he’s in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly, revisiting his old statement. He is still preaching about the obligation of broadcasters who have been given access to the public domain of the airwaves, and commenting about how much has happened in the intervening 50 years. Technology has changed. The internet now offers a wide range of choices, making the free press really free. The question of course may still be: is yesterday’s “wasteland” any worse than what we have today? Perhaps the TV of the 50s and 60s with Howdy Doody and Milton Berle was a wasteland. Even with the likes of Sid Caesar and the “Show of Shows” or the live dramatic productions. it was mass media at its ugliest. Language like “Idiot Box” defined it. But while we deplored the rise of the pervasive new medium, we were also creating Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. In Canada we were daring the medium with “This Hour Has Seven Days.” It was not all bad at all.
The other intervening factor was that I had more time to check what “OWN” - the Oprah Winfrey Network, was up to. Many of my hopes and dreams vanished.
After the first exposure I was lyrical. Here’s what I wrote then.
If Minnow were around today to see the arrival of “reality” television, and of The Bachelor and Charlie Sheen, he would have a lot to say. But there has also been PBS and its attempts to bring culture and quality. For me, by and large, TV has become a place to watch the news, live baseball and hockey, sometimes a good movie, and once in a while a documentary. Lest I sound too snobbish, I can find myself wasting hours watching what can only be described as pure trash. And even some of the so-called trash once had pretension of quality. TLC (which most people still think stands for Tender Loving Care, actually was “The Learning Channel.” It was full of science and history. Today it is just another mass-market purveyor of schlock. Do you remember when a Winnipeg group of determined feminists applied for got the license to create a cable TV station that spoke to the needs of women? The “W” channel now subsists on an almost steady diet of “chick” flicks.
My first exposure to Oprah’s new network was a bright light. It was what could be, if not the re-invention of mass-market TV, at least an attempt to raise it above some of the trash. I believed that perhaps America’s richest woman had risked it all on the hope that she could bring more quality into the living rooms of North Americans. If “Master Class” was any example she is on her way. Of course we will have to put up with more Dr. Phil and a few other pop psych shows. But last night Saturday past) was a documentary about “Saturday Night Live,” or to put it more accurately, a documentary about the life of Lorne Michaels (nee Leibowitz – and I wondered why if Annie could keep the name why didn’t Lorne? I’m just carping.) Except for his remarkably inaccurate comment comparing the lack of political satire in his former country and about how Americans were not afraid of political satire. Lorne – you have been away too long. America has never produced the likes of Royal Air Farce. America, even with Tina Faye’s “take” on Sarah Plain, has not topped Luba Goy’s portrayal of The Queen, or Ferguson’s Stephen Harper. But that is another argument.
(Just a sidelight. In 1975 I interviewed Lorne on my talk show from L.A. He asked me what I thought about SNL. I told him I found it juvenile, collegiate. I was pretty pompous.)
Oprah herself cut into the show as a kind of M.C. The commercials did not overpower. I am guessing that she wants a stricter control over the amount and quality of commercials.
Following the hour with Lorne Michaels there was a show about two women who make cupcakes. Oh-oh I thought. He we go – back into the dreaded afternoon rubbish designed for the stay at home women by men who have no idea what the stay-at-home woman is really like. Turned out to be an interesting half hour as these two close friends negotiated for a space in a shopping mall while baby sitting her brother’s two squalling children. It promised nothing. It did not try to be a “reality” show. It just “was.” It was, if this is possible, an acceptable “fluff” piece.
Maybe Oprah will be able to put some quality back, and not with the usual striving toward a kind of elitism programming but being real.
Two days later and I am not so sure. The “network” is nothing more than an expansion of the Oprah Show. It seems that the daily hour has burst its own seams and needs more room. But more room for the same-old-same-old. The “feel good” pop psych stuff was back with a vengeance. Not just Dr. Phil, but a show about a woman looking for her birth mother. Then another show with a therapist dealing with a woman who hoarded everything that represented a memory of her family. There was a “real” whodunit about a murder in Hamilton. I needed more of this? More of the insecurity? More of the soul-baring angst? It was Oprah redux.
There is consolation. The only other person to make a late entry into TV is Rupert Murdoch. He has prospered. His product is abominable. Fox News is not news, it is Murdoch propaganda. To compare his lust for power to Oprah’s dedication to viewers, would be a mistake.
I may be hoping for the same brighter future I hoped for when cable TV told us there would be hundreds of new programs and more than enough quality. What happened was the big mainstream media companies took over cable, buying out struggling operators and imposing mediocrity (to make it sound better than it is) on all of us. Saddest reflection on this is that the media companies who made all those promises would come back a year later with hat-in-hand and ask for permission to make some changes because the station was losing money. Strange, the CRTC is supposed to examine the pro forma submitted with the application and make a decision based on economic viability. The schemes of the wealthy media moguls win every time.
But back to “OWN.” Having sunk millions into her latest venture, has Oprah finally over-stepped? She is not the same Oprah who arrived on the scene with what I remember as a radical feminist position and the ability to make women feel better about themselves. I seems to me that she has run out of ideas. I hope I am wrong.
After I had written all this I found room for adjustment – like the practice of not publishing the first thing you write, but “sleeping on it” before you let it out. Glad I did.
Minnow is still around. In fact he’s in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly, revisiting his old statement. He is still preaching about the obligation of broadcasters who have been given access to the public domain of the airwaves, and commenting about how much has happened in the intervening 50 years. Technology has changed. The internet now offers a wide range of choices, making the free press really free. The question of course may still be: is yesterday’s “wasteland” any worse than what we have today? Perhaps the TV of the 50s and 60s with Howdy Doody and Milton Berle was a wasteland. Even with the likes of Sid Caesar and the “Show of Shows” or the live dramatic productions. it was mass media at its ugliest. Language like “Idiot Box” defined it. But while we deplored the rise of the pervasive new medium, we were also creating Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. In Canada we were daring the medium with “This Hour Has Seven Days.” It was not all bad at all.
The other intervening factor was that I had more time to check what “OWN” - the Oprah Winfrey Network, was up to. Many of my hopes and dreams vanished.
After the first exposure I was lyrical. Here’s what I wrote then.
If Minnow were around today to see the arrival of “reality” television, and of The Bachelor and Charlie Sheen, he would have a lot to say. But there has also been PBS and its attempts to bring culture and quality. For me, by and large, TV has become a place to watch the news, live baseball and hockey, sometimes a good movie, and once in a while a documentary. Lest I sound too snobbish, I can find myself wasting hours watching what can only be described as pure trash. And even some of the so-called trash once had pretension of quality. TLC (which most people still think stands for Tender Loving Care, actually was “The Learning Channel.” It was full of science and history. Today it is just another mass-market purveyor of schlock. Do you remember when a Winnipeg group of determined feminists applied for got the license to create a cable TV station that spoke to the needs of women? The “W” channel now subsists on an almost steady diet of “chick” flicks.
My first exposure to Oprah’s new network was a bright light. It was what could be, if not the re-invention of mass-market TV, at least an attempt to raise it above some of the trash. I believed that perhaps America’s richest woman had risked it all on the hope that she could bring more quality into the living rooms of North Americans. If “Master Class” was any example she is on her way. Of course we will have to put up with more Dr. Phil and a few other pop psych shows. But last night Saturday past) was a documentary about “Saturday Night Live,” or to put it more accurately, a documentary about the life of Lorne Michaels (nee Leibowitz – and I wondered why if Annie could keep the name why didn’t Lorne? I’m just carping.) Except for his remarkably inaccurate comment comparing the lack of political satire in his former country and about how Americans were not afraid of political satire. Lorne – you have been away too long. America has never produced the likes of Royal Air Farce. America, even with Tina Faye’s “take” on Sarah Plain, has not topped Luba Goy’s portrayal of The Queen, or Ferguson’s Stephen Harper. But that is another argument.
(Just a sidelight. In 1975 I interviewed Lorne on my talk show from L.A. He asked me what I thought about SNL. I told him I found it juvenile, collegiate. I was pretty pompous.)
Oprah herself cut into the show as a kind of M.C. The commercials did not overpower. I am guessing that she wants a stricter control over the amount and quality of commercials.
Following the hour with Lorne Michaels there was a show about two women who make cupcakes. Oh-oh I thought. He we go – back into the dreaded afternoon rubbish designed for the stay at home women by men who have no idea what the stay-at-home woman is really like. Turned out to be an interesting half hour as these two close friends negotiated for a space in a shopping mall while baby sitting her brother’s two squalling children. It promised nothing. It did not try to be a “reality” show. It just “was.” It was, if this is possible, an acceptable “fluff” piece.
Maybe Oprah will be able to put some quality back, and not with the usual striving toward a kind of elitism programming but being real.
Two days later and I am not so sure. The “network” is nothing more than an expansion of the Oprah Show. It seems that the daily hour has burst its own seams and needs more room. But more room for the same-old-same-old. The “feel good” pop psych stuff was back with a vengeance. Not just Dr. Phil, but a show about a woman looking for her birth mother. Then another show with a therapist dealing with a woman who hoarded everything that represented a memory of her family. There was a “real” whodunit about a murder in Hamilton. I needed more of this? More of the insecurity? More of the soul-baring angst? It was Oprah redux.
There is consolation. The only other person to make a late entry into TV is Rupert Murdoch. He has prospered. His product is abominable. Fox News is not news, it is Murdoch propaganda. To compare his lust for power to Oprah’s dedication to viewers, would be a mistake.
I may be hoping for the same brighter future I hoped for when cable TV told us there would be hundreds of new programs and more than enough quality. What happened was the big mainstream media companies took over cable, buying out struggling operators and imposing mediocrity (to make it sound better than it is) on all of us. Saddest reflection on this is that the media companies who made all those promises would come back a year later with hat-in-hand and ask for permission to make some changes because the station was losing money. Strange, the CRTC is supposed to examine the pro forma submitted with the application and make a decision based on economic viability. The schemes of the wealthy media moguls win every time.
But back to “OWN.” Having sunk millions into her latest venture, has Oprah finally over-stepped? She is not the same Oprah who arrived on the scene with what I remember as a radical feminist position and the ability to make women feel better about themselves. I seems to me that she has run out of ideas. I hope I am wrong.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
NEGATIVE ADS TAR ALL POLITICIANS
“Ignatieff – he didn’t come back for you.” A current Tory ad heaps poisonous invective on Michael Ignatieff. Once things really get going there will be smear commercials in all directions, from all parties. You can’t legislate against negative campaign advertising. You can't make it stop. The great manipulators like Karl Rove have turned campaign advertising into an art form. Hit ‘em hard. Hit ‘em often. Dredge up whatever gossip you can. Tar your opponents with the brushes of deceit, disgrace, and evil. The Left hammers at the Right calling them friends of big business and Wall street. The Right hammers back calling the Left “tax and spend” or held captive by Big Labour. Very little of what is said is totally wrong – it is taken out of context and misused.
Some go even farther. Rove may have been the inventor of “push” polling. This is about as sinister as it gets. My favourite (if that word can be used to describe a tactic so disgusting) was his use of phone push-polling during the 2000 Republican Presidential primaries. McCain had won – I think - New Hampshire. The next big test was South Carolina. Bush had to win. Rove struck, South Carolinians got survey questions on the phone like” “If you believed that McCain had fathered a child illegitimately with a black woman, would it matter to your vote?” Another big Rove question during the run for Governor in Texas. “If you heard that Ann Richards (The incumbent Democratic governor) was a lesbian – would that affect your vote?”
All’s fair…etc. But beyond the sleaze, there is another reality. My son and I were talking about it the other day. He made the point that negative advertising, no matter who it attacks, helps persuade the voters that all politicians are not to be trusted. The negative ad guys get hoist on their own petard.
Several years ago, on my boat, where I had always been the epitome of hospitable welcome, I was at the helm. Sitting next to me a man and a woman, guests of a friend of mine, were in a heavy-duty discussion about politics. It was after the Ontario election (where I ran unsuccessfully) and they carried on in a way we have come to accept as typical. “All politicians are out for what they can get,” “Yeah - they tell us one thing just to get elected then they don't deliver.” “Yeah, you can’t trust them. They’re all in it for what they can get out of it for themselves.”
The conversation went on for a few minutes as these two experts tore politics and politicians to shreds. I couldn’t bear another second. I never did this to guests but I exploded. “Do you have any idea why people run for office? Do you know how hard we have to work and give up everything just to win an election? Do you know that five people may run in one riding and four go home disappointed. I suggest you try running sometime and see how you feel!” Phew.
They were flabbergasted and embarrassed. But they were talking the way so many voters talk. We have ourselves to blame. The continuing barrage of negative advertising has created an atmosphere that supports the prejudices of many voters. Politicians are held in low esteem.
It is almost axiomatic as well that some time after a once wildly popular politician is elected, people campaign for his fall. Pericles created the Golden Age of Greece. After a few years the citizens of Athens were reviling him.
It takes a lot of nerve, not to mention money, and continuing absence from your job to run in an election. John Kennedy called politics the greatest calling of them all. No one really listened and only his tragic death saved him from the inevitable ignominy that follows success. (In fact the body was hardly cold when the gossip about his sexual behaviour became water-cooler conversation.)
It’s a tough life. If you lose you get nothing. If you win – sometimes it’s even worse.
Some go even farther. Rove may have been the inventor of “push” polling. This is about as sinister as it gets. My favourite (if that word can be used to describe a tactic so disgusting) was his use of phone push-polling during the 2000 Republican Presidential primaries. McCain had won – I think - New Hampshire. The next big test was South Carolina. Bush had to win. Rove struck, South Carolinians got survey questions on the phone like” “If you believed that McCain had fathered a child illegitimately with a black woman, would it matter to your vote?” Another big Rove question during the run for Governor in Texas. “If you heard that Ann Richards (The incumbent Democratic governor) was a lesbian – would that affect your vote?”
All’s fair…etc. But beyond the sleaze, there is another reality. My son and I were talking about it the other day. He made the point that negative advertising, no matter who it attacks, helps persuade the voters that all politicians are not to be trusted. The negative ad guys get hoist on their own petard.
Several years ago, on my boat, where I had always been the epitome of hospitable welcome, I was at the helm. Sitting next to me a man and a woman, guests of a friend of mine, were in a heavy-duty discussion about politics. It was after the Ontario election (where I ran unsuccessfully) and they carried on in a way we have come to accept as typical. “All politicians are out for what they can get,” “Yeah - they tell us one thing just to get elected then they don't deliver.” “Yeah, you can’t trust them. They’re all in it for what they can get out of it for themselves.”
The conversation went on for a few minutes as these two experts tore politics and politicians to shreds. I couldn’t bear another second. I never did this to guests but I exploded. “Do you have any idea why people run for office? Do you know how hard we have to work and give up everything just to win an election? Do you know that five people may run in one riding and four go home disappointed. I suggest you try running sometime and see how you feel!” Phew.
They were flabbergasted and embarrassed. But they were talking the way so many voters talk. We have ourselves to blame. The continuing barrage of negative advertising has created an atmosphere that supports the prejudices of many voters. Politicians are held in low esteem.
It is almost axiomatic as well that some time after a once wildly popular politician is elected, people campaign for his fall. Pericles created the Golden Age of Greece. After a few years the citizens of Athens were reviling him.
It takes a lot of nerve, not to mention money, and continuing absence from your job to run in an election. John Kennedy called politics the greatest calling of them all. No one really listened and only his tragic death saved him from the inevitable ignominy that follows success. (In fact the body was hardly cold when the gossip about his sexual behaviour became water-cooler conversation.)
It’s a tough life. If you lose you get nothing. If you win – sometimes it’s even worse.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
WILL TEACHERS BE THE TARGET AGAIN?
Sometimes populist politics (translation: good old boys know better than damned left-wing politicians) can get in the way of reasonable and accurate debate. Mike Harris was, regardless of what you think of him, a great tactician. He knew the buttons to press to win votes. He attacked the most vulnerable which made him the people’s choice. In Toronto, our new mayor has risen to the top with his tireless repetition of the word “taxpayer.”
Just a few weeks ago, in his rather limp State of The Union address President Obama urged more people to become teachers. It’s a fair-to-middling populist issue because everyone seems to recognize that the race for technological success begins with a good education, so they pay it lip service – until it starts to cost money. America has struggled with the issue of a “good” education for years. There is a constant struggle between the Federal government and the States – the latter believing that education is their bailiwick. So what has resulted is a hodge-podge of testing that means nothing, merit-based promotions, charter schools, and even school vouchers. What is missing there, and perhaps here in Ontario as we welcome the coming of a new government come the Fall election, is the political will to make education a high priority, not just pious talk about it being a priority.
In today’s Times (March 16th) a very good piece about education. This one excerpt sums it up for me: ““Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”
If all that sounds familiar, it should. Teachers make a wonderful target for the “taxpayer” who believes (always) that he/she is getting a raw deal from the damned government. The added comment often is that people who won’t work and live in luxury on welfare are sucking up taxpayer money. Next come the teachers who are not only protected by union agreements so that it becomes almost impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, to the notion (as in the Times article) that they have it easy: short hours, long holidays and good money. That is usually followed by something like: “Let them get into the real world where I work and see what a real day’s work is all about.” I know – it sounds absurd, but it seduces voters. Any politician who takes that route seems to be hailed as a hero fighting for the rights of ordinary “hard-working” people.
The trick is transparent: praise the “ordinary” voter and blast the elite. It simply works.
Just a few weeks ago, in his rather limp State of The Union address President Obama urged more people to become teachers. It’s a fair-to-middling populist issue because everyone seems to recognize that the race for technological success begins with a good education, so they pay it lip service – until it starts to cost money. America has struggled with the issue of a “good” education for years. There is a constant struggle between the Federal government and the States – the latter believing that education is their bailiwick. So what has resulted is a hodge-podge of testing that means nothing, merit-based promotions, charter schools, and even school vouchers. What is missing there, and perhaps here in Ontario as we welcome the coming of a new government come the Fall election, is the political will to make education a high priority, not just pious talk about it being a priority.
In today’s Times (March 16th) a very good piece about education. This one excerpt sums it up for me: ““Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”
If all that sounds familiar, it should. Teachers make a wonderful target for the “taxpayer” who believes (always) that he/she is getting a raw deal from the damned government. The added comment often is that people who won’t work and live in luxury on welfare are sucking up taxpayer money. Next come the teachers who are not only protected by union agreements so that it becomes almost impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, to the notion (as in the Times article) that they have it easy: short hours, long holidays and good money. That is usually followed by something like: “Let them get into the real world where I work and see what a real day’s work is all about.” I know – it sounds absurd, but it seduces voters. Any politician who takes that route seems to be hailed as a hero fighting for the rights of ordinary “hard-working” people.
The trick is transparent: praise the “ordinary” voter and blast the elite. It simply works.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
HOMO THE SAP
When I was doing news features at the CBC my executive producer pronounced that “war is good for business.” I staggered back. Where did this Neanderthal piece of economics come from? It is true that there always was a notion that the depression came to an end when we went to war. There were jobs for everyone. Business, even with rationing and price controls, was booming.
Back in the middle 40s a UofT professor named Morgan (I don’t remember what faculty or even his first name) wrote a piece called “Homo the Sap.” It was all about that precious notion that war brings prosperity. He torpedoed the idea. You need only look at the state of the British economy in 1945. Britain had not even paid of it’s debt from the firth world war. The only country that seemed to prosper was America, which was the arsenal of democracy and which managed to become the world’s leading economic power as a result of WW2.
Quick jump to the last few days. Japan is suffering more from social and economic dislocation than any country since the war. They will be looking at billions, maybe more, in rebuilding costs. However, it occurred to me that there was a benefit to come from all that misery: reconstruction. I thought it was a bit callous of me to write it until, watching the Lang-O’Leary report on CBC News I heard O’Leary say, as everyone knew he would, that the catastrophic events of the last few days do have a silver lining. Billions will be spent to build new cities and create new better infrastructure. It will be the ultimate “stimulus” campaign that will dwarf the half-hearted stimulus that first Bush (to bail out the banks) then Obama (to bail out the whole country) put into motion. The only problem with the program was that it was stopped before it could get the job done. But that is a question to be debated later.
I think O’Leary is right. The Japanese, who are among the world's great savers, have a gargantuan task ahead of them. The must rebuild an entire section of the country north of Tokyo.
Professor Morgan might have said that we were being truly “Homo the Sap” to believe that prosperity can grow from this chaos. The difference is that when the money is spent there will be something to show for it. There will be new buildings, houses, roads, whole cities. In war, the money is spent of stuff that gets blown to smithereens or become useless in time of peace.
Not so for Japan. They are about to embark on a rebuilding program the likes of which we have not seen since the Marshall Plan rebuilt from the ruins of Europe.
I never though I’d agree with O’Leary. As for Professor Morgan, he said war was not an economic growth machine. It wasted resources. It bankrupted economies. Strange, what seemed to me at the time to be a seminal piece o work could not be tracked down. I tried to Google every possible name and book title. Nothing came up. Sic transit gloria mundi!
Back in the middle 40s a UofT professor named Morgan (I don’t remember what faculty or even his first name) wrote a piece called “Homo the Sap.” It was all about that precious notion that war brings prosperity. He torpedoed the idea. You need only look at the state of the British economy in 1945. Britain had not even paid of it’s debt from the firth world war. The only country that seemed to prosper was America, which was the arsenal of democracy and which managed to become the world’s leading economic power as a result of WW2.
Quick jump to the last few days. Japan is suffering more from social and economic dislocation than any country since the war. They will be looking at billions, maybe more, in rebuilding costs. However, it occurred to me that there was a benefit to come from all that misery: reconstruction. I thought it was a bit callous of me to write it until, watching the Lang-O’Leary report on CBC News I heard O’Leary say, as everyone knew he would, that the catastrophic events of the last few days do have a silver lining. Billions will be spent to build new cities and create new better infrastructure. It will be the ultimate “stimulus” campaign that will dwarf the half-hearted stimulus that first Bush (to bail out the banks) then Obama (to bail out the whole country) put into motion. The only problem with the program was that it was stopped before it could get the job done. But that is a question to be debated later.
I think O’Leary is right. The Japanese, who are among the world's great savers, have a gargantuan task ahead of them. The must rebuild an entire section of the country north of Tokyo.
Professor Morgan might have said that we were being truly “Homo the Sap” to believe that prosperity can grow from this chaos. The difference is that when the money is spent there will be something to show for it. There will be new buildings, houses, roads, whole cities. In war, the money is spent of stuff that gets blown to smithereens or become useless in time of peace.
Not so for Japan. They are about to embark on a rebuilding program the likes of which we have not seen since the Marshall Plan rebuilt from the ruins of Europe.
I never though I’d agree with O’Leary. As for Professor Morgan, he said war was not an economic growth machine. It wasted resources. It bankrupted economies. Strange, what seemed to me at the time to be a seminal piece o work could not be tracked down. I tried to Google every possible name and book title. Nothing came up. Sic transit gloria mundi!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
I FIND MYSELF CARING ABOUT -= WHAT???
He is standing over a putt of about 6 feet. The commentator speaks: “He needs this birdie putt to help get his confidence back.” Everyone is a psychological authority. Everyone has an opinion. My favourite golf writer opines that his problem is not with his swing. It’s in his head. The golf world is “all Tiger all the time.” And I, not a huge gold fan, find myself caring. Why?
I often wish that I had some decent grounding in the workings of the mind. I can only be an armchair psychologist at best. Perhaps I have had a lot of experience listening to people talk and trying to understand why they say what they do. I did it for a living for many years. But Tiger has me buffaloed. He’s the greatest golfer of all time, although some would still argue that that label belongs to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, or Jack Nicklaus. But no one brought more charisma to the game. No one in the past was able to raise the ratings for golf on TV to the heights that Tiger has. And no one has ever fallen so far.
The commentator who said:”He has to sink that putt to regain some of his confidence” is dead wrong. Tiger’s demise is not about confidence because all he would need to fix that is to tweak his swing and make it the deadly weapon it once was.
Whether we were golf fans or not, we marveled at his virtuosity. I remember him as a five year old appearing, with his doting (did he dote too much?) father on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Many of us remember his as an amateur playing out of Stanford University. My most vivid memory was his monumental win at his first Master’s as a pro. He simply ran away from the rest of the field. I could look it up I suppose to be certain of the number. I think he won it by something prodigious, like 12 strokes. The golf world became Tiger’s and the fight was on to see who would come in second. He was beyond human. I was not fond of his theatrics, either when he sank a big putt and pumped his arm, or when he missed something he alone should always sink and cursed, not always under his breath. He was, as the poets say, the cynosure of all eyes.
His “confidence” left him the day he was publicly shamed. His hubris could not survive the fall. He needed adoration and adulation. He gets it now, but more out of sympathy for his fall from lofty heights. He has become something that does not suit his personality: an underdog.
I watched him today. Under par but still about ten strokes off the lead. I know what’s missing. It’s the headlong pursuit of excellence and the spoils of war that go with that excellence. I watched him and realized that there is, to borrow from Gertrude Stein, “No there there.” He has no focus because all his focus was derived from being idolized. His success bred material success. It bred a magnetic attraction to and from women, many of them unattainable except to the elite. His wife was a picture of the front page of “Elle: magazine. She was a trophy. He needed trophies. His choices sexually were indiscriminate and promiscuous. But the fact was that whatever wanted he could get made him larger than life. So his swing prospered along with his swinging life style.
I think that if Tiger is ever to become the unconquerable hero of golf again, He will have to forget all the nonsense about humility and sexual temperance. He has to go back to taking what he has coming to him. He has to go back to deserving cheers and sexual prowess. Never mind all that rubbish about treatment for “sexual addiction.” He is and will always be a narcissist. That is where his talent rises. That is where his need for constant self-gratification originates. Once he understands that he can’t be what people think he should be, and rediscovers the child of fortune that he deserves to be – he’ll get his confidence back He’ll be what every 20 handicap hacker would like to be. Get back to being an idol, - in his own mind.
In a world where so many people enjoy heroes falling off pedestals, there is little hope that Tiger can truly be himself again. He has been told he has to be ashamed. It doesn’t fit.
I often wish that I had some decent grounding in the workings of the mind. I can only be an armchair psychologist at best. Perhaps I have had a lot of experience listening to people talk and trying to understand why they say what they do. I did it for a living for many years. But Tiger has me buffaloed. He’s the greatest golfer of all time, although some would still argue that that label belongs to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, or Jack Nicklaus. But no one brought more charisma to the game. No one in the past was able to raise the ratings for golf on TV to the heights that Tiger has. And no one has ever fallen so far.
The commentator who said:”He has to sink that putt to regain some of his confidence” is dead wrong. Tiger’s demise is not about confidence because all he would need to fix that is to tweak his swing and make it the deadly weapon it once was.
Whether we were golf fans or not, we marveled at his virtuosity. I remember him as a five year old appearing, with his doting (did he dote too much?) father on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Many of us remember his as an amateur playing out of Stanford University. My most vivid memory was his monumental win at his first Master’s as a pro. He simply ran away from the rest of the field. I could look it up I suppose to be certain of the number. I think he won it by something prodigious, like 12 strokes. The golf world became Tiger’s and the fight was on to see who would come in second. He was beyond human. I was not fond of his theatrics, either when he sank a big putt and pumped his arm, or when he missed something he alone should always sink and cursed, not always under his breath. He was, as the poets say, the cynosure of all eyes.
His “confidence” left him the day he was publicly shamed. His hubris could not survive the fall. He needed adoration and adulation. He gets it now, but more out of sympathy for his fall from lofty heights. He has become something that does not suit his personality: an underdog.
I watched him today. Under par but still about ten strokes off the lead. I know what’s missing. It’s the headlong pursuit of excellence and the spoils of war that go with that excellence. I watched him and realized that there is, to borrow from Gertrude Stein, “No there there.” He has no focus because all his focus was derived from being idolized. His success bred material success. It bred a magnetic attraction to and from women, many of them unattainable except to the elite. His wife was a picture of the front page of “Elle: magazine. She was a trophy. He needed trophies. His choices sexually were indiscriminate and promiscuous. But the fact was that whatever wanted he could get made him larger than life. So his swing prospered along with his swinging life style.
I think that if Tiger is ever to become the unconquerable hero of golf again, He will have to forget all the nonsense about humility and sexual temperance. He has to go back to taking what he has coming to him. He has to go back to deserving cheers and sexual prowess. Never mind all that rubbish about treatment for “sexual addiction.” He is and will always be a narcissist. That is where his talent rises. That is where his need for constant self-gratification originates. Once he understands that he can’t be what people think he should be, and rediscovers the child of fortune that he deserves to be – he’ll get his confidence back He’ll be what every 20 handicap hacker would like to be. Get back to being an idol, - in his own mind.
In a world where so many people enjoy heroes falling off pedestals, there is little hope that Tiger can truly be himself again. He has been told he has to be ashamed. It doesn’t fit.
Friday, March 11, 2011
MURDER INC.
The Federal government has weighed in on the rise of violence in our national sport. Columnists everywhere seem to be roused from their deep slumber over Don Cherry’s
”Canadian game” played by good old boys from little hamlets across the country – and all that other hype and mythology. Hockey is hockey. And the N.H.L is an organized business that sells hockey. It’s as simple as that.
But amidst all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth is finally perhaps, some recognition that the game has gotten out of hand. (I hate the word “gotten.”)
Zdeno Chara.is a huge defenseman. He is a lot more than an oversized goon. He is a good hockey player. But he as been hired for his size and his daunting presence – first by Ottawa and now by Boston. We have to be naive not to believe that someone must be telling him to go out there and get aggressive. His skills as a hockey player should allow him to make his presence felt without resorting to maiming his opponents. It was only a few weeks ago when he took Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski into the boards, not once but twice. Grabovski staggered to his feet, fell once, then his head still reeling, stumbled off the ice. Chara slammed him into the boards far more viciously than would be required simply to take him out of the play.
Now the arguments are flying as fans, writers, and hockey executives look at the result of another Chara bomb, this time on Montreal Canadiens’ Max Pacioretty. The question seems to be: did he deliberately try to injure? When you are Chara’s size you don’t have to be deliberate, you just have to be there. It was unfortunate some might say, that his heavy boarding body check was made worse by coincidence not by intent. The Montreal player was skating along the boards by the player’s bench. He was hit just at the point where the bench ends and a stanchion supporting the glass is set. He went into that stanchion head first. He collapsed in a heap, out of hockey for the season, perhaps for life.
Hockey is a slam-bang game. But so is basketball. If the body contact that is permitted in hockey were to happen in basketball, the offending player would be heavily penalized and perhaps suspended. But basketball is a game of balletic skills. Hockey should be, but it is not. The league debates “head shots” but only after the best player in hockey, Sidney Crosby, was put out of action for the season with a concussion.
No one wants to tamper with the game and its speed or its body contact. But the most recent acts of hooliganism (sanctioned by the league) demonstrate finally, that the sport has become explicitly too violent. The hits are too aggressive. The contact is designed to injure.
It must stop. Hockey may be the last major spectator sport to become civilized, but the time has come. I know, Don Cherry would probably call me a bleeding heart left winger who wants to destroy the essential character of the game. But I even have to give Cherry his due. For years he has campaigned fruitlessly to have the league call ”icing” the instant the puck crosses the red line instead of waiting until a player has touched it. The player who is first on the puck is rewarded with a crushing and totally unnecessary blow into the boards.
I’m a fan. I go back to Syl Apps and Gordie Drillon. I’ve seen fights. But there has never been such a dramatic increase in the level of speed and physical condition. I remember Howie Meeker preaching to “finish your check.” What he meant was that while of course you had to bring the body in when checking someone who has the puck, but what Meeker was talking about was that second or two after a player has released the puck, you have to crash into him, to take him out of the play. There was even more of that before the league put in rules about interference. You couldn’t apply the body to someone who did not have the puck, nor could you wait and crash the original puck carrier. Most of the violence I have seen has been the attack that follows a player releasing the puck. The Chara bodycheck looks to me as if he was simply trying to take the Montreal player out of the game. He sure did.
Someone is going to be killed. The game deserves better.
”Canadian game” played by good old boys from little hamlets across the country – and all that other hype and mythology. Hockey is hockey. And the N.H.L is an organized business that sells hockey. It’s as simple as that.
But amidst all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth is finally perhaps, some recognition that the game has gotten out of hand. (I hate the word “gotten.”)
Zdeno Chara.is a huge defenseman. He is a lot more than an oversized goon. He is a good hockey player. But he as been hired for his size and his daunting presence – first by Ottawa and now by Boston. We have to be naive not to believe that someone must be telling him to go out there and get aggressive. His skills as a hockey player should allow him to make his presence felt without resorting to maiming his opponents. It was only a few weeks ago when he took Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski into the boards, not once but twice. Grabovski staggered to his feet, fell once, then his head still reeling, stumbled off the ice. Chara slammed him into the boards far more viciously than would be required simply to take him out of the play.
Now the arguments are flying as fans, writers, and hockey executives look at the result of another Chara bomb, this time on Montreal Canadiens’ Max Pacioretty. The question seems to be: did he deliberately try to injure? When you are Chara’s size you don’t have to be deliberate, you just have to be there. It was unfortunate some might say, that his heavy boarding body check was made worse by coincidence not by intent. The Montreal player was skating along the boards by the player’s bench. He was hit just at the point where the bench ends and a stanchion supporting the glass is set. He went into that stanchion head first. He collapsed in a heap, out of hockey for the season, perhaps for life.
Hockey is a slam-bang game. But so is basketball. If the body contact that is permitted in hockey were to happen in basketball, the offending player would be heavily penalized and perhaps suspended. But basketball is a game of balletic skills. Hockey should be, but it is not. The league debates “head shots” but only after the best player in hockey, Sidney Crosby, was put out of action for the season with a concussion.
No one wants to tamper with the game and its speed or its body contact. But the most recent acts of hooliganism (sanctioned by the league) demonstrate finally, that the sport has become explicitly too violent. The hits are too aggressive. The contact is designed to injure.
It must stop. Hockey may be the last major spectator sport to become civilized, but the time has come. I know, Don Cherry would probably call me a bleeding heart left winger who wants to destroy the essential character of the game. But I even have to give Cherry his due. For years he has campaigned fruitlessly to have the league call ”icing” the instant the puck crosses the red line instead of waiting until a player has touched it. The player who is first on the puck is rewarded with a crushing and totally unnecessary blow into the boards.
I’m a fan. I go back to Syl Apps and Gordie Drillon. I’ve seen fights. But there has never been such a dramatic increase in the level of speed and physical condition. I remember Howie Meeker preaching to “finish your check.” What he meant was that while of course you had to bring the body in when checking someone who has the puck, but what Meeker was talking about was that second or two after a player has released the puck, you have to crash into him, to take him out of the play. There was even more of that before the league put in rules about interference. You couldn’t apply the body to someone who did not have the puck, nor could you wait and crash the original puck carrier. Most of the violence I have seen has been the attack that follows a player releasing the puck. The Chara bodycheck looks to me as if he was simply trying to take the Montreal player out of the game. He sure did.
Someone is going to be killed. The game deserves better.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
A WORD TO THE TAX AVERSE
The quickest way for a politician to get whacked is to suggest, in any way, however intelligent or well-meaning, that taxes do go up. Fritz Mondale won only his home state and was soundly trounced by Reagan when he suggested that higher taxes were here to stay. Kim Campbell had the colossal nerve to suggest that there might be more taxes. She lost of course and the caucus was reduced to two members, one of them now the Liberal premier of Quebec with a rating somewhere in the dungeon below the basement. (Footnote to the Reagan era: once he was President he pushed the deficit to record highs and declared that" There is no such thing as a free ride.")
The principal aide to Toronto’s new mayor Rob Ford and architect of his victory has left the mayor’s office and will work to create a Canadian version of the tax-averse Tea Party. If it was his idea to tell the mayor that his campaign should use the word “taxpayer” as often as possible in his campaign, he deserves a medal. Not from me, but from the powers of the tax-averse right wing.
Want to be elected? Promise lower taxes. Keep making pronouncements about the “hard-working” taxpayer. Keep telling people that government has no place in their wallets. It’s all rhetoric, all rubbish, all the time. But it works. There is, in the heads of so many voters, the notion that somehow governments are feasting on their hard-earned money. For what purpose? Greed? Tax and spend. (on who?) The Tories are hanging that one on Iggy even though the poor guy has two chances in the coming Federal election: slim and none.
In America the voters have swallowed all the propaganda about the deficit and vote for the tax cutters. At the same time, in the insane world of political paradox, surveys show differently: that unemployment, not the deficit, is the country’s biggest problem.
The “hard-working taxpayers” have stopped thinking. Long ago.
If you are watching the Toronto mayor’s climb in popularity (now at 60% - and he only got 47% of the vote) you know that he continues to harp on taxes. He has already rescinded some unpopular taxes plunging the city further into debt. (All taxes are unpopular.) No one, except the chattering classes of pundits, has noticed the contradictions in his statements. It was only a few weeks ago that he deplored going to the province for money, saying that that too was taxpayer’s money. So he froze property taxes (and will increase users fees) and is going to the Province for many millions of dollars that the Province doesn’t have. He needs it for stuff like road fixing. The province is being blackmailed with the promise that if no money is forthcoming he will lead Toronto voters to vote for the Conservatives. That one already looks like a shoo-in and a return to the teacher-bashing and welfare thrashing of the Harris Tories.
But the effect of the “promise to taxpayers” has been prodigious. It is the greatest hoax in modern politics today. Voters and politicians are equally to blame.
I remember when people in search of wealth would declare: “I’d be happy to pay a million dollars in taxes. It would mean I’d made a lot of money.” Now, even the super-wealthy groan over their tax- “burden” as they build McMansions with five car garages.
In am happy to pay my taxes. I love this country and I echo a remark made several years ago by Brian Tobin (it may have been Frank McKenna) that “It costs money to be a Canadian.” We are blessed. I can still live well enough after meeting my obligations. I also, and I know this will sound self-righteous, get furious when someone offers to forgive the HST if I pay cash. I show them the door. I want to pay my fair share. I live in a country where we (most of us) have a decent standard. The tax-haters curl up at the edges when anyone dares to suggest that government services should be extended fully to those in need. “My tax dollars are going to lazy bums,” is the cry.
Even more stupid is the notion that there is a “gravy train” and that greedy politicians are living it up on the taxes that should be going to public services. The mayor struck the mother lode when the THC was found to be spending taxpayer’s money on pedicures and parties. What a political bonanza for the tax-hating mayor.
Look out. We’re heading to the Right. The Tea Party is contagious. Ford is the second mayor in the last twenty years to put on a tax freeze while our roads and services succumb to potholes and neglect. Remember the guy who said he was worried about going to Africa and finding himself in a pot of boiling water. Like Ford, he was the most popular guy on the block.
We all have to pay for a better life. If some of that “better life” goes to the helpless, so be it. My final stab at the past “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It may sound Marxist to you, so what. The reality, not the ideology, is what counts. It does cost money to be a Canadian.
The principal aide to Toronto’s new mayor Rob Ford and architect of his victory has left the mayor’s office and will work to create a Canadian version of the tax-averse Tea Party. If it was his idea to tell the mayor that his campaign should use the word “taxpayer” as often as possible in his campaign, he deserves a medal. Not from me, but from the powers of the tax-averse right wing.
Want to be elected? Promise lower taxes. Keep making pronouncements about the “hard-working” taxpayer. Keep telling people that government has no place in their wallets. It’s all rhetoric, all rubbish, all the time. But it works. There is, in the heads of so many voters, the notion that somehow governments are feasting on their hard-earned money. For what purpose? Greed? Tax and spend. (on who?) The Tories are hanging that one on Iggy even though the poor guy has two chances in the coming Federal election: slim and none.
In America the voters have swallowed all the propaganda about the deficit and vote for the tax cutters. At the same time, in the insane world of political paradox, surveys show differently: that unemployment, not the deficit, is the country’s biggest problem.
The “hard-working taxpayers” have stopped thinking. Long ago.
If you are watching the Toronto mayor’s climb in popularity (now at 60% - and he only got 47% of the vote) you know that he continues to harp on taxes. He has already rescinded some unpopular taxes plunging the city further into debt. (All taxes are unpopular.) No one, except the chattering classes of pundits, has noticed the contradictions in his statements. It was only a few weeks ago that he deplored going to the province for money, saying that that too was taxpayer’s money. So he froze property taxes (and will increase users fees) and is going to the Province for many millions of dollars that the Province doesn’t have. He needs it for stuff like road fixing. The province is being blackmailed with the promise that if no money is forthcoming he will lead Toronto voters to vote for the Conservatives. That one already looks like a shoo-in and a return to the teacher-bashing and welfare thrashing of the Harris Tories.
But the effect of the “promise to taxpayers” has been prodigious. It is the greatest hoax in modern politics today. Voters and politicians are equally to blame.
I remember when people in search of wealth would declare: “I’d be happy to pay a million dollars in taxes. It would mean I’d made a lot of money.” Now, even the super-wealthy groan over their tax- “burden” as they build McMansions with five car garages.
In am happy to pay my taxes. I love this country and I echo a remark made several years ago by Brian Tobin (it may have been Frank McKenna) that “It costs money to be a Canadian.” We are blessed. I can still live well enough after meeting my obligations. I also, and I know this will sound self-righteous, get furious when someone offers to forgive the HST if I pay cash. I show them the door. I want to pay my fair share. I live in a country where we (most of us) have a decent standard. The tax-haters curl up at the edges when anyone dares to suggest that government services should be extended fully to those in need. “My tax dollars are going to lazy bums,” is the cry.
Even more stupid is the notion that there is a “gravy train” and that greedy politicians are living it up on the taxes that should be going to public services. The mayor struck the mother lode when the THC was found to be spending taxpayer’s money on pedicures and parties. What a political bonanza for the tax-hating mayor.
Look out. We’re heading to the Right. The Tea Party is contagious. Ford is the second mayor in the last twenty years to put on a tax freeze while our roads and services succumb to potholes and neglect. Remember the guy who said he was worried about going to Africa and finding himself in a pot of boiling water. Like Ford, he was the most popular guy on the block.
We all have to pay for a better life. If some of that “better life” goes to the helpless, so be it. My final stab at the past “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It may sound Marxist to you, so what. The reality, not the ideology, is what counts. It does cost money to be a Canadian.
Friday, March 4, 2011
BEWILDERED OLD MEN
I prize my intellect and I value my insights. I’m not bragging, I’m just telling you how I feel about my continuing ability to cope – to cope with new realities, to experience new ideas, and to live in the 21st century. I have tried to express some of this feeling in my "Looking Ahead" blog. I do look ahead. I plan for the future, even though I understand the reality that I don’t have the same “future” as a thirty year old. Never mind all that. I am furious! I am disgusted! I have just seen one too many of those tasteless, ageist, insulting commercials on TV for TD Canada Trust.
You know the ones. Two borderline senile old guys sit on a bench trying to decide literally – which end is up. They aren’t stupid. They are just totally out of touch with to-day. They exemplify, in the opinion of TD or their advertising agency, the enormous gap between the hip, cool, with-it younger people, and the doddering old men who sit on a park bench and are totally incredulous that a bank will stay open on Sunday. The commercial has these two dodderers comparing what their watches say. “I think my watch is not working. What day does your watch say it is?"
"My watch says it’s Sunday." Aside from the fact that a date and time dial does not, at least I have not seen it, tell you what day it is because, obviously from year to year the date falls on a different day. Or is it just that I also am too old and feeble to know the difference.
I’ll admit that I don't own an IPad or a Smart Phone. I do not send text messages. I do send Email and I am reasonably computer literate. I, not having been born on the far side of the moon, which is where these two old farts seem to reside, do know my way around. I am presumably aware of what is going on around me. I read the newspapers. I watch TV news. I am au courant when it comes to ordinary and extraordinary daily events.
So I am insulted. I am, as a reasonably sapient man in his early eighties, upset that these two men, perhaps contemporaries of mine. Are so blindly and blithely out of touch with everyday reality.
From the earliest commercials with the two of them sitting on a park bench, to the one where a daughter appears and reminds her father that he doesn’t know how to give her financial advice, it has been sickening. Why there has not been greater outrage from the community of seniors – I just don’t know.
But wait, maybe there has been outrage Maybe I was looking the other way. Maybe those two old guys are really me and it makes me shiver to realize it all may be true.
Seriously. The commercial is all about poking fun at two elderly men. The saddest part is that is with their permission, in fact, given the talent fees they are getting (I hope their agent is “sticking it” to the client) maybe it’s all worth while. If you don’t mind selling out that is.
You know the ones. Two borderline senile old guys sit on a bench trying to decide literally – which end is up. They aren’t stupid. They are just totally out of touch with to-day. They exemplify, in the opinion of TD or their advertising agency, the enormous gap between the hip, cool, with-it younger people, and the doddering old men who sit on a park bench and are totally incredulous that a bank will stay open on Sunday. The commercial has these two dodderers comparing what their watches say. “I think my watch is not working. What day does your watch say it is?"
"My watch says it’s Sunday." Aside from the fact that a date and time dial does not, at least I have not seen it, tell you what day it is because, obviously from year to year the date falls on a different day. Or is it just that I also am too old and feeble to know the difference.
I’ll admit that I don't own an IPad or a Smart Phone. I do not send text messages. I do send Email and I am reasonably computer literate. I, not having been born on the far side of the moon, which is where these two old farts seem to reside, do know my way around. I am presumably aware of what is going on around me. I read the newspapers. I watch TV news. I am au courant when it comes to ordinary and extraordinary daily events.
So I am insulted. I am, as a reasonably sapient man in his early eighties, upset that these two men, perhaps contemporaries of mine. Are so blindly and blithely out of touch with everyday reality.
From the earliest commercials with the two of them sitting on a park bench, to the one where a daughter appears and reminds her father that he doesn’t know how to give her financial advice, it has been sickening. Why there has not been greater outrage from the community of seniors – I just don’t know.
But wait, maybe there has been outrage Maybe I was looking the other way. Maybe those two old guys are really me and it makes me shiver to realize it all may be true.
Seriously. The commercial is all about poking fun at two elderly men. The saddest part is that is with their permission, in fact, given the talent fees they are getting (I hope their agent is “sticking it” to the client) maybe it’s all worth while. If you don’t mind selling out that is.
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