Val Sears By the Way

Mary

 We're off on what Cunard calls “the grandest and most magnifcent ocean liner ever built.”

The Queen Mary II,of course.

I'm not a big cruise fan having done a couple, once among the Greek islands and another in the Caribbean. Too many people crowding the ports and a used car salesman for dinner. Still it does depend on the people and a ship such as the Queen Mary which requires a tux for dinner ought to provide guests of our class.

It is a quite a ship. . . 3,000 passengers and 1,253 crew. . . the whole place sparkling with vast spaces, food every minute and champagne for breakfast. We sail from New York to Southampton in about five days and then by Cunard bus to Victoria Station. I spent three years in London and am looking forward to visiting some old and favorite pubs. We're also going to see Romeo and Juliet at the Globe theatre. I hope the seats aren't too hard. I've been back to London a few times and, honestly, its not as magically swell at it used to be. Too many jostling people and outrageous dinner prices. Still, its a wonderful city, best in the world for walking.

So its bon voyage and to hell with the economy, global warming and wretched Afghanistan.

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Talk

 I hesitate to join those CBC thumpers who have sprung up since the Corp's foolish reprograming. And yet my patience is at an end in one particular: CBC people talk too much.

The chatter between the music may be all right for the terminally bored, but not for me. I like to read while I listen to music and there was a time when I could turn on the CBC in the morning and turn it off at night with a couple of books in between.

Now, for some reason, there seems to be more pointless talk in each program. One of the glories of CBC radio was no commercials. Shows like Jurgen Goff had just about the right pattern: brief commentary and a variety of music. As yet there are no radio commercials. But instead of reading ads, the hosts and hostesses blather commercials about the CBC and I swear it takes the same amount of time as private station ads. I would rather not hear about the marvellous new program next week which features drumming on termite-hollowed logs. Or a long and detailed history of the my favourite jazz. Just name it and play it, for goodness sake.

In any case, it always takes a CBC blatherer much longer to tell you what he thinks than what he knows.

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Speech

 I have been reading a biography of William Gladstone who was prime minister of England several times in the nineteeth century. He was also a spendid orator with one and two hour speeches in Parliament. One can only lament that political speechmaking in the House of Commons no longer takes place. If you want to hear what a cabinet minister has to say – beyond being a smartass at Question Period – you have to be a member of the Canadian Club or some business organization that occasionally asks a senior minister to address them.

In fact, the House of Commons is adrift in paper as members read what they've written or have had their staff write for them. They can't even ask a question that isn't scribbled on a piece of paper. The speeches I have heard lately have been pretty boring. And why not, there is hardly anyone in the House to listen.

Once, as I remember, it was forbidden to read speeches or questions. Members had to learn to speak and the House and the visitors were better for it. I love a good speech but I won't sit still while some guy reads his cliches in a monotone as quickly as possible.

Perhaps a wise Parliament may someday restore the no reading rule so we can learn a great deal more about the members. . . their learning, there passions, their wit.

And they may remember: A good speech, like a woman's skirt, should be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

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Cuba

Cuba is both pleasant and puzzling. And now that President Barack Obama has loosend currency and American travel restrictions there will be more head scratching. For instance, do the Castro brothers really want a drift toward democracy in return for an end to the trade embargo? Or wold they prefer a continuing dictatorship with them in control? It is by no means certain that the younger Castro would win an honest election and then he would have to surrender the rule he obviously enjoys.

Certainly, if all travel restrictions and investment by Americans were ended, the pleasant island would be transformed. Tourist hostels would spring up along the lovely beaches and perhaps even a return to casinos and organized crime that flourished before Castro's revolution.

In the several occasions I have spent time in Cuba, I have enjoyed it, although a stay at the resort area of Varedaro is disappointing. Cubans are not allowed to visit the resorts, except as staff, and you might as well be in Miami Beach. But at other times, I've travelled both by car and by donkey cart to villages and flower farms and had whispered conversations with many Cubans who resistt the government.

For the Cubans' sake I hope the trade and travel restrictions are ended but don't expect a painless transition.

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Mental

I'm at a loss to understand why a mentally ill person is thought to be better off living under a bridge with a handful of pills rather than in a comfortable mental hospital.

Almost the last of the huge institutions for the mentally ill has been closed and the patients sent to live in homes in the community. Sure, for some of the bewildered it might be okay to live among the ordinary population with an occasional visit from a social worker. But it doesn't take more than a glance at the homeless on the sidewalk to see they don't know what the world is about.

I cannot believe that those mental institutions we used to pass at Smiths Falls or Orillia with their pleasant lawns and trees are some sort of hideous prison where patients sit staring at the walls. Many of these men and women had lived in such institutional environments for dozens of years and a home under a bridge doesn't seem an adequate substitute for a place where they were warm and well-fed.

I guess it's too late now to reconsider returning some of these unstable men and women to a place where they have felt secure among caring staff and even some friends.

But shoving them out the door seems to me to have been a cruel mistake.

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Culture

 We didn't go into Afghanistan to ensure human rights. We went in because we declined to help the United States in Iraq and had to do something for our closest ally and best friend.

But now we've got ourselves in a terrible mess by suggesting that we won't stand for our men dying just so Afghan men can rape their wives. It's cultural intervention. And despite how furious we may feel, it's really none of our business what laws the Afghan parliament passes. Certainly not to the extent of punishing them somehow.

Nations have been in this cultural predicament before. Some African tribes require genital mutilation of young women if they want to marry. No mutilation and they might remain without husbands all their lives. Its a hideous practise but without it we are condemning young women to a hideous life.

We can and do try to persuade the mutilators to put down their dull knives but its tribal business and not ours. We can only hope that when education picks up in the villages, there will be an appreciation that mutilation is an unecessary horror and can be abandoned.

In Afghanistan, the unhappy position of women appears to be national law. How can we interfere?

Wasn't it Stalin who said when he hears the word culture he reaches for his gun. Now Canadians are doing the same.

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FIre

 I can't imagine spending a winter in Ottawa without a fireplace. I mean a real one that burns wood and is suitable for dreaming in its warm glow.

And yet, in Montreal, which is almost as cold in winter, there's talk of banning them because of the smoke. Pshaw. Thousands will leave the city, sex will collapse and real fireside music will die.

Oh, I know all those condos with their their ugly gas jets flickering in the living room are supposed to be a substitute. But they are not. Even if wood is a nuisance to haul, it's worth it. And it looks and smells so lovely.

Our country place has what's called a Rumford fireplace, specially built. It's shallow and tall with no grate. The wood chunks lean against the back all and crackle merrily while our cocktail glasses

reflect the flames.

There is nothing in the world so relaxing as sinking into a deep chair, turning Galaxy on to some 40's music, perhaps slipping out of a wet coat and into a dry martini and slowly drifting into a dream.

Just remember when you build your next house there is nothing more cosy and restful than a warm, crackling fire in the living room. . . but only if you have a fireplace.

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Modest

One of the widely recognized distinctions about being Canadian is modesty. It could, of course, be because we have a great deal to be modest about. Or maybe its because we have a great many bushels to hide our light under.

But now, suddenly, amid economic chaos, misery and despair we can shout huzzah, wave flags, beat drums and strut in an entirely un-Canadian way.

It's our banks.

We are No. 1 bankwise in a world that is fed up with their banks which are swallowing public money and declining to lend any of it out. In fact unless they get another billion or two they may go bankrupt.

Not our modest, gray institutions, happily celebrating regulations, flush with money and probably pink with embarrassment at being labelled the best by world economists. Mind you, it doesn't seem to be doing much for employment but hang on, it may help, and in one section of the economy we need be humble no more.

In a much narrower focus there's Ottawa. Here again the balloons are going up. An urban specialist at the University of Toronto, Richard Florida, has studied and studied and decided we are not that sleepy old town full of civil servants talking civil service talk over one glass of port.

Florida says Ottawa has the highest percentage of creative class workers in all of Canada and one of the highest percentages in the world. Forty-three percent of Ottawa's work force is in creative occupations, more than in New York , London or San Francisco.

So there. Smart talk is in, modesty is out.

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Eggs

The cops around Carleton Place are pretty hard-boiled. Especially the egg squad.

The town, a few miles west of Ottawa, doesn't have many killings, bank robberies or general mayhem. Not like Toronto or Vancouver. But lately a gang crime has been building up and the egg squad is scrambling to put the criminals in the cooler for life.

Someone – or a wild bunch – has been hurling eggs at houses and the householders are some pissed. They say the eggs, sunny side up, stick to the windows or walls and are tough to get off in this cold weather.

The cops say three houses have been egged so far and goodness knows how many gangs are at work. Like the big city thugs they may soon turn on each other and no house will be safe.

The cops admit they need help. They told the local paper, The Canadian Gazette, that “if you have an unexplained absence of eggs in your home then we ask that you contact (the cops)”.

These gangs have to be stopped, so get cracking.

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College

 There have been some academic musings lately about whether going to college is a waste of time.

Certainly from the bottom of the pit we're in, graduating from university with a $20,000 debt and no possibly of a job is not an attractive prospect even though for a young man college is the interlude of freedom between subjection to his mother and submission to his wife.

And once we return to economic sanity a rewarding job as a plumber or electrician or carpenter will again mean good money and a certain stability.

As well, any kid that can raise enough money on his own to pay for college doesn't really need any more education.

These are sound arguments against university. But I don't believe them. My four years at the University of British Columbia were very nearly the best time of my life. I made friends I have never lost, I learned how to win arguments, drink rye, fancy girls and write newspaper copy. I understood the pride of being a smartass, quick of wit and slow to shout.

A university education creates a whole new person. It fashions him in social relationships, in sexual adeptness, in manners and to fight for what's right. You simply can't learn these things hammering on a house.

So my advice to a young person is to try to make college whatever the sacrifice because the greatest advantage is you'll never have to regret you didn't.

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