WRITER - The Province - June 13th, 2010
Politicians are the least productive members of society.
What is it exactly that they contribute beyond the passing of windy pies and airy puddings?
A barber cuts hair. My greengrocer brings in strawberries and rhubarb and sells them to me. The Grade 6 teacher imparts some basics about geography to young people.
A politician talks and insists and pontificates and demands and regrets and says: "We'll get back to you on that."
The pilot flies the plane and brings us safely, more often than not, up into the sky and back down in a new place many, many kilometres away from where we started. The surgeon clears the plaque from the artery and places in its stead a tiny mesh stent.
The singer and the composer and the player all make a joyful noise that pleases and then stays with me for days that sometime become years and decades and centuries.
The politician scolds and denies and denounces and harangues and hiccups and promises: "We'll get back to you on that."
In the morning, after my camomile tea has steeped and I've added the honey and lemon to my cup, I rub the magic genie called My Computer and read several papers, including this one, online.
I check several news channels on the magic light box I call My TV Set. And, if there are no volcanoes or oil spills, I watch a game show or read something I call A Book.
I watch the game shows so I can feel smarter than everyone, and I read the books to remind myself that I am not.
This new regimen has given me a different perspective on life.
Murders, gruesome and fascinating though they may be, are commonplace. Every city and town seems to have them.
And one TV channel that poses as a news outlet seems to have nothing else. Thus, I can skip this daily fare.
Ditto the various sabre-rattling countries. Some North Korea or Iran or other is always a popped vessel away from annihilating its immediate neighbour and taking the rest of us with it.
Until the Big Red Alert hits the skies, these are also stories that I can file under "Pass, thanks very much."
Elected officials of every stripe and in every jurisdiction are with predictable regularity tossing their clothes into a heap in the corner of their office and getting sweaty with someone they shouldn't. Boring, par for the course, pass.
You can see how my new regimen has increased my general sense of well-being.
But I have noticed with some real clarity that, even with their clothes on, politicians are just simply full of it.
They talk and talk and talk and yet seem to actually DO nothing measurable.
In spite of this, they get an enormous amount of public notice.
The newspapers and the TV and the radio and the magazines and the computer are chock-full of the words of these slackers.
Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are insisting that they will not form a new party called the Liberal Democrats.
And if they did? Would
that change the challenges of Prairie farmers or Prince George accountants or Prince Edward Island hoteliers?
President Obama, for all
that I am an admirer, is powerless in the face of the petroleum barons.
He may fume and play the outraged prince all he wants. The consequence goes begging.
Prime Minister Stephen
Harper has spent a fortune of our monies on a toy lake, claiming all the while that this will give visitors a real sense of the grandeur of the country.
Somehow, he has managed to forget that we are a nation of lakes, tens of thousands of them, some great, some quiet and pristine. Many can be viewed by the world's summit junkies simply by hopping in a car or a chartered bus. Canoes are available.
Gordon Campbell can look deep into the eye of the TV camera and say with a straight face: "The HST will result in 100,000 new jobs in B.C." May we all have such chutzpah.
Politicians should try tuning themselves out. They would make the world a happier place.
