Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 22, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Sunday Mac Azine a6 sunday free press Winnipeg. June 22, 1997 forum editor Brian Cole / 697-7044 editorial pollsters and the poor f i the Rich Are different from i us a observed f. Scott a Al Fitzgerald to which Ernest Hemingway replied a yes they have More Many of us in Canada today appear to believe that it is the poor who Are different from the rest of us. That is As True As Fitzgerald a observation about the Rich but Hemingway a reply is even More appropriate a if they Are different it is Only because they have less Money. Canada May Well be As the United nations has said for the last four years the Best place in the world to live according to almost All economic indicators but for a significant number of canadians that is cold Comfort. For 20 per cent of Canadian children those whom statistics Canada identifies As living in poverty it is no Comfort at All. The indicators that Rule their lives decree a future of disadvantage and despair. It should not be any Comfort for the majority of canadians either because everyone will have to pay the Price of that poverty in spiritual and material terms for generations to come. Poverty in Canada is a relative term As it is in most of the industrialized nations. There is no absolute poverty of the kind that we see in much of the rest of the world when we can be bothered to look. No Canadian has to live on $1 a Day As people elsewhere do probably no Canadian could. Very few canadians have to spend All of their Money on keeping themselves and their families alive. That is an indignity that we would inflict Only on the undeserving poor people on welfare and social assistance. Our reaction when we see a single Mother on welfare who after look ing after the needs of herself and her children has a Little bit of Money left Over is instructive in this. If at the end of the month or the Quarter or the year she has enough Money left Over for a toy or a dress or a night out we do not congratulate her on her remarkable Money management. Instead we argue that she is obviously being Given too much Money taking it away from her will ease the Burden that her poverty imposes on us taxpayers. That is a different indicator of the kind of country we Are making. Not everyone shares that attitude of course a there is no one attitude that defines the Canadian View of poverty. It can Range from the belief that the poor have Only themselves to blame for their predicament to the conviction that they Are All innocent victims of an unjust society. But increasingly a perhaps the economic roller coaster we have All been Riding in the past decades is responsible a we appear to be growing More aware of the reality of poverty and personally fearful of its Prospect. We just done to know whom to blame for it or what to do about it. The Globe and mail reported last week that surveys conducted by the Federal government to determine canadians attitudes toward poverty revealed no National consensus about anything except that child poverty in particular was a serious problem and that poor children deserved our sympathy. One would think that this is How it should be in any caring society and that this reality is reflected in the efforts of the Federal government to make the Issue of child poverty one of the main items on its Agenda. It is perhaps revealing however that had the surveys showed a widespread indifference to the problem the government might very Well have chosen another Way in which to demonstrate that it still has a social conscience. This May be one reason Why canadians do not have much Faith in the ability of governments to solve the problem. Another May simply be that governments have tried before and failed. A third May be that we end up having to pay for those failures through our taxes but the poor Are still with us. We know that although governments can alleviate the suffering of poverty they appear incapable of ending it. People do not have any More Faith that the private sector can find an answer that a stronger Economy will truly create better material circumstances for the poorest people. We know that business can create a climate of Opportunity that can enable the poor to better themselves but we also know that business is capable of consigning the poor to perpetual subsistence wage slavery. The answer if there is one is not Likely to be found on the one end or the other but rather in the mingling of the compassionate and the practical through accepting on the one hand the obligation to look after those who cannot because of circumstance look after themselves and on the other the obligation to ensure that the circumstances we create do not conspire to prevent those who can from looking after themselves. That is never a perfect meld but we know from the past that when there is a will it works in a Way. We can make things better at least a Little better if we will. Strategy for a War on poverty will not matter much however if we can not understand that the poor Are not different from us and that the circumstances we have created for them today impoverish us All. Kohl stubbornly pursues his dream Quot the Fox knows Many things the hedgehog knows one big thing. A a sir Isaiah Berlin 19s3 Many of his european Union colleagues secretly think that German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is a peasant. He Speaks no language but German he a overweight his tastes Are unsophisticated and he is no intellectual. Worse he goes on and on about the same tedious subject when they have 20 other urgent matters to discuss. The officials Are still Clearing up the mess after the chaotic Summit of the 15 european Union Heads of government in Amsterdam last week. It ended in the wee hours of june 18 with hastily scribbled deals and compromises but its already Clear that the Veaty of Amsterdam wont do what it was supposed to do. That failure would normally matter Little. But up to to Eastern european countries Are waiting impatiently to join the eur and it will be paralysed if it lets them in before reforming those rules. Given everything else on the european Agenda we May be talking about a three or four year delay. That Means that or. Kohl will become even More persistent and tedious about his pet project economic and monetary Union Emu. But he does have his reasons. Emu Means literally the move to a single european currency the euro which will replace the pounds francs Marks Liras and escudos of the individual member countries. This is portrayed As a move towards economic efficiency and competitiveness but of course it is nothing of the sort. It is an intensely political project and it is almost entirely Helmut Kohls baby. The thing that distinguishes Helmut Kohl from other european leaders is that he remembers the War. Really remembers it or. Kohl was just too Young to be dragged into one of the battalions of teen agers conscripted for the last ditch defence of Germany a wrecked cities in 1945, but he grew up amidst the ruins. Then he spent most of his adult life in a divided Germany with six foreign armies and thousands of Short Range nuclear weapons on its soil. So he can be forgiven for suspecting that history has not stopped. Helmut Kohl is the last a a european the last member of the generation who believed that Europe must unite or go Back into hell to hold Power in a Majo Gwynne Dyer european country. His colleagues All think they Are a a europeans too but they really done to believe it could Ever go that wrong. Or. Kohl does and that makes him different. There Are a Hundred practical downsides to a single Europe wide currency but there is one shining upside. If the eur Ever buys the Trojan horse that or. Kohl has built for it then it will have to develop a real Federal political system to run it. After the failure in Amsterdam last week or. Kohl will Bear Down even harder on the Emu project. He is willing to sacrifice everything for it and he May Well end up doing so his political position in Germany is crumbling under the assaults of those who mistrust the euro but he keeps right on going. Is he right is the shiny new techno Europe doomed to slide Back into its vicious self destructive past if it does not unite nobody knows. But if history Hasni to stopped then there is a powerful Case to answer. Europe a future looked pretty secure in 1890, too but 1914 was Only a Quarter Century away. With the integration of Eastern Europe into the eur now postponed beyond the Edge of vision or. Kohl has Only one Hope left that he can somehow get the euro past the guardians of fiscal probity and National sovereignty. The Point is to get the Trojan horse through the Gates. His opponents Are honourable people intelligent people serious people. But philosopher sir Isaiah berlins distinction Between foxes and hedgehogs remains relevant. In full what he said was a there exists a great chasm Between those on one Side who relate everything to a single Central vision. And on the other Side those who pursue Many ends often unrelated and even contradictory. The first kind Are the hedgehogs the second Are the Helmut Kohl is a hedgehog. Gwynne Dyer is a London based Independent journalist and historian whose columns appear in 35countries. What was said from a new York times editorial just Over half of american readers now buy their books in Chain stores. Out of some 30,000 american bookstores Chain outlets accounted for 13,500 last year and their number is growing. Barnes amp Noble to cite the most visible example has 439 a a superstores and 569 mall based stores and is planning to open 70 new outlets annually for the next three years. Optimists Point to the excellence of Many superstores with their seemingly huge stocks Coffee bars and regular readings by authors. Sprouting around these giants Are new Niche bookstores catering to special audiences a readers of mysteries women a studies new age and so Forth. To pessimists though the real problem is the leverage that superstores exert on publishers by displays that concentrate Only a few titles for a few weeks at the front of the store of a Book does not take off instantly unsold copies will most probably be returned to the publishers As happened to 35 per cent of All adult hardcover copies last year. The system is Good for celebrity books How to manuals and Romance novels. It is not Good for serious titles that sell fewer than 10,000 copies. Moreover booksellers worry that sales have not kept Pace with a thriving Economy possibly because of Competition from other Media. Sales of hardcover books for adults fell 4.4 per cent last year while paperback revenues grew Only 1.8 per cent. Independent booksellers complain that the playing Field is not level alleging that chains use their Market share to obtain unfair discounts. This is not simply a commercial concern since books Are essential to the nations intellectual life. It May Well make sense to encourage the countervailing Power of Independent booksellers in some cases with special concessions. Columbia University for example has helped establish labyrinth books specializing in academic titles by turning Over 7,000 Square feet of space at affordable rent of other educational institutions emulated this benign synergy with Commerce it would Sharpen Competition and palpably Benefit common readers everywhere. Box has everyone singing the blues determined to do our civic duty the Box was lugged to the Back Lane the night before pick up. Wed discovered it was the Only surefire method of meeting the 7 . Collection deadline. More than once the truck had rumbled Down our Alley at 7 01 ., leaving us cursing into our bran flakes. As instructed the untied plastic bag stuffed with newspapers and cardboard was placed beside a not on top of a the Box. Inside carefully rinsed tin cans and Glass bottles a Laid on top with their lids removed a snuggled with crushed plastic juice bottles a wad of cast off grocery bags and several squeaky clean containers a #1 and #2 plastic Only of course. Satisfied to have passed another of life a Little tests we trundled off to work. But trouble was brewing in the Box. One of the Glass bottles had quietly slipped into the Depths of the Box on the trip to the Alley. The plastic Cranberry juice Container had boisterously popped Back to its original shape. Worst of All a lid had mistakenly been left on a plastic bottle. Unaware of our sins we arrived Home at the end of a Long Day to find the Box still filled to the brim staring insolently Back at us. On the pile was a report card telling us wed flunked the following subjects lid removal 101, bottle crushing and getting the Box out on time. Excuse me we might be guilty on the first three counts. But to be unfairly accused of missing a deadline crossed the line. The Only Consolation was that we weren to the Only screw ups our Alley was lined with overflowing Blue boxes. The truck Driver had been in a very big snit. Or maybe the trouble went deeper. Our feelings of failure soon turned to righteous indignation. A Call to the City a Blue Box hotline prompted a pledge that Laidlaw the company which has a five year recycling contract with the City would be asked to make amends within 24 hours. Three More complaints to the City Over the following three Days produced three More promises that the Box would be tended to. On the fourth Day its Burden was finally lifted a by the City not Laidlaw. Needless to say our run in with the recycling police had put a Damper Onrush Teichroeb our enthusiasm for the Box. Until now wed rinsed squished and bagged with unquestioning cheerfulness. Now these tasks stirred up a kind of test anxiety. A Call to the City revealed we Arentt the Only Winni Eggers who done to measure up. About 30 callers dial the hotline daily. About five of these complaints Are deemed important enough to pass on to Laidlaw. Sometimes the City sends out inspectors to sift through a Blue Box and assess blame to a the Cranky taxpayer or b the Cranky truck Driver. Eighty to 90 per cent of the time guess who a in the wrong homeowners dump the Nastiest stuff into those boxes pizza crusts disposable diapers dead Flowers you name it. Is it any wonder Drivers get downright ornery after a few lanes but a operator discretion has to have limits too. The occasional lid on a bottle Isnit a major offence. Neither is a Glass Container in the wrong spot. What about the Cost of All that time wasted writing up minor infractions by All Means educate residents about Blue Box etiquette. Leave reminders if necessary. But save the Tough love routine for hard Core offenders. On any Given recycling Day Only about 45 to 50 per cent of residents put out their boxes. During a four week period the participation rate is estimated to be about 67 per cent. The program generated $2 million less in Revenue than had been projected last year and Cost taxpayers about $1.2 million. That was partly due to a slump in commodity prices. But there were also 10,000 fewer torn is collected than had been expected. Whatever the problems of the program declaring War on Blue Box converts Isnit going to help. Recycling is the right thing to do a but getting it right be this hard. Now lets see a do smashed milk Cartons go in the bag or Box Ruth Teichroeb covers social affairs for the free Piess ;