Monday, April 8, 2002
All in a month’s work - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- In returning to this space after an absence of about one month, I should begin by informing the patrons of this said space as to my whereabouts. The last month was spent, by your dutiful correspondent, composing two papers. Both were for the Political Science classes I’m taking. The first (for my Democratic Socialism course) was a stirring paper on the history of the CCF movement, all the way into the NDP, to the rabble rousing anti-globalisation protesters of today. In a nutshell, the nominal socialist movement(s) in this country. The second paper, which I’ve been working on for a while, but actually only wrote and finished in the wee small hours of last Thursday morning, was on American foreign policy. That was for an International Relations course.
There’s been a lot of stuff that’s gone on in the last month. A column or two before I left you, good readers, I’d written a piece on the see-sawing going on in late night television. One particular tome was on the negotiations ABC had undertaken to try and snag Dave Letterman from CBS. That was a few days prior to the 11th of March, the day I did file my last column until today. Well on that so said 11th of March, Letterman returned from vacationing in St. Bart’s (seems the acrimony surrounding the besieged Nightline and Ted Koppel was rough on him) and announced he was staying at CBS. CBS, the network formally known as the Tiffany Network.
Of course, the word ‘besieged’ now more appropriately applies to Yasser Arafat, who’s holed up in Ramallah as I type. And of course, Nightline is dutifully there covering the heartbreaking reality of the Middle East. (And I no doubt believe, kicking Jay and Dave’s collective asses in the ratings, in nights of breaking news or ‘crisis’; as Koppel himself wrote defending his baby in the New York Times during the hubbub of the Letterman fiasco.) The Middle East truly is a place where our thoughts and hearts go out to. Peace seems unachievable, and when one hears about suicide bombers or the terrifying antagonism felt by both the State of Israel towards Palestine, and vice versa; it’s all enough to make one weep. Liquidating Arafat may have been a good idea in 1982, but certainly not now. I couldn’t suspect whether he can actually control the rash of suicide bombers or the rabid passions of his people, but killing him would only inflame the situation and incite the Palestinian people further. Ariel Sharon and his government are hell bent in dealing with the situation once and for all, but sadly that would have incalculable and certainly horrendous consequences. And not only for the Jews and Arabs of the region, but most everyone in the world -- you and I, would be affected so.
Two weeks ago, we lost three giants in their respective arenas of show business. The last Thursday of March, in the morning, we lost the talented Dudley Moore. The diminutive and unlikely sex symbol gave Bo Derek a ‘10’ and romanced Liza Minnelli in Arthur, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. (David Gest, who’s supposedly romancing Liza now, should be up for a Tony, eh?) Dudley Moore was extremely talented and though we expected his death (he had a rare brain disease) when it hit, it hit hard.
The afternoon we learned of Moore’s death, we learned that cigar-chomping, acerbic one-liner delivering legend Milton Berle died. Berle was a comic in the tradition of Jack Benny, Henny Youngman, and George Burns. However, of the preceding, Berle was the first and biggest television star of the lot. His Texaco Star Theater which debuted in 1948 was the biggest hit in the history of television in its time. Milton Berle was 93, yet his loss was great.
Then on Friday came word that the remarkable filmmaker Billy Wilder died. Wilder was responsible for such film landmarks as Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment, among others. He got film noir down pat with Double Indemnity; and he made audiences laugh, with what the American Film Institute called the funniest movie ever, Some Like It Hot. I can’t think of any filmmaker whose impact on the craft is as big as his. When you think of his films, the ones that are studied in film schools or English classes, they pop out as not only classics, but remarkable artistry and imaginativeness beyond belief. Note too, the amazing range Wilder crafted on the screen. You couldn’t pigeonhole him like you do with Hitchcock or Woody Allen or John Ford. The world of film is smaller without him, even though he hadn’t made a film in nearly two decades, or more.
And of course in Blighty, came word that the Queen Mum -- Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, had finally snuffed it. Like all these deaths, which were expected, when at 101 she did die, so too did an era of the history of Britain and the Commonwealth. And the passing of the Queen Mother, makes us yearn for her time, a time when things were simpler and the monarchy was truly a symbol of the country, rather than a gossip mill for the tabloids of Fleet Street. Taking in some of the ceremonial procession of last Thursday, it stirred the emotions quite a bit. I guess I am a monarchist. I think it’s a good system considering there is no replacement in the offing.
Sticking with Britain for a moment, the ‘Iron Lady is silenced’ was a headline I passed by in a drug store a couple of weeks ago. Seems after suffering a number of ‘little’ strokes, the Baroness Thatcher has resigned herself to no longer making speeches in public. Though Margaret Thatcher is (or is it was) a great orator, I don’t see what the fuss is about. I did spot Lady Thatcher at Westminster Abbey where she stood front and centre amongst the British pols who were on hand to observe the lying-in-state of the Queen Mother. Whatever the case, it’s history passing I guess... But no doubt she’ll still harangue her old Tory party, and probably Sir Denis too.
And finally... as Rafe Mair and the David Suzuki Foundation have been crusading against the provincial government on its cancellation of the moratorium on fish farming in British Columbia, I thought I’d do my part and advise on the ills of consuming farmed salmon.
Not just for the fact it is totally gross, a boycott on eating farmed salmon will send a message to the industry that their dirty work is seriously harming the stocks of wild salmon that run in this province. And I just don’t mean the sickening sea lice that clings to the salmon either. There is science now that says farmed Atlantic salmon (which the government has now allowed its further propagation) colonises wild BC stocks. Thus, our own pacific salmon is in serious peril. It is in peril because of this government’s refusal to face up to the eloquent and undeniable arguments that Rafe Mair and the Suzuki foundation have stressed for months now. I support this fight because it isn’t right that short termed actions -- the proliferation of salmon feedlots here -- shall have a dangerously great impact on the environment, culture, and history of this province. I’ll be back later in the week.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .