What does age have to do with Westsyde Road issue?

When people go on the defensive, they sometimes lose their focus. A few days ago, I asked an innocent question: should racing cyclists be banned from Westsyde Road?

Well, maybe not so innocent. That was the attention-getter. The subtext is this:

Road cyclists, especially in large groups, impede traffic. Sorry, but you do — you ride at around 35 kmh; automobiles drive that road at anywhere from 60 to 100 (Yes, many of them go way too fast — I’ve written about rural drivers before).

If a road has a paved shoulder, the cyclist can at least move further out of the way and make it safer for both him/herself and the driver. Westsyde Road is narrow, has many corners, and no paved shoulders (or no shoulders at all).

In my view, informal races that don’t have the benefit of enough signs, markers and traffic control increase the risk. When 10-year-old cyclists are sent speeding down such a road, I think it’s natural to raise concerns. And when cyclists insist on riding two or three abreast, that’s a problem.

In the various responses to my comments, I haven’t seen an acknowledgement of shared responsibility for working things out between cyclists and motorists. Instead, I’ve received invitations to take up road cycling, to stay off the road when cyclists are using it, and have been accused of being the problem.

Both online and off, I’ve been on the receiving end of some comments that disparage my views based on my age. The veiled message was unpleasant — you’re are old, go away.

Agism is a first cousin of racism. Suggesting that an opinion of someone older than you is not worthy isn’t far off from saying the same thing because he or she is black, brown, poor or gay.

Joe Dobson, in particular, has apologized for his comments, so let’s move on.

If anyone wants to actually defend the continued use of Westsyde Road for road racing in a way that addresses safety issues with practical answers, I’m up for the discussion.

Right to go topless in public still open to childish debate

Last week, I was at an out-of-town event when someone came up to me and asked, “Do I know you?”

When I told him my name, the lights came on.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “You had me on your radio show years ago debating whether women should be allowed to go topless in public.”

Turns out he’s a Kamloops pastor, and I did, indeed, have him on Mel Rothenburger Live (a call-in show I did on CFJC during the ‘90s) along with a women’s equality activist debating that very issue.

The question revolved around whether women were discriminated against because they were legally not allowed to take their shirts off in public, while men were.

A Maple Ridge woman named Linda Meyer (whom I also interviewed on the radio show) had been charged with violated a municipal bylaw that banned females over the age of eight from baring their nipples in a public place.

Having one law for men and one for women became a tough thing to enforce, and the charge against Meyer was eventually dropped. Years later, Meyer was reported still cycling around Maple Ridge topless — or, as supporters of her cause prefer, top free.

Out in Ontario, a woman named Gwen Jacob staged a similar protest, and was charged with indecency. Her conviction was overturned on appeal, and being topless is no longer considered indecent under the Criminal Code.

So why, last weekend, were there rallies of bare-breasted women all over North America demanding equality for women on the topless front?

Because in some places it’s still against the law, and in Canada, some women want it as a constitutional right.

Go Topless Day was supposed to raise awareness of the issue.

I suppose, to some extent, it succeeded — news reports indicated the top-free parades attracted a lot of men, with cameras.

Whether the women succeeded in getting people to take their cause seriously is another matter. Websites attracted the predictable clever comments, such as, “She said she was going topless. It was her divine right. The left was pretty good, too.”

The male brain simply has trouble wrapping itself around the issue, and the top-free movers and shakers (sorry, that’s the kind of immature pun we fall into) are largely preaching to the converted.

“Only a perverted mindset thinks that exposing a female breast is more humiliating than exposing a male breast,” Go Topless president Nadine Gary tried to explain. “Female breasts are as beautiful as men’s and they likewise come in all sizes.”

Who would argue with her?

“Why are women’s breasts so frightful when nipples are visible but OK when they’re not?” asked the Feminist eZone blog.

Logically, there’s no argument; there really isn’t. Hormonally and prudishly, it’s a different matter. It took a long time before it became socially acceptable for women to breast-feed in public, but now nobody has a problem with it.

On many European beaches, and some in Canada, women go topless, or top-free. Everybody’s comfortable with it.

But the street is another matter. In one U.S. city, a couple of politicians are suing police for failing to enforce the law, alleging that a “sexual act” had occurred during one of the parades.

If you had asked me 13 years ago, when the Linda Meyer case came up, whether we’d still be arguing about it like children in 2012, I’d have laughed.

Yet, it remains top of mind for some.

armchairmayor@gmail.com

armchairmayor.wordpress.com

What’s ailing bodies politic none of our business

The anniversary of Jack Layton’s death has raised the issue, once again, of whether we as voters have a right to know all about the ailments of our politicians.

I say absolutely not — it’s none of our business.

There’s a morbid curiosity about what kind of cancer killed Layton. The most common speculation is that his prostate cancer metastasized, but why is it important that we know?

(On the other hand, I don’t get Olivia Chow’s explanation that if she were to reveal her husband’s fatal illness, other cancer sufferers would be discouraged. “… You want to give hope to other cancer patients,” she says. How about some warning along with that hope — hundreds of celebrities talk about their illnesses in order to alert the public to symptoms, causes and cures.)

Do we really need to know all the details of what killed Jack Layton, or of the medical issues of other politicians? I think not.

Those who think we need to keep a tally of what’s wrong with people who run for office say we must know if they’ll be able to fulfill their duties once we elect them.

Presumably, they would support a law that would force prospective politicians to declare — just as they must declare their financial holdings and investments — their hernias, heart palpitations, varicose veins, skin rashes and haemorrhoids so we can decide at the ballot box if we believe they’re capable of performing the job.

Bunkum to that. We’re tough enough on politicians as it is — they’re easy targets for our discontent, and they often deserve it, but there’s a line of civility that needs to be drawn. If we don’t like their policies, we mock them with personal insults, sometimes about their physical appearance. We call overweight politicians “Potato Head” or “Dough Boy.” We make fun of their names, calling them “Gordo” and “Stevo” in weak attempts to denigrate them.

It’s churlish, but can we at least leave it at that?

There’s nothing more personal than one’s own state of health. Everyone deals with setbacks differently — some are strong enough and determined enough to carry on through serious issues and do the job better than those who are the very picture of good health.

It’s up to the candidate to decide if he or she has a health problem that will stand in the way, or if we should be informed about it. We have no more right to know the intimate details of a politician’s health than we do about his preference for boxers or briefs.

Some politicians do make the choice to tell us when they’re sick. Layton told us about his first experience with prostate cancer. So did former health minister Allan Rock. Controversial MP Chuck Cadman carried on for two years and won another election after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma.

When Kenna Cartwright ran for mayor of Kamloops in 1990, she was candid about her fight with leukemia. She won election after two tries, and served the city for only a few months before she died in office. And the only thing anyone thought about her insistence on running for election in the face of a terrible illness can be summed up in one word — admiration.

So, let’s stick to worrying about what goes on inside the body politic and less about what goes on inside the bodies of our politicians.

Should racing cyclists be banned from Westsyde Road?

Waiting for a straight stretch, I’m in a lineup as this fellow keeps well to the right, but there’s no shoulder, and too many corners to pass him safely.

Should racing cyclists be banned from Westsyde Road?

It’s a question that needs to be asked, before somebody gets killed.

 The road between the Dunes golf course and McLure ferry is a popular one for race cyclists, especially on weekends and Thursday evenings, when anywhere from a handful to dozens of cyclists test their stamina.

 It’s a great sport, and a great road for it — except for one thing. It’s dangerous as hell for cyclists, and for the motorists who have to manoeuvre around them. The problem is there are no paved shoulders; in fact, no shoulders at all for much of it.

 Sunday, I came upon a group of four. One was lagging a little behind, two were riding together (sometimes almost side by side), and one had gone out in front. Westsyde Road is very curvy, and it’s highly risky to pass without clear line of sight.

 As I came up behind them, they kept waving at me to pass. I ignored them, and just about every time they waved, a truck would appear around a corner in the oncoming lane.

 Eventually, I was able to pass the last three and pull in between them and the leader, and this guy, too, waved at me to pass him — and, sure as could be, another vehicle would come around a corner heading toward us as he did.

 I don’t know if one of the three behind me was careless or just impatient, but he hustled up within a couple of feet of my rear bumper and tailgated me while I waited for a chance to pass the leader.

 I know this road, and waited for a spot where I could get by. But here’s the point — some racing cyclists act like they own the road, and some drivers don’t give them proper space, getting too close and impatiently passing when they shouldn’t.

 Of course, every time a driver complains about cyclists, the cyclists get indignant and blame it all on the drivers, and vice versa.

 When Westsyde Road was rebuilt a few years ago, a cycling lane should have been added and everyone would have been happy, but that didn’t happen. This isn’t about drivers and cyclists playing the blame game, though — it’s about the fact that someone is going to get hurt or killed, especially since the Interior Grasslands Cycling Club now sends 10-year-olds out on this danger-ridden route on a regular basis.

Kamloops needs more good places for cyclists, but unfortunately our roads were built for automobiles and many aren’t suited for bicycles, especially road bikes.

I left a message for the club president a few days ago but haven’t heard back. If race cycling isn’t banned altogether (mountain bikes are fine because they can move over to the dirt shoulder) on Westsyde Road, something a lot better than a “Race in progress” sign is going to be needed, or there will be a tragedy.

Kamloops bicentennial marks long and bumpy road

There have been some bumps along the road to developing a strong partnership between Kamloops and the TIB on opposite sides of the river.

Today we celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the day a Scottish tourist named David Stuart stepped out of a canoe and mooched dinner from the locals. Much as a weary traveller today would be thankful for finding a nice B&B after a long day on the road, he must have welcomed a wee home-cooked meal and a comfy place to stay.

A brief history is in order. The natives are said to have called the place “Kamloops,” or, as it’s now known, “Tk’emlups,” meaning “meeting of the waters,” or something close.

Stuart, though, not being particularly imaginative, decided to name the river after his friend David Thompson instead. Then he built a monster house and called it Fort Kamloops.

Despite the hospitality with which the natives greeted the newcomers, it hasn’t all been roses. In the 1700s and 1800s, fur traders weren’t always impressed with their First Nations hosts. They regarded them as backward and untrustworthy.

Sometimes, particularly in the depths of winter when food was scarce, this lack of trust was validated when horses and cows would start disappearing from the trading post’s herds.

The colonists were convinced the Indians were wasting resources — they weren’t farming or mining the land — so the Europeans may as well take advantage of opportunities.

One of the things they took was native wives, usually without benefit of a legal marriage. When it came time to retire from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the factor simply dumped his native bride and children and returned to the wife and kids back home in Scotland or England.

By the mid-19^th century, the fur trade was on the wane, and the HBC turned from making beaver hats to selling blankets and souvenirs.

The Indians didn’t realize they were sitting on top of a gold mine — literally. The gold miners who poured off the ships were short on manners, and unpleasantries ensued. When smallpox arrived with the miners, thousands of natives suffered agonizing deaths.

Meanwhile, back in Kamloops, more white guys came. They built a bridge, painted it red, and used it to get across to the Secwepemc side so they could tell the band members how much land they were allowed to keep, and to build a big brick residential school to “educate” their children.

When two villages grow up so close together, even if a river separates them, their history becomes intertwined. By virtue of that history, as well as geography, it’s in both their interests to get along.

It hasn’t been easy, even in more recent years. In the 1970s, for example, a charismatic young man named Norman LaRue was elected chief by three votes. When the Dept. of Indian Affairs told the band it would have to hold a new election, LaRue and some of his supporters occupied the DIA offices downtown.

A few years ago, reflecting long-held political differences, some members of City council refused to sign a goodwill pact with the band.

Yet, there have been significant cultural and economic agreements, and the relationship is surprisingly strong. The theme for today’s celebration, “two rivers, two peoples, 200 years” is appropriate, and a lot catchier than “celebrating the day those European guys came and took everything.”

Today truly is a celebration — of a relationship that has survived a path strewn with bumps and potholes and has endured as a genuine friendship.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

30 years later, horror of Wells Gray murders remains

David William Shearing (now Ennis) in custody in 1982.

A short news brief in today’s newspapers carries long memories for many here and in the Okanagan Valley. It says that Thursday was the 30th anniversary of the murder of a Westbank family in Wells Gray Provincial Park.

David William Shearing, as he was then known, shot and killed campers George and Edith Bentley and their daughter and son-in-law Jackie and Bob Johnson, and kidnapped the Johnsons’ young daughters Janet and Karen so he could sexually assault them. A few days later, he killed them, too.

I remember the hunt for Shearing, and for the missing girls, and the traumatic discovery of their bodies in a burned-out car. I also remember his trial, held here in the old courthouse, and how skillful RCMP investigators got him to provide details of his awful crimes.

On Sept. 18, David Ennis (Shearing) comes up for another parole hearing in Alberta. It’s his second.

Then-Daily News city editor Susan Duncan travelled to Alberta to cover his first attempt to gain freedom in October 2008. He told the board then that he regretted his “thoughtless” acts, and he apologized.

Reflecting on the experience of having to listen to the terrible story of those murders, and to Ennis insisting he was a changed man, Duncan wrote that “no matter how great his rehabilitation, he can never be allowed to walk outside the walls of a prison again.”

I believe in the concept of rehabilitation, but I agree with Susan that there are exceptions. This new hearing will force families of the victims to go through it all again; the only relief will be if Ennis is once again denied a chance to get out of jail.

Being nice, at least for a little while

There are days when I think the next person who says to me, “So, the countdown is on!” will be on the receiving end of a kick in the shins.

This “countdown” thing is usually expressed as a statement rather than a question. A given, they think, that a person who has set a retirement date must naturally be “counting down the days.”

No countdown. Not counting. Just enjoying it here at work until the middle of next month. Doing what I do now. Then I’ll be doing other things. Lots to do.

But they feel compelled to ask: “What are you gonna do?”

This, often, in a worried tone, as though happiness or even life itself must surely be coming to an end. You know, the “is there anything I can do to help?” kind of inflection, spoken with a suitably sombre facial expression.

I’m pretty sure this aura of concern about what poor ol’ Mel is going to do with himself comes from knowing most people have made no plans for life after work.

They plan retirement in terms of time and money — close to 40 per cent of people in their 50s, for example, are now convinced they’ll have to work past the age of 65. The benchmark for retirement used to be 62; in 2012, the average retirement age is 63. It’s expected to reach 67 within a few years.

I waited until 68, not because I planned it that way, but because I decided a long time ago I would keep working until I didn’t want to anymore, and then I would do something else.

I ran into a former colleague of mine the day before yesterday who has been retired for quite a few years now. Not long ago, he checked the Falklands off his bucket list. He’s a bit of a political junkie and history buff, and had always wanted to visit the Falklands; he enjoyed it immensely.

I have no bucket list, I have no schedule. I just have stuff I want to do — a lot of it. And I’ll start doing it the day after I officially retire from here on Sept. 14.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with a pretty good way of dealing with those “countdown” comments and “what are you gonna do?” questions. I head them off by being nice — it totally throws people off stride.

I started it here inside the Daily News bunker. If I sense that retirement is going to come up in the conversation (which it pretty much always is), I might tell the person he or she is looking very nice today, or thank them profusely for handing me a memo, or respond enthusiastically when they ask me to help them out with something.

“Of course I can do that,” I told a co-worker from the opposite end of the building the other day. “I’ll be right there!”

She was surprised, and a little suspicious, when I appeared at her desk promptly.

“That looks perfect!” I said brightly after checking over her work.

“What’s going on?” she wanted to know.

“And may I say how much your work is appreciated around here,” I continued. “What you do has value.”

“OK, Buster,” she said. “I’m calling the cops.”

See what I mean? Being nice can be quite entertaining. I wonder what Crankypants would do if I said something nice about him.

Maybe I’ll find out, because I’m going to keep on being nice right up until the 14^th of September. Have a good one!

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca

Hostels are a fine thing in theory, but…

Old YMCA in Hong Kong was a fine old place, even if it did have cockroaches.

Of all the things I’ve written about this old world of ours, and all the heat I’ve taken, sometimes for being wrong, sometimes for being right, I never thought I’d take one in the kisser for being unkind to the hostel “experience.”

I wrote last week that “Maybe (Coun. Donovan) Cavers genuinely enjoys staying at hostels. If so, he’s surely the only person I know who does.”

This brought a polite rebuke from Blair Acton, manager of the Squilax General Store and Hostel.

“I am sorry that you don’t know anyone who likes staying at hostels. It might be worth your while to expand your horizons.

“I know Kamloops has hostels for homeless but most hostels around the world are for travellers. At the hostel I work at, our guests vary from families, youth travellers, to retired.

“Many retirees enjoy hostels as it is a chance to meet other people and keep cost down (since there are kitchens at most hostels) if they are travelling for a few months.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“I always liked staying at hostels,” reporter Mike Youds informed me after reading my column.

“Did I ever tell you the story about the time a cockroach the size of a hockey puck chased me down the hallway at the Hong Kong Y hostel?” I offered.

Christina Mader likes hostels, too: “I have done so around the world for 30+ years. I do this because you meet such interesting people. Young and old,” she wrote in an email.

“Now that I am old, it is no longer because it is an inexpensive way to travel — in our senior years we can afford a hotel. In fact, if both my husband and I go there, the hostel cost is equal to a hotel stay.”

I agree hostels are a fine idea in theory, but here’s where I have a confession to make: I have a thing about sharing bathrooms with strangers.

When in “the room,” I like to be able to take my time. I don’t want to worry about a lineup out in the hallway, pacing and panicking. The reverse is also true.

We recently stayed at a lovely, remote B&B for a few days and had a great time, but shared a bathroom with four others — a married couple in one room and two brothers in another.

I spent much of our time there listening for the opening and closing of the bathroom door and planning my next sortie down the hall.

But the real reason for my phobia about hostels is the aforementioned cockroach. Many years ago, Syd and I were in Hong Kong and sweltering in our unconditioned room at the Y. One evening as I was emerging from the communal bathroom there he was — the roach from hell.

If you’ve heard me tell this one before, I apologize. Anyway, I leaped over the beast and ran down the hallway. It gave chase, making that terrifying clacking noise that they make.

In a panic, I yanked open the door to our room, rushed in, and slammed it shut.

“What is it!?” Syd said, thinking I must be escaping a serial killer.

“Cockroach!” I wheezed.

And Syd calmly took a towel and stuffed it under the crack in the door.

And now you know.

Observations on the two Ajax mine models

As the week comes to a close I’m struck by two things about the many people who have come into our lobby since Monday to view the two scale models of the Ajax mine proposal.

One is that the so-called “citizen’s model” (the one I refer to as the “Mader model” for ease) has been receiving more attention that the model produced for KGHM-Ajax.

I think there are two reasons for that. One is that the Mader model, as previously mentioned, uses aerial photography images that make it realistic. It’s easy to imagine the mine and the city in their true size, and people seem to like being able to pick out their own houses on the model.

The second reason is that the Mader model has a transparent polypropylene cap that protects it but allows for a clear view.

The KGHM version was made without such protection, and is draped with a clear plastic sheet that, unfortunately, has a sheen to it and makes viewing a little more difficult. Their model is still valuable, however, and having the two of them side by side is helping people get an overall impression of the scale of the project.

The second thing I’ve noticed is that most of the people coming for a look are in their 50s and up. The first thing coming to mind is that seniors are more concerned with the possible impacts of the project.

However, I think it’s more likely due to the simple fact of our business hours here at the Daily News, which coincide with when most people are at work. Retired folks have more opportunity to stop in, while those still in the workforce are occupied elsewhere.

So, hopefully, there will be opportunities in other venues, perhaps at shopping malls and public facilities, to have the two models displayed together on weekends and/or evenings.

Don’t look to media for answers to political woes

I listened to Terry Lake the other morning talking about how the media are influencing expectations with respect to the next provincial election.

(I must digress here for a moment — you will note that I use the word “media” in its plural form. “Media” is the plural of “medium,” though it’s commonly, and erroneously, assumed to be singular, as in, “the media is to blame for all kinds of things.” I will remain faithful to the proper use of “media” until the men in white coats come and take me away.)

The MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson seemed to be saying that the media are bored with writing about the Liberals being government so have started writing about how there might be a change in government as of next spring’s election. I understood him to mean the media aren’t necessarily reflecting the real picture.

Aside from oil pipelines, a teachers’ strike, B.C. Rail, cuts to community outreach services, the liquor distribution issue, cuts in post-secondary education, the HST and a few dozen other controversies the Liberals have had to deal with, there might be something to that argument.

Poll after poll after poll puts the New Democrats far ahead of the Liberals, but the Liberals no longer believe in polls. They will, as Kevin Krueger has done, point out that polls were showing the Conservatives would take a drubbing in the recent Alberta election, and yet, triumphed.

The many election polls that have proven accurate over the past several decades will not be mentioned.

And, of course, there’s the view that anything can happen between now and next spring, and the Liberals could make a comeback.

This is true.

It’s conceivable, I suppose, that the media simply like to amuse themselves with talk of a change in government, and, at the same time, that the public opinion polls are all wrong, and that the Liberals are actually quite popular but that nobody wants to admit it.

Trying to make sense of that scenario gives me a headache, so let’s deal with the simpler question of whether the media influence what people think of politicians.

While newspaper editors and radio-TV news directors would like to regard themselves as having such clout, they’d be delusional if they really believed it.

The American newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst was convinced it was so, and he’s given credit for starting at least one war. Maybe, in the early days of mass media, they did have that kind of juice, but things have changed.

While people still depend on the mass media for information, they maintain a healthy scepticism, distrust even, of them. Some put as much stock in the baseless rumour mongering of untrained citizen “journalists” in the blogosphere as they do, or did, in the words of Lloyd Robertson or Woodward and Bernstein.

They would take political advice from a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman as readily as they would from the newspaper that lands on their front step or the TV newscast that comes into their living room.

None of that depreciates the value of the mass media or those of us who are gainfully employed in them; it’s simply an acknowledgement that we would be mistaken to put ourselves on a pedestal.

As for politicians, they should probably look elsewhere for answers to how the voters perceive them, and why.

armchairmayor@gmail.com