Parker’s Pen

BY DAVID PARKER

Growing up with the delivered Daily Herald while feasting on the likes of George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier, I was well acquainted with the plight of coal miners and the bleak conditions of the working class of northern England. They sure needed a voice, and it was thanks to the unions that they were able to enjoy a better living for their families.

Move on to today, and I am no more sympathetic. It seems that greed shows up in the constant ask for more money and benefits that some deem it necessary to take strike action.

Let there be reasonable agreements, but do they not understand that strikes do not bother the executives too much, it’s the you and I that suffer.

A good example was pilots threatening to strike over last month’s long weekend. Plans by people to visit families caused nerve-wracking waits, vacation plans had to be put on hold for fear of not being able to return to work.

Workers causing chaos with the working class – doesn’t seem right.

And thinking of air travel, what a shame that the Calgary International Airport has decided to decommission the wind-up sculptures that have been a star attraction for the past 10 years.

Waiting to board planes gets to be pretty tiring so watching young children wind up the six-metre-high sculptures by Calgary artist Jeff de Boer, and look in amazed awe at the toy versions of historical planes carouseling around the towers, took some of the dreariness of airport waits and delays away.

Spring has finally sprung, and so has the number of scooters dashing around the downtown core.

Must be somewhat exhilarating for riders, and so cheap and convenient, but let them beware. Don’t scare pedestrians and don’t ignore stop signs and red traffic lights – or we just might follow Paris where 90 per cent of voters in a referendum wanted to ban rental battery-powered scooters. And on the subject of battery-powered transport, I was interested in a Letter to the Editor in the Herald that questioned why electric powered cars get away without paying a tax like we have to every time we fill up at the pumps.

Canada has had some wonderful cartoonists supplying works of art on a near daily basis; Duncan Macpherson and Terry Mosher are two of the best.

Locally we have enjoyed a very talented team including Tom Innes, Sid Barron and, in my opinion, the best in drawing talent with a great sense of political irony, Vance Rodewalt.

Reading that our fine leaders at city hall are back discussing the rules and regulations for keeping chickens in the back yard, I would like to see Rodewalt take on planners working hard to design the perfect – and to be followed to the nail –chicken coop suitable for all neighbourhoods.

Just might need a couple of cans of Prairie Lube to follow them.

Guess it’s rather obvious that I am a lover and promoter of the printed word. I avoid many TV commercials thanks to PVR, but find some very creative (i.e., expensive), however I have a couple of problems with today’s showings.

They run into each other so fast I can’t move quick enough from hives to hamburgers to Huggies. And I think it’s a crime that so many car ads seem to glorify urban racing with vehicles speeding through city streets – not a good example for anyone with a hot foot.

Final Words

Anticipation is the sweetest of pleasures.