Tilting at Windmills

My final Community Editorial for The Telegram, reprinted below (it appeared on, um . . . I believe Wednesday? Possibly Thursday?)

This is from my files, so little tweaks and spitshines the Telegram editorial team have performed are not represented below.

Tilting at Windmills

"So it’s your last editorial, isn't it?," my father asks.

"Yes. I don't know what to write."

"You should tell how Placentia is an ideal retirement community," he suggests. "Beautiful, historic, plenty of community events. Mild climate. If you're mobile, there's no end of outdoor activities. If mobility's an issue, the town itself is flat." I paraphrase, of course.

"Yes, that's all so, but I was listening to The World At 6 yesterday. They said the US housing crisis ‘will be felt from Vancouver to Halifax.' I almost put the car off the road, which would have been too bad, because Rogers doesn't serve anywhere in Newfoundland except around St. John’s. I might write on that.”

"Ah, still tilting after windmills, then."

I had to concede the point. I suppose we are a pack of Quixotes, no? I feel that way nearly constantly. Modest suggestions, like having a Southern Shore lilt in the public announcements at St. John's Airport, pass without notice. Ranting about a Big Issue may make one seem a kook with a kooky axe to grind. To what end is any of it, once the murmurs of agreement and clucks of outrage die away?

Perhaps I seem cynical. Pundits and policy-makers do often muse about the apathy of the under-30 set, disaffected non-voters and such. I think they’ve misunderstood us (mind, I actually vote, but goodness do I feel disaffected sometimes). Most people I know have definite political opinions, many of them fervent. It’s not apathy we suffer from, it’s a sense of powerlessness.

Take, for example, the likes of Rogers Communications and Vancouver-Halifax syndrome. There's only so often you can send ticked-off letters to national media when they 1.) misuse 'Maritimes,' 2.) mispronounce 'Newfoundland' or 3.) lop 1,000 km off the country by saying it ends in Halifax. But Rogers' own manifestation of Vancounver-Halifax syndrome has left me too aware of my own impotence.

While attending graduate school in Ontario, I purchased a Rogers cellphone. It had a 3 year contract with dire consequences for poor serfs who dare violate it. On my return, I learned Rogers is not actually a national telecommunication company. Standing on the highest hill in Corner Brook, I couldn't get a ghost of a single. Not a single jit. Home in Placentia, it was the same.

"Oh hello," I'd say, "it seems I now live outside your service area. Could you please freeze my contract or suspend my service until I move or until your coverage extends beyond the northeast Avalon?"

I hardly need tell you the outcome. Rogers did not care that I was paying $45 a month for a plastic paperweight. Complaint, tried each month, was only ever futile.

I read an interesting hypothesis regarding broader generational disenchantment. Recall how anti-war protests in 2002/03 mobilized huge masses of youth; no apathy then. But the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan continued apace.

The lesson to us was clear: if those in power want something, they will have it, regardless of how loud or vehement the outcry. The abominable supermarket on the site of Memorial Stadium is our own local monument to these alienating and infuriating forces.

A few months back, an interviewer told Dick Cheney that more than 2/3 of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. His almost reflexive "so?," coupled with trademark smirk, should have galled more than it did. I was more wearied than outraged, because I’ve accepted this as the zeitgeist, here as well as abroad.

Mind, when Danny and his b'ys mount up on their high horses, they've got the poll numbers to back them up. This makes arrogance more justified, but also more dangerous, especially in a world where leaders with 34% approval ratings already strut like autocrats.

The Education Minister's recent interference in Memorial University's search for a new president is one such danger. While not itself a propos, the real damage comes from Minister Burke's subsequent handling of the issue.

Reputation is powerful currency in the academic world, and it is a fragile, complex thing. MUN's slow, steady climb in national and international recognition will likely stall without quick and sensitive damage control.

Minister Burke's response, though, has been like Roger’s, Wells’, Harper’s, Cheney's, Bush's, --- stubborn defiance, a blustery damn-the-critics-we-do-things-our-way antagonism, an attitude that shuts down the opposition, an attitude that, ultimately, makes people feel impotent, unimportant, and small.

So, yes, if I will tilt at windmills one last time, let my lance lie here. In the public and political sphere, let's move toward openness, conciliatory attitudes, compassionate cooperation. No more childish shouting in the House of Commons, no more derision and mocking of opponents, no more disregard and scorn for public discourse.

Polarization has been a powerful force in this decade, and it has been a poisonous one too. Let’s try to move past it.

(And do consider Placentia in your retirement plans.)