Roger Varley has been in the news business almost 40 years with The Canadian Press/Broadcast News, Uxbnridge Times-Journal, Richmond Hill Liberal and Uxbridge Cosmos. Co-winner with two others of CCNA national feature writing award. In Scout movement over 30 years, almost 25 as a leader. Took Uxbridge youths to World Jamboree in Holland. Involved in community theatre for 20 years as actor, director, playwright, stage manager etc. Born in England, came to Canada at 16, lived most of life north and east of Toronto with a five-year period in B.C.
The best and the worst of man
I logged into the NASA website Sunday for the landing of the rover Curiosity on Mars. It wasn't nearly as exciting as watching Neil Armstrong take that first step onto the Moon's surface so many years ago, but it was thrilling, nevertheless.
The manner in which Curiosity was delivered to the Martian surface was mind-boggling. After flying down to the planet's surface, the delivery vehicle - I don't know all the technical terms for these things - actually hovered above the ground while it lowered Curiosity to the surface on cables. The moment Curiosity's wheels touched down, the cables released and the delivery vehicle shot off who knows where leaving the rover in place to begin its two-year mission to search for signs of life - past or present.
This $2.5 billion project is a testament to man's ability to dream and then make that dream a reality. (As an aside, it cost close to $1 billion just to hold a weekend G8-G20 meeting in Toronto two years ago. One also has to wonder whether NASA was working on a shoe-string budget when one considers that Curiosity, a roving laboratory the size of a compact car, landed right on target after a 556-million-kilometre journey while the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline will cost $5.5 billion to travel a mere 1,177 kilometres.)
Some may wonder what tangible benefits mankind can expect from this current Mars mission. Maybe none, but something tells me there will be, just as the moon missions provided the world with so many things which we take for granted today. It seems certain, at least, that any number of scientific disciplines will benefit and just maybe this mission, like the moon missions before, will spur students to enter the world of science and mathematics.
But just as the Mars mission shows us the best in man, the incredible things he is capable of, other news shows us the depths to which some are willing to sink and the ineptitude and lack of imagination in others.
The killings at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin follow too closely on the heels of the mass killings in Colorado. And they follow too closely on the heels of Norway's tragic mass killings last year. In each case, even some rudimentary planning had to be carried out by the perpetrators before they acted. In the cases of the Oslo and Colorado killers, the planning appears to have been extensive.
What could they have achieved if they had turned their efforts to more altruistic pursuits? What is it that leads some men to plan to bring dreams to the world and others to bring nightmares? Answer those questions and you win the jackpot.
And then there are those who display dismal ineptitude and lack of imagination. A human rights tribunal has just turned down a disabled man's efforts to have the Iroquois Falls council clear the snow its snowplows deposit across his driveway. He has been paying a private contractor $15 a shot to come and clear the windrows from his driveway and he wants the township to either do the job or pay the $15. The tribunal agreed with the town's position that it couldn't pay the $15 because it would then be liable for any accidents or damages caused by the contractor. For the town to do the job would cost $75 - so they say - because two men would be required: one to drive the plow, the other to watch the roadway.
So the wheelchair-bound resident is out of luck and obviously the town council is out of ideas. As another aside, apparently it is okay for municipalities to dump snow on private driveways, but if a homeowner deposits snow on the roadway he is liable to a fine.
Despite the hundreds of people - the dreamers and the doers - involved in making the Mars mission such a success, it seems to me this world is lumbered with far too many of the other kind.
Tell me, am I wrong?
