Reading editor John Harding’s editorial ‘Dog Jurisdiction’ (The NEWS, Oct. 1), I immediately recalled those famous words of a New York Yankee who recently departed life’s ballpark. Among many other Yogi-isms, Mr. Berra said “It’s deja vu, all over again.”
He may have been talking about the current Doggers-’n-Joggers controversy in Qualicum Beach, referred to in the two recent letters to the editor that spurred Harding’s editorial.
Steven Heywood, former NEWS editor, got so fed up with having to report the endless conflict between these two groups in 2005, that he wrote a quite cutting editorial, pointedly asking participants if there was nothing else of interest going on in this little blue planet of ours.
He had reported details of several delegations to council chambers, and a meeting of 90 people was the final straw for Heywood, who had been diligently filling his letters pages with their topic for several weeks.
I wrote a letter to the editor thanking him, noting that there were many things happening that we should be more concerned about; not least of all the U.S.-led Coalition Of The Willing raining depleted uranium warheads on Iraq causing such terrible destruction, and creating long-term health hazards such as many forms of cancers, birth defects, etc.
I also noted that reports had named one of the leading protagonists, who claimed to have been nipped by a startled dog while jogging, as the spouse of an elected dignitary in Parksville. My contention was that this was possibly a reason for all these meetings at Qualicum town hall.
That was a decade ago, I don’t know if there are political connections with the latest Doggers-’n-Joggers brouhaha, but currently there are still many other important things to concern us on planet Earth. There is a federal election campaign, where all parties vying for power are making promises that will never be kept; there is an ongoing shortage of medical practitioners in this area; there are Canadian Forces engaged in Syria and Iraq, fighting alongside another U.S.-led coalition, and more recently alongside Russian armed forces; a Doctors Without Borders hospital has been bombed by U.S. jets in Afghanistan; there are thousands upon thousands of refugees en route to different parts of Europe.
Here’s hoping that the current Doggers-’n-Joggers, who seem to be straining at the leash to put the bite on each other, will wake up and smell the coffee and the kibble; there’s so much more to chew on, and slobber over. Another Yogi-ism comes to mind that would probably apply to both these groups: “We’re lost, but we’re making good time.”
Bernie SmithParksville
