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10 - OroBQ Weekly Times, Wednesday, November 15, 2000 BASIC BLACK ARTHUR BLACK COFFEE, TEA OR ME? This may just be the jet lag talking - I've been hopscotch- ing by air all over the continent continent for the past several days - but... What is it about airports? A person ought to feel great in an airport - after all, it's a slick, no-hassles city in miniature. You've got your restaurants, your bookstores, your newspaper kiosks - even your chapels and your lost and founds. At the really big airports you can get a shoeshine, a bottle of Dom Perignon and a massage. Airports are totally climate-controlled. climate-controlled. Once you get inside those doors you don't have to deal with heat waves, monsoons or black ice. You also don't have to worry about being run over by a truck, getting stuck in a traffic jam or being mugged by a gang of Homeys. And the airport is ecumenical. ecumenical. Hardline Muslims line up at the check-in counter, counter, cheek by jowl with staunch Catholics; fundamentalist fundamentalist Baptists share leatherette couches with Unitarians; dreadlocked Wiccans break bread , with briefcase-toting burghers from the 'burbs. Your average big city airport airport is nothing if not democratic. democratic. We should love them. Vast armies of the homeless ' and the dispossessed ought to be pressing up against the hurricane fencing around our airports, eager tp get inside and set up camp. Names like O'Hare and Heathrow, Pearson and Nagoya ought to be mentioned in' the same breath as London and Bangkok; Vienna and Paris. So how come that doesn't happen? Why is it airports make us nervous, antsy and eager to be just about any- # place else? Perhaps it's the very Nowhereness of modern airports. airports. Ôeing in Gatwick is like being in Kennedy is like being in Dallas International. The same disembodied mechanical voices reverberating reverberating off the same marble surfaces. surfaces. And it's a false community. Sure, you're surrounded by every hue and accent of the human race -- but like you, ( they're all going somewhere else - and soon! These people people you've been thrown together with you'll probably never see again. The airport "community" has the shelf life of a champagne bubble. Maybe something in our genetic makeup recognizes that and keeps us on Standby Alert. One saving grace is that most of us don't have to deal with airports all that often. Pity the poor folks - the maintenance maintenance people, the caterers, the guys who have to hump our luggage around - every one who has to work in airports, airports, day in and day out. Mind you, they occasionally occasionally have their revenge. Like the Canadian Airlines gate agent who had to process an entire daisy chain of disgruntled disgruntled travelers when a flight out of Ottawa was cancelled. She was working her way through the line with as much grace as she could muster when a redfaced redfaced guy in a three-piece suit bulled his way to the front of the line. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS." The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?" Without hesitating, hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please?" she began, her voice bellowing throughout the terminal. terminal. "We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to gate 17." . With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the Canadian Airlines agent, gritted gritted his teeth and hissed "Screw you!" Flashing her best flight attendant smile, the agent purred, "I'm Sorry, sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to stand in line for that, too." SUBSCRIBE TO THE TIMES $25.00 The Christian Heritage Party of Canada >• # The federal government has intruded deep into, areas of provincial jurisdiction; the result is fragmented authority and a real threat to national unity. The CHP says Canada must respect the division of powers set out in our Constitution. Respect for the legitimate rights of others -- the biblical principle of'the Golden Rule' -- is the key to real, lasting national unity. Constitutions are written to protect us all; and adhering to constitutional principles is the only way for the people of our nation to live together in peace and harmony. See how biblical principles, on which Canada was established, produce sound ideas that have been proven to work? The CHP is the only federal party that has endorsed the "supremacy of God" clause in the Constitution. ■ Now that makes sense! ELECT Durk Bruinsma local (905) 429-8292 Durham Call toll-free I -888-VOTE CHP or visit our web site at www.chp.ca