The Cherry crisis: The Don Cherry crisis is not about Don Cherry. It’s about the CBC. Nor is it a crisis, it is a chronic problem: The CBC’s connection to popular culture, in the sense of “mass” or “vulgar.”

The CBC was birthed, for radio in 1936 and TV 16 years later, by people who saw as their mission (I choose my words carefully, as Don does) to elevate Canadians above the benchmarks of hockey, beer and doughnuts. That was the aim of those who cared for Cancult in those years, reflected in the Massey Commission on the arts. They may have worked in mass media, but they had an uneasy relationship with the masses.

So they built Hockey Night in Canada (created by private broadcaster Foster Hewitt), but positioned it as an element of national culture and unity. They ran country music shows, but often treated them badly. There was a populist outcry when they dumped Don Messer’s Jubilee. In later years, as hockey levitated from ponds and rinks to indoor play with costly gear, its mass, or class, base shifted but never vanished. Don Cherry is its emblem.

I rest my case for this thesis on the language CBC TV used in its rebuke. Vice-president Harold Redekopp said the Cherry diatribe was “inappropriate and reprehensible.” It “cannot be repeated and will not be tolerated.” CBC had “reviewed” it with Don, and had “his assurances” it “will not be repeated.”

That was your vice-principal talking. It sounded like stern U.S. senators promising to deal with Janet Jackson, but mostly establishing how galactically far they are from the pop-youth audience.

There was no need for the tone. Montreal private broadcaster Dino Sisto, speaking on CBC Newsworld, was also critical. He said Don Cherry is good on hockey, but has a recurrent problem with “ethnicities.” He sounded smart and concerned, but not moralistic or superior. Vice-principal Redekopp, on the other hand, hails from the classical music sector of CBC, and sounds it.

My final proof: the new seven-second delay of Coach’s Corner, drawn from AM talk radio. Everyone knows a delay is for callers; it won’t work on a host. If you don’t like the host, you fire him. This was a penalty imposed by someone who has never listened to talk radio.

The war: Don’t worry, be happy. The remaining justification for the war on Iraq hangs on the claim that everyone is better off anyway, never mind those vanishing WMDs.

This is more problematic than it seems. For instance, a recent report describes an Iraqi porter who, with work declining under the occupation, had to sell half the 46-square-metre house his family of seven live in. Take a moment to visualize a space that size. Not every Iraqi was involved in battling the repressive regime. Most people made some kind of peace with it, and hoped for a better future. For them their meagre security should at least not decline when the tyrant departs.

Afghanistan continues to descend into a state of chaos, as entailed by the U.S. war plan, whereby warlords took the ground casualties as the price for being left in control of much of the country. That, in turn, has opened the way for a return by the Taliban, in the name of stability. Security and stability certainly sound like a less noble cause than political freedom. (I always wondered at the respect Shakespeare gives in his plays to leaders who restore stability.) But, like money, security and stability are easier to transcend when you have them.

“Better off” is a complex, contextual notion, whose definition ought to be left to those actually affected. It is not an argument for doing nothing in cases like Iraq or Afghanistan. It is an argument against doing anything that makes things worse, and for doing only those things which make the situation better. How’s that for stating the obvious?

In a society based on money. Chartered accountant Arthur Gelgoot died unexpectedly this week, at 70. He did taxes for many people in the arts and media. He spent his working days, and much of his adult life, dealing with numbers and money. Yet he never distinguished among his clients according to incomes or fees. He paid them all the same attentive respect, rigorously, I’d almost say. So he was a model of ethics, treating each person as an end, not a means.

But there was something else: it was aesthetic. His office, where he did your return each year, was a retreat — the furniture, paintings, music, comforting light. He lived and worked as tastefully as some of his clients, or more so. And there was a quality to the interactions: He made time stretch, you never felt rushed, he could act as bartender or priest if you wished, and also reveal himself. I know clients who looked forward from the end of one session toward the next, a year away. He, and not right-wing parties or the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, was the human face of taxes for many of us. Or simply: the human face of being human.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.