• VICTOR SCHUKOV

SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2011

Where would I put a cell phone tower?

POSTED BY VICTOR SCHUKOV AT 7H48

To start with, I would like to tell Rogers Communications executives where they can put their cell phone towers. But that would make my blog only three words long. So allow me to embellish…

To recap, active Pointe-Claire residents are meeting with Rogers mercenaries to dispute three prospective municipal locations that have been approved by council. As a Pointe-Claire denizen, I choose to rise to the occasion and speak up:

A good friend of mine who I shall name Charlie (because I made him up) told me that he lives right next to one of these Martian contraptions and that every morning he wakes up with a blinding headache and nausea. It has come to the point that he cannot even get himself up on Monday mornings to take out his blue box that is overfilled with bottles of vodka, scotch and gin.

It is a common belief that the towers emit harmful sinusoidal radio frequency radiation that can affect the health of those in close proximity. Rogers executives say that this is not the case. If so, an obvious solution would be to pop these towers in the living rooms of Rogers executives. The only problem here is that these millionaires all live in Toronto. The alternative is therefore to install the toxic wave-makers on the front lawns of Pointe Claire councillors who approved the whole thing to start with. Unfortunately, these civic servants have neighbours, so that won’t fly.

Gazette reader Susan Weaver has written in with some useful facts that permit me to not have to do any actual research on the subject like: the towers are over 22.5 meters tall and that “they are not intended for improved cell phone coverage or 911 but for G3 and G4 technology (games and videos.)” - I don’t know what that means because I never played any video game more sophisticated than “Pong” but thank you, Susan, for classing up my article.

And now for a spoonful of devil’s-advocating clarity:

I do not own a cell phone because I am one of those expiring dodo birds who believes that once I am out of the house or office (where there are actual land-line phones), I do not want my private space invaded. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe that being “out” means that I can not be reached while socializing, eating or on the toilet. So, for me, the argument against towers no doubt is predominantly at the vanguard of people who actually own cell phones and so it is not unlike those who complain about the price of gas but use their cars when they can use public transport. Yes, I understand that cars, like cell phones, are necessary evils but we have to understand that we are the ultimate addicts of technology and so must pay the piper, sowing the bad with the good.

The kicker is that Health Canada officials whose jobs are to ensure the safety of all fellow citizens - while conducting in-depth tax-paid clinical studies in hot beds of cell use like Barbados, Hawaii and Bali - have determined that cell phones are more dangerous than actual proximity to low emitting base station towers.

So while you fight to distance yourself from these supposed tall-boy flingers of microwaves, you think nothing of sticking a hot wire in your ear. We want our toys but we don’t want to share the consequences.

Having said that, I am all for keeping the towers away from our doorsteps and putting them where they belong:

On top of forgotten Hydro transmission towers which are already in place and slowly sterilizing every living thing down to gnats in the immediate vicinity.