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EDITORIAL
What we learned in 2017 Another year is nearly finished. People have shifted their attention from Christmas preparations and gift shopping, to Boxing Day sales, New Year’s Eve plans and new year’s resolutions. As the year wraps up, it’s always fun to look back at what we learned during the past 12 months. We learned that the future of a 60-yearold arena can become a pretty divisive issue in the community. When Estevan city council voted to close the Civic Auditorium indefinitely, it generated a lot of criticism, particularly from affected user groups who have grown accustomed to having three ice surfaces. While the contingent in favour of closing the Civic for good wasn’t as vocal, that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist in large numbers. The Civic remains closed, but it appears if could reopen, as long as insurance comes through. (As of Mercury press time, it had not). We learned that people really do love their libraries. The most contentious aspect of this year’s provincial budget wasn’t the demise of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, the increase in the provincial sales tax, the application of the PST to restaurant
From the Top of the Pile BRIAN ZINCHUK
I’m going to spoil The Last Jedi Due to unfortunate timing of the staff Christmas party, I wasn’t able to make it to the opening night of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. While it was a great party, I explained to people there, who knew how big a Star Wars fan I am, that our bridal party was conflicted on whether to show up to our wedding or go to The Phantom Menace when it first came out. My loving wife has endured going to Star Wars opening nights on or around our anniversary ever since George Lucas went on the quest for more money. We didn’t make it to the theatre until a week later this time around, so I figure that’s enough time for most people to see it. If you don’t want spoilers, go read something else. By opening night, having saved myself to that point, I couldn’t wait. I went online to Wikipedia and read the plot. And I hated it. I read all the spoilers I could find, and I hated, hated, hated it. How could this be Luke Skywalker’s swan song? Thus, it was with dread that I packed the family into the SUV to actually see it. And at the end, I realized that coming in with such preconceived prejudice, I
meals, insurance premiums and other expenses, or the loss of grants in lieu of funding for municipalities. It was the funding cut for the regional library system, which jeopardized its future. Fortunately the government backtracked a short time later, after an organic groundswell of support for the libraries. We learned that 12 health regions can be merged into one health authority within a 12-month span. We still don’t know if it will result in better healthcare, or benefit front-line healthcare workers. Residents of southeast Saskatchewan learned the joys of having a four-lane highway in our area. Yes, there was the inconvenience of construction, but most people can grasp the concept of a short-term pain for a long-term gain. That gain is a twinned highway from Estevan to just south of Bienfait, creating a safer highway in an area that still has a lot of heavy truck traffic. We also found out that we wouldn’t be getting double lanes from Estevan to Regina. Instead, we get passing lanes, to the chagrin of many, particularly the Time to Twin committee that worked so hard since 2009 to get double lanes. We’ll see if people learn to love
passing lanes. We learned how easy it is to botch new tax measures. The small business tax changes introduced by the federal government in July were widely panned for their negative impacts on professionals, small businesses, farmers and many others across the country. Fortunately the government backtracked on some of the measures, but the uncertainty caused by the changes was troublesome for small business owners whose concern should be running their businesses, not taxes. We found out how hard it is for some motorists to adapt to relatively simple changes, after the widening and resurfacing project on King Street was completed. We learned that a former vehicle dealership can be transformed into a fire hall, largely through volunteers, within 12 months. The Estevan Fire Rescue Service, and the community as a whole, are better off now in their new home. We’d like to say we learned how generous local residents are, but frankly, we knew that already. There’ll be more for us to learn in 2018. And you’ll be able to read about it in the pages of the Mercury.
didn’t hate it as much as I expected I should have. Maybe that’s why so many people are adamant about avoiding spoilers. But I do understand why so many people do hate this movie. Summing up Luke’s actions can, for the most part, be attributed to the phrase Clint Eastwood made infamous: “Get off my lawn!” And that’s a really, really hard thing to take for someone whose his childhood hero 3 1/2 inch action figure, the black one from Return of the Jedi, is still on his desk. I also still have (well, Spencer still has) Luke in his X-wing pilot outfit. I did have him in the original 1977 lightsaber extending white farmboy outfit, too, but it vanished decades ago without a trace. How could the hero, the guy who blew up the first Death Star, lead the fight against walkers, saved Han Solo from Jabba and confronted the Emperor himself be reduced to “Get off my lawn, er, island” when a whole movie was expended to try to find him? When times are arguably even worse than “Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope?” (Which R2-D2 conveniently played for him?) I explained to Spencer after the movie that perhaps Luke was just emulating Yoda, when he sought out the diminutive Jedi master on Degobah (which I can still spell). Yoda first lied about who he was, testing Luke to see if he was going to be a serious student. So maybe he just was following that example. What most people haven’t figured out is that in Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon likely took at least weeks, and more likely months, to limp from the asteroid field to Bespin, since its faster-than-light hyperdrive system was FUBAR. (They’re wearing the same clothes. Hopefully they had laundry and shower facilities on the Falcon, otherwise
they would have been pretty fragrant, especially the Wookie.) So Luke had some real time to actually learn something from Yoda. Not years of training, but at least something. Rey shows up on Luke’s adopted I’mgoing-to-die-here planet (hardest place in the galaxy to find) within hours of the destruction of StarKiller Base and the death of Han Solo. She birddogs him for a few days, watches him milk an alien giraffe’s green milk udder (some things you can’t unsee), and finally, he gives her a couple of lessons. That’s it. In a few days, she and Chewbacca bugger off to save the good guys, who are losing, badly. And Yoda, Mr. You-Must-CompleteYour-Training! himself, shows up to reassure Luke Rey already knows all she needs to know. Sorry, wunderkind. You are sooooo 1980s. In the final battle, Luke does show up, seemingly to save the day as everyone hoped he would. But he’s no saviour. He doesn’t take down one walker, with the Force or a tow cable. He just fakes out his nephew for a few minutes as a diversion, then dies anyhow. The effort of a Force-projection over light years of space did him in. What the heck was that all about? If you are going to kill off the most heroic figure in the last 40 years of cinematic history, couldn’t you make him, um, do something heroic? Like actually accomplish something? Train Rey? Fight Snoke? Fight Ben Solo? Anything? Nope. Luke Skywalker is dead, having gone out with a whimper. Walking out as the credits rolled, I kinda liked it. But on reflection, no, I still hate it. Dammit. Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@ sasktel.net.