Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1985-12-04, Page 4[6405230ntario Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. P.O. Box 152, Brussels, Ont. NOG 1H0 887-9114 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00 foreign. Advertising and newsdeadline: Monday 4 p.m. Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Beverley A. Brown Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston P.O. Box 429, Blyth, Ont. NOM 1 H0 523-4792 The world view from Mabel's Grill lI _DON `e00 uus-r 1-OVE HAVINCI SA-ronm ys oFf,14ARR'e ? " There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel's Grill where the greatest minds in the town (if not in the country) gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society. Since notjust everyone can partake of these deliberations, we will report the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Julia Flint was talking this morning about taking the car in for its winter tune up at the local garage and the mechanic wanting to know if she wanted one of those computerized checkups with a print out. She says she gets confused about cars anyway and she gets confused about computers so she figured she didn't want to get involved because by the time they were through they'd convince her she needed the entire engine part by part. Hank Stokes said he agrees with her. Working fixing his farm equipment over the years he was just starting to feel he was getting to know enough about engines that a mechanic couldn't pull the wool over his eyes when he took the car in but now they've got into electronic ignitions and all these mini computers and he's completely lost, Tim O'Grady said that was just the point. They wanted to throw so much gobblety- gook at you you were at their mercy. Julia said he should know all about that, being a lawyer. Ward Black wanted to know if anybody knew the definition of an optimist: someone who could talk to his mechanic, his lawyer and his accountant on the same day and still feel competent. TUESDAY: Sam Barrie, the local bank manager, usually finds time to drop in to Mabel's a couple of days a week but he's been mysteriously missing since the news came out about what his bosses are up to. You maybe heard the case of the M.P,P. who marched in a picket line in Toronto supporting the workers who were striking the bank then the bank called his loan. The order came right from a vice-president no less. Sam probably didn't want to hear some of the things that were said today. Billy Bean said he'd have to watch himself. With the bank getting so sensitive, he said, he'd better not go around saying he hated Anne Murray's singing any more or he 'd find they'd repossess- ed his car some morning. Hank Stokes said to excuse him from any remarks about the bank at all since he's already one of those farmers that the bank thinks are getting out of hand anyway. He's going to beso careful he won't even talk to the teller at the bank in case she complains about having to work too many hours. Tim O'Grady says he knows one old farmer who sold his farm back when land prices were still going up and he has so much money in the bank that if they keep insulting farmers he's going to call his "loan" to the bank and ask for it all in $1 bills. FRIDAY: That news about the province of Ontario keeping a hangman on the payroll for 20 years even though there hasn't been capital punishment stirred some comments at today's session. Apparently the province figured it wouldn't be easy to train a new hangman in case they ever brought back capital punishment so they better keep this guy around. Tim O'Grady figured that was one way to beat the unemploy- ment problem. Billy Bean wondered what you would doff you were an unemploy- ed hangman. "I mean," he said, "a secretary who:gets laid off at least has a head start in training for a computer operator because she knows how to type. An autoworker who gets replaced by a robot should at least have a bit of knowledge that would help him get a job on an assembly-line making robots. But what does a hangman have special knowledge for. I mean he might become an entertainer doing rope tricks but when he called for volunteers from the audience, who'd go?" Hank Stokes said he kind of liked the idea of the government keeping one expert on the payroll just in case he was ever needed again. The way things are going for farmers, he was going to volunteer to be the last farmer in Ontario just in case they decided they ever needed farmers again. Committee meetings to be opened Continued from page 1 ment has been discussed at an open meeting of council. • litigation or potential litigation affecting the municipality, includ- ing matters before administrative tribunals. • discussions in relation to the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act (1981). • any matter required by federal or provincial statute or regulation tobe discussed at a meeting closed to the public. • any matter involving the security of the property of the municipality. • any matter respecting the investigation of a possible contra- vention of a municipal bylaw or provincial statute or regulation. PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1985. Editorial Closing the circle in nature Imagine having the choice of two companions for a country walk on a nice warm summer day. One is a person who makes all kinds of noise so he frightens off the birds, eats candy bars and smokes cigarettes and drops the wrappers on the ground and takes no care of what flowers he may trample. The other companion is a quiet person and walks through the landscape leaving hardly a trace of his passing. Which would you choose? The world will be a much better place when man can learn to be like the second companion, living in the world but leaving little trace of his passing. Too often now we're like the former. Often the garbage our society leaves behind is the result of good intentions. In California irrigation has some arid areas into gardens for the continent, producing valuable crops of vegetables. But the soil itself and the water used for irrigation, both contain salts and heavy metals left from ages past when the land was under the sea. The water is drained off to prevent flooding from the irrigation and waste water was supposed to be put in a drainage system that would dump it in the sea, hundreds ofkilometers away near San Francisco. But San Franciscans objected to having the water dumped on them, got the huge drain stopped and now the water flows into a huge wildlife marsh area. Waterfowl populations have plummeted as a result. Things don't have to be that way. Take the case of the water hyacinth which was imported by man from its south American home and quickly spread to plague people from the southern U.S. to southeast Asia. The water-plant clogged waterways and became a terrible hazard, all because of the thoughtlessness of the people who spread it because they thought it was pretty. But this isn't necessarily another bad story. Researchers have found that the plant can be used to help purify water because it absorbs nitrogen and heavy metals out of water. By having lagoons filled with the fast-growing plant, cities may be able to recirculate their water at low cost, something that will particularly help in water-short areas like California. What's more, the plant can be chopped up, put in a digester and used to create methane gas which can generate electricity. What this does is close the circle, to make the garbage left by man as small as possible. If such a system was used in that California valley, birds wouldn't be dying. If such programs are put into wide use in the southern U.S. there may be less talk of diverting Canadian rivers to supply ever-growing water needs down there (and causing who-knows-what changes in our environment up here). Nature works in cycles, always closing the circle to bring things in a perpetual motion machine that has no ending. Man, if he insists on nudging nature for his own benefit, must learn to close his own circle and leave as little trace of his passing as possible. One possible solution for senior citizens housing With an aging population in Canada, real solutions are needed to the need for housing for senior citizens and pilot project by the Ontario government may be one solution. The government has borrowed an idea from Australia to build a number of "grannyflats", modular homes which can be set up in the back yard of children of a senior and kept there only for the length of time the senior citizen will need it. The houses allow both the senior and his or her family to have privacy but still allows the senior to be near in case of emergency. The "granny flat" is a well-designed mini-home that is trucked to the site in two halfs, assembled and becomes an instant home where the senior can keep precious belongings from the past, in short, disrupt life as little as possible. Currently one in 10 Canadians over the age of 65 is in an institution, the highest rate of institutionalization in the western world. Others, unable to maintain large homes anymore have found apartments the answer, particularly the fine buildings put up by the Ontario government. Yet for many people who have lived in a house all their lives an apartment, though more attractive than an institution, still is an uncomfortable change at a time of life when many people want the comfort of familiarity. We can bemoan the fact the old extended family concept where grandparents lived with their children has passed but few people in our age would likely wish it to come back. We need to find alternatives, and alternatives that allow some flexibility for the personalities of our seniors. There will always be some seniors who reach the point where an institution like Huronview is needed and for such people the renovation program at the county home will help make life more enjoyable. But we need to find ways to keep families together as long as possible, to keep costs low and off our taxes and meet the real needs of our seniors. After all, as Brussels Reeve Cal Krauter said in supporting improvements to Huronview as well as the museum in the same year "people are more important than an old plow."