HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-05-14, Page 2WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1980
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.;
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited
Evelyn. Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario. Weekly Newspaper Association
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada 510.00 a Year. •
Others $20.00 a, Year. Single Copies 25 cents each.
INUOULS
ONTARIO
BLUE
RIBBON
AWARD
1979
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occupied by the erroneous item. together with reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged foi but
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russets Post
Brussels cares
It's o ,en been said that people are apathetic to events in their
village, town or city but if response to our Brussels Post questionnaire
is arty idication, that just isn't so.
Peoplc, said they wanted to hear more about village council and
township meetings and indicated they were interested in
Huron County and local area news. One of the reasons as one lady so
succinctly put it was to "see what they're doing to us."
We try to put as much council news as possible in the paper.
Unfortunately we can't get to the Grey Township council meetings
since they usually coincide with either the Brussels or Morris meetings
so if at all possible we try to contact the clerk later about any
interesting happenings that went on. I , however it was a meeting
where they, mostly discussed drains we don't print it. Also, a Tuesday
noon deadline for Brussels and Morris reports limits the number of
things you can say about one council meeting.
If pebble would like to read more about what the councillors
themselves had to say on a particular subject that's not always possible
either, due to lack of space. However, we'll try and give the most
irriportant items in a council meeting the space they deserve in the
Ft.
;Meanwhile,' it's good to know 'that people are interested and do care
aLOti_t what their elected representatives are saying and doing on their
behalf.
~ugar and
By Bill Smiley
m glad I'm - not .0 tatiniei.
I'm glad I'm net°. farmer. I'm glad I'm not
a number.of things; a bar-tender, a doctor, a
goal ,Iteeper, a fighter, Chairman of. the
Treasury Board, among many others. 'But
I'm particularly glad I'm not a farmer,.
A bar7tender must cope with a low class of
people, forever trying to tell him their sordid
secrets, •
A doctor must handle some of the lowest
parts of the human anatomy; piles, bowels;
ingrown toenails, seed warts on the sole.
A fighter, professional or merely
domestic, must constantly be on guard
against low blows, physieal or vocal.
The Chairman of the Treasury Board is
faced with trying to sell savings bonds at a
low interest rate when everyone else banks,
irust companies, and jumped-up usurers of
every color arc offering the moon in interest.
But the farmer is faced with the worst low
of all low income, low prices, and the low
opinion of the vast majority of lowly
informed people in the
A number of things has recently brought
this to my ,attention, thoUgh I've known it,
peripherally, for, yearS;
Last Saturday,.the Old Lady and I gazed,
with the fascination of a rabbit facing a
rattlesnake, at a tiny prime rib roast of beef
the meat counter,
W. turned simultaneously to each other
and as I -as blurting, "What the hell..."
she was sad mg, "It's been two years." We
bought the little beauty, we slavered as it
roasted, and we aomet-d it when cooked like
a couple of Eskimos wit', ,iave been living on
boiled moccasins for two loonths. and ha(,e
finally killed a seal.
Lying groaning after the orgy, 1 began to
think. The roast wasn't mtich thicker than
one of the steaks you tossed on the barbecue
ten years ago. It weighed 2.35 pounds. It
cost seven dollars.
With whipped turnips, roast potatoes and
onions, a little-garlic rubbed .in, and a salad,
it was something you wouldn't be ashamed
to serve Queen Elizabeth.
Thercwhy was it such a big .deal? BecanSe
we, 'like so many shortsighted,' spoiled,
Canadians, have been shying away from the
beef prices in the supermarket for a couple
of yearS, without really thinking about- it,
muttering. not really blaming the beet'
farmers, but feeling -hard thine by.
A bottle of whiskey of any decent brand,
costs eight dollars plus, the price of three
pounds of prime rib roast. Which would you
prefer? Which takes more tender loving
care? Which returns a decent profit to the
pr IndlieWere?st Germany, people are paying
seven dollars a pound for beef. If this
happened in Canada, there'd be lynching
parties running through the country-side,
looking for beef Producers.
Same day we bought the beef, '1 picked up
a five-pound bag of P.E.I. potatoes for 49
cents. Ten cents a pound. I'll bet you'd pay
more for manure, if you, wanted to green
your lawn.
A pound of bread, shot through machines,
is about seventy cents. A pound of butter,
likewise, is up around $1.45. A pound of
eggs costs about forty cents. A quart of Milk
is ninety per cent water and costs around
seventy cents.
' A lousy lettuce. imported from California,'
costs a buck. Same for a bunch of asparagus.
A pack of cigarettes costs more.'
Six imported tomatoes,' shipped from New
Mexico green as bullets, and less tasty than
mashed toe-jam, will run you nearly a dollar.
There's something crazy about our way of
life, our prices, our values.
We pay $1.25 and will eventually be
paying $4.00 to run a rusty piece of metal
from here to there. There are about six
middle-men: the Arabs, the shipping
company, two or three governments, the
trucking companies, the eventual dealer..
And we shudder as we walk past the meat
counter and see that beef, choice, is $3.38 a
pound.
Would you rather have two gallons of gas
Or a pound'of beef? Would you rather have a
qUart of rye or two and a half poundS' of
beef? Would you rather have a pack of fags
or ten pounds of potatoes?
Perhaps I'm not making my point. Eggs
and butter and cheese are right up there in
price, but the farmer who supplies the milk
is working for peantits,
However, these products haye some kincl
of control. After all, Eugene Whelan
dumped sixty zillion rotten eggs on us a few
years 'ago. and Canada' cani give aWay its
huge supplies of powdered-milk.
But a lot of our farmers are being royally
shafted: especially the meat producers and
the poor devils who come up with our spuds.
Have you any idea of the capital cost, the
heavy interest, and the horse labor that goes
into producing a pound of beef or a pound of
potatoes?
I thought not. I'm glad I'm 'not a farmer.-
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
The auto makers have only themselves to blame
Doom and gloom rein in the auto
industry. The Ontario government seems
sure that de ,ite the federal government's
move to b ,t out the Chrysler motor
company it is only a matter of time before
that sinking ship disappears below the
waves.
Chrysler may be the worst off of the big
three automakers but Ford isn't that far
behind and even migl-•ivGeneral Motors is
crying the blues these days. There is• a
general panic. Whole cities depend on the
ante industry. As the industry goes, so has
gone the economy of the country for many
years now.
Well pardon me if I don't have much
sympathy for the auto industry. I have
sympathy for the workers being laid off by
the thousand. I have sympathy for the
citizens of a city like Windsor so dependent
on the industry. I have sympathy for the rest
of us who will be hurt by the problems in the
business. But I have little sympathy for guys
who run the industry. My sympathy goes to
people who are victims of the stupidity of
others, not for those who are finally victims
of their own stupidity.
The fact is the automakers are getting just
What they deserve. We are today held
ransom by the automakers because we have
allowed them over the years to create a
whole lifestyle based on the expensive,
gas-guzzling automobile. For the last 30
years we have been sold a bill of goods
through the persistent advertising cam-
paigns of the car companies. Bigger cars
attract beautiful women. Shinier cars give
you status. You'll be envied by your
neighbour when he sees your new car,
especially when it's a foot longer than his
and goes a lot faster,
There was a time when car's were much
different' than today. The car of 1950, for
instance, had about as much space inside the
car as the, say, 1975 model had, it had as
Much trunk space, it had as much usable
space, it could travel well at the legal speed
limit, got good mileage and didn't pollute'
that awful much.
BIG CHANGE
But sometime_ in the mid-fifties all that
changed. Remember how every year the ads
introducing, the new cars in September
emphasized how much longer, how much
lower the new cars were? The cars sprouted
fins and wings and got heavier and it took
bigger motors to push them along. Power
was a selling point too. The old six-cylinder
was replaced more and more by the V8. The
speed limit on roads was only fifty or sixty
miles per hour but the speedometer went to
120 and many a person Wanted to see if the
car would make it that high. The gas mileage
was pathetic but what the heck, gas was
cheap.
The emphasis on power probably killed
more people in the U, S. in the last 25 years
than the war in Vietnam. The emphasis on
large engines led to more pollution. The
emphasis on large, long, heavy cars led to
greater crowding in cities and towns and
waste of valuable resources, both the gas to
push the hulking giants and the steel wasted
in the fins and wings.
We laughed' when those funny little
foreign cars came across on the boats. The
first Volkswagen in our neighbourhood was
regarded about the same way as a calf with
two heads. Radio commentators and news-
paper writers made a point when Someone
was killed in an accident in a small car of
saying they were driving' a "small foreign
car" as if they somehow deserved it because
they were so stupid as to have a small car in
the first place: It was never mentioned, of
course, that someone driving a "large,
overpowered American car" when they
smashed into a tree at 95 miles 'an hour and
ha d to be pried from the wreckage.
LAST LAUGH
But the last laugh is on the automakers.
They seemed to go on believing their own
ads about bigger being better even after the
public stopped believing. They had a
warning that things were changing. They
should have seen a decade ago when the
German and Japanese cars became ever
More frequently seen on our roads that
people were changing their attitudes, They
certainly should have seen the change
coming—with the first energy crisis in the
early 1970's when the public first began to
realize that they couldn't, go on wasting gas
and oil forever.. But the crisis receded and
the automakers went on just as before. They
griped at government when governments
insisted they make"their cars smaller and
lighter and more fuel-efficient. One shud-
ders to think how bad the auto industry
might, be today if 'the governinent :hadn't
Made 'them become more efficient against
their will. If U.S.-made cars were„ as big: as
they were in the early '70s, how many' more
imported cars would be sold today than there
already are?
I saw a picture in the paper the other day
about a promotion' down in the U.S.
somewhere where out-of-work autoworkers
could take turns smashing up a Japanese
car. What they should have been doing was
smashing up pictures of the men who
continued to design big gas guzzlers long
after they should have known better. The
problem isn't with the Japanese. With the
dollar as low as it is and the yen as high as it
is there is no unfair competition from the
Japanese. The problem is with the idiots •
who design and build cars on this continent
who are so far behind the Japanese and
Germans in realizing we can't go on forever
Wasting valuable resources.
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