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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 Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error the advertising space occupied by the erroneous item. together with reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged foi but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. While every effort will be made to insure they are handled with care, the publishers cannot be responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or photos. tm, 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. 1.•