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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-10-08, Page 2•0610 t o.na' t 00 Rt 170,1410 804 8.,IntlellIVIV H1411' I, 41(40040.01,14004.0.000413FC00).40-041i. ceink OemultAllornt40.4.0070.451N.c0.4.4 eSt holiday. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8,-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 Atsociation Wise decisions Congratulations to the Brussels Minor Hockey Executive for making some wise decisions. One decision involves having the Novice and Atom aged hockey players playing on the House League teams with the mandatory requirement that a complete change of players will be made every three minutes. Also, there will be no obligation if a player is selected to participate on the travelling team. It will be up to the boy and his parents to decide whether or not to travel out of town. It's about time such decisions -were made. For too long, too many have pushed for always using star players. Children of a young age should be joining a hockey team to have fun, not to try and imitate the NHL. And the decision to let parents and children decide together whether or not to participate on the travelling team is also a good one. Too often, both have other commitments and it can sometimes be a hassle to try and arrange to go out of town. If they do attend out of town games now, it will be of their own free choice. Competition is good, but not at the expense of a child's enjoyment. With the new rules, every child will get a turn, no matter how good or bad they might be and with each'chance they're given,Ahey're bound to improve their hockey abilities a bit more. Once again the recreation committee deserves a pat on the back for giving children this equal opportunity. As la. Canadian, what is your 'favourite holiday in the Year? Think, carefully, now. (No objection to Yanks playing the game.) Originally, our. holidayi had religipus overtones. Hence, the , term holy daYs:, Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving. Then we developed patriptic- or, if you prefer - political holidays. These include such stirring times as Dominion Day, now better know as , the First of July; British Empire and • Conunonwealtla and The Queen's Birthday; Armistice or Remem- brance Day. Finally, we have a few pure pagan holidays: tossed in: Labor Day; Civic Holiday and New Year's, Day. Well, let's start at the bottom, and eliminate: Civic Holiday has no signifi- cance whatever. It's the day on which everyone gets out of town for the weekend, except the local merchants, who are supposed to get a civic holiday, but spend it working like mad at the service club carnival, raising money for some 'worthy,' cause. It isn't even a national holiday. 'Big city stores ignore it. Labor Day, as we all know, far from being a tribute to organized labor, isl a day on which nobody does a tap of work, except for getting their kids ready for school, or closing up the cottage. The next in insignificance is difficult to choose. We have Dominion Day, of course!. Once it was a day of horse races, picnics, boat excursions, and speeches in the park. Now it is merely a day which, annoyingly, doesn't always fall on a Monday or Friday. And we have that what-ever-it-is Day in May. It used to be Queen Victoria's Birthday. In the morning trees were planted. For the rest of the day, and night, you burned your fingers on fire-crackers and your eyebrows' on Roman Candles. I guess what we're supposed to do now is sit around and 'think of Our Commonwealth brother in. Zambia and Senegal, or the ,Queen, whose birthday is in another month, or something? What we actually do is open the cottage or go fishing. And then of course, there is. New Year's Day. Hangovers and broken reolutions., Actually, ,New Year's depends on, how fervently you first-footed it on the. preeed- ing eve, It can be as hieak as,a beverage or as rambUnetious as a rooster, But ahead Of it there lie three cold, dark; dreary and deadly• months of, winter. The two saddest holidays of the year are Rememberance Day and - Good Friday, And, appropriately, they come at the most dismal times of the year. On Nov. 11th the sky weeps, the widowg and mothers weep, the flags droop, at half-mast and the bells toll. The only joint in town that jumps is the Legion Hall. After the soleinn rites have ended, old 'cronies gather to exchange lies, enjoy good food and drink, and listen to the inevitable speaker trying to convince them it was all worthwhile. " Good Friday is gloom, darkness and bitter wind, remnants of snow drifts. A day of death, sacrifice and sorrow. Cold, cold, and the earth is dead and frozen, Christmas is another -thing. A season of peace and joy on earth with geodvvill toward men, according to the ads and, the interminable carols. But, let's be honest. By the time The Day: has arrived, you are baffled, bushed and broke. That leaves nothing else but Thanksgiv- ing. "That's my choice, every year. It's the best Canadian holiday. . ' First, there are the physical delights. Weather is usually fine - brisk and bright Scenery is magnificent blue, bronze and crimson. blood bubbles in the yeti's. Fire feels good. Food tastes like never hefore.., Lungs lap clean air. Sleep: is sweet; smooth and. as dreamless as whipped honey.' ; • And there's the thanksgiving itself; Thanks for geoct.heahh. Thanks I',11iVe. Thanks. Children. Thanksl for ;4.spod harvest, Or fat beef, of a steady jObArhards for aehance to goon living through another year of those other holidays until I Can say • thanks again. About all those hypocrites out there Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston It's such a tempting thing to say: "He's a hypocrite." "She's hypocritical". We all do it now and then I'm sure. We can all see the contradictions in others. Calling someone a hypocrite has such a nice holier than thou ring to it. The trap of course is that every time we call someone a hypocrite we are ourselves being hypocriti- cal because we too are full of contradic- tions, choosing to believe what we want to believe when it suits discarding it at others, but being blind to the same needs in other people. Hypocrisy is evident in the news every day. We've been served with a platter full lately on various fronts. There has been, for instance, the huge fuss over a television show called "Playing fo Time." The show tells the true story of the experience of Jews in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The horrible 15 year period of Nazi rule in Germany is something Canadians of German extraction have been complaining recently is being played up too much. Many claim they .are being perse- cuted because of their German names even though their families may have been in Canada for a century, long before Hitler came along. Ironic, isn't it that this mistreatment of Germap-Canadians today is but a shadow of the mistreatment, the persecutions the Jews have felt all acr oss the world, but in Europe inTarticular'fot nearly 2000 years. But the irony of this telling of the story was the casting of the actress Vanessa Redgrave as the . Jewish heroine. Ms. Redgrave made headlines a few years back because she had made a film on the mistreatment of the Palestinian people in the territory given to the Jews as their homeland of Israel after the mistreatment of the Jews in Germany at the end of the Second World War. Sher supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the hated terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of deaths. A certain number of Jews have always had a hard time distinguishing between the discrimination against Jews and legitimate criticism of the state of Israel. With some of these people, any comment against a government policy of Israel is regarded as being against the whole Jewish people, including fifth-generation Canadians. So Ms. Redgrave's comments against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians were quickly called antisemitic by many Jews. The idea then of this hated woman playing a Jewish heroine was too much for them to take. The reaction has been astounding. Jewish protesters have burned the actress in effigy. Rocks iand bullets shattered the windows of television stations in the U.S. which broadcast the program. There are more letters to the editor in some Canadian newspapers over that movie than there were, over the constitutional hassling. The irony again was that the more they protested the use of Ms. Redgrave in the movie, the more they prompted the watchng of the movie to see what the fuss was about. The double irony was that although the Jewish protesters thought they were doing a disservice to Ms. Redgrave because she was doing a disservice to them by playing a Jew, they were in actuality (as was' Ms. Redgrave, whatever her political views) doing a service to the Jewish people. Because the more people who watched the show, the more would be reminded again of the' horrible treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. Nearly all the reviews of the show spoke Of what a tremendous job Vanessa Regrave did in the part. The movie has been' regarded as one of the best portraits ever of the Holocaust' and M Redgrave was a leading factor in its success. What the Jewish protesters could not see was their own hypocrisy in the matter. Here they were, victims of thousands of years of discrimination, discriminating on the basis of political not religious beliefs. Here they were, victims of so many unjust laws over the centur ies, trying to deprive a woman both of her freedom of speech and her freedom to work at her profession no matter what she believes. Freedoms aren't easy things to live with. Everyone is quite willing to talk about freedom when it suits them but wants to turn off the freedom when it doesn't. Many Canadian liberals, for instance, get worked up about the lack of freedom for the opponents of the government of Chile to get up and speak openly • against the • government. Yet these same Canadians get worked up in 'Canada because idiotic new-Nazi groups of Klu Klux Klansmen claim the right to have their say .too. The liberal would often like to stop these people whose message they don't like,, from having the freedom to give speeches or the freedom to work in the press. • What each of us has to do is to search in ourselves for our hypoocrisies. We must examine' our own beliefs andour weakness- es so than when we see the. hypocrisies in others we don't get too smug about it all. As Jesus said, "Let him who is without sin • cast the first stone." a great many donors. Three weeks ago on a Mond morning the supply of blood was completely depleted. The need over the week-end had been ,so great. The Red Cross needs blood. Please give as the life you save may be your own! J. Calvin 'Krauter • Blood donor chairman North Huron District A.F. & A.M. I would like to take this opportunity of writing to implore everyone who is able, to donate blood at the blood donor clinic to be held on Oct. 9th at the Wingham Armories. The hours are. 1-4 p.m. and 6-8:30 p.m. This clinic will help to supply blood for the Red Cross in London, who in turn supply blood to all the hospitals in Western Ont. This is a very large undertaking and requires To the editor: Blood donors badly .neOed