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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-11-19, Page 2.4rx ry I d"!4.411. '1*IV• 6'404 .!"3 tt!' el I People are always suggesting ideas for editorials, in the Brustelt, Post. That's a1,1 well and good because ideas for editorials are sometimes hard to come by and we appreciate all the help we can get. But that help also creates a few problems. For -instance, if you have something that you 're really concerned about in the area and you want to get some action on it you might be trying -to use the editorial writer as yoUr mouthpiece. But if the editorial writer doesn't see things in the same light you do ,or isn't familiar enough with the situation to which you refer, it might create more, problems than it's worth. If, however, you really want to get your point across, then write a letter to the editor. It could start a real debate going and hopefully lead to a \solution to the problem. Other papers always have people writing leters to the editor, but' it seems people in the Brussels area would rather speak their piece to one of the newspaper staff and then expect the paper to print it as its_ own opinion. We can only assume then, that some people do not have,the courage to stand behind their convictions. As you don't even have to have your name appear with your letter in the-paper as long as you have signed the letter when we see it, it doesn't seem like too much to ask. (You must however, give US the okay to release your name if readers ask.). If you have a beef, bring it out into the open, don't keep it bottled up inside. It's the only way to get things done. 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 for but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. While every effort will be made to ensure they are handled with care, the publishers cannot be responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or photos. sse Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Atsociation • e*--- • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1980 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community, Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontark. By McLean Bros'. Publishers Limited Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising;, becoming know, at the wrong stage of the procedure, can prevent a deif#ble decision from being 'carried out." Bennis was Commenting on the current mania for full, disclospre in the governMent and media in the U.S. and hoW, rather than' Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $12 a, year thers $24 a year. Single copies 30 cents each. Share your opittiost. Democracy was saved - last week. Ottawa: At least that's what you'd believe if you listened to the rhetoric coming out of the national. capital. Democracy was saved, well if not saved. at least, not murdered. When it increase public confidence it has undermin- was agreed that television and radio • ..ed it "No one would argue with John Gardner's statement that 'confidence is our most important currency tdday,' yet I. sense 'that the post-Watergate craze for maximum openess, reflected in the laws of theland and augmented by the media'S penchant - for catastrophe coverage has actually reduced meetings not being televised. In fact, to be even more traitorous to.the current concept confidence.'.'• of full coverage of all. news events, I think Bennis calls for a happy medium between the country might have been even better total secrecy and full disclosure; something served if the committee meetings hadn't he calls "optimum openness." He points tc • the stake at the entrance to any press club in Lampeinrsis been covered. Indeed, to get me burned at the amusing case of the famous Pentagon einreg, itthecon•Nidixotno . ,Canada I might try to visit for the rest of my trianfiotnh,edidU:eSYerywthh suppress publication of the papers, to keep life, I think that if we hadn't insisted that their secrets 'from' the people, ' television cameras peer into the faces of our The New York Times won the. right from politiciani and record their every whimper the Supreme Court to publish the secret and facial tick, we might not have the -studies of Vietnam War decisions. "Yet the , current constitutional storm in this country. editors themselves surrounded their prepar By televising every hiccup of the constitut- ation of these stories with a secrecy the Tonal conferences in the past few years, we . Pentagon might enyy." The newspaper may have saved democaracy and started the country on the road to ruin. rented. a suite of hotel, rooms, swore The constitutional conferences were in members of the small, staff to total secrecy, effect bargaining sessions. The, rules of the ' confined them for . weeks to the suite, conferences, ten premiers against one prime allowed them' to talk to only certain people minister, made it tough enough to get and set the stories on sequeStered, guarded agreement, but the fact that everything was typesetting machines. Such secrecy is never being , recorded made it virtually impossible seen Its a reporter (or a whole news to get any kind of agreement. There wasn't organization) protecting a "scoop." likely to be much give as long as the folks CRAZE FOR,OPEN Bennis argues that because of this craze back home in British Columbia or Nova Scotia were watching every move their for openess "The public will be learning more and more about things of less' and less champion made. Instead of bargaining, we got Speeches. The emphasis was not on importance." When things must be record- ed to bp official there will be more done substance but appearance. Every speaker unofficially, he says. had his mind on the millions of potential Any journalist can . give 4you long lists of voters out there and how his agrument could • best win hini support. ' the problems with secrecy. I have, over the NO CONFEDERATION AT ALL I don't know for sure,that we could have had a more favourable end to the constitutional negotiaiionS if the television, cameras and reporters' note pads hadn't necks (or some other part of their anatomy). been present but I'll guess it Would. have. I It does a disservice to the, public who should doubt for'instance, that given the conditions ow what arguments were advanced: for or that the present political ,leaders worked 1.(n under, that the fathers of confederation against the position. But it is also a disservice to the public to would have fathered a confderation at all. hamstring the very, process of ,48cision Writing in a recent issue of Atlantic Monthly; Warren Bennis, a research proles- making by too much exposure:To make our system work, it seems to me, we have to . sor at the Graduate School of Business tread that very delicate path between the Administration, University of Sonthern Californiasaid "The mere fact of diScussions coverage of the committee studying constit- lona; reform would be permitted. I am about to say a heretical thing. It's enough to get me banished as even a part-time journalist in, thsi. country. I think democracy might survive those committee , years, been at meetingi. where the discus- sion. was all held in -.closed committee meetings and a simpleyes or no vote taken. in public. It is a perversion of democracy, a "safe" way for legislators .to protect their wrongs of the two 'extremes. I wonder how my old classmates I sometimes wonder if my college contemporaries are as happy as I , or happier, or less happy and just walking the old treadmill until they reach the end of the mad and the dust to dust business. My wonder was triggered by a recent letter from no less a body than Sandy Cameron, the Ambassador to Poland. He seems happy, but that's only on paper. We used to kick a football around when we were' ten or twelve until we were summoned home in the gathering dusk. He's since returned to Ottawa, after three years in Yugo-Slavia and two in Warsaw, and has invited us to drop around. I shudder at the cost of that, if,my old lady thought she was going into ambassadorial regions. Can you-rent a mink coat for an 'evening? . Another guy I knew at college has ' emerged into a fairly huge job, much in the public eye. He is Jan (now John) Meisel, a ' former Queen's professor who has been appointed head of the CRTC and is determined to move that moribund body. Jan is, as I recall, a Czech, gentle, brilliant, fairly frail but strong in spirit. Let's namedrop some more. Jamie Reaney is a playwright, poet, novelist and professor of English at Western. Two Governor-Gen- erals Awards for literature, but he's just the same sweet, kooky guy he was at nineteen, a real scholar, absorbed in children's games, yet a first rate teacher and writer. Alan Brown has been a dilettante with the clic, programs from faraway places, and lately emerging as a translator of French novels,, He came from Milibrook, a hamlet near Peterborough. How we small-town boys made the city slickers look sick, when it,, came to intellect. ' George McCowan was a brilliant English and Philosophy student who was kicked out of school for writing an exam for a dummy : who happened to live around the corner from me when I was a kid. He went off to Stratford as an actor and director, and suddenly disappeared to Hollywood, after marrying and being di, vorced from Frances Hyland. He is now on his third or fourth wife, , has an ulcer, and directs Grade B movies. I knew Don Huron casually. His first wife was a classmate of mine, who later married that Hungarian guy who wrote In Praise of , Older Women, made into a movie. Harrell, with lots of talent, energy and ambition, has parlayed his Charley Farquarson into a mint, and is still producing a lot of creative stuff. Another of the dtifting mob was Ralph Hicklin, a dwarfish kid with rotten teeth, and a wit with the bite titan asp. He still owes me $65.00, because he had no 'scruples about borrowing money, He became a movie and ballet critic, and a good one, but died in his late forties. There'were other, drifters in and out of the gang, including my-kid brother, who was mainly there for the girls. , And bey, I'd better not start on the girls,' or I'm in trouble. I was the only one who was about half jock, that sweaty and anomalous name that is pinned on Phys. Ed teachers today: I played football, and my intellecttial friends had nothing but scorn for this. I loved it. And I inade some friends among the jocks, or the hangers-on; the sports-writers. Notable atnOng them was Dave McIntosh, who still writes a mean letter to the editor from Ottawa, and spent most of his adult life working for The Canadian Press and newspapers. I also had othet friends in the college newspaper. I was a couple of years behind the bumptious Wayne and ShuSter, but knew Neil Simon and. others whose names appeared as bylines from all over the World. What I wonder is whether I would trade _ places with these bright guys I used to hang around, With. I think not. I doubt if three of us are still married to the same woman, riot that that is any big deal. I don't have the ego to hustle myself as some of thenr have done, nor the brilliance that many of them had. When .I go up and shout at my noisy Grade 10's or try to coax my font-year elevenS into some sort of intellectual meVement; I simply haven't time to wish I was the Ainbassador to Poland, a director •of B's in Hollywobd, a , translator of rather obScure'French novels, or the head of the CRTC. I haven't time. Tomorrow night I haVe to driVe '140 niiliS and• giVe a Speech :about "honour". to the•HOnour stndents of Another khOol. Tomorrow I have to gp to a Department Heads' meeting where' we Will, for the fourth time 'year, discuss "Smoking" in: the ithool. Tonight, thaVe to call my old lady in Moosonee, fell 'het I've been a model bachelor and have only burned six holes in the rug ol'hUrSday night, I have a Parent' Night, at which the parents of bright kids Will come to have me praise them. and the other parents will stay away. I bought paint for the back stdop, but it's been too wet to paint. Yesterday, I had two young lady visitors, who taught me in my pyjamas,, bare feet, and dirty dishes all over the kitchen, „ No. There's noway. 'I just haven't time to be an intellectual, a success, a good,father, or a good husband. But I'm going to keep an eye on all those old friends of mine, and if they stutter of Jtammer or Stagger tinder the load, I'll be laughing. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley