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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-01-28, Page 2 4Brussels PO872st BRUSSELS Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG 1H0 Established 1872 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community 519-887-6641 Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited A Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor Pat Langlois, Advertising' Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advance) outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each /4.17";"*N; We've been late this year Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley One of,the big reasons given for Huron going to the county-wide board of education system some 15 years ago was that it would allow equality of education for all students across the country. AlthOugh that has been the case with many of the educatiOn programs, it hasn't been the case with all of them. Take the music program, for instance. If a talented child in Goderich wishes to take music,, they can do so during normal class hours, get a credit on their grade for it, and have their musical instrument supplied, free of charge. However, should the student move to the Clinton area, they lose all those benefits, and it becomes a real hassle for them to continue to study music. In Clinton they have to get to the school early in the morning before the buses have started running, they don't get any credit for their study from the school system and in most cases have to pay to rent or buy their instruments. That is hardly "equality" education, especially for those many talented rural students who have no transportation to the school. But despite all those hardships, there are still 50 dedicated students and a teacher who turn up at the crack of dawn at Central Huron to study music, four mornings a week before classes, so just imagine how many more there could be if the program was made part of the curriculum. The final decision will be a tough one for the elected members of the board of education, who are faced with declining enrolments, ever increasing costs, and demands from the public for more constraint. Clinton News Record Due to the vagaries (and I could think of sonic other words for them) or our mail system (system?), this column has been getting to readers at some peculiar seasonal times. My Christmas column, written in Novem- ber, appeared after New Year's Day in many papers. My New Year's column, written in early December, has appeared in mid-Jan- uary. A letter from my daughter, written on Dec. 10, reached me on Dec. 31. First-class something or other. So this one, written Dec. 31, 1980, will be my Valentine's Day job for 1981, and perhaps you'll get it by the March break. Looking ahead at a new year is more 'dispiriting, very often, than looking back at the old one. At least you know that the old one can't be any worse than the one that's coming up. That applies to years, dogs and women. Some pretty darn nice things happened to me in 1980. Generally speaking, it was a rotten year, but there were sonic bright moments that helped dispel the gloom. First of all, I read an article in the Toronto Star, with a headline: Teachers suffer ighest burnout rate. This highest cheered me immensely, because it proved something I'd known for years, and we're always cheered when we're proven right, even though we prophesy that the world will cone to an end next Tuesday. And it does. Sonic of the statements in the article might be considered a bit alarming, but they made me feel kind of special. I quote: "On average, teachers die four years younger than the rest of us. And next to air traffic controllers and surgeons. teachers suffer the most stress of all professions." You see the cheery note there? I could have been a surgeon or an air traffic controller. The author of the book on which the article was based stated flatly that many parents , and school boards consider teachers, "No more than glorified babysitters and are prepared to treat them as such both through working conditions and salaries." Did you get the key word there? "Glorified." Saints and martyrs are glori- fied, though I haven't heard about too many babysitters reaching that status, though there are sonic who should be. And there isn't a babysitter in town who makes as much as I do. So I'm happy. And another nice thing happened to me in 1980. 1 made a speech to honor students at a high school banquet. Honor night speeches are usually about everything except honor. Mine wasn't. And I received a fine tribute about it from a teacher, Burton Ford. "Your presentation to Honor students here was damn good. It was refreshing to an old boy, like myself, to hear it acknowledged that the Bible and Shakespeare are the models for correct English. In a time when old values and ideas are constantly being demeaned and even discarded, it was very refreshing to me to hear a teacher talk about Honor.)' Thank you, sir. Not all the letters were like that. Cassie Stafford of St. Thomas rips me up a bit, though she always sends along a poem at Christmas. She claims I am influencing her childrens' thoughts about sex, even though they are all out of high school by now. Her letter ends. "My own writing is deteriorat- ing from reading your column each week." Me too, Cassie, and thanks for the poem. From The Corner Store in Newtonville conies a note from Gwen McOuat: "This is not a school paper. It is a love note. I think you are terrific and I love ya." Thanks, Gwen. She encourages me to get on with putting a book together, and guarantees it will be on display in the Corner Store. Just before Christmas, an old friend, 'Who worked with me on a steamboat resort ship on the Upper Lakes back in the thirties, was on the blower. He was the head bell-hop, and a consistent failure in medicine and dentistry at the U. of T. He is now a successful dentist in Vancouver, which says something about something. He may be a good dentist, but his memory is not so hot. He claims we once went to a whore house in Detroit. I have never been in a whore house in my life. Knowingly. And I don't ever expect to be. Knowingly. Then , there's always the Christmas card from my old friend and critic, from Westport, who invariably signs his card Your TV Repair Man, and gives me a verbal cuff on the ear, slap on the back and tells me to go on saying it like it is. Bless you all, and the many others who have written encouragement, vitriol, and just good old-fashioned gossip about the good old days, when our hearts were young and gay, and a hamburger was a dime, and a Pepsi was a nickel. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1981 This is equality? It's time to turn the other cheek Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Althougii probably few people in the Western world were surprised last week by thestories of mistreatment told by the 52 Americanp freed from captivity in Iran (who can be surprised at anything that happens there anymore) a sense of outrage still gripped all of us who live in democratic countries. I found it very strange then one night at the height of the outrage over the stories leaked to the press to hear an interview with former U.S. cabinet member Ramsay Clarke in which he said Americans should keep some perspective on this whole matter, No matter how Barbara Frum on CBC Radio's As It Happens program goaded him, Clarke would refuse to express hatred for the Iranians. He won't win many friends among his countrymen for his attitude but then he's already in the black books of many for having broken President Carter's travel ban to Iran to try to talk to the Iranians last summer. He admitted to them that the U.S. had done things it shouldn't have in Iran. I found it hard to accept Clarke's message at first. Americans, he said, should remember what torture really was. The real victitris of torture often didn't live to talk about it, he said, br they were so badly mutilated they couldn't talk, without tongues or fingernails or arms or legs. Hundreds of thousands of people, he reminded us, had suffered that kind of treatment at the hands of the Shah. What the 52 Americans had suffered was mild by comparison. Further, he said that if the American people couldn't be so full of joy for at least two days after the "release of the prisoners that they didn't have to pump themselves full of hate at this mistreat- ment then he found it very sad. He was right, of course, though it took me a few minutes to think about because I too was filled with revulsion at the Iranians. Nothing, of course, can excuse what the Iranians did. They acted beyond the bounds of civilized rules when they took the hostages in the first place and the treatment of the hostages during their 14 months of captivity only added to the crimes. And yet what good will it do to react in hatred and anger? What good will it do to seek. revenge? The Americans could, as some have advocated, send the B52s to Iran to avenge this horrible deed but would it take away the pain the hostages felt? All it would do would be to make more people Suffer. HATRED AND REVENGE Hatred and revenge only breed more hatred and revenge. The Iranians stormed the U.S. Embassy compound because they were full of hatred at what the Shah had done and sought revenge on the Americans who had supported him. They attacked the only American thing, they could, the Embassy. The very reaction to the treat ment of the hostages by the American media and people (or should that be overreaction (Will make the Iranians hate) the Americans more because, like Clarke, they see people in their streets every day who bore the suffering of the Shah's repression. Hatred and revenge are part of a vicious circle that just keeps going round and round causing more pain and suffering., a circle can go on for centuries. We have only to look at Northern Ireland or the Middle East to see how far hatred gets us. • Everytime one 'side in those ancient hatreds perpetrates a crime against the other, revenge must be gained, and then revenge for the revenge and round and round they go, each side seeking justice for past crimes of the other until the original injustices pre long since forgotten and only yesterdays injustices remain. America's pride has been hurt. It is part of the American mythology, the mythology of a thousand western movies, that a man must be a man, he must accept the challenge to his pride and fight. He who does not accept the challenge is somehow not a man but a poor snivelling thing. This fear of backing down has gotten Americans entangled in some costly wars. It is strange that we have spent the last 14 months casting doubt on the religion of the religious Iranian leadership. How can they be as religious as they say, we have asked, and still act the way they do? Yet it is our religion, the religion preached by the )new American president, that calls on us to turn the other cheek not seven times but seventy times seven. Strange that our Christians, can always go back to the Old Testament to find some excuse for their hatred when Christ told us to forgive others that we might be forgiven ourselves. Ranisay Clarke is right. Our only chance for long term peace in the world is to forgive those who done injustices to us. These injustices, like the Iranian hostage taking, have been taking place because the United States has been seen by many smaller nations in the world as a power that wants to control them, even at the expense of the very freedoms espoused in the American constitution: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Jimmy Carter had begun to work to change that image of America: and it's ironic that it should be his government that was the victim of the Iranian outrage. But Mr. Clarke is right. Americans, hurt pride and all, should turn the other cheek in the interests of their long-term peace. AdVettleing IS accepted en the condition that in the event of S' typographical error the advertising space occtipieti by the etteheobt item. together with reasons ble allowance for SIgiiattiter will not be charged for but the balake of the actvettIsentent will be paid for at the itoticebiejiii6. While every effort will be made to ensure they are handled with care, the publishers cannot be 'res sable for the return• of.unsollblted iiianL4C4ti or photos. pon