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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-02-25, Page 21872 4BrusselsPost Box 50, ONT. Brussels, Ontario. Established 1872 519-887-6641 NOG 1H0 Serving.Brussels and the surrounding community Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited A Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor Pat Langlois, Advertising Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advance) outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1981, Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. nn . V for sera at Ins1 for the the Cud Sevi plec Peg onsi spec ing Fri TI Club noon good Fr( the Fran mas Mint tary 1 and nun( ing. Ed Cu Tf 111i/cc Mon N( so n feet. fun SOME ence pene chap skip) with posh 'mow ends the lar s two Th were Veitc Bray Howl an de Lewii Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Burn out Short Shots by Evelyn Kennedy Gossip is like a rolling snowball. When it stops rolling it melts away. When it rolls on and on it is added to and the original bit grows away from all semblance of truth. ** * * * * It is Pancake Supper time again at St. John's Anglican Church on Shrove Tuesday. March 3. Those delicious fluffy pancakes dripping with butter and syrup- um-urn mouth-watering good! Look elsewhere in this paper for with particulars. In last week's Short Shot on more restriction on body contact in minor hockey the first sentence should have read "It has been impressed on this community that there should be more restriction on illegal, and legal body contact in minor hockey," not restrictions illegal, or legal as it did. * * * * * * The World Day of Prayer will be observed in Melville Presbyterian Church, Brussels, this year, on Friday, March 6 at 1:30 p.m. The prayers of people are indeed needed. With potential trouble. spots; seething in many parts of the world and the problems facing Canada, prayers for the guidance,. and help of the Almighty should be made daily as well as on this day. Attend and join in prayer with others around the world. * * * * * * We are constantly bombarded with all kinds of ads flung straight at us from the TV screen to convince us of what is right fogey extol the virtues of everything frhe Soft Touch." bathroom tissue; the laxative that will best relieve our dumpy feelings to cars that will coax the most miles out of the gas guzzling monsters. All this is bad enough. But we can at least use our common sense and refuse to be influenced to too great an extent by what we see and hear. Something much worse, that we are unaware of, that few can see, or understand, is said to be influencing us in ways we would never dream of. It is subliminal advertising, messages below our level of awareness. It has been suggested it is being used on T.V. and has been found also in .pictures on the screen and in magazines. One investigator reported he has sported more than 1,000 s uch messages. It is frightening not knowing how much of an impression such a thing makes on our subconscious. It makes one wonder what we might be influenced to do by Those making use of such an underhanded method to persuade us. * * * • ** The Majestic Women's Institute will sponsor a Dessert Euchre in the Library on Mnday, March 2. Any community is lucky to. have a W.I. Their motto is "Home and Country." and with that motto in mind, do more good work than most people realize. Are you a member of the Majestic W.I.? If not, why not join now. Attend the Dessert Euchre. See Coming Events for particulars. **A.*** Here is something new. Morning Star Rebekah Lodge are sponsoring a Hat Luncheon Euchre on Monday, March 9. Watch for further particulars in the next issue of The Post. * ** *** If you are a ski-jumping enthusiast or not, one could not help but be amaz .ed and thrilled as they watched the International 90-meter ski-jumping competition on Thun- der Mountain Sunday. Shooting down that steep run and flying off that ramp into space the competitors exhibited speed, grace and skill in marvellous muscle control. The best in the world, ski-jumpers from many countries took part in the competitions. The Canadians. while not taking medals, were not far behind the winners. Still young. they show great promise for the future. I remember writing something about teachers.' "burnout rate" in an early column, With the eager help of my English department, I'm rapidly approaching the condition of a cinder. The original article, written by Calgary teacher and psychologist Stephen Truch, gave the symptoms for teacher burnout, which is third to only surgeons and air traffic controllers. Here they are: Constant fatigue, insomnia, and depress- ion, I have the first two. 1 let my wife look after the depression, though she's also got the other two, just from living with a teacher., Every time I start getting depressed, I think back to the late fall of 1944, when I was locked in a railway freight car. I didn't have rings on my fingers, or bells on my toes. I had bars on the windows, and wire tying my wrist's and ankles together. And a face that looked as though I'd challenged Muhammad Ali when he was in his prime. That always makes me immediately undepressed. It also makes me turn up the heat and go out and buy a lot of food. In those days I slept on a wood floor, no pillow, no blanket, shivering like a dog with rabies. Daily meals were four slices of bread and two cups of burnt-barley coffee. But that's all behind and forgotten now. The cellar is piled to the ceiling with canned goods, and when the oils runs out, or becomes too expensive to buy, I have two huge oaks and a bunch'of maples to see me through until St. Peter says, "Where's Smiley?" I'll never be hungry or sleep cold again, if I have to murder. However, I have all the other symptoms of teacher burnout, and that causes a little concern. As the learned psychologist said, we also suffer "frequent minor complaints such as colds. dizziness, headaches, diarr- hea. loss of appetite and loss of desire for sex." These are minor? I've had 'em all, in varying degrees during this cruel winter. Not all at once, thank goodness. If I had, they might as well put me in a green plastic bag and throw me into a snowdrift on one of the back concessions. But, somehow, as department head, my colds are not as bad as my teachers' colds. My dizziness is just a slight buzzing in my ears when my wife talks a blue streak. Theirs makes them stagger from wall to wall and take six days off.. My headache is created by their constant absence. Their headaches are migraines, demanding three days off, with all the lights out, medication, and tender loving care. Diarrhea? Theirs, to hear them tell it, is ten times worse than my mere six or eight times a day. It's a hundred times worse than what I had in Normandy, 1944, when I had to be carried to the facilities. More days off. Loss of appetite? Even though I gag over my breakfast of toast with peanut butter and half a banana, they think they've lost their appetites if they don't have juice, cereal, bacon and eggs and hot buttered toast with jam. Loss of desire for sex? I have to have somebody explain to me what it means. And all this is not because I am burned out but because the teachers on my staff are. I think that what's done if is trying to keep up with their Chief. They just can't do it, and they're breaking down and falling apart like a leaky old ship caught in a hurricane. Item. One of my teachers has developed insomnia, not to mention chest pains and frequent bouts of 'flu. Combine them and yu have an eighty-pound shadow desperately hanging on. Item. Another veteran had an attack of angina, his second, and decided to call it quits. This meant a great shuffle of teachers and classes to fill his place. Which was filled by a capable young woman who went to Florida for a holiday, after teaching a month, there contracted, ironically, pneumonia, and missed most of January. Item. A young English teacher, in great physical shape, plays hockey, soccer, golf, has been plagued by 'flu and migraines, and totters in practically weeping wth self-pity, behind in his work, determined to move to B.C. Item. A solid performer, male English teacher, never sick, got terrible "cramps" in his stomach, thought it was the 'flu, because that was one of the symptoms, still had a horrible soreness in his abdomen after the cramps, and wound up with a burst appendix - three weeks off. The idiot. Add to that the fact that, to preserve jobs for people, my department contains one science teacher who swears he has never read a book, one art teacher whom I know hasn't, one teacher of Spanish, and various other dogsbodies, and you know what I'm up against. Supply teachers come to me on their knees, begging me to tell them what my missing teachers were doing when they went sick. The administration fondly (in the Shakespearian sense of foolishly) believes that I know what every teacher was doing on fourth period last Friday, and can help out. If you see an odd-looking piece of charcoal next summer when you are doing your barbecue, something that vaguely resembles the outline of a human, don't throw it in the flames and douse it with gasoline. It might be me. Burnt-out. Still waiting for St. Peter to speak up or launch an investigation. Canadians need to learn about each other The importance of the communications media in Canada has never been so clearly illustrated as in the current turmoil over the constitutional debate. Unfortunately, the failure of the media has never been more apparent either. A good case can be made for the argument that if communication was handled in the past better in Canada we might not face the current unpleasantness and that if commun- ication - was what it ought to be today people would at least have true information to make their judgments of what is right or wrong in the country. Democracies depend on the\majority vote of the people to make their decision on who is to lead them.- The very nature of democtacy then demands that the people must be well informed to make wise decisions about the running of the country. Communication , since the birth of Canada as a nation, has been the most important aspect of our nationhood, Sir .John A. Macdonald recognized that when he drove through the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway with the same kind of single-minded dedication (and imperfection) displayed by our current Prime Minister in the Constitu- tional debate. Canada ig in the forefront of ultra-modern communications. Ours was one of the first nations te pions. communications satellites.' We've been among the leaders in the Use of revolutionary breakthroughs like fibre Optics that can send millions of messages through hair-like glass wires on tiny laser beams. The Teledon system which allows people to ask and receive information from central computers through television sets is regard- ed as the best in the world. This new two-way television may change our entire lives. Another kind of two-way communications. however, would have done a lot to change the current mess we're in. Despite all these important communications breakthroughs that started with the invention of the telephone by a Canadian, communication in Canada has generally been a one-way street. It isn't the means of communication in Canada that has been lacking, it's the organization of that means, our way of using the media to get across the message. In many ways the pockets of civilisation across Canada are as isolated from each other today as they were a century ago before the• building of the CPR, the coating of the telegragh, the telephone, the radio, and television. There . just isn't much information exchanged between Canadians in different parts of the country. Despite all the concern about the futtire of Quebec in Canada before the refereedum, for instance, what do you hear from Quebec these days? We pay fin' an expensive radio and television network Canadian Broadcast- ing Corporation in English Canada and Radio Canada in Quebec but the two operate as if they were sworn enemies. If it isn't a speech by someone threatening to break away from Canada then we in the rest of the country are unlikely to hear about something that goes on .in Quebec, Surely the people there, worry about jobs, about failed crops, about the same everyday troubles of life that. we do. Why then don't we hear about them? Likewise the West is ignored unless it's a ranting spee ch by Peter Lougheed or a separatist rally by a bunch of yahoos who want a. chance to complain about French on the cornflakes boxes. J f our media in the last 100 years had given us the truth about people's complaints in the West, probably we wouldn't-be in a situation of conflict now. Why, for instance, is nearly all CBC's national programming concentrated in Tor- onto? Surely there are talented people in the rest of the country. Perhaps we can't expect to build sophisticated studio facilities in every major city in Canada to produce the most complicated progtamming, but yoU can't persuade me that a program like Front Page Challenge couldn't as easily originate from Edmonton, or the Fifth Estate couldn't be produced from Calgaty of Halifax. Whv can't CBC assign so many house of its national television time each week to each of the regions Aso that Canadians wouldn't be getting the view of their entire country as filtered through the smog-strained eyes of a few Toronto media leaders, As for the private networks, well they're so sadly lacking in real relevance in their contribution to this country we might about as well set up repeater stations of ABC, CBS and NBC and save all the money wasted making these carpetbaggers rich, Our major newspapers could do the country a big service if they'd get out and learn what other parts of the country are like. They send one reporter from a Toronto newspaper to Alberta (or Quebec or the Maritimes) for a long weekend then bring him back and make him the reside& expert on all regional activities for the next two years. It's time all our media stopped being like forest fire fighters, rushing to the hot spots to report on the flanies. You may have heard something of Quebec before the referendum but now that the fire is in the West, the reporters have gone there. There's been no fire in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Notth Ontario so you haveh't heard anything from there at all. If our national communicators were sae Jed to the same laws as our doctors, the courts would have a five-year backlog Of malpractice suits: Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston • J( • Pen, Tuee ham his A men in B by h McL ters McC Way sels and sels. gran dece five TI Bras Wati 'Frill, rein( John Brus at 2 Of L. Te in t Chat Mehl Sells Pa Marl Gera Ai