HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-12-16, Page 21872
4Bnissels Post
BRUSSELSN T.
Established 1872
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
More from the hit list
Sugar and spice
. By Bill Smiley
Box 50,
Brussels, Ontario.
NOG 11-10
Dear Santa Claus
Well Santa, it's that time of year again and
everybody is asking you for something to
make their Christmas happy so I'm writing to
ask you to make a whole country happy with
but one gift.
You see Santa, I don't know if you've been
listening to the CBC Northern Service lately
but it seems we'll be looking for a new Prime
Minister in the next little while. ' The
Progressive Conservatives are trying to
decide who will be the first to plunge a knife
into the back of their leader so they can get on
with the job of finding a new saviour for their
party and the country. Our illustrious,
near-permanent Prime Minister is also
hinting that he might be ready to quit. Now
although for many Canadians that in itself
would be the best Christmas present they
could wish for, it would leave us in the
position of looking for a replacement and
Justin, and the boys just aren't old enough to
succeed to the throne yet.
So dear Santa, if you could look around and.
deliver us a new leader to take this country"
out of the wilderness it would be much
appreciated. I'll leave the choice up to you but
I've provided a few hints as to what would be
the necessary requirements to make every-
body happy with their leader.
Santa, *le man we need (whoops,-or
woman) must be a person of vision, someone
who can see what must be done in the country
and will go ahead and do it no matter what the
polls say, no matter how unpopular the move
is. We all agree that we have a lack of vision at
the top.
And Santa, the leader must be someone
with a finely tuned ear to the people's wants,
a real democrat. Everybody agrees they don't
want one of these leaders that runs off
following some foolish dream when the
people want to go in another direction.
Our new leader, Santa, needs to be a
person who is scrupulously honest, not just in
the fact he or she won't dip into the till, but in
what he or she says. We're tired of these
mamby pambies who only say things they
think will win them votes.
But Santa we're all fed up with leaders like
our current one who say things that get
people upset, like those statements about
British Columbia lately. We need a leader
who will only say non-controversial things.
things that make people happy.
Our new leader should be somebody who
listens to our pleas to get governments off
our backs. We need someone who will get
back to the good old days when government
wasnt' so big.
Our new leader should be somebody who
listens to us when we demand action to
protect us from abuses, that gives us laws to
protect us from unscrupulous businessmen,
loans and subsidies to help keep our
businesses and our farms out of trouble and
provides cheap mortgages for those of us
trying to buy homes or keep the ones we've
got.
We need a leader to cut government'
spending. Every single one of us realizes the
government is taking too much from us in
taxes. We need a leader like the one down
yonder in the U, S. who is going to cut taxes,
not raise them.
We could model our leader too on that guy
down in Washington because most of us
agree it's time to Stop being a nation of wimps
and put some backbone in the armed forces.
This leader we've had has been too much of a
pacifist. We need somebody who will put
those Ruskies in their place and isn't afraid to
spend a few billion to make sure we have the
weapons to do it. Conscription might be nice
too.
Of course this is the time of year when we
all ask for peace Santa and so we would need
for our leader someone who will want to keep
his country at peace, who will work hard in
the United Nations and elsewhere to make
sure peace comes to the world.
Of course somebody has to pay for the
things we need from government and the
poor and the middle class can't afford to pay a
cent more so we need a leader who's not
afraid to sock it to the rich. You can hardly
expect that when you've got a millionaire
Prime Minister like we've got. That's what . _
the economists (well some of them) tell us.
We need a leader who will make Canada a
strong, united country.
We need a leader who will put an end to the
petty bickering between regions and pro-
vinces and Ottawa. If the provinces want
more power, then given it to them.
Now Santa, I know this is a tall order. You
might think we came to the wrong de-
partment for Christmas. You might think that
what we need is a repeat of the miracle that
started this whole holiday. 1 don't think it
would do much good to go higher up however.
Remember the last leader he sent to us, we
crucified.
Because I write a syndicated column, I've
been put on the hit list of some public
relations outfit in New York. As a result, I
receive a stream of garbage mail containing
fascinating material about some product or
other that is being pushed by the PR firm.
Usually, I spot it right away and toss it in
the round filing cabinet without even opening
it. •
Today came one of these missives and,
distracted by something else, I had opened
the thing and read a paragraph or two before I
realized it was just another piece of puffery.
It was headed News From: The Hamburg
Group. For release: Immediately. All press
releases say the latter. Anyway, I thought it
would be a pitch for MacDonalds' or a string
quartet. It wasn't. it was a series of little
articles about Hamburg and Germany,
touting that city's great variety of attractions.
Such junk has about as much place in this
column as an account of the origins of
bee-keeping in Basutoland. And I'm suppos-
ed to print it free. What dummies these PR
people are.
However, I'd already read enough to hook
me on the first article, entitled: Brewery's
Waste Energy To Heat Hospital. It didn't
make sense at first. Why should breweries
waste energy to heat a hospital, unless
they're trying to make amends to all the
people who wind up in hospital with cirrhosis
of the liver from drinking their poison?
I took another look at the heading, spotted
the apostrophe, and now it made sense. A
brewery will deliver heat and hot water to a
hospital. As part of its brewing process, the
brewery used to end up with a lot of excess
heat that must be cooled before it is released
into the air. Now, instead of being wasted,
that heat will be channeled into the hospital
where it will be put to good use.
Cost of the deal, equipment and stuff, is
about 400,000 marks, to be assumed by the
city. The debt will be liquidated through the
savings on energy that would otherwise have
to be purchased.
Are you listening, Labatts, Molsons et al?
Instead of pouring money into sports and all
these phoney ads, about as subtle as a kick in
the ribs, vindicating that beer-drinking will
make your life macho, full of fun and
beautiful girls in skimpy swim suits, why
don't you channel your heat into hospitals?
Think of the free publicity!
Ain't them Germans something, though? If
they didn't start a war every so often and got
clobbered, they'd own half the world, with
their resourcefulness and hard work.
Last time I saw Hamburg was in 1944, and
it was literally hamburg. The RAF had
firebombed it by night and the USAAF had
pounded it by day until it was heap of rubble.
I was a prisoner of war and saw it from a train
window on my way to an, interrogation centre
in Frankfort.
Forty-odd years later, it has risen from, the
ruins like a phoenix, and is a booming city,
visited by over a million travellers in 1981.
But Hamburg-Schmamburg. I'm not going
to urge my readers to go there. It was the
article on heating that caught my eye.
Aside from the breweries in Canada, this
country has another industry that could
produce enough heat so that, if it were
properly channeled, we could' thumb our
collective noses at the Arabs. I'm talking
about politics.
Town and city councils produce enough hot
air to heat at least one hospital within their
limits.
Provincial legislatives produce enough hot
air to replace half the oil used in their
provinces.
And from that vast deposit of natural gas
known as Ottawa issues daily enough hot air
to heat Montreal's Olympic Stadium, 'even
though it has no roof.
And that's only touching the bases,
without going to the outfield or the infield.
Think of all the hot air produced by
teachers and preachers, union leaders,
abortionists and anti-abortionists, public
relations people, medical associations, school
boards.
And there's lots more where that comes
from. The squeals of those caught with a
mortgage to be renewed, the moans of
farmers who are losing their shirts, the
bellows of angry small-businessmen: all
these are wasting energy by blowing hot air
into our rather frigid climate, there to be
dispersed into nothing.
Add to this all the hot air that is poured into
our telephone lines, that is batted back and
forth over business luncheons and at parties
and over the breakfast table.
It's perfectly simple. All we need is a
means of bottling the stuff somehow, and
distributing it to the right places. If our
scientists tan send a missile to Mars, surely
they can find a method of storing and
channeling the incredible quantities of hot air
that rise in clouds over our country.
Peter Lougheed might have to cap some of
his oil wells, but if somebody came up .with
the solution, we could not only tell the Arabs
what to do with their oil. We could probably
buy Saudi Arabia.
Maybe I'll drop a line to the Mayor of
Hamburg, see what he suggests
A Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher
Evelyn Kennedy, Editor
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1981
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario
Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of
Circulation.
Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO
every Wednesday morning
by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited
Authorized as second class mail by Canada
Post Office. Registration Number 0562.
$13 a year
40 cents a single copy
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
A letter to Santa
THE PHOTOGRAPHER COMES TO VISIT — •
Nobody was forewarned the photographer was
coming when this picture was taken back in
June 1909, thus accounting for the rather
unprepared appearance of these people. This is
a picture of Archie Mann sitting on the wagon
with his father. His brother Bill is seated on the
horse. To the left is his mother, beside her is a
Mrs. Stewart with Archie's sister Flora in" her
arms. Flora was a rather unwilling participant
as they had to get her out of bed for the picture.
Beside them is a Vrsitor, Marion Love. This
house was located on Lot 35 on the 16th.
concession of Grey where Bill Mann is now
farming the land., (Photo courtesy Archie Mann)