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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)