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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1986-09-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1986. Changing priorities A recent survey by the United States business giant A. T. & T. shows that the priorities of employees have changed over the years. The company does this kind of survey every few years to try to get a handle on what the employees want in their lives. Surveys from earlier decades showed that employees sought promotion in their jobs above other things in their lives. Today the employees put a happy home life ahead of success on the job. If the employee’s preferences reflect what’s happening in society in general, it’s an interesting development, both reassuring and worrying. It’s reassuring because it seems that more and more people are getting their priorities straight. For years we’ve bemoaned the fact that people seemed to put everything, material possessions, career success, etc., ahead of family happiness. It shows a new maturity in the public. But it also shows amaturityina society which can mean trouble economically. Societies that succeed are the societies where people are struggling to get ahead, hungry for more material wealth. That’s the reason immigrants often succeed better than long-time residents of North America. It’s the reason Third World countries like Taiwan and South Korea are making such dramatic climbs up the ladder of world economies. It’s the “catch 22’’ of a society: we strive to get to a point of comfort but if we get too comfortable, our economy gets in trouble and we soon can’t keep up our comfortable status. In the meantime, however, let’s be happy for the new-found stability it may bring to family life. Good show gang The 25th edition of the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association reunion was undoubtedly the biggest and best yet and praise must go to all the organizers. The Thresher Reunion has been a huge succcess from the time the first reunion was held in 1962. With that success has come a bonanza for many other groups as well. Although the Association has made a small profit for itself each year, usually more money goes into the pockets of organizations that have become associated with the Reunion over the years. Blyth Lions Club’s beer garden is one of the major fundraising events for the group. Londesboro Lions help park the cars and get valued funds for their work. The Blyth firemen hold their pancake breakfast on Thresher Reunion weekend and this year served 700 people. Many other organizations, including two newspapers that put out souvenir editions, also benefit financially. The Association and its reunion have been a tremendous benefit to the Blyth community. The hard-working members of the group deserve high praise for their work. Broken promises The Canadian pay television industry got at least some of the breaks it wanted last week when the Canadian Radio-Televi­ sion Commission agreed to reduce the requirements for Canadian content. The network had argued that it was hard to get enough Canadian movies to fill the huge number of hours the network broadcasts and also that the quality was poor and few people want to watch Canadian movies. The CRTC decision follows a long pattern of such watering down of content requirements. In order to get a licence to broadcast businessmen haveakind of auction, seeing who can bid the most impressive promises of contributing to Canadian culture. They promise new Canadian programming, quality Canadian programming. Usually the group that promises the most gets the licence and almost immediately, it seeks exemptions from the promises it made to get the licence in the first place. The pay TV people, for instance, knew there was going to be a problem in the first place getting Canadian movies for their programming. They promised however to help create that programming, feeding huge amounts of money into the Canadian movie industry. It hasn’t turned out that way. Pay TV has never really taken off in Canada, faced with a proliferation of channels already availableoncable TV, and with satellite dishes that until recently have provided free movies and with video tape cassettes that allow people to watch what they want when they want it. The pay TV people, however, have laid most of the blame at the door of Canadian programming they say nobody wants to watch. There’s some truth to the argument because too much bad Canadian programming has made it to the air. There’s a lot of bad American programming too but for Canadians, bad American programming is just bad; bad Canadian programm­ ing confirms their feeling of inferiority that we can’t do anything right. But the CRTC ruling not only allows the pay TV channels to reduce the amount of Canadian programming but also to re ducetheamount of mon ey they are require d to putin to Canadian programming. The decision only seems to make it obvious that in a new months the Pay-TV people will still be complaining they can't get enough good Canadian programm­ ing and will be back for more concessions. What the Pay-TV people would like is what most commercial broadcasters also want: a licence to retransmit cheap, imported product and make big bucks without putting anything back into C anadian programming. If the CTRC keeps watering dow n the mandate as it has done in this case, they may get what they want. Then who’ll be around to remind us of what it’s like to be Canadian? There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel’s Grill where the greatest minds in the town (if not in the country) gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society. Since notjusteveryone can partake of these deliberations we will report the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Julia Flint was kidding the other members of the group this morning that she hadn’t seen any of them in the recent list of the 10 sexiest men in Canada that was published in Chatelaine magazine. Tim O’Grady said that he was kind of disappointed because he had expected Julia to have nomin­ ated at least one or two of them. After all, he said, it would have looked kind of funny if one of the men had nominated another of the men in the club. Julia said she always admired them for their minds, not their bodies. Hank Stokes said that was justaswellbecausehe’dhateto think their minds were in as bad shape as their bodies. Ward Black said he kind of wondered how come there were never any un-famous men in these sexiest men categories. The sex­ iest men in both the U.S. and Canada always end up being rock stars and athletes and writers and politicians. Does it mean that sexiness is one of the things that makes you famous or being famous makes you sexy. And what happ­ ens to all those millions of women who get stuck with ordinary, un-famous people, who are ob­ viously unsexy? TUESDAY: Tim was talking about all the people who are demanding that the drinking age be raised from 19 as a way of cutting down drinking and driving among young people. Julia says you should hear the kids these days, the ones who are 18 and worried that somebody’s going to change the drinking age just when they get old enough. Billie Bean says he can remem­ ber going through the same thing. When he was 15 everybody was saying they were going to raise the driving age to 18 and when he was 17 they were talking about increas­ ing the drinking age. And the same guys who were --- ---------------- -------------------' CTrOhe world view from Mabel’s Grill upset about maybe missing out back then are the ones who think the age should be increased now, says Tim. Maybe we’ll create another generation that says never trust anybody over 30. WEDNESDAY: Billie was talking this morning about that Dutch balloon team that went across the Atlantic by hot air. Hank Stokes suggested they’d have made even faster progress if Parliament was in session creating lots of tail wind for them. Billie was surprised that this whole trip cost $8 million to pull off. Julia thought it would have been cheaper to take a charter flight. Tim said that even with the high cost of running Parliament, we can produce hot air a lot cheaper than that. THURSDAY: Julia was talking about that terrible tragedy in Russia where the cruise ship was sunk and so many people were killed. Tim was mentioning that people are comparing to the Titanic because people were up on deck dancing far into the night until the ship was hit. It was the people who were dancing in both cases who were most likely to be saved. The people who went to bed early, got drowned. “Doesn’t say much for the rewards of clean living does it,’’ Hank Stokes said. OFFICE HOURS FOR THE CITIZEN’S BRUSSELS OFFICE Monday 10-2 Wednesday 10-2 Thursday 10-2 Friday 10-2 Closed on Tuesday, Saturday & Sunday [640523Ontario Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Published weekly in Brussels, Ontario P.O.Box152 P.O.Box429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. N0G1H0 N0M1H0 887-9114 523-4792 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00foreign. 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