HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-08-30, Page 2Brussels Post
SRUSSE LS
ONTARIO
AND NOW FOR A LITTLE BARBECUE SAUCE—Jim Preszcator of
Londesboro puts barbecue dsauce on the pork chops as Les 'QpImage of
RR1, Seaforth takes care of the pork chops at his end for the pork
barbecue held in Brussels on Thursday•night. (Brussels Post Photo)
Sugar and Spice
by Bill Smiley
WEDNESDAY,• AUGUST 30,. 1978
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean. Bros. Publishers Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor
Member -Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year.
Others $17.00 a Year, Single Copies:20 cents each.
+CNA
The two
greatest dangers
Each of us has our pet peeves in life and
mine is a battle against labels. No, not the
kind you find on the back collar of your shirt
but the kind people always seem to want to
collar you with.
Over the years I've been called everything
from a communist to a facist, from a
bleeding heart liberal to a red neck Huron
county conservative and I'm a little tired of
it.
There are probably some people who like
tobe labelled. I know some people who wear
socialist or liberal on their lapels like it was a
badge of courage. It makes them feel
comfortable I guess to be able to put a name
to their feelings. It doesn't make them any
truer to their feelings though. I've known
people who professed a socialist philosophy
that was almost to the point of bying
communist or even anarchist who still went
out and behaved like veteran capitalists
when it came to making money. One prime
example ran about three businesses on the
side -of his, full time job.
On the other hand I've known veteran
capitalists Who blast the government and cry
the need for the free market and the safety of
the competitive marketplace who run to the
government for help at the first sign of
trotible, or who insist on driving any
competitor out of business as soon as he
starts to take even a small chunk of that
-free and competitive marketplace."
Please, 1 don't want to be lumped in to,
either group in the same way I would never
join a political party. The problem is that
once you make , that commitment to the
group you pick up a whole lot of ether
baggage as well.. You may believe in a few
items of that creed of faith but suddenly
you're supposed to support all of them.
The best example of this of course is in
big-time politics. If you reach the top, the
selected few persons who form the top brass
of any political party, you are committed to
either go along with the group or get out. If
the rest of the cabinet (or shadow cabinet in
the case of the oppostion parties, votes one
way on a subject thenyou've got to support
it even if you feel the decision is wrong. The
only alternative you have is to resign.
Evett the • lowly back benchers are
expected to toe the party line Or they're soon
regarded as marvericks, if anything less
trusted than the opposition party. Is this any
way to run a country? If we muzzle the very
people we elect to lead the country what
hope do we have of getting the full truth so
we can make intelligent decisions as to who
We should or shouldn't elect?
This same philosophy works all the way
d-own the line, to a lesser 'degree, Say you
support Pierre Trudeau's language policies
and you join the Liberal party. Well in fact
- you also get his economic policies thrown in
too and you're supposed to support them,
even if you don't like them: Say you like the
social conscience of the New Democratic
party So you decide to support them and join
the party. By joining; suddenly you find
yourself in the same camp as the big
international unions and you're all supposed
to pull together, even if you think some
By Roger Bell
(Writing for Bill. Smiley, who is-touring relics
older than him.)
For the past three years, I've been
fighting (and losing) a war which I call the
Great Battle of Necktie. • I believe in a neck
unfettered by the choking confinement of a
chunk of silk or polyester. These useless
cloth appendages cramp my style, not to
mention my fragile esophagus. They drag in
my goulash ,at dinner, flap in my faye while
I'm 'humming along on my ten-speed. and
off6r an open invitation to whichever one of
my 6'5" students wants to garrotte me for .
the. E-tcrm test I've just returned to him.
Unfortunately, my employer and his
superiors don't agree with my views on the
liberated neck. I walked naively into work on
the first day, collar open, spirits high, and
was promptly informed of the Eleventh
Commandment - Thou shalt not offend mine
eyes by allowing thy throat to appear
ungarnished in my presence: nor shalt thou ,
sport turtlene,..ks. which vex 111e. sorely; and
lest thou wish to feel- the fiery lash of
Unemployment, thou shalt not allow the
the big unions are on their way to ruining the
coo ntry.
Much the same is true in the less formal
grouping of our society. It seems today that
everybody must have a handle so that other
people can make instant judgements as to
which side the person is on. At the very
minimum there's the "leftish" and the
-lightish". The "Ieftish" includes ,first off
the liberals, the supporters of individual
rights, freedom of the press and lord knows
what all. The "rightisft" ' include the
conservatives, and they stand for...well what
do they stand for? I mean we're bantering
around these terms all the time and I don't
really think many people know what they
mean anymore: The liberals pride them:
selves in the right of the individual in
society, but that was originally a conser-
vative belief. The conservatives are anti-big
government yet governments manned by
conservatives all across the country have
been manufacturing huge governments. The
names mean nothing anymore.
That's why I resent having people call Me
a liberal or a conservative or a communist or
afacist. I'm me, I have my own beliefs and I
don't want to be fenced in with some
imaginary things I'm supposed to believe. I
can be a liberal when it comes to the cause of
not taking lives iri,capital punishment but Ill
be a conservative if that's what. I must be
When it comes to the issue of riot taking lives
with abortion upon demand.
I'll believe what I believe, thank you and
please don't try to tack beliefs onto me that I
don't want by sticking the with a label.
blashemous blue denim to adorn thy person.
This accompanied by the roar of thunder, the
slash of lightning and a horrifying vision of
my lovely contract in flames. The score after
the first skirmish: Haberdashers-1 , Roger
(bloodied champion of human rights)-0.
This whole thing smacks of the
re-appearance of the great god and teller of
falsehoods, Outwardshow. I thought that the
blucjeaned, longhaired troops of the Youth-
andtruth Army had laid his hideous eorpse to
rest after the hard-fought Battle of Hippie
Junction, in the late 1960's. But it appears
that he haS risen, phoenixlike, and is
slinking about the land, appealing to the
conservative and the normal in all men. His
insidious message is simply this: Clothes
make the man. He of the neatly coiffed head
'and the smartly-tailored4or-today's-man-
on-the-go-three-pice vested suit is superior
and preferable to he of the 'unkempt mane
and ticicss torso. The multitudes will respect
the former, and lie shall rise to dizzying
heights; the latter will be as loved as a pintof
prune juice in a dysentry ward and he will go
nowhere fast in the world of Big Business.
Pardon me. but--bunk!
• Let's follow that line of reasoning for
awhile. Imagine the following scene:
Adolphe Hitler and Jesus Christ show up
one night at your house, uninvited, for
dinner. Adolphe is handsomely attired in a
new $300 pinstripe wool-worsted suit, a pair
of neat suede shoes, and an expensive tie
with a tidy Windsor knot. Jesus, in contrast,
sports only a simple cotton caftan, has dusty
feet and open-toed sandals, and has
(gasp-call the cops!) long hair and a beard.
With me so far? If you adhere to
Outwardshow's dictumornament is every-
thing, character nothing--Jesus will end up
eating burgers at McDonald's and you'll
have a dinner guest who admires your,
lampshades and seems ungrateful when you
tell him you don't like pork.
Can you conceive the idiotic situations the
Appearance Is Reality belief might spawn?
To be considered a worthy cleaning lady,
Mrs. Magoo would have to do your
hardwood floors in an evening gown. Local
sanitary engineers would sling festering
piles of refuse into the back of their Rolls
'Royce, being very careful no to get any On
their' tropical-weight leisure sUitS. The
mechanic at YO.ur favority garage might be
adverse to fixing the transmission in your
jaunty jalopy for fear he might sully his
velvet tuxedo. (A positive offShoot —schools
which were troubled by vandalism would
have only to hand a tie in every window and
not only would vandals not destroy the place r
they'd rake the lawns and trim the hedges.)
Yes, folks ; as much as I hate to admit it-it
brings a lump to my throat to say it--old
Gutty is alive and well: I do however' have a
new battle plan for' the upcoming :round of
hostilities—my friend Cheiiier, the artist, is
going to silkSereen a tie on my hairy chest.
NO, problem really, I'll just pretend it's
mohair.
Each day an ever-widening circle of danger surrounds mankind. It
is a vicious circle that reaches the front pages only occasionally. It is
the combination of babies and bombs. Each day, the world's nations
are spending considerably more than $1 billion .on their bombs and
their military establishments. And each day, 170,000 new babies come
into a world threatened by a shortage of basic resources.
In a century that is haunted by the memory of two global wars and
countless lesser but nevertheless grisly conflicts, the great poweri and
all of the smaller nations are spending between $375 billion and $400
billion on various military expenditures each year. The $350 billion
figure for the year 1976 represented more than the combined national
product of South Asia, the Far East and Africa.
The danger of the proliferation of weapons is matched only. by the
other potential disaster facing humanity--overpopulation. If present
trends continue, Mexico, one century from today, will have a larger
population than the Soviet Union and China combined. An unchecked
,population in the poorer lands will mean that the already crowded
island nation of Indonesia would have 1.78 billion people in 100 years,
or almost half the present population of the globe.
The circle of danger can and must be broken. A greater awareness of
the twin curses that haunt us--arms proliferation and overpopulation --
can help meet the crisis. Once people understand fully that only they
themselves can control the destiny of humanity, the solution will be at
least \within our grasp. The United Church
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston I don't want to be labelled