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The Citizen, 1990-09-26, Page 5Arthur Black THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1990. PAGE 5. Some final thoughts It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. Woody Allen Ah, yes. Death. The final taboo. Go into a bar, slip on to a bar stool, strike up a conversation with the person next to you and chances are pretty good that before you’re halfway through your first Saspar- illa, you’ll hear more about his or her political beliefs, religious convictions and sexual orientation than you ever wanted to know. But if you ask the stranger about death? Zipper lips. Clam city. And a sidelong We-Don’t-Allow-Weirdos-In-Here glare from the suddenly chilly bartender. We’re a civilization of inveterate gab­ bers - except when the subject is death. Which is a pity, considering it’s an appointment we all have to keep. Of course, some exits are more specta­ cular than others. Joan of Arc went out, quite literally, in a blaze of glory, incinerated by the Church as heretic. Zeuxis the Greek, on the other hand, underwent a more ignominious finale. Zeuxis, a painter who lived around 500 BC, daubed a satirical portrait of an old woman What to believe in the news BY RAYMOND CANON Having reported on events, both national and international, for some 40 years, I believe that I can honestly claim to have a certain feel for what is going on. It certainly is not infallible but, after a while, it is not hard to get the feeling that there is a certain manipulation of the news taking place. I should point out that I have been involved, in one way or another, with Iraq for the past 15 years and have actually been there on business. 1 was under no illusions whatsoever what sort of govern­ ment existed in that country when I arrived in Baghdad. It certainly was not my first encounter with a government that might be categorized as totalitarian; I had already experienced that during my stay in Spain during the dictatorship of General Francis­ co Franco. But Saddam Hussein has never made any secret of his proclivities; it was he who led Iraq into an eight-year inconclusive war with Iran; it was the same Hussein who did not hesitate to use poison gas both on the Iranian soldiers and subsequently on some of his own people, in this case the Kurdish minority, who threatened to get a bit out of line. The strange thing is that, while Hussein was clearly the agressor in the war and he just as clearly resorted to the use of poison gas, any condemnation by the west was perfunctory at best. The western Nations, and above all the French, went on selling Hussein arms as if there were no tomorrow and, if I am not mistaken, even the Americans permitted the Iraquis to see satellite photos of the battle zone so that they would have a better idea of what the Iranians were up to. Perhaps it was that Hussein was considered to be the lesser of two evils when compared to the Ayatollah Khomeini but at least the latter never resorted to the use of poison gas. Now the same press that continuously refused to castigate Saddam Hussein for either a senseless war or his horrible use of that made him laugh so hard he blew a blood vessel in his head and died on the spot. Death can be, as someone once said, like a pie in the face from God. Take the case of Allan Pinkerton. You would think the founder of the world-famous Pinkerton’s detective agency would go out in a hail of gunfire or at the very least on silken sheets attended by the best physicians money could rent. Not so. Mister P. stumbled one morning while taking his morning constitu­ tional, biting his tongue. The wound turned gangrenous and Mister Pinkerton died. Or consider Claudius I. One would expect such an august personage to expire with all the pomp and majesty befitting a Numero Uno in the Roman Empire. Uh-uh. Claudius choked on a chicken feather - a chicken feather that, ironically, his person­ al physician had thrust down the Emperors throat to induce vomiting. (Claudius’ wife, it seems, had been slipping her hubby poisoned mushrooms in an attempt to become sold custodian of the family jewels.) Indeed, in the game of death, Irony often lays it on thick and heavy. I don’t know if curiosity killed the cat, but it certainly didn’t do Sir Francis Bacon any favours. Riding through a snowstorm in his carriage one day, Sir Francis had a brainwave that stuffing dead bodies with snow might slow down decay. He stopped his carriage, got out and purchased a chicken, killed it on the spot and stuffed it with snow. Alas, Sir Francis never got to write up poison gas is now overwhelmingly ready to trot out their list of pejorative adjectives to label the Iraqi leader with the same intensity that used to be reserved for the Germans and Japanese in World War II. President Bush set the tone by referring to him right from the beginning as a “dictator”. This, however is not something that he suddenly became; he has been precisely that all during the time that the western nations were plying him with the most modern and sophisticated of wea­ pons. The Russians may have been the biggest single source of arms but the western nations were not far behind. Don’t forget too, that the Russians have joined in the condemnation. Try to keep in mind, since it is not too frequently mentioned, that there is not one Arab nation in the Middle East that comes close to being a democracy in the North Dogs, cats should be neutered THE EDITOR, Tens of thousands of dogs and cats are destroyed in animal shelters and pounds annually in Ontario. Most of these animals are healthy and friendly pets. They have to be killed because there are many more adoptable dogs and cats than there are responsible people who are seeking to provide a pet with a good, caring home. Who is to blame for the tragic reality of pet over-population? While no one particu­ lar group is solely to blame, a major contributor of “unwanted” animals is the irresponsible pet owner. Some people whose pet has contributed to a litter of puppies or kittens being born often justify the situation by saying that homes were found for all the young animals. These people do not realize that the homes they found for the puppies or kittens could have gone to dogs and cats waiting patiently to be adopted in animal shelters and pounds. Unfortunately, many of these animals will have to be destroyed due to a lack of good homes for them. Neutering (a general term meaning a spayed female or castrated male animal) an animal will ensure that it car not contribute to the pet over-population problem. While neutering your pet so it cannot contribute to the tragic problem of pet over-population is important, it is not the only reason why your pet should be neutered. Neutered pets can be much the experiment. He caught a chill from his chicken-buying spree which turned into a fatal bout of pneumonia. The award for Most Grotesque Death goes to Thomas May, a 17th century English historian. Mister May was fat. Very fat. So fat he had double chins on his double chins. May’s pendulous jowls got to be such a logistical problem that he took to tying them up with bandannas. While shovelling down dinner one day, Mister May began to hiccup. By the time bystanders got his throat kerchiefs untied, he’d choked to death. Let us close the coffin lid on this grissly chapter with the story of Yousouf Ishmae- lo, a world champion Turkish wrestler who toured North America in the late 19th century, defeating all comers and amass­ ing a fortune - which he converted into gold chains and kept in a leather pouch that he wore day and night. What safer place? The man was a mountain of muscle. Who could take it from him? Well, an old Mat Mama who fights under the name of Mother Nature, actually. Yousouf and his money belt went down with his ship off Nova Scotia. He could easily have swam to safety, you understand - but not with a belt full of gold around his waist. And Yousouf stubbornly refused to part with his leather pouch right to the end. Which is not a fate I’ll ever have to worry about. My wallet’s so empty I could use it for flotation. American meaning of the word. The closest may be either Egypt or Jordan but, regardless of the words which may be used to describe these nations, democratic was not one of them. Kuwait, the tiny nation that was overrun by Iraq, was by no stretch of the imagination a democracy; a half­ hearted attempt to introduce some demo­ cratic basics soon foundered. As for Syria, whose troops are lined up beside those of the United States along the Iraqi border, that country is as much a dictatorship as is Iraq. In short, when you read about the Middle East, there is no such thing, regardless of what you might read in the press, as black and white, only different shades of sand. Some of that sand may, for one reason or another unknown to us, be coloured more brightly than it really is. healthier. Neutering dogs and cats elimi­ nates or significantly decreases the chan­ ces of various medical problems from occurring to dogs and cats. With excep­ tions made for animals bred for show (by responsible breeders) or upon the recom­ mendation of a veterinarian, all dogs and cats should be neutered. If you would like a free pamphlet produced by the Ontario Humane Society entitled “Why Your Pet Should Be Neutered”, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (#10 business type) to: N. Glenn Perrett Publications Co-ordinator Ontario Humane Society 620 Yonge Street Newmarket, Ont. L3Y 4V8 As well, the Ontario Humane Society has also produced a poster entitled “One of the Unlucky Ones” which illustrates the tragedy of the unnecessary problem of pet over-population. Copies of this poster can be obtained from the Society for $2.00 each (postage and handling included). For orders of 5 or more, posters cost only $1.25 each. Please help reduce the pet over-popula­ tion problem. See your veterinarian re­ garding having your pet neutered. N. Glenn Perrett, Publications Co-ordinator. Letter from the editor Volunteers like this are hard to find BY KEITH ROULSTON Evalena Webster who died last week may have been Huron county’s most famous volunteer, the person who repre­ sented all those thousands of people who have given their time and talents to make this county what it is. Her passing illustrates the problems we're looking at as the older generation of volunteers is no longer capable of carrying on their work. As head of the catering committee at Blyth United Church for many years Evalena gained wide publicity because of her group’s involvement with the “Country Supper” program of the Blyth Festival. It had been Evalena that James Roy turned to way back in the early years of the Festival, first to provide food for an opening night banquet at the Festival, and later to provide lunches for bus groups when the first tour groups started booking for Thursday matinees at the Festival and wanted a meal. In those days the village just didn’t have restaurants capable of holding groups that large. Later suppers were added on Friday and Saturday nights and so many people had to be served that groups all over north Huron got involved. As the Festival’s fame grew, the Country Supper program caught the fancy of visiting media people. It seemed to symbolize the unique community involve­ ment that made the Blyth Festival special. Evalena became a favourite interview subject, particularly since she had so many good tales of the early days of the Festival. As such, she was a spokesman for the hundreds of people involved in supplying the suppers and beyond that, for all the other volunteers who have made rural life such a rich thing today. While she was the most visible of the Country Supper providers, the publicity also didn’t touch on the many other ways she worked in the community in Women’s Institute, senior citizens organizations and just about everything that moved in the community: the kind of activity that earned her the first ever Blyth Citizen of the Year award. My introduction to Evalena dates back to the very beginnings of the Festival. In the summer of 1972 a group of volunteers under the leadership of Helen Gowing who headed the Blyth Board of Trade, got permission to spruce up the Memorial Hall theatre afte. it had gathered dust for years. Evalena, her husband Keith and son Jim were among the dozen or more volunteers who got out cleaning buckets and paint rollers to give the old Hall a more fitting look. Later when it was discovered that the entire roof of the building had to be replaced because of a structural problem, Evalena headed a New Horizons group that applied for a grant that helped convince village council to go ahead with the major investment. But looking at the accomplishments of this one extraordinary volunteer makes me worry about the future when all the people like her are gone. Through desire or necessity, the vast majority of women are working today. The huge pool of stay-at- home women who have added so much to our quality of life through their community activities is dwindling. So, too, is the number of self-employed people whether farmers or small business people, the kind of people who could get their own agenda, taking a few hours to help with some community activity in the middle of the day even if it meant working longer at night. With a more complicated life, we all have fewer hours to give to the community. We’ve been able to get along without the community suffering in the last few years because older members of the community like Evalena Webster carrying on doing our share of the work for the rest of us. But those days are coming to an end. Who will replace these people? If someone were trying to start a Blyth Festival W years from now would it be a success, despite the talents and hard work Continued on page 6