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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-10-31, Page 5Shrinking minds mean shrinking country Is it my imagination, or is our country shrinking? I don’t mean just the threatened amputations of Quebec, Oka, the Innu Nation, the Dene People, the western provinces and Quasi-Utopias-To-Be-An- nounced. I don’t mean just the pathetic pygmies of the Parliament Hill -- those strutting imposters, elected and otherwise, who squawk and scramble in ever decreasing circles, barely pausing long enough to cash their bloated paycheques. When I talk about Canadian shrinkage, I mean the very idea and essence of our country. Seems to me Canadians used to be gentler, more generous. The Canada I grew up in was a quiet backwater of a nation, easy-going, a little dull maybe, but liberally doused with a live-and-let-live attitude. Canada’s not like that anymore -- at least not on the mean streets I’ve been driving lately. There’s a New Yorkish brittleness in conversations I overhear in bars and on the buses. The spirit of Canada seems to have degenerated into that of a particularly ugly bush-league hockey game. Exhibit A: APEC - the Alliance For the Animal rights, research often conflict BY ADRIAN VOS We have developed mice with exact human cells. This startling statement was by Dr. Sally Galsworthy, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Western Ontario. Speaking to the Huron Heart and Stroke Foundation annual dinner recently, she explained that through inbreeding techniques Japanese researchers had first imbred mice so many times that all were in fact like identical twins, whether of the same parents or not, with identical chromosomes. This, she said, means that an organ of any of these mice can be transplanted into any other of them without triggering organ rejection. These mice were partly responsible for the develop­ ment of cyclosporine, the immunity sup­ pressant that made organ transplants possible. They are also ideal animals for cancer research. The real test for drugs is when used on humans. Using these mice researchers then injected human cells into their bone How do you feel about the GST? Gerald Govier Blyth Gerald Govier of Blyth believes there is no need for the Goods and Services Tax. “We already have enough,” he says, but he thinks the G.S.T. will go through despite the fact that nobody wants it. Preservation of English In Canada. This is a group that claims to want to “save English”. In fact, it is simply a catch basin for all those tiny minds and stunted souls who believe life would be beautiful if we could just unload the French Canadians. These are the folks who suffer anxiety attacks when they find themselves faced with the French-language side of the Rice Krispies box on the kitchen table. These are the people who believe there’s a Quebecois plot to (as they love to say) “ram French down our throats”. These are some terminally paranoid people. One hesitates to be the bearer of bad tidings, but it’s a job that has to be done, I guess. Fact is, APEC-ers, you might as well fold up your petitions and go home - you’re already whipped. It’s too late to preserve English from the depreda­ tions of French. That battle’s already been lost. About 924 years ago. Back in 1066, a chap by the name of William the Conqueror invaded England and, as conquerors will, demanded that his new subjects speak his language - to wit: Norman French. As a result, approximate­ ly 50 per cent of the language we speak today comes from the French - or from Latin words that are also used in Frnech. Wanna meet some Norman French invaders face-to-face? abbot, beauty, Bible, court, dress, feast, joy, liberty, marriage, navy, parliament, people, plea­ sure, prayer, reign, soldier, treasure, verdict, war. French words, tous. marrow. The resulting cells produced in the marrow are completely human, includ­ ing its anti-bodies. This makes it now possible to test drugs against diseases like “Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syn­ drome” (AIDS) and “total lack of immun­ ity” diseases, like the ‘Bubble boy’ on these mice. Only two years ago researchers doubted if a vaccine or cure for such diseases as AIDS, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and the like would ever be possible. Tests under way will show in the next few weeks if these anti-bodies are able to restore the immune system in people with AIDS, Galsworthy said. Animal rightists oppose such tests on any animal and call them unethical and immoral. They have claimed that computer simulations and tissue cultures in labora­ tory dishes can be used instead of animals. This is being done now where possible. Their opposition is quite sophisticated, Galsworthy said. They also will not limit Doug Evans Ethel Having owned the hardware store in Ethel for twenty years, Doug has sold it partly because theG.S.T. will provide too much paper work to do without a computer. He feels that once the G.S.T. has been enforced for a year, it will eliminate a lot of small businesses, because of the large amount of paper work. Willy the Conqueror indulged in some serious French throat-ramming and gave us the language that the Alliance for the Preservation of English is campaigning to “save”. Alliance members have nothing to fear but their own timidity. Other countries such as Belgium and Luxembourg survive very nicely on a multi-lingual foundation. All it takes is an attitude change. APEC members — all Canadians -- shouldn’t regard another language as a threat or a curse. It’s a blessing. English will not be mortally wounded by Bourassa’s infamous Bill 109 — or anything else myopic bureaucrats throw at it. English has clout. After Mandarin, it’s the most widely spoken language in the world. It all depends on how you handle it. We can be like APEC and babble of plots and subterfuge. Or we could be like Switzer­ land with four recognized languages (and I guess the biggest Rice Krispie boxes in the Western world). Or if we were really brave we could be like Mike Hayes. Mike runs a car dealership in Newport, Vermont, a town not far from the Quebec border. He’s set up French classes for his entire sales staff, the better to sell cars to Quebeckers. “Just ‘cause we’re Ameri­ can” says Mike, “doesn’t mean we don’t want to learn.” “I mean, if learning French is gonna help me sell cars, I’m gonna do it. What could be more American than that?” Only in America, you say? C’est dom- mage. their opposition to debate but use sabotage and court challenges. One of their argu­ ments is that animals can’t give their consent. “We” (researchers) she said, “must do more to explain what we do. That we care and treat the animals like human patients. “If we lose the argument the next human generations will have to suffer multiple sclerosis and all the other debili­ tating diseases. If we can proceed we will find a cure for most of these in the next 40 years. She warned that sabotage has already caused delays.” “But,” she said, “I have clearly a conflict of interest. I am a researcher so people will doubt my word. Therefore we are supported by ‘Partners in Research’, where the explaining is done by citizens. They are lay people, doctors and scientists together to inform the people and counter­ act the propaganda of the animal rights activists.” Animals too, she concluded, benefit from this research as the results are applied to them too. Rev. David Fuller Rector of Trinity Church Blyth and St. John’s Church, Brussels Rev. David questions the fair­ ness of the tax that is being imposed on Canadians at this time. He is not entirely con­ vinced it will save money because of the way they are pushing it through both cham­ bers of government. He believes there should have been more discussion and compromise by the federal government. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1990. PAGE 5. Letter from the editor Trouble maker? Who me? BY KEITH ROULSTON Tomorrow morning a good many adults will no doubt be wondering what the next generation is coming to after tonight’s Hallowe’en hijinks. Most of those adults will be blessed with short memories. With the exception of truly hideous things like razor blades in apples, few of the tricks pulled by modern trick or treaters can hold a candle to the tricks pulled by their parents or grandparents. Most of us, however, experienced those events as the tricker, not the trickee. Somehow these stories are so much more fun when remembered safely in time’s rear view mirror. The stories of young men who took apart wagons and reassembled them on the roofs of barns seem far more humorous to us than they must have seemed to the farmer who had to take the wagon apart and take it off the roof again. As a youngster I remember the annual lecture that came from the school principal after older students (and probably past students) dragged farm implements up to our school yard from a nearby farm dealership and threw ink bottles against the white-brick wall. There were also bales of hay set on fire in the middle of the street and rolls of snowfence put across our concession, right near a bridge. There were some amusing incidents to be sure. My father went back to our back field one spring to start plowing where he had left off the fall before when the snow set in early. He’d just left the plow where he finished but when he went back, there was just a great earthen mound. The enterprising neighbouring young men had taken the plowed sods and piled them over the plow until it disappeared. They must have been disappointed, however, when not a word of their work made its way around the neighbourhood. Most of my Hallowe’en memories re­ volve around younger adventures such as our annual visit to an elderly neighbour who chased us around the table trying to peak behind our masks before loading us up with mountains of homemade candy and cookies. Or there was the farm down the road where the old widower lived. To get to the house you had to go under a scary railway trestle and when you got to the house, he had no electricity so eery shadows stretched up the walls from the oiJ lamps making all kinds of thoughts of ghosts and haunted houses seem real. But I must confess as I got older, I was guilty of my share of incidents that, if I was on the receiving end, I wouldn’t have thought was funny. There was, for instance, the dairy farmer we tormented yearly. He’d be in the midst of milking each year when we arrived and switched off the main power supply and he would have all the milkers fall off the animals and onto the dirty floor. He’d be stuck with cleaning them up and putting them back on the cows when, as like it or not, some other marauding group from thre neighbourhood would hit again. One year he planned to outsmart us When we arrived we found the cover to the main power supply wired shut. We weren’ detered so easily. Next to the pole on which the box was located, was the farm’s driving shed. We slipped through a crack in the door and fumbled around until we found wire cutters, then shimmied up the pole again and cut the wire off and turned off the power. We chuckled to ourselves at having fooled the neighbour but the full impact of our prank didn’t hit until later. Days or weeks after, the word leaked out, via the farmer’s wife who understandably had a better sense of humour than her husband under the circumstance, that the farmer had just entered the house and boasted that rhere’d be no blackouts this year ... and then the lights went out.