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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-06-21, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1989. Opinion Why should our athletes be different? Canadians have gone through months of soul-searching and self-flagellation with the Dubin inquiry into the use of illegal drugs in track and field but the message doesn’t seem to be sinking in. Last week two more athletes tested positive to performance enhancing drugs. If the Dubin Inquiry can change the cheating in sport, then the effort will be worthwhile but one has to wonder, how can we expect athletes, who have so much to win if they are tops in the world rather than seventh or 10th, to not take risks to move up the ladder? Why should athletes be any different from the rest of the population? We have become a bottom-line society where only the end counts, not the means. We have people who will seek profit by selling people gasoline and oil contaminated by chemical wastes, not worrying about the harm it will bring to the people who use the fuel or to the environment. We have politicians who will hijack the provincial legislature by letting bells rings for days so they can blackmail a cabinet minister to resign, then talk piously about her faults but ignore their own dubious actions. How can these athletes be so stupid, we wonder, not to see that the brief success these steroids may bring, may be paid for long term damage to their bodies? But how can we be so foolish not to see that by circumventing pollution control devices to gain a few extra dollars in gasoline savings, we are helping destroy the environment we depend on for life? Athletes may be superior to the rest of us in what they can accomplish physically, but they are just as human when it comes to the pressures and the temptations of life. With them the drive for excellence has gotton out of hand, just as the drive for the top has gotten out of hand with so many ordinary people that they let their family come second to their careers. The race for the gold, in the form of endorsement dollars is mirrored in the general population by the greed of businesses and individuals. Superstar athletes can represent the best attributes of humanity. Unfortunately, as the Dubin Inquiry has shown, they can also represent the worst side of humanity. If we don’t like what the inquiry is showing us, perhaps we should all look in the mirror to see if we aren’t just as guilty as Ben Johnston and the others. The profit's nice but... Canada Post had good news for the Canadian taxpayer last week, announcing its first profit in 30 years. Besides announcing a surprising $96 million profit, bigger than ever he had hoped, Canada Post President Donald Lander predicted even better news: a profit of $800 million over the next five years. But despite the good news, there are many who are still cynical about the crown corporation and where it is going. Some of these criticisms are natural enough. Jean-Claude Parrot said the pursuit of profits has been at the expense of service to the people, but then he may also be worried about the corporate plan that will trim 1 per cent off the planned hours of work this year, the equivalent of a reduction of500 full-time positions from a workforce of61,000 full and part-time employees. The opposition parties aren’t impressed, but then one wouldn’t expect them to be impressed. There isn’t anything to be gained in good news. But there are many people across the country who, while happy for the profit, still are worried about the future. This worry comes despite a huge campaign by Canada Post to convince us that everything is going as it should be. It comes despite Canada Post surveys that 97 percent of people in rural communities where post offices have been franchised think service is as good or improved. The nagging doubts perhaps come because the way Canada Post management has operated hasn’t generated trust. While Canada Post officials were saying they planned no franchising of small town post offices, their own business plan called for privatizing of more than 5,000 post offices, all the small town post offices. When protest groups like Rural Dignity sprung up, Canada Post sent out propaganda to make them look like a front for the union. Canada Post assures us that service will only get better, yet with its past record, it’s hard to accept the assurances. Profits are nice, but you can’t buy trust once you’ve destroyed it. TRe Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 Growth and decay Who was that woman? BY RAYMOND CANON I have never considered life to be dull and those people who know me fairly well will vouch for the fact that I make sure that it stays that way. Thus, when I go on a trip, things seem to happen; fortunately most of them are the pleasant kind or at least of a nature that I can laugh about later on. Even my wife has long since ceased to be amazed at some of the things that happen to me; she has developed a rather philosophical frame of mind for such events and can be counted on not to go off the deep end when I relate some of my adventures. This story has its beginning when I got on the Swissair plane at Zurich for a trip to the Middle East, which would include Beirut, Bagh­ dad and Kuwait. The Swiss don’t take anything for granted and so it was that we were subject to a thorough search on an individual basis before we got on the plane. Even when we landed in Geneva to pick up more passengers, the plane, a good sized DC-10, was only about one-third full and there did not appear to be any bomb­ throwing revolutionaries on board. I settled down for a quiet trip to Beirut, my first stop. You may have noticed that, when the plane is not close to full capacity, the stewardesses have more time to chat. Thus it was that one stopped to exchange news and views with me and, since there was not too much in the way of important things to do, I invited her to sit down and converse with me. That she did and the conversation eventually got around to my flying background and whether or not 1 could go up in the cockpit to see what it looked like. She said she would check and off she went, coming back a while later to tell me Con tinned on page 17 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario, by North Huron Publishing Company Inc Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $17.Q0/yr ($38 00 Foreign) Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p m - Brussels, Monday, 4pm - Blyth We are not responsible for unsolicited newscripts or photographs Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Editors. Publisher, Keith Roulston Advertising Manager, DaveWilliams Production Manager, Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968