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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-12-11, Page 5EN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11,1991. PAGE 5. Shopping a truly Canadian experience with this catalogue Here are two infallible ways to tell that Christmas is coming. Number one: every shopping mall you pass is playing a tinny version of The Little Drummer Boy, by the Harry Simeon Chorale. Number two: every time you turn around you stumble across another brand new Canadian book, freshly published in the hope you'll buy it to stuff in somebody's stocking... Sure are a lot of them out there. Pierre Berton, of course. And Margaret Atwood. And Peter New man. Kurt Browning and Darryl Sittier to boot. Heck, even I have a seasonal hardcover offering, currently teetering half way between the New York Times Bestseller List and the Coles Remainders Table. But the Canadian book that's captured my heart this year isn't an Ottawa expose or a Maritimes novel or the memories of some Bay Street robber baron. It's a catalogue. International Scene By Raymond Canon Russia has problem with too much money Some of my readers may have either friends or relatives living in the Soviet Union or one of the countries of eastern Europe that used to be under the control of the Kremlin. Even if you do not, you are quite likely aware that life in that part of the world is no bed of roses. Just to bring it a bit closer to home, I am going to try to describe for you what it is like to be a householder in that part of the world. For openers tax receipts of the various governments are in something of budget that the government might like to draw up. There is little sense in selling money into an investment of that nature. This leaves only one thing - to print money in order to make up the shortfall. Printing money is tantamount to causing inflation, and inflation is what the people of eastern Europe are getting. In Russia the situation in this respect is so bad that there could well be hyper-inflation before the arrival of spring. There is a story going the rounds now, that Mr. Gorbachev has approached George Bush to see if he could borrow enough money to buy the bank note paper that the Bank of Russia needs to print all those new bank notes. Needless to say, the printing presses in Moscow are working overtime. The consumer is thus faced with rapidly rising prices for even the staples that he or she buys, not to mention the shortages that are going along with this inflation. Even if there were enough commodities, the distribution system is in the same mess as the rest of the country and goods, already scarce, are getting scarcer. All this would not be so bad if there was plenty of work to be had. As all the leaders In fact, it's official title is Another Lost Whole Moose Catalogue. The ALWM Catalogue is difficult to describe. Physically, it's 156 pages of print and photographs sandwiched between covers that measure ten inches wide and fifteen inches deep — which is to say, large and ungainly. Kind of like a moose. As for the material between the covers ... that's REALLY difficult to describe. You can find out how to build a log cabin in this catalogue. You can also leam how to make moose meat pasta, where to place your outhouse and how to say “this is a moose” in Athapaskan dialect. The catalogue was conceived, birthed and nurtured in the Yukon. It bills itself as a collection of Yukon lore that should get anyone, from greenhorn to sourdough, safely through a bad winter in the Great White North. Well, Another Lost whole Moose Catalogue will probably do that alright - but just between you and me, you don't have to be a Yukoner to get your fancy tickled by this book. That's because the compilers stirred in one tangy ingredient not commonly featured in catalogues - a sense of humour. of eastern Europe have discovered, trying to switch from a central to a market economy as far as industry is concerned is a nightmare. Who is going to buy and run all the factories that were formerly run by the State, frequently at a loss and a bad one at that? Much of the machinery in these plants is obsolescent and it is going to take a colossal investment for new capital goods; even if you get this far, you still have to compete with foreign companies. The householder is, accordingly, faced with dismissal, if he or she still has work, or if they have already joined the ranks of the unemployed, they have to join the long lines who are out looking. One thing about Canadians; we can still count on our pension plans or their social welfare benefits. Both of these are threatened in eastern Europe since the governments don't have enough money to maintain them on the scale to which the citizens have become accustomed. If you are already on a pension, it is a good question whether it is indexed to take care of the rapidly rising prices to which I referred earlier. Letter to the Editor No way to treat a dog THE EDITOR, A couple of weeks ago my husband and I had the pleasant experience of having some tiny visitors stay at home on a temporary basis. My husband and his boss went to the dump to unload some used parts when they ’."“re greeted by four tiny black puppies climbing up the hillside towards them. They couldn't believe their eyes. They could see that there were two more down the hill a little. When they got to them, one was dead and the little beige one was very weakened. There were no human tracks around them, so they had been there through at least one snow storm we figure. You can find a serious essay entitled “Dogs In Pick-ups”. (Opening paragraph: “Every real Yukoner has a real pickup. Not one of those wimpy little tin cans from J.A. Pan that gets 30 miles to a fart.”). And another about “Safe Sex in the Yukon” (Important tip: never leave condoms in your glove compartment at 40 below). In fact, Another Lost Whole Moose Catalogue is only marginally about moose. Its central theme is something infinitely more important. It's about The North — which I think is what being Canadian is all about. Every Canuck has The North in his soul. Doesn't matter if it turns out to be the Arctic Barrens or the Haliburton Highlands. Sure, most of eke out our MacDonaldized lives within a couple of hours drive of the U.S. border, but that doesn't change what's in our backyard: The North. It's always there and it shapes us all for life. “A window out onto infinity” the French historian Andre Siegfried called it. Well, this book is sort of a family album from the other side of the windowpane. Another Lost Whole Moose Catalogue, available from Lost Moose Publishing, 58 Kluane Crescent, Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 3G7. If you are a student in either the high schools or the universities, what kind of future do you have when you put your school books away for the last time? Perhaps for some of these people immigration may be the best way out and the positive side of this is that many citizens of eastern European countries do have relatives in North America. The down side of this is that neither Canada nor the United States is opening the doors wide to such immigrants. We have limits to how many we will take and so do the Americans. Undoubtedly one of the prime requisites is strong leadership but what happened in Poland? This fall the Poles had an election to try to come to grips with the mess; the voters elected no less than a score of parties, none with more than 12 per cent of the vote. Strangely enough the ex-Communists scored about as high as any which leads one to believe that some eastern Europeans may secretly be longing for the days when they at least knew where they stood even if it was a dictatorship. As a result of all this, there is every indication that things are likely to get worse before they get better. Of course, Todd brought them home as they couldn't believe that anyone could be so cruel to anything so defenseless and cute. We don't think they were much over six weeks old by the way they behaved. We find it hard to imagine that there are such heartless people around. We realize it costs a lot of money to keep a dog and six puppies -re just too much but at least homes could be found or get rid of them in a humane way. That's what humane societies are for. Do not put them out in the cold to freeze or starve to death, whichever comes first. If puppies aren't wanted, get your Continued on page 23 The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Some guys are scum... some guys aren't The other evening, while sipping coffee in a quiet diner, I happened to overhear a conversation between two teenage girls seated nearby. The pair were discussing the slim pickings of suitable young men. "Guys are such scums. They really are," spoke one fresh-faced innocent. "I know. You ask any of the girls at school and that's what they'll tell you," responded her pony-tailed friend. This generalization alarmed me, at first, as I thought it a disturbingly cynical view in two so young. Then reflecting on my own feelings at that age, I discovered them to be not all that different. For as many years as there has been romance, women have been confounded by the rougher side of the male mystique — the side that remains aloof, that at times lacks sensitivity; the side that can actually appear to be unkind at times. The differences men and women have in approaching just about everything is a baffling engima. In 1917 Eddie Green wrote a song called A Good Man is Hard To Find which expressed some ideas on the subject, though how Eddie knew is beyond me. "A good man is hard to find. You always get the other kind. Just when you think that he is your pal, you turn around and find him fooling round some other gal." However, today, in our dealings with men we often add feelings of hostility, due to constant reminders of the physical violence committed against women by men. A young girl I know, told me she is frightened by the prospect of going to university, after her teacher expounded to her the dangers plaguing female students on campus. Media and women's groups propagandize the atrocities executed daily on women by men. Last Friday, the country marked the tragic deaths of 14 female students, who were killed at Ecole Polytechnique by naming December 6 as Remembrance and Action Day on Violence Against Women. Area Students wore white ribbons this past week as a symbol of their hope to stop this senseless violence. Sadly, though, I was told by a student from one school, that only a handful of male students chose to wear the ribbon, a fact that did nothing to further their cause with their female peers. While some may have felt it was not a cool thing to show they care, one can't help but wonder if the motive doesn't stem more from belligerence or rebelliousness. With so much hype surrounding the obvious need to, at the least suppress, and at the most obliterate violent crimes against women we tend to ignore the serious problem of crime in general. Women's vulnerability to violent crimes is grimly obvious, but we must be careful to remember that men are not immune. Is it possible that we are guilty of an insensitive exclusion of the suffering faced by some men, to the point that we have nurtured in them a defensive arrogance? Men's abuse of women is an area, that for personal reasons I am passionate about. As such I have been guilty of generalizing. Hearing those two girls utter sentiments that seem all too common these days, made me look at the situation objectively. There is definitely scum out there, but my one wish is that our young women try not to become too jaded. I'd like to think we’ve discovered a good man does not necessarily have to be hard to find. There are many sensitive, caring men in this world, who are no less a mystery to us than we to them, who have sympathy for the victim or may even have been victimized. Most certainly, there are men who deserve the same respect from women, they are expected to give.