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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1986-11-19, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, November 19, 1986 Imes Publisher) Each Wednesday Morning at f xe er, Ontario, Nom 150 Second pass Mail Registration' Number 0386. • Phone 519-23S-1331 LORNE EEDY Publisher WA BECKETT Advertising Manager 'BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager ROSS" HAUGH Assistant Editor DICK JONGKIND Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25.00 Per year, U.S.A. $65.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' Some troubled waters? It is unlikely that many people in Huron County will lose any sleep over the fact the plan to dissolve the county library board and make it a committee of council has passed the first stage of approval. The standing committee on regula- tions and private bills approved the pro- posed change in a five to four vote in Toronto recently and it will now go to the Legislative Assembly for final ratification. There are, however, some disconcer- ting aspects of the entire situation. The first is that county council has spent a considerable sum of money to get the change, while at the same time con- tending there really will be no change. The use of taxpayers money for a cosmetic transition is highly questionable. It appears to be a situation where county council have moved yet another department into the .burgeoning central administration. The county has been VOA a Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873. Published by ).W. Eedy Publkations Unshed HOW CAN WE RAM AN AGREEMENT IF CANADA KEEPS ASKING THE U.S,70 BE RF.ASONABLE? beset by power struggles in recent times and there appears cause for some con- cern as to whether members of council really have control over the situation, or whether they are merely being puppets. One veteran observer of the county scene recently suggested that the :coun- ty's executive and administrative at- titudes and methods are seen by some as being "unduly and uproductively authoritarian and repressive." The switch in the library,setup is but one recent example of the movement to wrest authority out of the hands of various department heads and boards. Is it only mere coincidence that two department heads -have resigned in the past year and the troubled status of another is still unresolved? It's time members of council made a frank assessment of the situation to en- sure they are still captains of their own ship and that the crew is working harmoniously. Following the Romans •. According to an editorial' in The North Kent Leader, one of the most widely -read books of all time is "The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire". It sets forth five, basic reasons why civilization withered and died. These were: The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis for human society. Higher and higher taxes. The spen- ding of public 'money for free bread and circuses for the populace. The mad craze for pleasure. Sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral. The building of great armaments when the real enemy was within. The decay of individual responsibility. And, the decay of religion; faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people. Testing the leadership • The majority of national con- ventions staged by political par- ties in the past failed to arouse much interest from other than the staunchest party members, but that is all changing these days as those conventions fre- quently become sounding boards_ for leadership changes. The upcoming Liberal conven- tion has attracted considerable interest as the leadership of John Turner is clearly on the line. That's usually an ominous signal, because even a minority call for a leadership review sows the 'heeds of discontent and mistrust that tends to permeate the minds of even the most faithful and certainly the voters in general. Few leaders have survived such performance reviews, even when they have been accorded majority support at those conventions. The reality is that there is a growing cynicism in this nation toward the leaders of the major political parties, regardless of who they may be at any given point in time. Their tenure is as fragile as coaches and managers in major sports, where losing ef- forts are quickly rewarded with pink slips. In sports, the rationale is that team owners can't fire all the players becausethey can't winso the leader has to go. Subsequent leaders usually follow through that revolving door until such time as .the members im- prove to the point where they can win and the leader lucky enough to be at the helm at that time finds his position more secure, although seldom is the change in performance of his doing. The analogy should not be overlooked. Surely politics in this country is still very much a col- lective situation where a team ef- fort serves more to arrive at a Batt'n Around ...with The Editor goal than the work of any one individual. To saddle a -leader with the total responsibility of a loss fends to suggest he should be given full responsibility after a win and one of the problems with politics in this country is that power is too centered and part of the cynicism arises from the suspicions that the people* elected by the grassroots voters serve little other purpose than forming the numbers needed for one leader to be successful over another. Perhaps only when politics is returned to the populace through each elected representative will the cynicism and constant bicker- ing over leadership be removed to give way to the debate over how the team should function to better serve the interests of the entire nation. • . . . Among the basic problems with politics in this country is that too many ' people have withdrawn from their responsibility to take an active role tin, formulating the policies by whicli the three major parties function. The job has been taken over by a select few and that has primarily been through attrition. The majority of people in this country are not card-carrying members of any party and their lone democratic duty appears to be to head to the polls to mark a ballot on election day. Few give that selection much thought in terms of what policies may be represented by the names on those ballots. Part of the problem stems from the fact the political party organizations have become meaningless in most ridings. Their sole purpose has been relegated to choosing candidates to send to conventions or raising funds for an upcoming election campaign. , Deliberations over present or suggested party policies for the districts which they serve are almost nonexistent. They have generally ceased to be viable or interesting in the context -for which they are intended. To a considerable extent, their decline has been the result of the general apathy of the populace in helping to shape their own destiny. It's a rather sad commentary on our times that people attack leadership when they show solit- tle intererst in displaying any of their own. The final outcome of that apathy will result in our leaders being self-appointed! Zucchini lovers abound In September I pleaded for help because our home was beginning to look like a zucchini warehouse. And help has come in the form of letters, deliveries and telephone calls. I have received so many zucchini recipes that I could write the definitive Canadian Zucchini Cookbook. And maybe I should. As promised, I will share some zucchini advice with my readers. Over the last two months, hardly a day has gone by without some zucchini mail. While I cannot give you more than one zucchini recipe in this column, I am quite willing to start a zucchini recipe exchange or Zucchini Informa- tion Program (ZIP) upon re- quest. Would the Canada Council sponsor such a venture? I'm open to suggestions. Here are only a few samples from my mailbag: . Mrs. Kay Raddish in Toronto, an expatriate from Foam Lake, Saskatchewan who says westerners are always full of bright ideas, proves it by describ- ing her zucchini souffle with parmesan cheese, her zucchini marmalade and jam. "Nowadays our young generation is spoiled by junk food," she says. "They turn their noses up at everything that's natural. So I trick them and smuggle zucchini into one of their favourites: chocolate cake." Mrs. Martha Friederic in Ar- borg, Manitoba, insists that dried zucchini make excellent logsfor the fireplace. Her zucchini pro- duction must be bigger than most because she says that she has no trouble feeding zucchini to the cows in winter when they get tired of eating hay. She feeds the seeds and the dried flesh to her poultry, and when every living creature on her farm is fed up with zucchini, she turns the re- mainder into fertilizer. You wouldn't by any chance be 11id- ding, Martha, would you? Mrs. Martha Kurmann in Brookdale, Manitoba, shares her recipes for zucchini -pineapple saucethatisdelicious overvanilla icecream, a zucchini casserole (her family's favourite) zucchini jam and zucchini cake. Mrs. Margaret Mills in Perth, Ontario, offers help in the form of zucchini pickles and also advises (as several other readers did) that zucchini can be successfully frozen by grating it and stuffing it into plastic bags. Mrs. B. Reimer in Calgary writes : "I, too, am suffering from the zucchini invasion of 1986 - this time at my own hand. I made the awful mistake of planting not one, but four seeds. Last year I was only on the receiving end of other people's misfortune, but this year I contributed to the of- fice zucchini crusade ..." She, too, has learned to freeze ,the green nuisances, so that all winter long she can make zuc- chini parmesan for her family. The idea for "Sassy Zucchini" comes from Mrs. A. Falle in Ne - peen, Ontario. She sent not only the recipe, but an entire humungous 40 cm zucchini. "The zucchini is just for effect," she writes, "for cooking you should use small and tender specimens." Thanks a lot, fpr the recipe I mean. An envelope containing about 40 recipes arrived from Mrs. Net- tie Apthorp in Blenheim, Ontario. I never knew how versatile this vegetable was! Mrs. Apthorp's collection includes zucchini raisin pie and zucchini short rib stew (to be served over hot noodles - dare I call this Zucchini Stroganoff?), zucchini omelets and a zucchini salad bowl (a very elegant af- fair). The donor admits that she hasn't personally tried all these recipes. Please. test them and Pure holiday Like most people I appreciate getting away from the house for a little vacation. I always figure that by travelling to new cities and towns that one can relax, see different scenery, and develop one's interests. All those things were in mind as we took off for a week's trip to Prince Edward Island one fine Sunday night. There were five adults and a very active one year old packed into a tiny Renault which had seen better days but' should have been able to travel to the Maritimes and back. It was not to be. We llad just passed Toronto whet( black smoke started to belch out of the exhaust. Weird grinding noises came from the engine area and there was a definite loss of power. We pulled into a big service cen- tre and an hour later found out that we had major engine pro- blems which would take a day or two to fix. Ordinary mortals (translate that wiser ones) would have turn- ed back home at that point. However when two fifths of the By the Way by Fletcher car's adults only had a week's vacation out of the year and this was that week and furthermore a promise had been made to go to the east coast one does not give up that easily. We found a motel for that night in the metropolis of Port Hope (population somewhat less than Charlottetown) and report back to PETER'S POINT in 40 days. We zucchini lovers must be prepared for any. emergency. Mrs. Marion Hubert in Hensel', Ontario has also discovered the freezer route: "Just grate it and put it into the freezer. When you thaw it, squeeze out' the excess juice, and it's ready to use. You can keep zucchini in the freezer for over a year." Among her recipes are zucchini relish, zue- • chini syrup, zucchini .and carrot muffins,,,and zuccini bread. -The,feliewing.recipe�.rMhi chose after . an agonizing,. and painstaking process of elimina- tion - comes from Mrs. Pam Mit- chell in Waba, Ontario. She tells me that she recently fed this soup to a group of visiting Swedish computer experts who claimed (and exclaimed) that there was nothing like it in Sweden. Only in Canada! Pam's International Computer Expert Cream of Zucchini Soup 1 lb washed zucchini 1 small onion 1 teaspoon basil I, cup cream 11/2 cups milk 1 cup chicken broth 1 teaspoon salt dash pepper Slice zucchini thickly. Combine in saucepan zucchini, onion, chicken broth, salt, pepper and basil. Bring to a boil and simmer 20 min. Put vegetables and li- quids in blender. Cover, turn motor on high speed. Gradually add 1 cup of milk, blend until smooth. Return blended puree to saucepan and stir in the remain- ing milk and the cream. Heat to serving temperature (for heavens sake do not boil) . Serves 4 (hungry and enthusiastic) to 6 (polite). Thank you all, zucchini lovers, for making it a little easier and more pleasant to cope with zuc- chini. Special thanks to all those whose names could not be men- tioned in this column but whose contributions were much appreciated. fun planned a new strategy. We would visit the local attractions until the car was fixed then still drive on to PEI. After all, it didn't look that far on the map. Surely with two drivers we could make it there in a couple of days and still see all the sights there. That was the theory. Parts though, do not always arrive on time and it was not until Wednes- day night had arrived and Port Hope was beginning to look very familiar indeed that we were on the road again. Thursday night we were on the ferry from New Brunswick to PEI. Friday we did 'see the island'. Saturday morning we turned westward and on Sunday night we pulled back into our own driveway. Now that's what I call pure holiday fun, full of rest and relaxation.