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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1991-09-04, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, September 4, 1991 Publisher: Jim Beckett News Editor: Arian Harte Business Manager: Don Smith Composition Manager: Ds) Lord Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUB5CRIPTIQf RATE: CANADA Within 40 miles (65 km.) addressed to non litter carder addresses $30.00 plus $2.10 G.S.T. Cathode 40 miles (85 km.) or any latter canter address $30.00 pies $30.00 postage (total $80.00) plus $4.20 G.S.T. Outside Canada $88.00 c Into the union's hands anada Post's recent moves to centralize postal sorting have delivered rural residents more than ever into the hands of the Canadi- an Union of Postal Workers. It used to be that while local residents worried about a postal strike, they often were little effected at the local level, by the strike. Most post offices locally are run by members of the Postmasters As- sociation and as such weren't part of strike action. But ironically, Canada Post's reorgan- ization has hit hard at the members of the Postmasters Association, which has never gone on strike in its history, while delivering the work local people used to do into the hands of large cen- tral post offices in Kitchener and Lon- don. Where local mail used to be sorted locally and taken in a fairly direct route to other post offices in the area, now all mail going beyond the local post office must go through a large, unionized cen- tre. With the privatizing of some post of- fices, even local sorting may be done in a nearby, larger, unionized postal facili- ty• Rural people get a double slam from the current policy: we lost local jobs to the cities, and we get delivered into the hands of the CUPW whenever its frus- trations with the post office boil over into a strike. From the Blyth Citizen Barbecues Part 1 I want you to know that I am a fairly flexible and reasonable guy, willing to change his views in the face of new evidence. To demonstrate this, I present an- other mini-series. Part I I wrote more than five years ago, when I considered gas barbecues as useful as an electric toothbrush. part 2 will follow next week. No gas for me The word "barbecue" comes to us from the Creole language. A barbacoa was a framework of sticks set on posts, a contraption with which the people of the West Indies roasted whole pigs - and who knows what (or whom) else. For us, the barbecue has be- come a symbol of leisurely sum- mer living. Like the dandelion, it has spread from the suburbs right across the countryside un- til it has reached even the remot- est valley or hilltop. In its latest form, the gas bar- becue, it is now also big busi- ness and is pumping millions of dollars into our economy. I was at a friend's place the other day. These people live in a tar paper shack propped up by a tree on one side and a retaining wall of angelstone on the other. They don't have a car. They own one of the last outhouses in the country still in working or- der. They haul their drinking water from a well with a bucket on a chain. But they do their hotdogs on a 3-bumer, $600 gas barbecue with deluxe cast-iron grids and fancy redwood shelves. Its working area, they tell me with a gleam in their eyes, has 550 square inches or 3,548 square centimeters. Im- pressive? To some. When I was growing up, hav- ing a radio was a status symbol. In the 50s it was a TV, in the 60s a colour TV. Now gas bar- becues are the cat's meow. I'm a notorious status symbol resister. I didn't get colour TV until the 80s, and we only caved in to VCR last year. I -Peter's and time to bring to a warm glow. Standing over my little grill, watching the coals turn from black to white with red, orange and purple tongues lick- ing up, sniffing and unmistaka- ble smoke, is an experience I don't want to miss. I don't care Point how fast a gas barbecue works. When I'm the chef, I'm in no • hurry. I like to imagine how my charcoal is created. By artisans. By husky Canadian lumberjacks in plaid shirts, swinging broad Peter Hessel • will fight against having to buy a gas barbecue until Canadian Tire and Home Hardware no longer carry real barbecues - those that work with charcoal. My present model is now four years old. It cost $12.99 and has cooked perhaps 100 to 120 meals. My charcoal con- sumption during that period was probably around 80 or 90 dollars. So my total cost per meal is well under a dollar. But the pleasure I get out of messing around with the real thing cannot be measured in dollars and cents. To me, gas is an artificial, nktsterious and_ -dangerous substance. I know, you gas addicts will tell me that propane gas is of organic ori- gin. But it's made of disgusting stuff; manure, garbage. And you cook food on itl No, I could never develop a close re- lationship with a propane gas tank or a spark igniter. What are those "natural lava rocks" that imitate "real barbe- cue flavour?" Why go digging for lava on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, when the Canadian forest is full of healthy hard- wood, the stuff that honest to goodness charcoal is made of? I am proud to cook my steaks or burgers over genuine char- coal that requires skill to light Letter to Editor axes and pulling double -handed tree saws. They chop down se- lected oaks and hickories. The woods echo from their blows and their rustic songs. They build their kilns or piles accord- ing to ancient tradition, and when the charcoal is ready, they , fill it into paper sacks made of Canadian pulp. Everything about this product is whole- some, appealing, even romantic. You can have your model S- 600 with the 30,000 BTU bum- ers, the upfront dual controls, the heat indicator and the fold- away chrome -plated shelf area. I'll take what I've got. I think _TIL_.drive into town right now and buy another three "econo- my barbecues" - now $14.99 - before they disappear altogether like spinning wheels or ice box- es. I'll put two in the shed and save them for the time when my present barbecue is worn out. They should last me for the rest of my barbecuing days. The third one Ill keep in the original box and preserve it for posteri- ty, together with a bag of char- coal. After my death, these are to be donated to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. In the meantime, if you hap- pen to pass our place when I'm doing a barbecue, you're wel- come to stop and have a Miff of the real thing.-- Letter hing.- Reader goes without post office. Dear Sir: I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why all this fuss is being made of such a useless or- ganization such as Canada Post Corporation which I have abso- lutely no use for. 1 don't use the Post Office be- cause it cannot provide a service to me during the hours I want and I believe many other people can relate to this. I live in Exeter and work out of town. When I get home the Post Office is closed and on Saturdays the Past Office is closed. I have learned to do with- out their service and would en- courage other people in my situa- tion to do the same. What use is it tome? I pay my bills at the bank and correspond with my daughters by telephone or by a courier ser- vice. The only time I need to buy stamps (which I can get ) from a variety store) is when I write to my family in England and then I begrudge the 80 cents and wish there was an al- ternate enterprise 1 could use. Talk- ing of England, now here are some people who work hard in their post- al system and deserve recognition - two mail deliveries a day, one on Saturdays, and convenient shop- ping hours. What is wrong with Canada Post? You figure it out. I don't blame the union completely, 1 blame management totally. Thera are too many high paid manage- ment jobs sucking the viability of of Canada Post. Postal workers re- sorting to violence on the picket line isn't the answer either. Its an embarrassment to Canada. In my opinion the solution is to terminate everyone and privatize the postal system to make way for free enter- prise. I would really like to visit and conduct business in a "Post Of- fice" during hours convenient to me. It's something 1 could write home about! Yours very truly J. James "Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely." ... Thomas Macauley Published Eacb Wednesday Mornkag at 424 Mate St., Exeter, Oatarlo, NOM 134 by J.W. Eady Publications Ltd. Telepbaie 1-519-235-1881 a.s.T. Mt1002101131 "Just six months old and already you're hopelessly in debt." Canada, proud at number two I once knew a woman who wanted to sell her house. It was a big house and it might be hard to sell, so she decided to enlist the services of the best real es- tate agent in the city. This agent was the top seller and agreed to list the home. Also I suspect the woman con- sidered her house to be a special property and enjoyed having the prestigious agent's sign staked on her lawn. Within a few days a potential buyer was trotted out to see the place and an offer was made - an offer far below what the agent claimed it would fetch. However, the agent advised the seller to accept the low price and did not bring any more clients around. Apparently, the top agent was more interested in making deals on multi-million dollar proper- ties than mere $2Q0,000 homes. The difference in the commis- sion between ffie m et via ire and the low offer was not enough incentive to make the agent try any harder for the client. This top seller preferred quick sales to good sales. I always thought there was a lesson to be learned there. Number one isn't always the best, and maybe number two really does try harder. Only a few weeks ago I spot- ted an advertisement in Ma - cleans that said Canada ranked number two among the best places in the world to live. One assumes the United States came to mind first. But is there a vir- tue to be found in being number two? Do we, as Canadians, ex- amine our lives, wondering if we measure up? Do we argue Hold that thought... By Adrian Harte about Free Trade, Quebec, bilin- gualism, cross-border shopping and NATO, while Americans munch on potato chips while watching Roseanne and assum- ing George Bush has everything under control? Keith Roulston, in last week's issue of the Blyth Citizen was suggesting we might actually works, one of the poorest educa- en y the SoYiet_Union's sense of tion systems in the western purpose, now that they have to world, and a whole host of rebuild their nation and will get 1 crime statistics. Otherwise, it's a chance to realize the goals still the best place in the world they only used to dream about. to live. I'd have to agree with Roulston on that one. Even we Canadians look pale in that comparison. The Russians strive for freedom and democracy, we whine about cheap prices over the border. It all depends how you look at it. The other day I was listening to someone complain that four people could eat like kings on $40 In the States, but you'd pay more than twice that up here. But, I argued, is it not better that way? Maybe Americans feel a little envious of rich Cana- dians throwing their money around in their restaurants. We can travel to the States and feel wealthy, or go to Europe and feel impoverished. An Ameri- can used to buying $29.95 shoes would probably shake his head ata pair of $160 loafers in a Ca- nadian shop window, much in the same way we feel out of our depth looking at $750 shoes in Paris. If it were true that Americans, with their lower taxes and cheaper prices, all had Lincolns and six -bedroom homes, we might have reason to feel envi- ous; but they don't. They don't seem to live much differently than we do. What they do have is a line-up of the worst TV sit- coms ever conceived by the net - Letter to Editor I worry that the U.S. from be- ing number one for so long, has lost some of its vitality, much in the way Britain lost its will to live decades ago, which explains why I live here now. No, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that all our complaining and navel gaz- ing puts us in a better position. Number two probably does try harder. Youth attacks cause concern Dear Editor: Today I am looking at what I be- lieved to be a safe, peaceful com- munity and am alarmed by what I sec. A very dear friend of mine has been immorally, viciously attacked three times within two years by ad- olescent boys. She has been robbed, run down by youngsters on bicycles, these young men have ex- posed themselves to her and pelted her with rocks. We all know who these adoles- cent boys are. They are the ones skate boarding on the streets long after dark, yelling profanities, torching abandoned trailers, de- stroying peoples' Christmas deco- rations, harassing physically and developmentally challenged indi- viduals etc., etc. Where are these young people's morals, their ethics, their values? What are the mean- ings of these apparently meaning- less acts? Professionals say that these acts are rational, goal orien- tated, and full of coded meanings. These adoles- cents acts are the end product of a series of events in which the family rejects the child which triggers a consistent and logical transition in the child. Statistics support the hypothesis that most delinquent children feel total and brutal rejection from at least one of his or her parents. This child struggling with feelings of worthleaaness tums to participation in degrading and self distructive acts, or turns his rage on any con- venient object or person. Act is piled upon bizarre acts speed-up the cycle of alienation between these adolescents and society. How many of us have looked down our noses at these adolescents? Are they to blame? Where are the parents of these troubled indi- viduals? Are they too self orientat- ed to recognize the volcanos erupt- ing in their homes? Disfunctional families breed disfunctional chil- dren. Fortunately the Exeter Town Police are supporting my friend and charges will be laid, is that enough? Too bad we couldn't charge the parents. Unfortunately I can't sign my name as it has been brought to my attention that a woman spoke her mind to theme youngsters one night and found profanity written in the dust of her car the next day. Scary! Editors note: While the identity of the author of this letter is blown to us, we have withheld her name at her request for the reasons list- ed above.