Times Advocate, 1992-02-05, Page 4Pape 4
Times -Advocate, February 5, 1992
:14her: Jim Sackett
Adrian Herne
laillalliOi Reser: Don Smith
' iM en Manager, Deb Lord
C Coe.,
Publications Mal Ilagistretion Number 0386
stUBSCRIPTlON RATES! CANADA
WNW 40 rhes (65 km.) addressed
to non letter oan$sr addressee 030.00 piss 02.10 4.$.T.
Otsttlde 40 mites (65 km.) or any letter easier slims
430.00 Owe 080.00 testae* (Mai 060.00) piss114.20 0.4.T.
Outside Cmnads 068.00
in
I i)I 1 OInt
Cut back w} it -really wants
Last week, Ausable Bayfield
Conservation •Authority gener-
al manager Tom'Prout politely
pointed out that wile sevmal local mu-
nfcipalities were signing a resolution in
protest of a five percent increase in
their general levy, they were mistaken.
The average increase in the levy to
each member municipality was only
four percent.
This blunder, initiated by Tucker -
smith Township and gleefully taken up
by other councils, amounts to some-
thing of a new annual sport: ABCA
bashing.
About this time every year, local
councils find some way to accuse the
Conservation Authority of spending
freely without restraint. A couple of
years ago, when levy increases soared
to over 20 percent in some cases, many
had cause for alarm and demanded an-
nual increases be held to six percent or
less.
Although local councils complain that
Queen's Park is placing more and more
of the financial burden of provincial
programs on the municipality, few are
willing to recognize the province is
playing the same game with its conser-
vation authorities. The ABCA is being
legislated to4trovicle .more6servu a,'but
isnot receiving s en `gi ntsio cov-
er those costs. The province fully ex-
pects municipal levies to increase in re-
sponse. '
One of the more missing aspects of
this Tho ersmith resolution is that Hay
TOownn hip agr_ eed to it at their laniary
meeting, iioaying the eve"
percent average levy increase and the
three percent increase to the ABCA
staff wage grid.
At the very same meeting Hay Town-
ship approved a three percent pay in-
crease for its own staff. What is appar-
ently good enough for the goose is not
good enough for the gander.
But even more fascinating is the
amount of time local councils spend de-
bating the ,ABCA levy, even though in
most cases it represents a small part of
the overall municipal budget. For exam-
ple, Hay Township's levy to the conser-
vation authority will go up a mere $811.
'ruckersmith's will go up about $617.
While no government agency can be
allowed to roam free with local tax dol-
lars, one cannot help feel that this over-
whefining concern for frugality is misdi-
rected.
But then again, we can't forget that
most ipunicipal councils, hungry for in-
creased growth an4. assessment, often
see the ABCA as a restrictive force, de-
laying or even turning down develop-
Inent in environmentally sensitive areas.
If this is the source of this animosity
towards the agency, why can't they just
carne right out and say so?
A.D:H.
+1
Sitting is suffering
When God helped my patents
to create m=. He didn't think it
was necessary to provide me
with a particularly good sense of
balance. He wanted me to be-
come a writer, not a skier.
So when I' took up cross-
country skiing some winters
ago, I really did it against God's
\ will - just to please Elizabeth.
He Ls punishing me now.
"Let's go cross-country skiing
for an hour or so," Elizabeth
's td yesterday afternoon.
", I said. It took me five
minutes to put on my gaiters,
boots, ski jacket and toque. Eliz-
abeth usually takes a bit longer
to get ready.
"You go ahead and put the
skis on the roof rack. I'll be right
out."
"What do you mean: roof
rack? Where do , you wart to
go?" •
"Mount Pakenham."
"I thought we'd just go on our
trail," I said. We have a perfect
ski trail right behind our house.
Perfect kor me, that is. My idea
of tun at skis -is to work up a
sweat on a horizontal trail. 1
don't need hills to complicate
things or to prove that I'm a
man.
But why not, I thought. As an
enthusiastic downhill skier Eliz-
abeth doesn't have much time
for me in the winter. It was pret-
ty gracious of her to put on
cross-country skis at a11, just to
share an activity with me for a
change. I thought I could prob-
ably handle a little challenge at
Pakenham, as long as we stayed
away from the difficult stuff.
The challenge begins
The miniature map you get at
the lodge shows a maze of many
trolls that crisscross through'
swamps, evrr small lakes, and
up and down through the hilly
terrain. There are red, yellow,
orange, green and blue trails.
The round signs indicate "easy",
the square "more difficult", and
the diamonds "most difficult".
Peter's
Point
•
Peter Hessel
Clearly, the round signs are
meant for me, the squares for ex-
perts and the diamonds for sui-
cide candidates.
The map was so small that I
had trouble making out the de-
tails with my trifocals.
"Here, give it to me," Eliza-
beth said. I simply followed her.
"Remember what I said," I
shouted after her, "just the easy
trails."
We' had to . cross a rickety
wooden foot bridge over a
mashy creek. Several boards
were missing. There Was no rail-
ing. I tried not to look down.
Following the Blue Square
Right after the bridge, thefirst
climb started. I'm reasonably
good at that (having learned it
the hard way). But experience
told me: for every up there is a
down. We reached the summit.
Ahead lay a steep, dangerously
meandering mountain slope with
an unfathomable abyss to the left
and a stand of sturdy old trees to
the right. Elizabeth later de-
scribed it as a slight dip, but that
was a malicious falsification of
facts. The blue square; proved it;
we were on a "more difficult"
trail Anat
"Come on," Elizabeth shouted
from below. "Bend your knees
and keep your hands forward."
I snow -ploughed as best as I
could. In fact, I was surprised
how well I handled the situation.
UntilI reached the second curve.
That I lost my balance, and I
sat down hard. 1 knew the mo-
ment my rear end hit the ground
that I was going to hurt for a
while. I had ionised my tailbone.
Nevertheless I got up and made
it to the bottom without losing
my dignity again.
We stayed oo the trail for an
hour. I had -two more falls. In
one I hurt my right elbow, but
just a little. In the last fall, I
bruised my right hand. The one
I'm using to key in these very
WOWS this very moment. It
hurts. But not nearly as much as
my coccyx. The one I'm sitting
on right now. The one I didn't
know I had until Elizabeth point-
ed it out to me in Gray's Anato-
my.
sacrum
the
The coccyx is "the end of the
vertebral column beyond the sa-
crumcomprising the four small
vertebrae that are more or less
completely fused in the adult
and represent a vestigial tail". In
other words, the coccyx is a Left-
over from the days when our an-
imal ancestors still sported tails.
Well, I don't know about my
tailed ancestors. But I wish I
knew how to sit without suffer-
ing.
"Why are you sitting so fun-
ny?" Stephanie asked at the su-
per cable. 1
"Because I bruised my coc-
cyx."
"Dad!"
So I showed it to the kids. I
mean the picture from Gray's
•
omy
"IAA are never so Jikely
to settle a question rightly
as when they discuss it
freely."
... Thomas Macauley
Published Each Wednesday Momkig et 424 Main St.,
Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1168 by J.W. lady Publications Ltd.
Telephone 1.519.235.1331
0.1.7. OW106210e)5
Letters to Editor
Tax assessments
'Dear Editor. •
This is to advise all residential
taxpayers to attend meetings re:
your taxes on real-estate value of
your properties as of 1988, but be-
ginning this year. abtof uur4taxes
will be doubled
The meetings for Exeter will be
in the Exeter Community Centre
on February 17 and 18 from 1:00
pin. until 8:00 pm.
Hay Township is going tete same
way: Our taxes
on a small cot-
tage are exactly
doubled. The
meetings for Hay
-will be Febtt ary10
-end 11 at -1190pnn.
in Zurich Arena.
Please read your assessments
very carefully.
Sincerely,
B.U. May, Exeter, Ontario.
Editor's note: While some resi-
dential tax assessments may indeed
nave doubled from 1984 to 1988,
this does not mean your taxes will
double. The county will be apply-
ing a new lower null rate to Huron
properties. Residential takes will
increase somewhat, but not double.
Farmland taxes will decrease
through the new mill rate.
Response to "Peters Point"
Dear Sir.
Are Peter Hessen and I partici
pants of the same society? He
claims that ".. most men gladly ac-
cept the fact that women have be-
come equal partners with equal
rights... there are still unfortunate
exceptions." I'm afraid he has it
backwards. The fact is that there
are few men who harbour these
beliefs and the "exceptions" are
the one's who actually do. The
world hasn't changed as much as
Hessel thinks it has. As someone
once told me, "There's always a
big gap between theory and prac-
tice. In theory, we've come along
way, but to believe, that in daily
life men and women are equal is
to ignore everything in the world
around us - in terms of expecta-
tions and 'in terms of the kind of
responsibilities that men and
women take on." Women today
do not live in a benign or even
neutral society. Many of us move
through this culture denying its
prejudice because the reality is too
uncomfortable to bear: the non-
sensical caste system based on
gender. Whether we call ourselves
feminists or not, we know this
system exists. Men and women
alike arc conditioned to conform
to this culture. Men are trained to
llbc dominators, women -to be sub-
ordinates, and whether we anent to
admit it or not, we are still living
in a misogynist envirorunent.
Hesse! says that recently men
have been much unaligned by
women, the media, and society as
a whole. He says we have,, devcl-
oped an "wt -male" attitude and
that male -bashing has become po-
lineally correct". He calls this
"new and disturbing" attitude to-
wards men "female chauvinism". I
would have liked for Helsel to
have included -some examples in
bis article to support his opinion.
This would have made for an easi-
er response. Is it anti -male for
women to fight for independence?
Is it anti -male to want the world to
recognize that women are half of
the populatldn -(more than half
cow, actually), and just as descry •
-
¢ng of rights andities,
st as capable of bei Lively
involved in the events of the
world, as the o other half. Perhaps
some pgtvieve it 10 be. Whenever
a soc ig group rejects its subservi-
ence, as women eveaSywhere have
bben doing, i1 Ibreafetta, lllose Ott
power. Many men, consciously or
- subootrsciously, see women gainitlg
petsonttood and sharing power as a
)loss to thrum. They feel diminished
by �gwgmen'sequality. Men
threats to their
economic and
•
social well-
being see women
attempting to im-
1111
prove their status
as spelling, their own
masculine doom. Because of all
this, backlashes develop and denial
sets in.
I think that denial is the big issue
here, Helsel advises, "Let's not lib-
erate, egpalize and protect women
at theexpense of men". Give e a
break! is me
-not what is taking
place. He says he is sick of being
stereotyped in movies, television,
and the press. Come on, Hessel,
women and men have the right to
be treated as whole human beings,
yet in the entertainment and media
Mdustries it is women who are rare-
ly portrayed as such. More often
they are portrayed as a "hole". Ei-
ther a bottomless hole of sin, moral
anarchy, and death, simply a hole -
a vagina, a mouth, or a tear duct.
There are exceptions but the per-
centages are insulting. There arc
very few shows that deal with real
women with real problems and rest
lives. Many women are simply cast
as love interests (likely to be "res-
cued" from something by a dashing -
male hero)),,blond bimbos (sex part-
ners) to be diced up in vi-
olent t objects
ilashter movies. If Heald
wants to talk shout being stereo-
typed, he should try being a wom-
en.
Hensel':discusses his belief that
Jess acts in our society today are
cocuniued by men against women
then ever before, "and yet wc can-
not opt.n a paper or listen to a
newscast without learning disgust-
ing details about murder, rape, in-
cest, sexual abuse or harassment."
Maybe this is because we are final-
ly realizing that all of these are ma-
jor problems and its time they were
dealt with. Women will , never be
equal until we can pressure our
dreams in safety. Here I could go
on to quote countless statistics
about violence against women, but
besides not having enough space I
think many are already aware of the
horrifying facts. What is even more
Qisturbing is that contrary to Hes-
•
•
eel's belief, figures show a spectac-
ular rise in violence against women
(especially sexual). While he is
right that such cases are reported in
greater numbers, he may be forget-
ting about the thousands that no
one ever funds out about. The rea-
sons far the increase in violent
crimes against women are many,
but as Susan Faludi (a- Pulitzer
prize winning writer) states, "The
truth is that the last decade has seen
a powerful counterassault on wom-
en's rights, a backlash, an attempt
to retract the handful of small and
hard-won victories that the feminist
movement did manage to win for
women."
It is interesting that Hessen tells
his readers rot to become "hysteri-
cal" about men. What a typical
statement. When it's misogyny's
turn in the spotlight, feminists (that
oh -so tricky word) are branded
"tlYsterictil", "strident" or "man-
haters" just for raising the issue.
Such is the nature of denial, it is
unbelievable to witness the deterio-
ration of language etc. that takes
place once worsen start challeng-
ing (ie. the ever -popular B -word)
. This kind of tool is used all of
the times as intimation it is a tool
to make women afraid, and these
attitudes are basically sanctioned
by our society. It seems that femi-
nist are almost always pointed as
dour and somber. It is my opinion
that they actually have a much
brighter vision of human ability,
the ability of all of us to perfect
ourselvQtl and to become better.
Finally, although I have said
much, I haven't even scratched the
surface of this issue. I would just
like to conclude by saying that the
changes women are struggling for
would nerve to benefit both sexes
by creating a society in which men
and women are :free _to conduct
their lives without being told
there's only one right way and
they've got to fit intfs that mold or
be considered deviant'. I am not
saying that the world ,hasn't
changed at all. I agree with Helsel
in that it has. Women have made
great strides toward equality, but
by no stretch of the imagination
have we "made it". As well, if wc
could all admit how far we arc
.from this brave new world we
ospeak r of, we just might get there
Y
Kerry Manders
OAC sociology student,
nnttt