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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1993-03-31, Page 4roiroopogo `Page 4 Times -Advocate, March 31,1993 Publisher: Jim Beckett News Editor: Adrian Hwte Business Manager: Don Smith Composition Manaiger: Deb Lord ion Number Discs (SS tarn.) addressed t.lwtti' e► wirdw aabosess $30.00 M.. $2.10 Q.S.T. Odtaiink nude. (SS Ion.) or any totter cantor address $30.00 Alas $30.00 (total 00.00) + 4.2013.0.T. 0ula1d. paned. $416.00 • •- Aki anon A bad idea xeter councillors Tom Hum- phreys and Dave Urlin have voiced the opinion they should be ' compensated with taxpayers' money. because their health benefits are covered under alter- native plans while other councillors have - their benefits covered, by 'the town. It's a weak argument that should be put to death as quickly as possible. For- tunately Urlin's motion to be compen- sated was defeated. Hundreds of thousands of couples are ,presently working where one or the ,cher are on a benefit plan. Can you im- ligine what would happen in the real -world if you walked into your employ- er's office and asked for a raise because your spouse was already on a benefit package while your company was pay- ing for your co-workers' benefits? Benefit packages are intended to make sure families are not financially devas- tated by large, unexpected medical emergencies or expensive -dental servic- es. In Canada we are fortunate that most families are protected by a combination of provincial health insurance and em- ployer provided benefits. We suggest these councillors should be thankful they are already covered :under other plans. To even suggest they are en- titled to anything more is sending the wrong message in these times of re- straint. The only benefits our councillors work on should be for taxpayers. Jim Beckett Apri! est declared a holiday Aren't you ecstatic that we fi- nally got that new statutory holi- day? ,isn't it wonderful news? I'm sure you already heard it on radio and TV. And .lead it in the daily papers. Wow! We all get a day off with double :pay on April 1st, whether we're :employed, self- employed. tfit ttpf.Yed,: pr just plain Mazy. You and- I`-°tibt j{ts the politicians -are encouraged tweet foolish and receive a gen- erous govemment handout for it. And isn't it fantastic that the kids will be in school - without their teachers? That way, every- body wins. The kids will enjoy a day without discipline and adult interference Teachers and par- ents will love a day off from the kids. Declaring April Fool's Day a world-wide holiday was the smartest thing the United Na- tions has done since painting their helmets blue. And going along with the idea was the best thing the Canadian parliament has done since it gave us the maple leaf flag. Thank you, thank you, all your foolish M.P.s from Lotosland to the Rock, from Baffin Island to the Sun Parlour! At last all Canadi- ans can celebrate April Fools' Day properly. And what about this latest bit of news? This just came over the wire, and you may not have heard it yet. So listen in amaze- ment! There will be a moratorium - for this one day only - en all po- litical correctness. Yes, on April 1st you may say anything, write anything, and • broadcast any- thing without having to worry. Anything that comes to your mind. Just do it. Just write it. Peter's :Alit Peter Hessel Just joke about it. As if political correctness had never been invented. It'll be like in the olden days, back in the seventies and early eighties, when freedom of opinion and freedom of speech were still tak- en literally. Since many of my younger readers won't remember that far back, let me paint the picture for you. On April 1st you'll be able to tell a joke without fear. Kiss your spouse (sorry, I mean your significant other) without feel- ing guilty. Leaf through Chate- laine Magazine without a plain brown wrapper. Read Heming- way without skipping all the chauvinistic passages. Watch the video of a John Wayne mo- vie without making excuses. We'll be able to laugh ata fun- ny story without first checking whether it's alright.iSing a song and not leave out the first veno. Call a man old when he's over 90. Address a woman as Mrs. without fear of insulting her. On April 1st (but not during the rest of the year) you may call me stupid instead of intel- I-tetter to Editor lectually challenged. You may call a man fat instead of bur- dened with excess adipose tis- sue, or a woman thin instead of inadequately muscled. Call them both dead instead of no longer with us. Yes, for one day only, we will be allowed to do all these honest but foolish things and get away with them. Only in jest, of course. There will be no libel suits, no threats or accusations, no snide remarks, no calls for resignation. All our foibles and follies will be allowed, over- looked, forgiven. Why do 1 welcome this new holiday? Because I am • a . fool and proud of its I believe that hu- mour and laughter, foolishness and folly are essential to the hu- man spirit. They are what sets Homo sapiens apart from ani- mals. No matter how many dif- ferent notes of sound a Beluga whale can produce, it'll neither recite nor appreciate a poem by Ogden Nash. And I hope I haven't rubbed too many whale lovers the wrong way with this statement. Don't get me wrong. I, too, like whales, and elephants, and alba- trosses, and I hope they'll never become extinct. But I also want humour to survive. Humour is our most endangered attitude. On April 1st - on this new in- ternational holiday - let's all be as foolish as a flummadiddle Flinflon flunkey. Let's live in a fool's paradise for just this one day a year before we crawl back to the grim and grave reality of our serious, solemn, sulking nineties. Better driving, key to safe driving Iistic? gr31 respect and caution for the All these ide- dangers, while law enforcement as arc inspired should concentrate on poor driv- with the best of ' ing, not fast driving. intentions. The Solutions to these matters are not safety of children, 111) simple ones. However, it's my and pedestrians in opinion, the citizens of Lucan are general, is always barking up the wrong tree. important. However, we mus view Don Penninga these ideas realistically. Huron St. Exeter 1 believe our speed Ii its are al- Editors Note: As Exeter council ready too low. Speed does not kill. discovered last year, the province Careless driving does. You might does not allow speed limits as low succeed in making 'someone slow as 30 KW on public roads (ex - down, but you can't force a careless ceps for off -ramps and the like). motorist to pay attention to the task Consequently, council revised its of driving and observing. decision 10 .set a 30 km zone on So I see lower speed limits as be- Huron St. to 40 kmh, but we notice ing of no cornequence. If Lucan's the signs have yet to appear. One speed limit on Main St. was 30 can't help wonder if the difference KMH, government revenues from was worth the bother. We agree radar might increase, but safety better driving, although impossible would not improve. to legislate, is the real key to safe - Pedestrians must treat roads with ty. Dear Editor: In reponse to last weeks article concerning the petition signed by 111 Lucan residents, to have the speed limit lowered on their Main St., 1 feel compelled to give my opinion. Not Wag ago some Exeter citi- zens like those in Lucan, wanted the speed limit reduced on Huron St. west where it passes Victoria park. I'm sure these people do not stand alone on this issue. In fact, I'm certain in almost every town in Ontario, perhaps even in all of Canada, live people who would lihsspeed limits reduced, in their Mlit tOr thitit.Aiiidren. Others still •wWllditke speed liatita reduced on s. 11 poposted__ limit on the 401 was 40 iKNmediiui cruseo- ver deaths • might be compleisly eliminated. But would this be rea- • "Men are never so likely to'!settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely." ... Thomas Macauley PiANuh.. lash VArass ..yMalaise* 434 ask St, Exeter, Osten., NUM WI yy,.W. Esity fr llwils 1. Ltd. Tolspirsoir1i $-11)1 1.$.T. ptleetieeetti Yes, but where's this vision? One of the more tedious as- pects of sitting at this desk is the amount of mail that arrives on it each day. Aside from letters to the editor, much of the mail is routine. There are countless press .releases from government ministries convinced they are saving the world, replies from opposition leaders with proof • the ministries are failing us all, sales pitches disguised as press ! a+eleases, and there all kinds of other useless items like the de- bates of the senate, form letters, ;cause of the week announce- ments, and lengthy reports no one would even want to read. To get through all this junk with the least disruption to my day, I have to rip open each en- velope and see if the contents can get my attention in less than two seconds. If not, then into the round file. The other day, I found an en- velope which contained a report from the University of Guelph titled "Wanted: A Vision for Agriculture". Intrigued, 1 set it aside for further perusal - after all, many of us would like to get an inkling of what lies ahead for our farm families. Long range planning seems to be a weakness of the North American economy. Large cor- porations are fixated on showing a profit in the next quarter. The car companies are particularly bad at this - using rebates, re- badging, re -packaging and what- ever else it takes to prop up sales of slow -selling models. They seem to have a hard time coming up with a clear vision of what kind of cars they want to be selling five years down the road. The Japanese, as we have come to discover, operate differ- ently. The VCR was invented in America, but no American com- panies wanted to market what was then a clunky, overpriced, machine that probably only re- corded an hour or so of grainy Hold that thought ... By Adrian Harte just reactions to pressures on ag- • ricultural sector, and aren't a ,plan to anticipate them. When a problem arises and fatmess•pear; plain,- throw money at it, is tt assumption here. So where is the long term plan? Where is the concept of what Canadian agriculture will look like 15 or 20 years from now? What is the goal, what is the vision? I tum the page and find that Guelph advocates more research and education - I guess I should have seen that coming. These aren't bad things, of course, but they don't seem to form the "vi- sion" I was hoping to find. One of the main points is that without some kind of big plan for the future, Canada may well end up losing her self sufficien- cy when it comes to, food pro- duction. Today, it almost isn't some- thing we think about. The cold wet summer of 1992 was a bad year on local farms. If this was a Third World nation we might be in a famine situation by now, but Canada isn't, so our super- market shelves stay full just tilt same. We don't know if the • flour in the bread we buy carat from Canadian wheat or foreign. and what do we care? Will the Universities and agri- cultural colleges come up with some plan to gradually mold the industry into a stable, prosper- ous way of life for those who own the land that feeds us all? Will the government ministries find the answer? Better yet, if a plan is developed, would the various farm organizations be able to agree on it? My search for this "vision" goes on. And, no doubt, so does yours. black and white video. No one would make any money selling such a thing. But the Japanese companies did put such clunky devices on the market, knowing that the ex- perience would lead to a billion dollar industry a few years down the road. Can we come up with a similar clear vision for the agricultural economy, or will it continue to be driven by the latest crop price futures? I had hoped this Guelph report might answer some of those questions. I did find some alarming statistics to add to those I already knew. Apparent- ly, only one quarter of Canadian farms are "globally competi- tive", producing more than $50,000 worth of products a year, for a total of 75 percent of the market. Three quarters are smaller operations than that - mostly relying on off -farm in- come to support the farm life- style. The problem, they say, is that government grant programs are paid out to both types equally. Those programs are also usually Letter to lditor Support group at SIHIDDHNSD Dear Editor: "I ask myself in constant won- der, what do our youngpopple do with their time? Where do they go when they're out at night? With unemployment high, the cash flow must be low. How much is there to do? And what's left over?; Any thoughts conic to mind? Then I ask myself in con- stant wonder, how many people ask themselves the same questions I do? We are offering a Parent Support Group for people who wish to talk with other people who are wonder- ing about so many things. Please wander to S.H.D.H.S. Li- brary, Wednesday, March 31, it 7:30 p.m. Hope to see you there." Sincerely Lyn Keyser, Exeter