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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1997-03-12, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, March 12, 1997 Publisher & Editor. Jim Beckett Business Manager Don smith Production Manager Deb Lord AdvertisinCBarb Consitt, Chad Eedy News; Heather MW, Chris Skalkos, Ross Haugh, Brenda Burke Production; Alma Ballantyne,Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Brenda Hem, Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner ' Transportation: Al Flynn, Al Hodgert Front Office & Accoun fig; Elaine Pinder, Sue Rollings, Ruth Slaght Ruthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald, Cassie Dalrymple The Exeter Times -Advocate is a member of a family of community newspapers providing news, advertising and information leadership • • • pray for snow — March break is upon us, and kids can play outside in snow. The alternative to snow this time of year is mud. And while they can play outside in that, too, it isn't a pretty sight on hoots, carpeting, walls and the new living room furniture. Christmas break is filled with celebra- tions, visiting friends, and tobogganing. Summer break. is for swimming les- sons; trips to the beach, helping out. on . the family farm and pigging out on strawberries. There. are a few days off at Thanksgiving, and a few more off at Easter — enough for the religious cele bration, but not enough for the kids to get into everything. March is such a strange time of year — too late for winter, too early for spring; too cold for skipping rope and . baseball, too warm for skating and ski ing. / So why .force kids tb take a week off in March? - ` - Our society operates according to sev- eral different calendars. One starts in January and ends in December. In some ancient cultures including that of Rome, the hew year began when the days began to grow longer again. Other ancient cultures began the year when - the flowers bloomed, the leaves came out on the trees, and Life began anew. This is true of the Christian calendar, with Easter marking the rebirth of the Savior. Of course, we have the auto dealer's calendar, which starts a year ahead of the "real" calendar, -which is apparently off a couple of years anyway. " We have the retail calendar, which is based on the next major celebration Valentines go up the moment Christ- mas cards come down, and Easter can- dv is on the shelves shortly thereafter. We have the fashion calendar, which is always a season out of whack — just Publications Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES; . One year rate for Ontario subscribers - $35.00 + GST Two year rate for Ontario subscribers - $63.00 + GST CANADIAN ADDREES OUTSIDE ONTARIO One year subscription $63.00 + GST Two year subscription - S119.00 + OST OTHER RATES Outside Canada - $102.00 Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Main St., Exeter, Ontario, NOM 156 by 1.W. Eedy Publications Ltd. Telephone 1-519-235-1331 • Fax: 519-235-0766 emall address: tlmes.edvocateeeedy.com O.S.T. 014105210835 EDITORIAI, The March break is upon us - get out the vacuum cleaner try buying a bathing suit mid -summer, when you need it, or a warm coat mid- winter. - We have the fiscal calendar, which oddly enough seems to have a seasonal basis (because money is green?). It ends as the last of the snow melts and the _ skunks start wandering across the coun- tryside in search of skunks of the oppo- - site gender. You get three months from the end of the calendar year to figure - how to keep -the 'governme it from skunking your bank accout.t. ` And we have the school calendar, which is strangest of all. kends at the beginning of. summer. It begins at the end of summer, And it takes a lengthy pit stop in the dead of winter, -With an- other'stop coming just before the mud starts drying up.' The school calendar around here is based on' the concept that our children are desperately needed to work on the family farm. In most parts of Canada, that isn't the case any longer. Even in rural mid -western Ontario, agriculture is changing and becoming a highly mecha- , nized operation. The traditional type of subsistance fafniing, where everyone raised a bit of this and a bit of that, had an assortment of livestock.an,d a few acres of vegetables, is becoming increas- ingly rare. Instead.of providing help, kids running around heavy machinery , create a tremendous -worry for farm par- ents. - , - , So why do we keep to the traditional two months off in the summer, with winter and spring breaks? It offers an , opportunity for teachers to take full time summer courses, and most do just that. Is this sufficient reason to shut down schools two months of the year (and have kids, taking a week off school at the peak of the mud season)? It is a question which must be looked at seriously. 1 What's on your mind? The Times Advocate. continues to welcome letters to the editor as a forum for open discussion of local issued, concerns, complaints and kudos. ,The Times Advocate reserves the right to edit letters Mr brevity. Please send your letters to P.O. Box 850 Exeter; Ontario, NOM 1S6. Sign your letter with both name and address. Anonymous letters will not be published. A View from Queen's Park By Eric Dowd TORONTO -- Premier Mike Harris is looking at ways to make his policies for municipal re- form more palatable, but he also needs a huge change in style. Metropolitan Toronto residents who last week voted against his plan to amalgamate its member -municipalities undoubtedly were -moti- vated by fears of losing control of neighbor- hoods and paying higher taxes because Harris also would force new responsibilities on them. Many other municipalities facing restructuring will feel the same. But many resented Harris's methods as much as his goals. The Progreessive Conservative premier will first need to consult ordinary peo- ple. He did no such consulting before plucking amalgamation like a rabbit out of a hat in De- cember, although earlier government -appointed studies had not suggested it. This failure to consult is part of a pattern that prompted Solicitor General Bob Runciman to break cabinet solidarity and complain that a proposal to close a psychiatric hospital at • Brockville in his riding had never been dis- cussed with local residents. Harris will also need new strategists. He has mostly young advisers who have memorized every word Ronald Reagan ever said and sneered at former, long -surviving Tory premier William Davis as guided more by polls than principles. But Davis never quite misread the public pulse like Harris, who appeared to have had no. conception that people could be aroused to fight in the streets for the area they live in. The Tory strategists will need to do more homework. As just one example, in announcing amalgamation thay claimed it would save mon- ey without statistics to back this up and then rushed and hired financial consultants to prove it, putting the cart before the horse. The public saw through this as an order to come up with fa- vourable figures and never believed them. The strategists will also need 'new flexibility and openness to compromise, a word Harris's ' rigid Tories hate. When opposition to amalga- Simple Cruelties Brenda Burke A little (greasy) ' focd `cur thought March is Nutrition Month. Which reminds me, these days I find mysellf in the middle of a; ferocious, unrelenting battle between good-for=you food and those devilish,items they flash across the TV; perfect in glossy magazines and put within reach , at -every checkLout counter. After eating a load of low-fat, iow-salt, high -maintenance, - high -prided nutritious food, along will come a craving for chocolate or big, greasy fries to* wash it all down. Without a second thought, many of us stuff food in our mouths - ending up with enough MSG, sugar, salt and benzelene carboniumtrate to preserve our arteries forever. it's amazing some things are even classified as edible. ' Raviolies'in the can„for example, or neon -colored goop packaged'for_kids in convenience stores. Fastfood restaurants are a menace to society because they offer cheap food that tastes good. Anything inexpensive, fast and good -tasting is usually bad for you whereas stuff that's hard to find (orzo), tends to be expensive and takes a technical wizard with tonnes of time on his hands to figure out how to inject taste. If you're not very serious about cooking, eating well can • be, a long -lost fantasy. It's supper time. You're starving. There's nothing to eat so you grab whatever's available. You devise the most original meal of the year. Leftover pizza accompanied with pickled beets and radishes sauteed in clamato juice. By trying to deny ourselves certain foods; I wonder if we're doing any permanent - psYehological damage. Will I survive if I never have chocolate again? Will my cheeks bulge out and my eyes roll back if I giye up salt and , vinegar chips forever? When you try to adopt healthy eating habits, nobody understands. They all think you re crazy for not ordering a huge dessert in a restaurant or for requesting skim milk (or milk at all for that matter.) Ordering milk while in Italy is"a • double no -no. "I don't understand ybu people," one Italian waiter told me a few years ago when I , ordered milk to drink in Rome. "You people drink diet Pepsi, yet you put butter on your - bread!" He placed a white cloth over his forearm and proceeded to delicately pour milk from a carton into a wine glass: When you go over. to someone's house for supper, it's really hard to eat only what you really want to. Besides, many of , us are survivors of the force-fed generation. I was- raised under the stern. - voice of a stepfather who. wold sharply tap my plate with his fork whenever he caught me daydreaming at the table: "Eat up!" he'd;iiiy, getting ready to slop another spoonful of mashed potatoes on my already crowded plate of cold - food. I swear I sat there for hours trying to devour overcooked meat and shriveled veggies from the can. Many consider it a direct insult' when you refuse seconds of a meal they've slaved over, - rolled in butter, fried in grease and cooked all the living juices - out of. Buffet meals are great because then you've got a choice. Do you pick the macaroni salad soaking in the color of Kraft Dinner cheese or the dried-up , roast beef marbled with streaks of fat and smothered in gravy. containing what looks like tiny chunks of lard? - "Be adventurous," advises a, green -colored healthy eating pamphclt sitting on my desk. "Healthy eating is neither " created nor destoyed in one- . , meal." . Harris needs a huge change in style mation grew, they showed no capacity for of- fering amendments that could take away its mo- mentum and seemed unable to think on their feet. Harris's Tories need to become Tess belliger- ent and abrasive and accept that opponents' views occasionally have some legitimacy. Har- ris and Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leach scoffed at municipal politicians who objected as "whiners" -concerned only with hanging on to well-paid jobs, although the municipal repre-. sentatives were elected, just like Harris, and have a mandate to speak on their roles while they have them. Earlier, more moderate premiers in the Tory dynasty from 1943 to 1985 would have told the dissenting municipal politicians, many of whom are Tories, that they respected and wel- comed their views, and would defend their right to express them, but felt there was abetter way. Taking steam out of issues is one reason the To- ries governed for 42 consecutive years. Harris's Tories will be better off also if they refrain from tricks which are seen as bordering on being dirty. In two examples of many, Leach went so far as to appoint trustees to watch over the finances of the municipalities to be amalgamated and to warn they were needed to prevent outgoing councils throwing away . taxpayers' money on wild, last-minute spending sprees, but apart from this being a ludicrous slur, a court has held he had no legal power to do any of it. Leach also printed and circulated at taxpay- ers' expense a pamphlet promoting the govern- ment's plan which portrayed it as a done deal, approved by the legislature, when it was merely a proposal and the Speaker gave him the rare rebuke of finding him in contempt. Leach tried to shrug off these breaches as technical and inconsequential, but ministers are supposed to respect the law and Harris must doubt one who causes so much trouble can get his municipal reforms back on track. His days may be numbered.