Times-Advocate, 1999-03-10, Page 9Wednesday, March 10, 1999
Exeter Times -,Advocate
9
Opinion&Forum
1 OYEARS AGO
March 8, 1989 - Exeter coun-
cil gave final passage to the
bylaw for purchase of Co -Op
owned land for construction of a
new fire hall at a special meeting
last Wednesday.
About two dozen women
attending an afternoon work-
shop on farm safety at Huron
Tractor in Exeter on Saturday
went home with a greater
awareness of the importance of eternal vigilance as
the price. of safety on the farm.
Grand Bend clerk -treasurer -administrator
Dianne Mollard resigned this week citing a better
opportunity elsewhere. She will be taking over as
deputy treasurer in Bosanquet township.
The Auxiliary of South Huron Hospital recently
made three donations to South Huron Hospital.
They include a new dishwasher, a portable x-ray
film stand and a new microscope.
Victoria Bisback of Hensall was the senior win-
ner in the recent Huron County Public Speaking
contest held in Clinton. She will now advance to
area Legion competition in Guelph.
20 YEARS AGO
March 7, 1979 - The effects of declining enroll-
ment were felt in Huron County for the first time
Monday when the board of education reduced its
teaching staff by 11 for the 1979-80 school year.
The SHDHS cheerleaders captured top place in
the annual red and black cheerleading competition
held at the school Wedensday. Members are Mary
Easton, Donna Prout, Brenna Wein, Becky Baker,
Terry Heywood, Sandy Somerville, Michelle Veri,
Marian Martens, Jane Sullivan and Kathy Willard.
For the second consecutive year, the Times
Advocate was judged the best newspaper in its cat-
egory by the Ontario Weekly Newspaper
Association competition.
35 YEARS AGO
March 8, 1969 - A leap year baby was born in
South Huron Hospital. Henrik Berg was born here
February 29 of Danish citizens, Lt. and Mrs. A.G.
Berg.
Six year-old Kang Wong Ho of Pusan, Korea has
been adopted for one year by the Exeter Legion
Auxiliary. Besides his parents, there are three
brothers and one sister in the family.
Monday night, Exeter council approved the
installation of the $70,000 Main Street storm
sewer.
40YEARS AGO
March 9, 1959 - Establishment of a volunteer
fire brigade for the police village of Centra:ia has
been approved by Stephen Township council.
Salary increases for both public and high school
teachers have been approved by the respective
boards. Raises of $800 to $1,000 were granted to
high school teachers while those at the public
school level will receive an additional $300 to
$850.
Hensall village council this week threatened to
set up a dog pound and hire a dog catcher if resi-
dents continue to violate the bylaw during the pre-
sent rabies epidemic.
The South Huron junior girls basketball team
captured the Perth title and will be representatives
for the local high school at WOSSA.
50YEARS AGO
March 10, 1949 - At the Lions Club supper meet-
ing in the Central Hotel, Charles Dolphin, an archi-
tect from Toronto outlined hospital planning for
Exeter.
Murray May, 19 year-old student at Exeter
District Iligh school was named the outstanding
all-round athlete of his school and featured in a
London Free Press series on high school athletes.
Alf Andrus of Traquair's Hardware won a .new
Studebaker car New Year's, Eve in a draw spon-
sored by the Exeter Legion.
75 YEARS AGO
March 9, 1924 - Reeve William Coates of
Usborne township was in Toronto last week
attending the annual convention on good roads.
Other Members of Usborne council are James
Ballantyne, Fred Stewart, Wellington Skinner and
John Hannah.
The first crow to be reported this season was
seen by Miss Elva Harvey on Thursday last.
Misses Edna Pfaff and Dorothy Balkwill of
Stratford Normal School were home for the week-
end.
ROSS
HAUGH
BACK IN TIME
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Pray and hope it does
not happen again
Dear Editor:
It is very sad and tragic when our children die before
us, the parents. We cannot, and do not know the feeling
until we lose our own. Children die in accidents and
from illnesses. They can be newborns, school age,
teenagers or older. Whatever the age, the family t in
mourning.
People can be very opinionated and judgmental when
teenagers die in a car accident. When my stepson died
in a car accident almost ten years ago, the long week-
end in May, we were devastated and shocked'
Numbness and emptiness were also very strong feel-
ings. They weren't drinking either.
How many of us as teenagers made errors when we
were driving. We must remember that the family is
grieving, and when unkind or inconsiderate words are
spoken, the family doesn't feel comforted.
The manner a newspaper reports the death, may
comfort the family or sadden them. A compassionate
reporter touches the family's heart. Pastors, ministers
and priests especially comfort the family's hearts and
souls. Caring investigating officers, ambulance atten-
dants, doctors, nurses, also touch the family in a posi-
tive way. Funeral directors have a positive effect on the
grieving family. Friends, neighbours and relatives are
important at this sad time.
We can pray and hope it doesn't happen again.
SUE WILSON, Huron Park
Visitors are impressed
The followingletter was sent to SHRC recently.
Y
Dear Editor:
I was in your arena for the first time on Wednesday,
Feb. 17 to a hockey game between Exeter girls and,
West Lorne girls, game time 6:20 p.m.
It was the first time I was in your arena and I was
very impressed by the size and how well it was looked
after.
The canteen was spotless and the, chap behind the
counter very friendly.
The washrooms were also very clean and well looked
after. You really should be proud of the facilities you
have in Exeter.
Now Cheers for the referees.
1 don't know who the gentlemen were who refereed
that game but I take my hat off to them. They did a
wonderful job. They were fair with both the teams. It
was a pleasure to see a hockey game that was well ref-
ereed - not like some of the games I have attended
which were all one sided.
Tell the gentlemen for me, along with the other par-
ents and grandparents who attended the game how
much we appreciated the well refereed hockey game.
I also enjoyed the heaters you have for the spectators.
It was the first time I was able to sit on the bleachers
for the whole game without freezing.
Keep up the good work and all the best for 1999.
Yours truly A concerned grandparent
T.D. BECK, Strathroy ON
Teens in the media
Dear Editor,
We are writing in regards to the article on February
24th titled " Bad Student Behaviour Causes Principal to
Cancel School Events." We are upset at how the Times
Advocate labelled all the students as being "bad". The
front page described how students got into a huge ‘fight
at the February 10th dance. The article claimed that
there were hundreds of people and gives people the
impression of a mob scene. In actual fact, this is an
exaggerated fact. The article also mentioned that hall-
way behaviour was deteriorated. We thought it conve-
nient that the first page mentioned all the negative
facts and it wasn't until the second page that there
were positives mentioned.
This article is only an example of how teens are por-
trayed in the media. When will people start to look at
the good things that teens are doing? Many teens -have
part-time jobs, play sports, and have other activites
that they keep up as well as keeping up with school
work. There are teenagers who also babysit younger
siblings or do extra chores around the house to help
out their families. It seems as though these positives
are overlooked and that only the negative behaviour of
teens is what the public reads about and sees on televi-
sion. The negative portrayal of teens in the media is
giving us all a bad reputation when in *actuality, many
teens are good citizens and responsible members of the
community. It is completely unfair when all teens are
painted with the same brush.
BECKY CORBETT, JAMIE BEAL, JAYDEN RUSSE'1., CARLY RILEY
AND PAM EsrEP - Ms. Baker's Media English Students
Words come easy
TORONTO -- Approaching an
election, Ontario's Progressive
Conservatives have warned
that their opponents will wage
a campaign of dirty tricks, but
the only real nastiness so far
has come from their own side.
Premier Mike Harris's cam-
paign manager, Leslie Noble,
predicted that opponents, and
particularly unions, will get A VIEW FROM
"mean and down and dirty" QUEEN'S PARK
and long-time strategist and
former party president Peter Van Loan warned
that his party will be subjected to "lies and char-
acter assassination." '
Harris said he expects personal attacks by crit-
ics who will lie and scream, but he will not be
rattled and they will be seen as having no ideas
to sell.
Oddly, the Tories have done the stooping. The
latest example was when their chief pollster did
a survey in a suburban riding north of Toronto
in which he asked whether residents would vote
for a candidate who was a member of the
Canadian Jewish Congress and son of a
Holocaust survivor.
These are not questions a party normally asks
voters before choosing its own candidate,
because it would look like it selects on religious
and ethnic grounds and smack of anti-Semitism,
and in any case the riding's Tories already had
their candidate.
But the candidate the Liberals had chosen in
the riding fits exactly the pollster's questions in
that he is a Jew and son of a Holocaust victim.
The poll was what is called a push poll, which
seeks to disseminate information rather than
elicit it, and made voters aware the Liberal can-
didate is a Jew, and one of its designer's hopes
could have been that some would vote against
him for it. Being Jewish sometimes has been,
totally unfairly, a handicap to getting elected.
The Tories ironically always are first up in the
legislature to deplore any incident of anti-
Semitism, and they apologized and dropped
their pollster, John Mykytyshyn, like a hot brick.
Harris tried to wash his hands of the pollster,
saying neither he nor his party authorized him
to ask such questions, and the party added it
will never use Mykytyshyn again.
But he was a prominent cog in its machine,
having polled for it to help Harris get elected
premier in 1995, and was to have polled for it in
the coming election and Harris has to take some
responsibilty for his team.
A few weeks earlier, Tory MPP Garry Guzzo
went on the internet and likened Liberal leader
Dalton McGuinty to Dr. Josef Goebbels, the infa-
mous Nazi propaganda chief.
Anyone wanting to say the worst that can be
said about politicians usually tries to equate
them with the Nazis and those targetted deeply
resent it.
McGuinty had argued that the Tories spend
less on health care than the previous New
Democrat government. In fact they are spending
a higher dollar amount, but not enough to take
account of inflation, a growing older population
and payouts to health-care workers who lost
their jobs.
Guzzo claimed on a Web site that McGuinty
was like "a propaganda minister some 60 years
ago who said keep telling the lies and eventually
people will believe you."
He clearly meant Goebbels and when the
Liberals complained that the comparison- trivial•
-
ized the suffering under the Nazis, the Tories
quickly deleted it.
Tories have taken to belittling Liberal David
Caplan, elected in 1997 in a riding his mother
quit to run federally, as "Elinor Caplan's boy,"
meaning he could not get elected in his own
right, although he is reasonably competent.
Transportation minister and United Alternative
proponent Tony Clement, when the Nova Scotia
PC youth association expelled its president for
attending the UA convention, said it should
retract and "Lenin used to purge people," equat-
ing even some in his own party withanother
brand of totalitarianism.
Some of Harris's Tories are extremists and
zealots, always sure they are right. Extreme
words come to them easily.
ERIC
DOWD