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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1983-11-30, Page 4Pogo 4 Timm -Advocate, November 30, 1983 imes - " dvocate Times Established 1873 Ads ocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited IORNI Iii)' Publisher IIM lit(KI i1 At1\Man.rt;er Bit I BA 11N 1door HARRY DI \'R"" (ornpositron Manager ROSS HAI IGH Assistant Editor DICK IONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: :Iv' Canada $21.00 Per year; U.S.A. $56.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' Consider criminal acts There's a growing demand from groups and in- dividuals to crack down on drinking drivers, the latest suggestions including suspensions of driving privileges for the convicted person's lifetime. A recent editorial in the Strathroy. Age Dispatch suggests that drinking drivers have to be made aware that what they are engaged in is a criminal activity and they should be treated similar to other criminal elements in society. That fate may encourage some people to consider their actions more carefully, but it is a questionable deterrent in Huron County where the courts frequent- ly appear to deal leniently with those charged with criminal offences. Last week, for instance, four people were placed on one year's probation for offences such as break and enter with intent, fraud, false pretences and uttering forged documents. No fines or jail terms were imposed. Conversely, two men who pleaded guilty to driv- ing with a blood alcohol content over the legal limit were fined $300 or 10 days in jail. Being treated in the same manner as others who perpetrate crimes may be a deterrent for drinking drivers in some areas, but probably not in Huron. In fact, many of them probably wish they would get treated as leniently as those who commit fraud, break and enters and forgery. While the need is apparent to provide stronger deterrents for drinking drivers, the same need exists for other criminal activities as well and Huron Coun- ty is no exception. Can remedy oversight In a letter to the editor this week, Dr. C.J. Wallace points out that he finds it noteworthy that the contribu- tion of area physicians, past and present, has not been documented in the recent anniversary supplement compiled for South Huron Hospital's 30th anniversary. He probably could have added that previous publications for special occasions in the hospital's history also failed to document their contribution to any appreciable extent. That, of course, is not a defence for those involved in this year's publication, but rather a compounding of the oversight. In a bid to remedy the situation, this newspaper would welcome a submission from the area's medical practitioners to document their contribution for the edification of area residents and to ensure it is available for updating when the next special occasion arises. It's about time That time honoured proverb, which proclaims that the rich get richer and the poor get.poorer, has a ring of truth to it. For minimum wage earners in the province of On- tario, the time between pay raises has been unduly long, creating great disparity between minimum wage earners and their counterparts in business and industry. The provincial government has finally seen fit to increase the minimum wage paid and rightly so. Today, minimum wage workers in the province of Ontario earn $3.30 an hour, the same amount they were paid for their toil over two years ago. The minimum wage paid in Ontario is the lowest in the country and translates into an annual wage of $7,280. So in MLrch 19114, the minimum wage will rise to $3.85 per hour an(1 the October increase will bring it to $4.05 per hour. 1t is unfortunate that the minimum wage schedule remained the same for nearly two and on" half years. Ideally, the wage should have been subject to regular increases• Many people, perhaps more than we care to realize, earn minimum wage for the jobs they do in the service industry. While many of them, admittedly, may be students working to finance an eduction, others are full-time employees who have families or other people to support on the meagre wage. Simply, our minimum wage was terribly unfair, bycomparison and increases should have been regular rather than waiting until it falls pitifully behind -that paid by all other provinces. Next year, the increases will be rapid and substantial and no doubt will create nightmares for many employers. In the future, the province should take more fre- quent looks at the minimum wages. Goderich Signal -Star Nuclear threat hasn't altered much It is perhaps ironical that the two ma- jor "happenings" of the past week includ- ed the 20th anniversary of the assassina- tion of President John F. Kennedy and the television movie The Day After which depicted the horrible realism of nuclear extermination. There has probabl , been no occasion since the harrowing days of the Cuban missile crisis that the world has come any closer loan all-out confrontation between the two super -powers as when Kennedy's administration and their Russian counter- parts locked horns in a frightening battle of nerves. At that point in history, and for several years prior, the two nations had the nuclear capability to destroy the world. Their build-up of nuclear arms since that time has, therefore, not pushed the world any closer to extinction. The hundreds t or is it thousands? t of extra nuclear warheads that have been put into place since that time have only added to an already existing saturation. That implies simply that victims will end up being closer to the acutual point of a direct impact/than they would have been 20 years ago nd would therefore be kill- ed instantly rather than surviving for a few extra minutes or hours until the fallout reached them. The survival possibilities have not decreased one iota. They were nil 21) years ago and they're at the same point today. While the TV show have educated some people as to the ramifications of nuclear war by dispelling some unfound- ed hope that they could survive, its airing may have had the dangerous effect of sug- gesting that the world is in some way closer to such a reality than it has been in the past Those who witnessed the film do themselves and others a great disservice if they see it as a situation in which they should throw up their hands in despair or to think that a nuclear holocaust is any more imminent than it has been in the past. it would be particularly unfortunate if the young .people who viewed the film assume a negative attitude or consider the scenes depicted as being inevitable. The fact is, their parents have been liv- ing with the same threat for over three decades. The proliferation of nuclear BATT'N AROUND with the editor weapons has not increased that threat to any appreciable extent. Conversely, a token reduction in the nuclear arsenal, such as that being sought in the now halted discussions between the two powers, does not reduce the threat either. The reality is that as long as any group, no matter how large or small that group may be, has the technology and materials to produce nuclear arms, the risk of nuclear war exists. Because it is impossible to comprehend any situation which would remove the technology and materials totally from the world, other than a nuclear war itself, it is evident that people have to accept•the fact they must learn to live with that threat and not allow it to diminish or destroy their love of life and will to con- tinue it. Even unilateral disarmament, as touted by some, is no guarantee of escap- ing from the threat. The example of Hiroshima is evidence of the fact that a country that does not have nuclear arms is no safer from them than a country that has them. It is, after all, why Canadians feel endangered too, despite our lack of nuclear arms. •While the danger of nuclear war is no greater now then in the past, that consol- ing factor should not be construed as a suggestion that nothing can or should be done about the threat. But it must be tackled in a realistic manner. The initial reality of the situation is that the leaders or population in those countries with nuclear capabilities (and that's not merely two any more) are not anxious to see the world totally destroyed. Self preservation is still the strongest of the human desires and has undoubtedly been the prime factor in nuclear weapons not being used in the world for close to 40 years, while countless thousands of lives have been lost in conventional warfare that has been almost constantly in ex- istence during that same period. If self preservation is the positive fac- tor which has enabled us to avoid world destruction, then the negative human foi- ble of greed is probably the one which keeps the possibility ever in the forefront. Greed is the ingredient that creates the envy and distrust that leads to tensions, not only among nations, but among individuals. It is impossible to eliminate wars by eliminating the physical weapons of war because the latter are always available in some form, even if they now he plowshares. War can only be eliminated by chang- ing the minds and attitudes of those who engage in war and the disconcerting aspect of that theory is that any attempt at that has been unsuccessful since time began and there is obviously no indication that it will change to any appreciable degree in the immediate future. That appears to be the starting point and it certainly has to start at the most basic individual level if it has any hope of reaching the national or international level. Demonstrations for peace and even in- ternational peace talks have little chance of generating much success without changing basic attitudes between people and nations and in fact the stress some of those demonstrations and talks generate may even he doing more harm than good. "All signs point to long, hard winter!" Glad November is over I don't know anyone who has written an "Ode to November". It is just possible that some idiot in Florida or California or Portugal, or the West In- dies, has done so, because that is the month their oranges, grapes. or sugar- cane achieved their finest flavour. Long gone are Thanksgiving, the glories of autumn foliage, the bright yellow sun of October. Instead, there are the withered fields. There are the black, accusing bran- ches, like witches' fingers, of the stark and naked trees. There is the first snow, turned to dirty slush. Fittingly, November has no holiday. The only thing near it is Remem- brance Day, a day of mourning, of remember- ing old slaughters and young men caught in them. There are the first obscene Christmas carols, the first phoney Santas, the intricate ar- rangements of coloured lights, to remind us that if we spend, spend, spend: buy, buy, buy, we are sup- porting those two great edifices of the western world, Christmas and free enterprise. November, for most Canadians, is a tin^ of fearful, tentative %.acting, shoulders metaphorically hunched. Waiting to see what The Lord has in store for us. There is no promise in November, no hope. Only more of the same for the next five months. Grey, greasy, unyielding, November grips us to the bone with its certainty that we have sinned, and now we are going to suffer. Even with modern Sugar and Spice Dispensed By Smiley heating and lighting, with the tranquilizers of televi- sion and frozen dinners, and no trips to the backyard john necessary, November makes us cringe. Probably it's a legacy from our pioneer ancestors. I can't help thinking what November meant to them. The clos- ing in of days. The black of the morning. The wet chill of the air. The worry about enough hay for the beasts, enaugh wood in the wood- pile, enough salted meat for the winter, enough spuds and turnips in the cold -cellar. It was no time for wat- ching the Grey Cup, or the Dallas Cowboys, on a Saturday afternoon. It must have been a time of frantic scrambling for those pioneers. Chink- ing the draughts between the logs. Cutting wood like mad. Slaughtering and smoking and "putting down" food for the long bitter days ahead. There was no running over to the supermarket for a few bags of flour, a bag of sugar, and eight cartons of margarine. It was a siege ahead that could last seemingly in- definitely, with no relief force just over the horizon. It must have been especially frightening for the women. For those long, dark months ahead, they would ,be virtually locked in their cabins, with almost no social in- tercourse outside the family. Endless days of preparing hot meals, knit- ting warm clothes, with no company after the children were bedded down except that of a sullen, exhausted husband. For the men at least, there was some escape; the daily chores, the bat- tening down of hatches against the coming storms, perhaps a trip to the village for supplies, the tending of animals. As we turn up the ther- mostat, flip on the lights, or flush the toilet, we should remember, with a touch of awe, what November must have been like for our grand and great-grandparents. Now, I know not everybody will agree with me. That's as should be. For aficionados of curling, November means the opening of a new season, with the slap of brooms, the conviviality of the bar, the urge for competition beckoning them out of their cosy homes into the dark, cold night. For the skiing crowd, November does hold pro- mise. They sniff the air like beagles, cheer like children when the first flakes fall, and generally irritate the rest of us. It's even a rather ex- citing time for merchants. They anticipate the jangl- ing of cash registers, the pushing of hot, sweaty mobs through their aisles. It enables them to blot out for a brief time, the doldrums of January that lurk ahead. And of course November holds no fears for the deer hunters and those idiots who stand in icy water to the waist, try- ing to catch one last big rainbow trout. "Best time of the year", they chortle heartily. But for golfers. boatsmen, and must old people, November could be left right off the calendar. For sailors on the Great Lakes, and at sea, it is a month frought with discomfort and even peril, with storms howling out of the northwest. You may have gathered that I don't like November and I'm glad it's over. Feeling bored? Pity! Recently a group of young Canadians became the first people from this country to climb to the top of Mount Everest. During the expedition three of the native guides and one of the Canadian climbers lost their lives. Every other year or so a group of small sailboats set off on a race which takes them right around the world, risking their lives in some of the most dangerous bodies of water known to man. Some people deplore this type of life-style. They say that it is being ir- responsible, careless of the hurt that could be caused to their loved ones if they die, basically being selfish by satisfying some in a world of fear. And if we face up to the Perspectives By Syd Fletcher crazed lust for adventure. Perhaps. At the same time, I think it is important for all of us to attack the challenges that exist around us, so that by con- quering them we know that we don't have to live challenge and are defeated in the effort, then at least we still have our self-respect. The task will not likely be so huge as climbing Mt. Everest. For you or i it could be nothing more than saying an unpleasant fact to a friend, something you've been avoiding. or tackling an assignment you've been putting off for months because it's difficult. A friend of mine stood at the top of a hill on a cross- country ski trail, scared to death of going down. Finally he mustered up the courage and ended up at the bottom, still in one piece, proud of himself for not turning back down the trail. The person who avoids physical, mental or emo- tional contact is one who ends up feeling bored. frustrated and unhappy with life. For him/her I feel nothing but pity.