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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1975-01-16, Page 4PAGE 4 ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1975 Editorial Comment The pet peeve!! He is the fellow who arouses tension by simply walking into a room. Conversation stops. No one wants his or her name in the paper. He is the fellow who kept a certain father's son from jail last year, whose father this year took his advertising out of town. He is the fellow who prints your opinion over your signature, and takes all the blame. He is the fellow who patched up the affiar by telling him that he'd better not run the ad about her debts. He is the fellow who should have written that the singer was a dud, or the performance a washout... but he sold his soul for the lie to save face for others. He is the fellow who should spit editorial venom at the council, school board, public utilities, and all other boards... and when he does he's the solitary figure on the proverbial limb. He is the fellow who misquotes all politicians and office seekers. He is the fellow whose paper gets into every home for fifteen cents a copy. That's pretty cheap, isn't it? He is the fellow who won't print an ad on the front page. On the other hand, he'11 sell the back page for a price, but only if he's paid by the twentieth of the month following. Heck, you can get a better deal somewhere else, where you're lucky if you get a bill once a year. He is the fellow who should stay home nights with the family instead of running around with a pencil. He is the fellow who, when you pat hint on the back for his comment this week, will bit you editorially next week. He is the fellow who sympathizes with the advertising dep- artment because of late copy, and thereby gets all the tense end of pre -deadline from the composing roost. He is the fellow who castigates the proofreader. "Read it for sense as well as for errors!" He is the fellow who barks at the young reporter: "Don't ask me how to spell it. Look it up in the dictionary; that's the only way to learn." Mean of hits, don't you think? He is the fellow who hasn't enough sense to relax. He wakes up at night thinking of the inadequate hospital, the need for more school accommodation, the town -hall problem, the hole hazard on the road, spiralling taxes, the gas line, service - station hours, closing by-laws, parking, people shopping out of town, unemployment, the shiftless, the hypocrites, the dead, the mothers giving birth, the wayward, the suicide, and all the coming events for which one single line has not been written. The known he can cope with, but the future he can't... yet. He is the fellow who is the plague of all contributors who find their copy condensed. He is the fellow who is the paramount maker of mistakes. Everything that passes his hands is scrutinized by the public. Although he is densely stupid at times, he has an intelligent staff to supply the answers. He is the fellow who is habitually sending the girl out for coffee. He's too much of a "square to take a break. In fact, the editor is the community's pet peeve! (One Small Drop of Ink) A councillor hits back -- Being a member of town council is not all sugar and spice. There's a modicum of sour cream. The job demands attend- ance at meetings. It entails answers to problems in which said councillor can lose business (if he has any), if he lives up to his convictions (if he has an;); and he can lose the confidence of voters in a controversy, if he chooses to sit on the fence. At meetings a councillor's conscience (if he has one) can never be totally free. Before and after meetings his time is not his own; he is pestered on the street; his telephone at bus- iness and home rings constantly. One councillor patted himself on the back the other day for his repartee. With reassessment, some resident taxes were higher and some were not. Not a single word of parise from the fortunate citizens was heard by the councillor, but he did rec- eive a telephone call from a taxpayer whose taxes were raised. As the tirade was unleashed the councillor promised himself he would be an ex -councillor next year. Suddenly, he grasped at a straw. "By the way, " he said "what line of business are you in?" "I'm a schoolteacher, " came the reply. "Oh, " said the councillor, with tongue in cheek, didn't you receive a salary increase....? "Yes, I did, " quickly, with some heat, "and I and the other teachers deserved it, too." "Of course you did, " purred the councillor, "but what do you think that raise did to our tax rate." "I'm sorry, " came the answer. "I never thought of that." (One Small Drop of Ink) • ZURICH Citizens NEWS PRINTED BY SOUTH Iii'RON PUBLISHERS LIMITED, ZURICH HERB TURKHEIM, Publisher Second Class Mail Registration Number 1385w+�*�tF�! Mernbert d • noon e1AC.nd1arr Weekly. Newspapers Association; WinRi� Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association ''op",i,)' st'sSubscription Rates: $i:.00 per year in advance in Canada; $t;.00 in United States and Foreign; single copies 15,s International Scene (by Raymond Cannon) THE NEXT TWENTY-FIVE YEARS 1975 has a special cleaning for me, since itis exactly 25 years since I first tried my hand at journalism. My first efforts cannot be said to have caused any stores of applause from the newspaper fraternity and perhaps I owe a debt of gratitude to those editors who so kindly published these prim- itive efforts. They certainly gave me a great deal of encour- agement and that is precisely one thing which a young journ- alist needs as he tries to put something together which doesn't look like a warmed- over public school English essay, My very first article was on Paris in the aftermath of World War 2, Europe was struggling to get back on its feet econom- ically but the French capital which, unlike many cities, had been little damaged during the war, was acting as if noth- ing had ever happened. While their British allies across the channel were still being subject- ed to rationing on a relatively strict scale, the French had plenty to eat, were enjoying every mouthful and appeared to my young eyes to be usher- ing in the second half of the century with great bursts of wine, women and song. They probably didn't realize it at the time, but,they were, in fact, welcoming what has been the most successful 25 years in the history of man. In fact, when you look at this 25 years, both in Canada and abroad, it is difficult to real- ize just how much the world has accomplished in this short period of time. Production of goods and services has more than tripled and our power to produce these same two items has grown twice as much in this brief period as it did in all the rest of the history of our planet. In spite of the abject poverty which still exists in the world, a great deal of this growth has gone into the right places. The life expectancy of some people in the poor nations has almost doubled. In some Asian count- ries, infant mortality rates have fallen by no less than two- thirds. The English of some of our present high school graduate: may not bear witness to this, but there have been great surges in education and literacy throughout the world. Those of us who have been fortunate to live in the more affluent nat- ions of the world and, certainly, Canada can be counted as one of these, have experienced an increase in their standard of' living that they would not have thought possible twenty- five years ago. When, in 1952, I was offered $3, 500.00 for a full-time position, I wondered. what I was going to do with all that money. Needless to say, I snake a great deal more than that now but, like a lot of other Canadians, I no longer wonder what I'm going to do with it all. I wonder how I'm going to crake do with it, one sign of the changing of the titres! Another thing worth pointing out is that the last 25 years have nen no war on a world- wide scale. The two generations previous to mine had both gone through a horrible world war. I missed World War II, thank- fully, although I was old enough to realize more or less what it was all about. But in the 25 years that I have been reporting on the international scene, all I have had to comment on have been local wars such as Korea, Viet Nam or the Middle East. Mind you, these have been vicious wars but they have been localized and at no time have we been subjected to the pict- ure of the major nations of our world attempting to blow each other to bits. This absence of total war, as much as anything else, accounts for the great increase in prosperity we have enjoyed. Right now, things don't look so good and we can read report after report which predicts all sorts of gloom and doom. For what it is worth, while I bel- ieve we are in for some belt - tightening, and for some of us that would do more good than harm, I don't believe we are going to experience a world depression on the scale exper- ienced in the 1930's. While we have, unfortunately, not learn- ed all the lessons histroy is trying to teach us, we have learned enough of thein and I think we will see our way through. The one thing which does bother me is that in times of economic crisis, people do funny things andone of them is resorting to war. We saw what happened in Germany as a res- ult of the economic crash of the 192 O's. There are other example but that will illustrate the point I'm trying to make. At present, we are hearing strange (continued on page 13) Banghart, Re!!y, Doig and Co. Chartered Accountants 268 Main St., Exeter ARTHUR W. READ Resident Partner Bus. 235-0120, Res. 238-8075 Business and Professional Directory OPTOMETRISTS J. E. Longstaff OPTOMETRIST SEAFORTH MEDICAL CENTRE 527.1240 Tttesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- urday a.m., Thursday evening CLINTON OFFICE .10 Isaac Street 482.7010 Monday and Wednesday Call either office for appointment. Norman Martin OPTOMETRIST Office Hours: 9- 12 A,M. -- 1:30-6 P.M. Closed all day Saturday Phone 235.2433 Exeter INSURANCES Robert F. 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