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The Citizen, 2018-04-12, Page 5Other Views We fool ourselves so many ways April Fool's Day has just passed and many people probably survived attempts of friends or family to fool them with some prank or other. Many more of us will continue to fool ourselves all year long. We all tell ourselves convenient little lies, and we believe them unless someone calls us on them. One of the most common is when we say "I can't afford that" when what we really mean is that "I don't want to spend money on that because I want to save my money for something else, instead." Now there are people who really can't afford things. For people on social assistance, single parents, those with low income jobs and some senior citizens, the high cost of things like housing can leave little for basics like food. In our family, though, we often made a joke of the fact my late father-in-law would go out of his way and wait minutes in line to get any discount for senior citizens he heard about. Then he'd go on an expensive cruise. I've never been on a cruise. I could claim it's because we can't afford it but that's only a little true. We could probably afford it if we really wanted to go. We've probably spent enough for a cruise while collecting a library of books that threatens to take over our house, and a movie collection that overflows our shelves. For us, it's money well spent. People who like to travel would probably think we've wasted our money. My father-in-law's family also used to have fun at his expense because he had a large house but tried to save money by keeping the thermostat low in winter and not putting on the air conditioning in summer while visitors sweltered. I'm guessing I'm the brunt of humour among my own kids and grandchildren because we also keep the heat lower than they'd prefer. Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk We also made ourselves an easy target for jokes when we put an addition on our house — after the last of our four children had moved out when we could really have used the extra space. Now we have more space to heat. We have two of the things that many people claim they can't afford these days: a land -line telephone and satellite television. People already paying high monthly bills for cell phones understandably resent the expense of a regular phone they seldom use anyway. I'm amazed at the number of people who say they can't afford to pay for cable or satellite television services and substitute Netflix instead. They don't seem to mind missing out on authoritative network news broadcasts, and are satisfied getting their news from sometimes frighteningly unreliable posts on Facebook instead. Call me old-fashioned but my priority will be to pay more to get news I can trust. Many people complain about the cost of food, yet more meals are eaten outside the home than ever before instead of making inexpensive home -cooked meals. But you don't have time to cook, you say. Fooling ourselves about how little time we have is almost as common as fooling ourselves about our finances. Again, it's not so much about the time we have, but how we want to spend it. How much time do people actually save by THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018. PAGE 5. going out to eat, anyway? Even if you don't take into account the travel time to get to the restaurant, a sit-down meal usually takes at least an hour from ordering until the bill arrives. Do a little research to find simple recipes and you can save time and money for a nutritious home -cooked meal. Not that money apparently matters much when it comes to the kitchen. The less time people seem to spend in the kitchen, the more money is being spent to furnish and equip it — more cupboards than ever, more stone -covered counter space, double ovens, larger cooking surfaces. In our house we save time and money by cooking larger portions of some meals, then freezing what remains for quick meals at other times. This won't work for some people we know because they refuse to eat leftovers. Many people who claim to be short on time, also insist on travelling out of town to shop for groceries because they get larger selection and think they save money, even with the cost of gas. I figure we save at least an hour a week in our household by shopping at home. (I'm amazed that local stores don't more aggressively promote this one advantage they have.) I'm not sure how I make use of this hour I save. I know it's not checking social media. If you want to see the biggest fib many people tell themselves about being busy, it lies on their cell phones. Recent studies show average users check their phones 150 times a day. Add it all up and smart phone users spend three to five hours a day looking at their phones — the equivalent of seven years over an average lifetime. Want to make good use of your time? Spend an hour or so examining how you fool yourself that you have no time. Blyth needs some fairness, not equity Being the forgotten child can be both a bit of a burden as well as a benefit, but when we're talking about Ontario's amalgamated municipalities, it's never something to envy. I've been the forgotten child. I'm not complaining, simply stating a fact. I will meet people who know my parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, but they don't know me. It's an odd situation because I'm the eldest of my siblings and it's usually the younger ones who get overlooked. As far as the communities I grew up in, I guess I must have been socially quiet because these people talk about my siblings, mother and father, but then say they didn't know I existed. I tell them I get that a lot and chalk it up to being so well behaved that I passed by without notice. (In the words of the great Foghorn Leghorn, "That's a joke son") Like I said before, however, being a neglected child of a municipal council can be more of a burden than a benefit. It's funny that it's taken me this long to write about this, but the communities The Citizen covers have become forgotten. We have municipalities in Huron County that tie smaller communities to larger ones and the smaller ones often get forgotten. As far as The Citizen's area is concerned, Londesborough is dwarfed by Clinton in Central Huron. Brussels competes with Seaforth in Huron East and Blyth has to compare to Wingham. Auburn, split three ways, is just too messy to get into here. As a newspaper, we are expanding all the time, but originally, we were here for communities that were left without and those communities have became the kind that rate second when it comes to municipal decisions. Some may say there are no favourites. They are, at best, misinformed. Denny Scott Denny's Den Brussels, for example, has to scrimp and struggle to have its community centre considered on par with the Seaforth centre. Before anyone wants to tell me I'm wrong, please keep in mind I grew up in Seaforth. I know how much that centre has changed since I was lacing up my skates for 6 a.m. practices. I also know when and how those changes occurred (with council's financial support in 2010, in case you're wondering). It pains me to admit that Blyth is no different. I say it pains me because, for eight years now, since I started covering North Huron Council, I've defended them. I wrote columns about how, coming from Goderich, I didn't see the taxes as too high. People complain to me that North Huron only focuses on Wingham and I constantly tell them there are projects everywhere. Someone even said I'd drank the North Huron Kool-Aid. If that were true, it isn't now. Why the about-face? Well the "equal" stance that some councillors cower behind just doesn't make sense anymore. Sure, when amalgamations happened, it was a necessary evil to treat everyone the same until issues were worked out. Several elections later, however, we should be talking about what's fair and logical, not what's equal. It's easy to claim a need for equality when you're sitting in the largest urban centre in a municipality — you know, the ones with hospitals and pools and municipally -funded gyms. The rest of the municipality, however, will justifiably see it differently. North Huron Council recently denied the chance to investigate better snow removal in Blyth after slashing it, unceremoniously and without public consultation, last year. Blyth has narrow streets and narrow sidewalks and, without proper snow cleaning, it's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt as a result of the snow removal plan that North Huron Council has put Blyth under. This isn't sour grapes: Blyth businesses have tried to become accessible with ramps and renovations, but it's all for naught if poor planning stops people from leaving their cars. There's only two logical ways to handle this issue: Revisit the snow removal plan and apply it to the entire municipality because everyone benefits from clean streets or start area -rating everything. I'm fine paying for better snow removal in Blyth if my tax dollars stop being sunk into Wingham-centric projects year after year. The North Huron Museum? Area -rated. The Howson Dam? Area -rated. The North Huron Wescast Community Complex, all post - mortgage? Area -rated. The Blyth and District Community Centre? Area -rated. The Richard W. LeVan Airport? Area -rated. Everything area -rated. Then we'll see which ward is really getting the benefit of amalgamation. Then again, if we're going to area -rate everything, we might as well take the next logical step and de -amalgamate. With decisions like this, hurting one ward so it's "equal" with another, it's just a matter of time until people begin to push, en masse, to exit North Huron. Equality only works with identical comparisons and, as Councillor Brock Vodden pointed out, Blyth, Wingham, Belgrave, Auburn and East Wawanosh aren't equal. We're all different and those differences need to be respected. �_► Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Bullying for the good Antler, a Toronto restaurant, has become the latest target for vegan activism. Antler's owner and chef, Michael Hunter, however, made his own headlines when he staged a counter -protest, carving a deer leg in his restaurant's window. The restaurant specializes in serving various game meats, with a menu that features venison, wild boar, rabbit, bison, duck and the always -controversial foie gras. As a result, it has attracted the attention of local vegan protestors, who have been holding up a large banner that says "murder", among others. Protests like these are not unique, but when Hunter staged his counter -protest, his brash response garnered worldwide attention. The reason that Hunter's response to the protest was so celebrated is because it's so rare. It's rare to see people stand up to bullying in such a definitive way, especially when the bullying purports to be on the "right side" of an issue. Make no mistake, Hunter and his employees at Antler are being bullied. The protests have been peaceful and the vegans calling Hunter out suggest that not eating meat is doing the right thing for the environment, but at the heart of the issue is a business owner being bullied into bankruptcy despite doing no wrong. So often, bullies come bearing smiles and insisting they're on the side of righteousness. Despite their sunny dispositions, they are no different from the lunch money -stealing meathead or the snickering group of girls. People utilizing a legal service should never have to wade their way through protestors to do so, whether we're talking about the meat is murder folks or the dead baby picture people. In my mind, if you want to affect change, take it to the lawmakers. You don't scold law- abiding citizens for living their lives. Trust me, life is better when you tend your own lawn and don't worry about your neighbour's. I like vegans. I think their life choice is great and it's likely healthier than mine. But no one wants to be told how to live their life, which is why Hunter did what he did. So many of us don't have the courage to do what he did. That might sound silly, but it's true. Protesting, rightly or wrongly, can be very powerful. It has the power to crawl up into your brain and make you believe what's being said about you. Then, shame kicks in, because you're doing something wrong (they say) and now you feel wrong about doing what it was you were doing in the first place. National Post columnist Rex Murphy was among the first to come to Hunter's defence, calling him a hero. "He's probably braver than he knows. He's up against a surprisingly rough bunch," Murphy wrote on March 30. Farmers have often felt this sting. Whether it's local producers living in fear of animal rights groups despite having implemented industry best practices (the protestors called for a health inspection of Antler as well — it passed) or livestock transportation drivers never knowing when someone will heave a large stone through their windshield (which happened to a Brussels Transport truck years ago and was suspected to be tied to animal welfare activism), you never know when you'll catch the eye of protestors, whether you've done something wrong or not. However, like many people have already pointed out, Hunter is just a chef trying to run a successful business in one of the most hostile industries in the world. Life is hard enough for him without having to endure unwarranted bullying, but he has the courage to fight back. All he did was what he's been doing his whole life, but he's an example to us all.