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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1990-12-26, Page 2Hurono Expsitor SINCE 1160, SERVING THE COMMUNITY FIRST isimorperstIng the bw..r Peat Published 1a Sootorti, Owtwto bowl wesissa sissy Morale. MP! • sural. fenste1 r...r.r ,ea11Ni11111 tutu. r..ni.y JONES *soma .arwtilaa lingramilaNas uil*a 1011111111. IOW NNW SW.: Sass art aAI1rl♦a. w•a Mots .cwur,Ns ova ram Sum 16111•6111 tads felhu e ra.*tr Comes* Caiaw inn, Newsome,' A..o.. Oman* C.wwrwiq Wanspoper Asrecwrwn o..an. Deer. Carson Press Uswan r,lr,waMawai hew iniad. SuitariDlla...ser. Cecchi 'cant, . year. is .rye Se nor Cams - 't,.ar a year .n odranc• Chasid* Cawed. '46 00 . year .n odvance Sir. Guice 60 cents each Second Clow rho. reseetranee N. n* ' (rat WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26. 1990 Iditoci.i sad ttsrslaea• Offices 10 Mein Street. Sasfort$i Teiophowe (S11) 327-0240 iaa $27-2030 M 4Un Address - P.O. Ilion M.'safari 1. Ontario. NOK 1 WO Proceed with caution Iii Ontario to 1986 there were 17,590 motor vehicle accidents involving alcohol. Two per cent (or 415) of those accidents resulted in the death of one or more person. Fity-two per cent (9,148) involved personal injury Accidents in which drivers have been drinking have a higher chance of fatalities or injuries. in Ontano in 1984, 83.4 per cent of 628 fatally inured drivers had their blood tested tor alcohol. The results showed that 53.8 per cent had been drinking, and 30 per cent were more than twice the legal limit. The average blood alcohol level of arrested drinking drivers is .16 mg. Recent studies indicate that at this blood alcohol level drivers aged 20 and older are roughly 100 times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident, and that drivers aged 16-19 are roughly 400 times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident. There's a growing awareness in Ontario of the dangers as- sociated with drinking and driving, and given the statistics, wouldn't it be wise to proceed with caution this holiday season? Have a happy New Year, if you're drinking, please don't drive. Push Peace, please Dear Prime Minister Mulroney, I urge you to do everything pos- sible to prevent war in the Middle East. Iraq has violated fundamental principles of peace and international law by invading Kuwait. However, responding with brute force cannot right this wrong - it only threatens more lives. A war in the Persian Gulf would become a major catastrophe. The Centre for Defense Information in Washington has concluded that an attack on Iraq by UN. sanctioned forces would result in 225,000 deaths or injuries of soldiers on both sides and 100,000 civilian casualties. There is no doubt that the Bush administration is preparing for war. The U.S. military has shipped 100,000 body bags and 10,000 units of blood plasma from Westover Air Force Base to Saudi Arabia. The Canadian government has ordered 800 body bags. 1 urge you to give sanctions a chance to work and to engage in urgent, meaningful negotiations -Letters Husband irate, wife in agreement My WOO is imus, sad 1 can't say I Mem was Oat o[ his bsstocd buddies, TTBcr CCOOMOIMMIOr Erne Hit *C11, has rood Odea do hoot by filet batMil arptrasnoa alit 31 >c s A *i tut no aim vemeoe am "it *naWuc11.1 do it". Tit's a pretty Ire mast*, if you ask And �joiditim& the public backbit die Tigers we g ov rt lifts docirioa, 1 can sot 1'■ nue the a* owe who thinks Ito. 1 tlsaiia, I'm Dot eves a tan of Tier bootbs11, and 1 as appalled, fusty, by flat decision ascii, and secondly, by the manner in which tie ee[ue slum/boa was handed. 1 maul, if I've learned anything about baseball from my husband, it's that Harwell is an institution in towards a peaceful solution to this crisis. I urge you to renounce the use of offensive military force in this situation and ask that you put for- ward an independent Canadian foreign policy of peacemaking to solve this crisis. The majority of Canadians, like myself, do not support this rush towards a major war. We urge you to take a responsible and construc- tive role in resolving this conflict and to avoid taking military steps that escalate tensions even further. A peaceful solution can and must be found. I am urging all concerned citizens in Huron County to write to you expressing their grave concerns. In the name of peace. Sincerely, Jim Hollingworth, M.D. Member, Canadian Physicians For the Prevention of Nuclear War. -Rural Roots by Jeanne Kirkby Sweatsocks die genre. the IS baseball, not only in Detroit. but around North America. la's a known fact that Harwell is highly respected by odicr browd- casten, and by the general public as well - for the perst aluy be is both on and off the airwaves. He Is a man of the highest of statures, a 111411 tit top calibre. Harwell. 72, has been the hteblood of the Tigers for many a season, and he deserves to be treated with more respect. It by Heather Rubinet should be Harwell himself who decides when he's ready io call it quits. Certa►nty Tigers president Bo Schanbechler has made the worst decision of his career. As a further tribute to the man, he took the decision gracefully, com- menting only that he had planned to cununue working for another two ur chute years beyond 1990, and was hurt by the decision to toe hun He could have lambasted the Tigger organization. But he didn't. Maybe that's why his millions of tans have come to his defence Yes, I'd have to agree with Jim Creasman, Landon Free Press Guest Columnist on Thursday. "Bo knows'! Bo doesn't know baseball. Bo doesn't know tradition. Bo doesn't know Ernie. And worst of a11, Bo doesn't know what the man stands for." And frankly, now, even if the Tiger organization was to reverse its decision, 1 wonder if they really deserve to have Harwell back? Interesting year It's true. As you get older, time passes more quickly. Looking toward 1991, it seems just yesterday that we gathered with friends to usher in the 1990s. What an interesting and challenging year 1990 was! We saw the Cold War end with walls and boundaries falling down all over Europe. Yet the beginning of 1991 finds us perhaps as close to war as we have been for many years, as the men and women of our armed forces line up in the deserts of the Middle East waiting to see if Saddam Hussein will "blink" before the deadline of January 15. World hunger still exists. In countries of the third world, we see the weak starving children and the lifeless eyes of their parents. -[heir very survival hinges on world generosity and the whim of their political leaders, to whom food depravation is an effective way of quelling political unrest and revolution. Food shortages are also becoming more evident in the emerging eastern European countries. In Romania, Poland and Russia. the movement toward democracy has not insured immediate food on the grocery shelves. Yet the swollen granaries of Canada, USA and the other GATT partners bear witness to the fact that there is no shortage of food in the world marketplace - only a shortage of money or credit to pay for it. Traditional world trading patterns are in the midst of great global changes right now which will affect all of our fortunes in'the new year. 1991 will probably bring the union of European countries into one European Community or trading bloc. The USA now prepares to negotiate a free trade agreement with Mexico, which would develop into a North Amcncan trading bloc. Canada has to decide whether to get in on this new amalgamation (.f we're invited) or forever watch from the sidelines with no real clout. Here at home, this country will have to address the Quebec fact in 1991. Will we be able to achieve recon- ciliation with our French Canadian population. or will our country become permanently divided? Economically ever since the dreaded "R" recession word passed Finance Minister Michael Wilson's lips, we see the Canadian prohlems deepening with more industries pecking it in, unemployment growing. and the cities and municipalities struggling to finance their food hanks and welfare programs. With the lack of resolution in the GATT talks, our supply management systems are still threatened. Our grain and oilseed producers tighten their belts another notch, with no sign of relief in sight from the devastating world price war The horticuhural producer 'then M page 1$A • A different kind of Christmas This year, like last year, I'll be spending Christmas in Toronto with my favourite uncle who is a hungry artist. This plan posed a dilemma for my daughter. She spent last Christmas with us and this year it's her father's turn to have her for Christmas. But, my uncle is disillusioned with Ontario and plans on moving back to the west coast next sum- mer, meaning this will be our last Christmas together for a very long time. I explained this to my daughter. "You have to make a decision about where you'll be going for Christmas," I told her. "And when you make that decision I want you to back it up with good reasons." She sweated about it for a few days. For a few weeks she's had the Christmas spirit. She's worked very hard and saved some money (a great deal of money, actually) to buy gifts. Every shopping catalogue she could get her hands on she looked through, made lists and circled items. Completely oblivious to political and moral matters she Sunday shopped faithfully. Everything she bought she wrapped and put under the Christmas tree and the whole while she sang or hummed Christmas carols. This year I've been really slow about getting into the Christmas swing of things. In past years I usually have everything done way ahead of other people I know. But this year the most I've mustered so far is a Christmas party for my friends. Except for a few gift magazine subscriptions, I've bought no Christmas gifts. People have dropped hints about what they would like, and I've done nothing about it. For the first time ever I'll be one of those last minute shop- pers. A few days ago I asked my daughter where she had decided to spend Christmas. She started off with her reasons. "If I go with you to Uncle Brian's we'll have fun. Just the three of us, unless any stray artists have been invited," she told me. "If I go to my dad's (who lives with his mother) I will also see all my relatives on his side (about a thousand of 'em). Now, this could be the last Christmas I spend with Uncle Brian." I couldn't tell where she was leading to. I waited a while for her to continue. "If I go to my dad's there will be lots more people there. And that mean's lots more presents for me. So, I've decided to go to my dad's." The kid's been stricken with the spirit of Christmas greed. I was devastated. She tried to show me she wasn't greedy. "I know Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and it isn't the presents that matter," she told me with her wide eyes trying to look convincing. "I know in the old days children were thrilled to receive an orange in their stocking, like you tell me. But, I've made my decision." Looking at the bright side of this a day later I realised this time with my uncle will be the first time I've been alone with him since my daughter was born. That means we can do adult things. We don't have to take my daughter to the Nutcracker, lunch at the Organ Grinder, the Science Centre, kiddie events at Harbourfront or any of those things we've done the past few years. This intrigues me. 1 plan on dropping my daughter off at her father's and grandmother's house a day early and then I'm high -tailing it down to Toronto. My uncle and I have talked and we both want me to bring the money and we'll go to art galleries, repertoire movies, res- taurants a step up from McDonald's, and, heaven forbid, some interesting bars. To put myself into some sort of a Christmas spirit I think first we'll go and sec a movie I've wanted to see for a long time, 'Jesus of Montreal'. A new flag for Canada in DECEMBER 26, 1890 Oswald Birchall writes from England that he thinks it is needless to say anything further about the execution of his half-brother Reginald, but in the newspaper reports he could never see any reason for the arrest of his brother's wife, and he asks that the authorities make reparation to the wife by allowing his body to be removed to Woodstock cemetery. The lease of Regropolis College, used by the Government as a branch of Rockwood insane Asylum, has been cancelled, to take effect in February. The 150 inmates will be distrihuted among other institutions. The winter term for the institute for the Blind at Brantford, was brought to a conclusion last Friday evening, when a highly successful concert was held. The pupils do not come home for the Christmas holidays. Prince Edward County council will establish a house of refuge for the indigent, and Lanark county has appointed a commission to consider the matter. DECEMBER 25, 1914 The schools in the city of -Years Agone Brantford have been closed owing to the prevalence of small pox in the city. Mr. John Mack, of Brownsberg, Quebec, has /just received official notification from the British authorities that two of his sons had been killed while fighting in France, they being Sergeant-Major John Harbord Mack, of the 9th Lancers, and Corporal Edward P. Mack, of the Imperial Yeomanry. Mr. Mack has four other sons with the colours, all being now at Salisbury Plains preparing to go to the front. On one day last week the tax - collector, in Brussels, took in over $6,000. It was the last day before the 5 per cent addition could be mom. mere was only $330 left to collect The total amount of taxes received by Collector Stewart, of W Ingham, on December payment amounted to S17,066.45. Total taxes collected to date is 532,088.75. which leaves yet to be collected a little over $2,MO. from the Archives DECEMBER 27, 1940 The large and gaily lighted Christmas tree at the corner of Main and Goderich Streets suffered damage early Saturday afternoon when a truck coming from the north was in collision with it. The driver said he did not see the tree. P.U.C. employees worked until dark replacing broken bulks and joining wires, hundreds of feet of which were torn from the tree. it was Sunday morning before the damage was repaired and the lights again in operation. The P.U.C. held its final meeting of the year on Friday afternoon in the council chambers. Chairman E.L. Box presided. Accounts were passed and the Commission approved Christmas bonuses of 55.00 each for members of the staff. A full parcel post delivery will he made between 12 noon and 1 p.m. on Christmas Day. Postmaster Sills stated this week. On New Year's Day parcel post delivery will be made from 12 to 1964 12:30 p.m. Seaforth Beavers play the opening game of the season here on Friday night against Waterloo in inter- mediate 'B' O.N.A. With four Clinton players on the line-up, the Beavers arc ready for an outstanding season. DECEMBER 24, 1964 Plans to burn Seaforth area Christmas trees in a great bonfire arc being completed by members of the Seaforth Fire Brigade. While final details have not been worked out, it is suggested trees will be gathered in the area of the Seaforth District High School, ready for a bonfire Saturday night. If plans work out, the bonfire will be followed by a family skating party at the Arena. The flags of many nations around the world have been bloodied in battle or revolution. The new maple leaf flag which will soon be flying over Canada and over Canadian posts abroad has been bloodied in the House of Commons. it's a new flag, a strong, simple emblem which, as many members of Parliament have said, cannot be mistaken for the flag of any other country