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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1990-03-28, Page 2Incorporating The Brussels Post Published in Seaforth, Ontario Every Wednesday Morning 11* the ExposlrorTs brought to you each week by the efforts of: Pat Armes, Paula Elliott, Terri -Lynn Dale, Dianne McGrath and Bob McMillan. ED BYRSKI, General Manager HEATHER ROBINET, Editor Member Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc. Ontario Community Newspaper Association Ontario Press Council Commonwealth Press Union International Press Institute Subscription Rates: Canada '20.00 a year, in advance Senior Citizens 47,00,a year in advance Outside Canada '60.00 o year, in advance Single Copies - .50 cents each Second class -mail registration Number 0696 0 Editorial and Business Offices - 10 Main Street, Seaforth Telephone (519) 527.0240 Mailing, Address - P.O, Box 69, Seaforth, Ontario, NOK 1WO Turban turmoil unwarranted Last week the House of Commons announced that Sikh RCMP officers will be allowed to wear turbans with their uniforms, instead of the tradi- tional Mountie Stetson. RCMP lawyers believed that to ban the wearing of turbans would likely be interpreted by the courts as a ban on Sikhs - a violation of human rights law. In truth the issue should have been resolved some time ago. A recom- mendation to allow the turbans was made last April by RCMP Commis- sioner Norman Inkster. The delay only appears to have served to impart an undue significance to what is, after all, a simple change in a dress code. Will the proud tradition of Canada's finest fall by the wayside because of it? Will potential RCMP officers now stay away in droves from recruit- ment offices? Will Canadians suddenly begin thumbing their noses at the mounties? Will the standards of law enforcement in the True North become more akin to that of a third rate banana republic? Will the mounties no longer be able to get their man? Probably not. Despite hysterical noises from people such as Bernard Ker- win, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, allowing turbans in the RCMP will not ''absolutely destroy the proudest police force in the world in terms of morale". If that's all it takes to destroy RCMP morale, if certainly doesn't say much for the calibre of the moun- ties in the first place. And allowing Sikh RCMP officers to wear turbans will not undermine our democratic system of government. In a country professing religious tolerance; in a country in which there is a Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly stating that everyone has a fundamental right to freedom of conscience and religion, it would be both a moral and a constitutional contradiction to insist that Sikhs discard the T turban in order to serve in the RCMP. aper wallflower Strangely enough conversation in The Expositor office in recent weeks has centered around home decorating - seems everyone is in the process -.of doing something orother to improve the ap- Dea3ance of his/her home. But •hien again, I Suess this is the time of year to do it; Abe* a month ago however, the conver- sation steered itself more in the direction of how best to get certain jobs done, rather than towards what lied yet.' to be ac- complished. And it was an interesting con versation - certainly with. one I can now iden- tifyl remember getting quite a chuckle as my co-workers relayed to me experiences of home renovation projects that had very r'early.. ended their. miar-r-iages--I heard about the impossibilities of spousal cooperation in certain, areas of renovation work, and got an earful of assassination plots for husbands, that came extremely close to being put into action. I was advised to go it alone with certain projects, or at least to engage the help of someone I did not necessarily have to share a home with once the project was completed. And I was warned to never, ever, on any occasion, seek assistance from my husband when it came to apply- ing wallpaper. In retrospect that may have been sound not so bail SWEATSOCKS by Heather Robbaet advice - albeit, advice that I didn't follow. Without belaboring the woes of my washroom renovations, I will try to tell my tale. T embarked on my wallpapering endeavor on Saturday, and was quite pleased when I had the majority of the work completed before my "mate" arriv- ed home from his weekend duties. It was ahassle-free project, and all that remain- ed to be done once "he" walked in the door, was the application of two rows of border. A relatively simple task, I thought, especially with two bodies working towards the same end. My assumption was wrong. It took me a minimum of five hours to hang that border with my husband's help - much longer I figure than it would have taken me to hang it myself. Not only was I hampered by his presence, but I was nearly driven beserk as well. If I never see another measuring tape, I'll live a happy and fulfilled life. I mean, I believe in accuracy, but measur- ing down from the ceiling and up from the floor every two inches around the room, was in my opinion, a bit unwarranted - especially since we had no guarantee that the floor and the ceiling were in perfect alignment with one another. I never pull- ed off and reapplied a border so much in my entire life,. We're lucky the paint wasn't worn off by the time the room was completed. Nonetheless, the wallpapering did get completed, and despite the trials and tribulations of working in conjunction with my husband to get the task done, my mar- riage is still intact. I don't think, however, that I'll put it to that test again. Next time I wallpaper, I'll ensure my husband is either out of town, or out of commission. It's much safer, and certainly much more enjoyable I've found out, to play the wallflower when it comes to hanging wallpaper. LETTES TO THE EDITOR Concern raised re: Dear Editor: A recent opinion poll cited in the Toron- to Star finds "significant levels or concern about irradiated foods". To our knowledge, though, there is no regular commercial marketing of irradiated foods in Canada. If anyone knows otherwise, we'd appreciate being notified. Happily, the people of Florida have forc- ed the abandonment of food irradiation plans in their state. In December, politi- cians in Mulberry voted to ban radiation processing in their town, and the Florida Citrus Commission publicly rejected ir- radiation of produce. The Canadian nuclear industry is trying to make Florida politi- cians change their minds, but that doesn't seem likely. We joined with consumers worldwide who send letters to Florida promising a boycott if irradiation plans went forward. This victory shows that citizens will not tolerate the like of the US Department of Energy (the bomb -making agency), or Atomic Energy of Canada Limited influen- cing food policy. (Food irradiation is a pro- cess of bombarding food with radiation to preserve It). A worldwide movement has emerged to educate consumers about the hazards of this technology. Companies and grocery chains that market irradiate foods will Suffer grave financial consequences. The Canadian Green Consumer Guide, prepared by the Pollution Probe Foundation, indicates that "English only" compounds the problem To the Editor: We were very upset to read in last week's Expositor that Seaforth Town Coun- cil has decided to follow the other in- tolerant "English only" councils of Ontario. Just because Quebec has chosen to be French only is NO excuse for the rest of Canada to compound the problem by being as intolerant. Ttie attitudes unknowingly e>,preesed by the polarization of these two extremes are very upsetting, especially in a world where communication distances are shrinking daily. We cannot expect our children to he, tolerant of other's dif- ferences with this sort of example to follow. Margaret McLeod DeJong Dick beJong irradiated food 75 percent of Canadians are opposed to food irradiation. In the United Kingdom, where the process has been banned, 93 percent of people oppose it. The Canadian Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and the Inter- national Organization of Consumer Unions have expressed serious reservations about irradiating foods. The Canadian govern- ment's Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs has called for a moratorium on the process until more is known about it. The nuclear industry says food irradia- tion is safe. But this is comparable to cigarette manufacturers telling us that smoking is good for our health! The sub- mission of public health standards to the profit -driven needs of the nuclear industry is unconscionable. Dr. Walter Burnstein, President of Food and Water, Inc., who testified at the Mulberry meetings said: "The 'experts' Turn to page 19 e sort of things we Newspapers are reaching new heights in tripe. Every Tuesday, we at the Expositor bun- dle up our photographs, stories and a cou- ple of bucks for the the MacDonald's drive - than and buzz up to Signal -Star publishing to put the newspaper together. And every Tuesday, there's a pile of what we call "fill copy" hanging, naturally, on what we call the "fill copy hooks" by our light tables. Fill copy is stories, snippets and sniglets that can be used by any newspaper, at almost any time, to fill lit- tle holes when there's no local news to stuff into them. Fill copy can often be a great thing, Personally, fill copy scares me silly. I was looking through a prominent dai- ly newspaper from a city whose names starts with a capital "L" when I ran across the ultimate fill copy. It was a true gem, and I suppose it couldn't even be labelled as lowly "copy". It was a graphic of the spinal structure of your average human, complete with little signs and ar- rows for the Lumbar, Thoracic and Neck section of the spine. There was a nifty lit- tle circle drawn around three of the lower vertebrae, with the top one colored in to show that if was especially important in this darn important -looking graphic. The picture had been taken from the American Medical Association Book of Back Care, ee 0 k ow and the title on the drawing read: Gloria Estefan's Back Injury I almost gagged on my coffee. This respectable daily newspaper with the initials : L.F.P. had wasted about 30 square inches of newspaper space to show a waiting world exactly where the lead singer of the Miami Sound Machine had hurt her back in a car accident a week earlier. Gosh. How DID we all survive without this profound bit of intelligence. Ever on the alert for a fast -breaking news flash, I cut the graphic out of the paper, copied it onto a piece of bond and faxed it to my Goderich Signal -Star cohorts. On it I had scrawled: "Editorial: The F... P... scooped us again, dammit! Who's to blame i 9 i i ?? signed, Irate Ex- positor editorial staff". I received no response. Either the editorial department didn't get my urgent communication, or they were shamed into silence. The thing is, this sort of mindless filler is the norm in any daily newspaper. Have you ever gotten your mitts on a typical Saturday edition of the Toronto Star? If you rolled one up and whipped your dog with it, you'd probably send the mutt fly- ing into next year from sheer weight of the paper. Scan one sometime. Eighty percent of stuff written in one of those formidable editions is spineless tripe. Nastassia Kin - ski's favorite Cream of Broccoli soup recipe. The Star's picks for the Top Ten Bathtub Caulking Compounds. Lifestyles of the Butchers and Greengrocers of the Rich and Famous. I don't know about you, but I don't real- ly feel that knowing any of this is going to be make me a better person. We have a good three pages of fill copy hanging on hooks at the publishers, waiting to grace the pages of the Expositor. Somebody took the time to typeset the silly stuff, so maybe we should pass it on to you. We could probably cram an entire newspaper full of it, if we wanted to. Believe me, it would be worth your reading dollar. If our fill copy is even close to the stuff that they slap into the dailies, it's pretty vital stuff, by golly. In- quiring Minds Want to Know. Brussels' APRIL 1, 1965 Seaforth merchants will remain open Friday evening until 10 o'clock, commen- cing the first Friday in May. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Merchants' Committee in the Town Hall. A two -car crash at the western outskirts of town early Saturday morning sent nine area youths to hospital with a variety of injuries. Damage to the one car was estimated at $1,200 and the car driven by Charles Little was a write-off. Seaforth police are investigating a break- in at the Seaforth Coin Laundry, when a coin box on a washing machine and a sort drink dispenser were smashed open. About $20 is believed to have been taken. Construction of the new Seaforth Pioneer Memorial Mausoleum in Harpurhey is well advanced. The building is located on land donated by Mrs. B. Scott. Meanwhile, the responsible committee is continuing a cam- paign to provide approximately $5,000 re- quired to complete the building and landscaping MARCH 28, 1890 Mr. William Stewart of the Hibbert boun- dary has three prolific ewes which have yielded six lambs this season, and Simon Campbell, of the Thames Road, has a foal a couple of weeks old, the earliest in the locality. mule finds fame IN THE YEARS AGONE from the Expositor Archives A young lad of Wingham last week helped himself to a nice little sum out of a certain till. He then, in company with a companion, hired a livery turnout and took a quiet drive to Blyth. One of the fathers, hearing of the proceedings, followed them and when he arrived in the said town there they were, quietly enjoying their din ner at one of the hotels. Of course, the rid home was not as enjoyable as the one o the morning had been. The city of Halifax and the town o Windsor, Nova Scotia, are contending ove their fat women. Windsor has named fou whose weight amounted to 1,054 pounds and Halifax has trotted out four who weigh 1,066 pounds. Cape Breton can beat this. A Mrs. Houlet, of West Bay, tips the scale at 380 pounds and a Mrs. McLeod, of Mirat, at 240. Four hotels were burned in East Huron during the past year, one each at Gorrie, Cranbrook, Kinburn and Ethel. The Cron - rook one has been replaced and the one t Ethel will be rebuilt. e f f r r b 8 in, advertising MARCH 26, 1915 While chopping in the bush last week Peter Lamont, 8thConcession of Grey, was injured by his companion's axe who was working nearer him th an he figured, Th wound was in the back striking the backbone. Mr. Lamont is out of danger and will make a speedy recovery. Tuesday of last week Percy Draper left Brussels for his home in London, England. He saw service in the South African War and was wounded twice but seems quite ready to enlist again to stand by the Em- pire in the present struggle. The little mule owned by John Galbraith of Brussels has been sold to the Wiltshire Oil Company, of Blyth, to be utilized for advertising purposes. "Neddy" will never see 21. The residence of Mrs. Hugh Currie of Cromarty narrowly escaped destruction by fire one morning recently. Mr - had occasion to strike a match, the flame blazed up and caught the window curtains, which were instantly a mass of flames. The fire was quickly brought under con- trol, but not before considerable damage was done in the room. MARCH 29, 1940 The condition of the roads in McKillop during the past week has been very bad and all day Wednesday and that night a gang of ten men worked the whole night through shovelling the tops off the drifts to let the plow through. Those who worked were T. Eaton, Harry Eddicott, Reg. Lit- tle, Dill Little, Bill Montgomery, Ken Bet- ties, Ralph Davidson and Roger McClure. James K. Cornish of Brucefield received notice this week of his appointment as secretary -treasurer of the Tuckersmith Municipal Telephone company. Instead of the prevalent Easter bonnets and new spring outfits, pedestrians plung- ing through snow drifts in the middle of the Dublin streets were in evidence Sun- day. March 22 is the earliest possible date on which Easter can fall, and April 25th is the latest date. It is 141 years since Easter was so early before, and according to scientists, 451 years will pass before it can occur again. Fresh ground Richmellow coffee was selling at the Dominion store for 39 cents a pound, flour was 53 cents for a 24 pound bag, and corn flakes cost 15 cents for two packages.