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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1983-03-30, Page 2Tor,lie 3iuron � «xpositor Sjnt a 18�D, l erylp p the Community Brat incorporating !Brussels Post founded 1872 12 Main St. 527-0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday afternoon by Signal -Star PubliehIng Limited Jocelyn A. Shrier, Publisher Susan White, Editor ,'" . H.W. (Herb) Turkheim, Advertising Manager Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Association and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Press Council Subscription rates: Canada 517.75a year (in advance) outside Canada $50. a year (in advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFORTH, ONTARIO WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1983 Second class mail registration number 0696 8 The bunny biz Communicating The Huron County Board of Education has gotten a lot of flack in recent years about communication. Specifically, about the lack of it. The public and the press, this newspaper included, have been telling the board that it's not explaining to those who pay the bills the whys and wherefores of its decisions. There's been a vague feeling and some complaints that the board is out of touch. Undeniably a large county board is much harder to control and feel connected to than were the old school section, town and village boards. Before school centralization in the sixties, if you as a ratepayer objected to school spending or school section, town and village boards. Before school centralization in the sixties, if you as a ratepayer objected to school spending or school policies you went next door or down the street to your neighbourhood trustee and got some answers. But education is big business now in Huron County and to their credit, the county trustees have been struggling to find ways they can give ratepayers more say and involvement again. Special credit should go to board chairperson Dorothy Wallace, who pledged last fall to improve communication between trustees, their employees and the public. Now she's done something about it. Measures include school news columns and question and answer columns in area newspapers; presentations by principals and teachers to board committees and seminars for trustees, principals and administrators to talk about the end product of all they do: education for our children. These solutions aren't magic and they won't solve all the complaints about education. And all of us shout still remember 'lo get in touch with' .our local trustee with our questionand comments. But it's a start. Hats off to the Huron Board of Ed for listening and getting the ball rolling. - S.W. Canada on film Like a number of Canadians, we enjoyed the Genie awards presentations, for what's best in Canadian movies, which was televised last week. From the evidence in the short film clips shown, there are some excellent, world-class perhaps even, Canadian movies out there. Now, whether'thV,, Iheyal' gplftp-vriid0"distribettidf sc that we in Western Ontario get a chance ter see them, is- another question. Big chains, mostly American owned, control mass movie distribution in Canada, and their theatres tend to feature American made movies. But that may change. Because, when you think about it, looking back 10 years -or so, there's been a revolution in Canadian movies. Ten years ago an awards presentation for our own country's film industry would have been a laughable proposition. There was no Canadian film industry, with the laudable exception of the National Film Board and a few brave independent documentary film makers. It's exciting to see that industry now has enough stars and bright lights to fill the Royal Alex theatre. And that competition was keen for best movie, for acting and for behind -the -scenes work. What's even more exciting is that as Canadians we have, films that are about ourselves, about our own country and the way we live. That way isn't exactly the American' way, and it builds confidence in ourselves as people, as a nation, to' see if reflected back at us from the silver screen. Echoing what Donald Sutherland, winner of the best actor award for his performance in Threshold said: "thanks Canada." And thanks to all those involved in the Canadian movie industry for helping us build that illusive thing - a Canadian indentity. - S.W. Photos by Wassink Now I understand why we say chairperson For a long time I laughed about it all as much a5 anybody. And then, possibly because of 0 sensitivity to language that all writers either have or they're in trouble, I changed my blind. I'm talking about sex bias in language, about the general hilarity that usually develops when someone says "chairperson instcadv of "chairman" or because news- papers are now required by law to use Waiter. Waitress rather than just plain' Waitress in their help wanted columns. Girl Friday, of course is a no -no, but Office Assistant sounds better anyhow...,1 t� I've been doled supic reading 'anid somq thinking on the subject. I've learned a lot and changed my opinion. Maybe I can change yours or at least explain why some of us think it's important to refer to the human race, or people, instead of mankind, a newscaster instead of 0 newsman. or the Workers Compensation Board rather than the Work - 'liens Compensation Board. ' Of all the nit-picking. niggling, stupid time wasting things to be concerned about. you say. Besides. it injures the English language to invent awkward new words, like c•hairper- 50n. That's what I used to think too, but not any INCLUDES ALL? more. But everybody knows you say, when someone talks about man's contribution to art or the impact of inflation on the average working man, that thc meaning includes both. 2clawAhtifig ItO o©y by 'Q I3mfnl WG lk@ men and women. that man is used in the generic, all-encompassing sense. Not so. The constant use of mankind when we really mean all people, is subtly damaging to and undermines the contributions of women. Studies show that phrases like "man is a clrcanyer",ctflL,up imagespf.adgroup.of males, iWotiien constantly read.apd.hear -`he': ati61 "himself" used in ways that supposedly include both sexes. For example, "-A three -year, -old may be able to feed and dress himself. Three -year-olds are girls too, and the parent of one. reading. for example, a book on child care, is supposed to make that correction or addition automatically. -But what message does that give females about their relative importance in the scheme of things? Not a very high one. (Rightly so, you say? That's another argument. sadly but truly still with us in 1983.) NO GIRL CHILDREN? Dr. Spock, in the early editions of his Baby and Child Care, constantly refers to the child as "he"; it's as if no girl children exist in that 40s and SOs world. The care giver. always presumed to be the mother, is the only "she" in the book. But he saw the light recently and newest editions of the book, one of the all-time best sellers in the English language, use he and she interchangeably when talking about children and .both their parents. An interesting and valuable book, The Handbook of Non -Sexist Writing. by Casey Miller and Kate Swift. says our common use ofEnglish carries the message that males are the species, and females the sub -species. When we are small and learning speech, we understand that man means male, as in "father is a man". "a boy grows up to be a man." Later, we lead. about man in the mankind sense. but it's confusing. Saying what we mean, precision in lang- uage, is lost. And it's well known, by bureaucrats for example, that if you really don't know what you re talking about, you disguise that by using foggy, incomprehen- sible language. The use of "man" when we mean everybody obscures the contributions and actions of the other half of the human 'race. And thc authors, argue that continuing to use words in this misleading way is like teaching children the world is flat. We know better, so we have to make some changes. This is where the language purists get angry. But. looking at the roots of English we Lind that in the seventh century, "man" actually meant "person or human being." There was a different word for an adult female. "wif," and for an adult male, "wer". By the 18th century. man was firmly established as meaning either a male person or human beings of both sexes and wif had evolved from wifman to woman. meaning a female person. Words and their meanings are constantly changing; they most. if they are to accurately reflect what we're doing. When we moved from relying on horsepower to the automotive age. a whole new set of words were invested and the old ones (what's a whippletree?). are as incomprehensible to us today as the word carburetor would have been to a-Seaforth citizen. circa 1883. It's a challenge to avoid sexism in our writing and speaking.' to find other ways of saying "this movie appeals to the small boy in all of us" or patronizing things lite the insurance brochure which said it was "explained in terms even a housewife can understand." But it's fun too, to make your language describe the real world around you. We're all -women and girls, men and boys -people. If you keep that in mind. ,it's ama'zing the changes you'll make. We're helping to destroy our own small towns All ages can help rirO cider OQ As chairman of the newly formed Seaforth and District Community Centres Booster •Club I would like to solicit the continued support of the five municipalities. All people in the community I'm sure, would like to see the complex as busy as possible and running as smoothly as it can. The Booster Club's main goal will be to see this happen and to try and help to reduce the cost of operation of the complex. To do this, of course. we need the help of everyone. Our main objective is to help with the labour of running the various events in the complex. At present we are looking at three main areas of concern. First the running of the bar in the halls. IV manning the bar with volunteers, we can take a considerable expense off the arena. Duties would include ensuring a check list. posted in the bar, is looked after during and fitter the night. Ideally two couples or a total of four people would run the bar, make the occasional check of washrooms and lock the hall at the conclusion of the night. Our second goal is to be able to provide a catering service when required. This service • would be available to an interested party or group when other catering groups in the was asked to supply the caterer. The catering could be broken down into three main areas. The actual serving of tables, kitchen staffing and lastly food preparation in individual homes. Thirdly, we are considering a hat and coat check to be located at the coat room to the right of the hall entrance. We feel that some people would be less uneasy about leaving their coats and boots unattended, if a controlled coat check was available. Some may teel that this will be a lot of work for them if they volunteer their name, but we hope that ever•nne will realize that spread out over the five municipalities the load would not be heavy for anyone. The help can come from all age groups. The onlyr where one must be 19 or over will of cours be the bar. The catering could be done by ll ages. both men and women, male help in catering is welcome. The minor -_.hockey boys helped serve at the Agricultural banquet and did an excellent job. 1f anyone cannot stand on their feet for long.periods of time, they could perhaps find the time to prepare food at home. We, as a community made it happen, and our new complex is a reality. So with the support of everyone the Booster Club can help to make the Seaforth and District Community Centres run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Kevin Kale. They say the weather is something we talk a lot about but never do anything about. The sank thing could be said fol the talk about the destruction of our small town way of life. We may bemoan the decline of our towns but few of us do anything about it. In fact, it could he said that if we're doing anything it i5 to speed the destruction of our smalltown way of life. not help preserve it. Many of our institutions which were set up to solve one problem have created others. For instance, hack when I was in school parents had to buy many of the supplies children needed in schools. The rest of that first half-day in school was spent on a buying spree through downtown stores in our community. buying pencils and erasers and glue and other supplies. In those dark ages of education. high school students cvcn had to huv their own text hooks and the local store stocked books. BOOKSTORES Because our local merchant had a guaran tee of this school business he could afford to keep a stock of school supplies and hooks. some of which wcrcn't even on thc curriculum. Fach town and village had Accident story on TV "Report From the Country", the late Saturday night news feature based on the community press of South -Western Ontario. will again use a story from your newspaper. 1t will be the lead-off item for the unit to be aired on Srfturday, March 26th. "Pointing with pride" is something the small town press engages in with delight. But it is quite a reversal to see you folks literally "hanging your heads in shame" when ,you had to report that your Huron County led all of Ontario in alcohol-related traffic accidelits. Your story is used in a measure as a springboard for a bit of editorializing. The suggestion is mane teat this blight afflicting our young people might be moderated with good parental example. control and disci- pline. Thanks again for keeping your excellent product before me each week. It certainly helps reflect the true colour of rural life in Ontario, the place we would all rather be, despite the alarming statistics on such things as alcohol and acid rain. Yours faithfully Arthur Carr CKCO-TVs "Country Editor" Dgihond t h@ oc@noz by 0346t h L Mouton something approaching a bookstore. Try and find a bookstore today in most towns under 3000 population. Somebody in the education system, in the name of universality of education, decided the schools should provide all supplies for students so parents without money would be able to send their children to school and be sure they were properly supplied. Later, somebody else in the school system decided that local school hoards were backward and inefficient so along came the county school system. The economics of scale of the county system often mean that bulk orders'of school supplies don't bring a cent to the local economy because that money goes directly to the city supplier. There arc other such instances. The Ontario Milk Marketing Board"was set up to save dairy farmers. Under the new set up quotas were set up for both the farmer and thc buyers of milk. This quota system has led to the destruction of many small cheese plants which meant local jobs because they couldn't get enough milk for their needs and because their quota was worth so much to a big cheese -maker. they bought whole plants and closed them, using only the quota. Similarly, co-operatives like Gay Lea Foods were set up to help the farmer but when 1 attended a meeting a few years ago and heard the management brag about all its accom- plishments. over and over these seemed to include the closing of small town operations and the moving of these operations to new plants in large cities. SHOPPING MALLS The Fifth Estate television program recently had an excellent item on the destruction of the Maritime Provinces way of life by shopping malls. Shopping malls are nearly all owned by Toronto developers. Because the banks financing these projects want guaranteed investments, the same companies fill these malls from coast to coast. Local merchants. because they can't meet the kind of guarantee for the banks. are usually excluded from the malls. People in the communities all flock to the malls to shop and send their money directly to Toronto. These same people may complain about the domination of Toronto but they are only too happy to give their money to Toronto-based mall companies rather than to local merchants downtown. What's more, by taking business away from the downtown merchants they hurt their community more because local merchants are more apt to help with the hospital fund drive or Work.w•ith the Lions Club on Easter5Seal drives than are hired managers of stores who are looking ahead to promotion to head office in Toronto. Little by little, each in his own way. we're destroying our smaller centres. We can't go on blaming big government or big business. We've got to accept the blame ourselves. The kids in the schools are restless these days This is a time of vear that tries a teacher's patience. The animals come out of hibernation. kick up their heels. and go snorting about like young colts. or frisking about like new-born lambs. And that is one of the craftiest mixed metaphors since Shake- speare. For four or five months, the students have been in a torpor. Thi%is not some kind of tent. and has nothing to do with tarpaulins. It is a human condition induced by lousy weather. hacking colds. overheated classrooms. and droning teachers. The past winter has been tailored for torpor. Lack of snow, lots of rain, and a plenitude of ice have prevented adolescents from indulging in their usual winter past - times: splintering a leg on the ski slopes: smashing around on a snowmobile; pilingup the old man's car in a snowdrift 18 miles rom home. The kids have been positively cowed by the endless dreary days; they have slumbered secretly throtigh the most thrilling math. science and English lessons; they have coughed and blown and sneezed until there seemed nothing left inside but a dull emptiness. ' But. Let them hear one crow caw. Let them siggiaaf caawd opoc* by BON S1 tiD®y kick off their winter hoots. Give them three sunny days in a row. And look out. The calendar says winter has barely ended, spring is a figment of the Canadian imagination. But these pallid, droopy, bored, lethargic creatures burst out of their cocoons and fly. A few bright, warmish days in mid-March, and they're babbling like seagulls, bunting like young calves. Their blood begins to burble. They hurl costly textbooks out the open windows. They fall in love. There's color in their cheeks. They get into fights. And that's why this is a tough time of year for teachers. Our blood is thin. We are still huddled in our winter coats. And we look on these exotic creatures, for whom the very bottom line, and I mean the bottom, is schoolwork. like aliens from another planet, We try to cope. We mildly reprimand. We say. "Listen, you people..." Nobody listens. We shout, "Shut up, animals!" The decibels increase. We threaten, "if you don't pay attention...ya, ya, ya." Nobody pays atten- tion. Must I admit that, behind the stern contours of my countenance, 1 envy them? Must 1 confess that. once upon a time, I drove my teachers. in the spring, even sillier than these birds are driving me? It's a few years back. Sometimes it seem like last week. Sometimes like aeons ago. But 1 once burbled with the best of the_rp_-%IV foolishly in love with the fondest of tlt'em, and caused my teachers to break into stutters and spots and tics of the jaw -muscles like the "worst" of them. Falling asleep over my phytics, snoring over my science, muttering over my math. and failing my French during those long. dark winter months, 1 too crystallized and emerged in March. My teachers shook their heads dolefully. They couldn't afford a March break in Hawaii in those days, so they had to be doleful at home. They predicted ruin. a useless life. a futile job in a factory, and other dire straits, if 1 didn't shape up. In one car and out the other. (here weren't any lobs then. just as there aren't any now. What was the point of a piece of paper. that. with a dime. would buy you a cup of coffee? My inner ear was tuned to finer things than the solilbques of Hamlet, right-angled triangles. and la plume de ma tante. 1 could feel the inner excitement of heading up The Lakes with a fair sea running. and a cutting breeze blowing. I could see the hustle at the Sault, and the bustle at the Lakehead, as we pulled in My summer job was on the Great Lakes, on a steamboat, and it was a love -hate relationship. 1 hated it while I was doing it, and loved it when I wasn't. But it was The Great Escape from the chalk -dust and the tiresome, timid teachers, and the constant reminders that 1'd never amount to anything unless I.... So. 1 May be driven into a convalescent home by the high spirits of my students. 1 may bewail their lack of responsibility. 1 may be driven to scold, shout and threaten. But it's just an act. I'd give an arm and a leg (preferably my arthritic ones), to feel the way they do, when the sun slants into the classroom. and the windows are opened wide. 1 0