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The Brussels Post, 1979-04-04, Page 2MIME LS ONTARIO WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1979 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. INITABLIPPOID len 4' Brussels Post Choose your poison For a million years or so, human beings have been developing their bodily defences against the earth's natural hazards -- things like smoke, dust, disease, decay, and various kinds of predators and parasites. Those who were less able to survive didn'tThose who were better equipped to survive passed on their strengths to their descendants. But now, in a single lifetime, defences built up over untold generations have been rendered useless. They have been bypassed, by a host of new hazards. Dr. Donald Chant, vice-president of the University of Toronto and founder of Pollution Probe, stated in a recent interview that there are now about 150,000 man-made chemicals in the world, and new ones are being added every year. "Yet we know precious little about most of them," he said. "Some of them may be as deadly as DDT." In addition, each of these new chemicals contains impurities about which we know absolutely nothing, Dr. Chant stated -- not even what most of these impurities may be, let alone their effect on human life and the world as a whole. And however these substances are used, in the end they are dumped, or escape into the environment, filtering their way into the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. So, should civilization give up on 'progress?' Should we go back to the caves? No. But we can and should demand greater maturity from our business and scientific communities. We ought to view the years since the Industrial Revolution as a kind of adolescence. Like a teenager risking a lifetime as a cripple for a few minutes of thrills, we recklessly filled. our skies with ashes, our rivers with pulp mill wastes, and our lakes with toxic tricles from mines. It's time we grew up. Unfortunately, in the present situation, each individual cannot simply look after his or her own safety. We are too dependent on teh actions of others. We should expect -- we should demand -- that those who produce the new chemicals will test them for risk, beyond any doubt, and will have enough sense of responsibility to control what they use. It's the least one can expect from adults. (Unchurched Editorials) Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Who cares? Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Questions, but no answers THE GRAVITY METHOD — Students from the Brussels Public School took a look at the gravity method of collecting sap when they toured th Maple Keys Sugar Bush near Molesworth on Thursday. (Photo by Langlois) Does anyone in this country even care any more whether the federal election occurs in April, May or June? Does anyone even care any more whether there is a federal election, in which we might exchange a right-wing reform party for a right-wing party, either winner being at the mercy, in a vote, of a right-wing left-wing party? Day after day of listening to the news, and watching the news, and reading the news, has created in me, at least, the greatest sense of apathy I've ever ex- perienced in my life. And I have a hunch that millions of Canadians agree with me. Does anyone care. any more what Margaret Trudeau, a rather silly woman with verbal dysentery, among other ail- ments, has yet to reveal? Not me. Does anyone care any more how Many Christian Arabs in Beirut killed how many Muslim Arabs in Beirut? Not Me. Does anyone care that Prince Charles was seen jogging on a beach in Australia, that Pierre Berton has written another book, that Canadian writers and artists and theatres and publishers all claim they need more of our tax bucks to survive? Not me. Only they. A colleague of mine describes an organization at the university he attended. It was called the Apathy Club. It put out notices like these: "The Apathy Club will not hold its usual meeting this month." Or, "True to its convictions, the Apathy Club failed to elect a new president, when no one showed up to vote for those who did not run." I have a feeling that Canada is turning into one vast Apathy Club. Oh, we're not yet quite completely lifeless. You can see this by reading the Letters-to,the Editor columns, where all the Cranks, quacks and bigots are given a chance to sound off. But when all the news is bad news - Unemployment, falling dollar, violence, threat of wars - we are inclined to tune out, and to tune in to some sort of escapist entertainment. (Continued on Page 4) Some questions, this week, without answers. In this, perhaps the most important election in Canada since confederation, is the outcome to be decided by who drops the fewest footballs or stumbles over curbs least? In the 1974 election a good deal of damage was done to Robert Stanfield by a newspaper picture that showed him very clumsily catching and dropping a football. Down in the U.S., it was Gerald Ford bumping his head on his helicopter. In the first week of the election campaign, it was Joe Clark stumbling as he crossed a street. I don't know about you, but I'd hate to have my ability to do a job judged by the number of times I'd slipped on an icy street or caught my fingers in a drawer when I was closing it. I hate to think that it could have any part in the decision who is to lead the country in these times when the entire future of the nation rests on us making a good choice but with some of the smart-alec people we have in the media these days, it just could. ****** If, as people like Harold Ballard and some of the other National Hockey League owners have been saying for years, there's nobody any good playing over there in the World Hockey Association, how come the NHL teams were so adamant that they had to get back any players they felt they owned playing in the WHA? I guess we should just be thankful for the fact the long hockey war is over and we can get back to playing on the ice instead of the courts, but a few of the details of the expansion, merger or whatever you want to call it, seem ridiculous: I can understand to some extent the NHL assessment that they want the opportunity to get back players who quit their teams to join the other league but what I find really hard to take is that just because they drafted a player and the player instead chose to play in the other league, they feel they should now have the player handed to them. The other point is that most of the players playing in the WHA at there because the NHL teams refused to pay them the salary they felt they deserved. If they didn't deserve that much money then, then how are the NHL clubs willing to pick up their expensive contracts now/ Anyway, all this may be a tempest in a teapot. With the way things are set up, the WHA teams May be able to retain Most of their players anyway and by picking up players from the Birmingham and Cincin- nati franchises, may end up being stronger than many of the NHL franchises. * * * * * * And while we're on the subject of sports, why haven't we heard an outcry about Canada's loss of supremacy in the sport of curling like we did a few months ago about hockey when the Russians whomped us? When our team at the world curling championships (playing for a trophy given by Air Canada no less), lost to Norway in the semi-finals last week it meant Canada hadn't won a world championship since 1972. In addition our ladies champions and juniors also got beaten out in the world championships this year. Maybe the government should investigate. * * * * * * How come everybody who gives a news cast these days and every newspaper in the country tut-tuts about the continuing fuss over Maggie Trudeau's revelations, but only after they give the latest details? If everybody is really as tired as they say they are of hearing all the idiotic things issue from the lady's mouth (or the mouth of her publicist), why do they keep dishing it out to us? It's like the man who says he can't stand the gossiping that his wife and her friends do, but he passes on all they juicy details to his buddies down at the factory. As for Maggie's family, well Pierre's a big boy and can look after himself as he's well proven over the years but what about the kids? I mean lots of kids have grown up with the stigma of a wayward parent but few have had a parent with such a high profile. How is it going to affect those kids through their formative years ahead to always have their mother thrown up to them by other kids and adults? Then too, what effect is Maggie's book going to have on the election campaign? On the one hand, some people are likely to favour Trudeau through sympathy and through admiration of the way he's acted through all this while others may. figure that if he married that dingbat in the first place there must be some mental instab- ilty Thomas Eagleton down in the U.S: a few yeiarsthbearceks.otnewhere in his past, just like Ah Maggie, why don't you just wander off to some quiet little commune some- Where and boogie the rest of your life away leaving us in peace?