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The Citizen, 1986-09-03, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1986. f _______A & c What's the use? While most of us are sorry to see the end of summer everyone canbeglad to put behind them what has turned out to be a summer of slaughter on Huron county roads. While police across the province report it was generally a better summer than normal for traffic accidents, here in Huron the death toll has been of tragic proportions. From that horrible accident near Goderich early in the year that killed so many young people, through the accident two weeks ago that killed two Brussels-area people through the tragic crash a week ago that killed a woman near Walton, it’s been one long horror story. The irony of these accidents is that holiday weekends, normally times of danger on the road, have been relatively safe around here this summer. It’s been the other weekends that have been most dangerous. For most of us the easy way to dismiss these accidents is to point out that this driver or that driver did something stupid. In other words, the victim was to blame for his own misfortune and so therefore we’re somehow safe ourselves. That ignores how many times we as drivers do something foolish we get away with. How many times has our attention been distracted by a crying child, taking time to tune a radio or sneaking a look at a shapely figure in a bathing suit? How many times have we drifted across the centre line for j ust a moment or dropped awheel off the edge of the pavement? How many times have we gone a bit too fast, or not stopped long enough at a stop sign, say at the corner of a little used sideroad? How many times have we pulled out to pass only to realize there isn’t enough time to get back in safely. We’ve gotten away with these errors because there didn’t happen to be another vehicle there j ust at the wrong moment. It is not then that we are any less guilty that most people who find themselves in accidents, j ust that we ’re more lucky. Only those who’ve been in an accident realize how easily one can happen. We all need to realize that the automobile is the most lethal weapon in Canada today. With two tons of metal hurtling toward two more tons of metal at combined speeds of more than 100 miles per hour and it happening millions of times a day in this country, the miracle is that there aren’t more deaths and injuries. We all need to re-evaluate our own bad driving habits and realize how easy it is for an accident to happen. Only by being constantly on the alert can we prevent more tragedies like the slaughter of this summer. A blessed end Deficit fighting has become so much the vogue in government circles these days that there seems to be little concern given to benefits provided by the government service that ran up the deficit in the first place. Take the post office for example. So much stress is being put on deficit reduction today that the post office seems to have forgotten that the main purpose of the post office is to deliver mail. The latest reduction in mail service to the Blyth area is a case in point. After first eliminating Saturday mail delivery to rural routes, then Saturday mail delivery to the villages and now cutting back to only one pickup of mail a day there is only one step left for the post office: cut out mail delivery altogether. It’s only logical, if you don’t deliver mail you won’t lose any money. It’s time we really looked at the whole concept of the post office paying for itself through earned revenue. Is the post office a business or a utility? Do we expect it to pay its own way or is it there because in providing a service, it assists business and individuals to communicate? If we expect the post office to pay its own way then doesn’t it also make sense we goback to toll booths on the highways? How many billions of dollars do Canadians spend in tax revenue to keep the road system going. By the same logic we should also stop subsidizing airports and make them pay their own way. But we got rid of tolls on Ontario roads long ago because we realized that it’s a far better investment to stimulate transportation and communications than it is to pennypinch and deter commerce. And cities like Owen Sound have been fighting for years to get airports because they know the stimulus these are for the economy. The only way the post office will ever pay is if it does what the courier companies do: service only the highly-populated parts of the country and charge high prices. If it does that then there’s no need to have a government-owned mail service at all. And if it does that, we might just as well move all the people in the country into the large centres because it will be impossible to live and do business conveniently in smaller, more remote parts of the country. The current penny-pinching mood of the post office management is a disaster. Our politicians, by now saying the post office is an independent crown corporation, can conveniently shirk their responsibilities to provide good postal service. The state ofthe post office is a scandal and we’ve got to do something to stop this trend before there is no mail service at all. <sr •<M •ft I I oa i7 A" I F ( & \ c 'J\s "JBur, Badris music is keallv Much Better than it Sounds / " r GTT'/ie world view from Mabel’s Grill There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdomreside down at Mabel’s Grill where the greatest minds in the town (if not in the country) gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society. Since notjusteveryone can partake of these deliberations we will report the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Julia was saying this morning she was glad to see the Dominion store company was forced to pay back the money it had borrowed from its employees’ pension fund. She said for once she agreed with the union when it said it was almost like stealing the employees’ money. Ward Black said it wasn’t stealing at all, just borrowing. There was still lots of money there to earn interest for the pensions. Besides, the company would pay it back in due time. Julia said that with the manage­ ment record Dominion stores had showed under Conrad Black, going from the number one supermarket chain to near bankruptcy, she wasn’t sure she’d trust them to manage her pension money. Nonsense, Ward said. It’s just like the government has been borrowing from the Canada Pen­ sion Fund to help finance the government. “And that makes you feel better?” Billie Bean asked. TUESDAY: Tim O’Grady was mentioning this morning about the plan some advisory committee came up with to help out artists. Seems they want to give artists a tax free status up to the first $18,600 (which just happens to be the tax free allowance Members of Parliament get). Hank Stokes thought it was a crazy idea. Why should artists get a special break like that? Besides the governmentcan’tafford to give away any more money. Tim says from the artists he knows it’s a plan that wouldn’t cost the government a cent. Most of them would have a harder time finding the $18,600 income in the first place than paying the tax on it. WEDNESDAY: Tim O’Grady was after Ward Black this morning, asking him how come he hadn’t managed to get that General Motors-Suzuki plant to our town. After all the place could use 2000 extra jobs, Tim was telling him. Ward said the companies never even considered our fair town. “We sent them a letter telling them about all the nice things about the town but we never even got a reply.” ‘ ‘Maybe you didn’t speak the right language.” Tim said. “Japanese?” “No, money.” THURSDAY: Hank Stokes was complaining about the hard times on the farm again this morning. Yields are down and of course on the crops that have good yields nobody wants to buy. Billie Bean suggested that Hank might be able to make a little extra money renting out his wagon. Hank looked at him a little stunned and asked why anyone would want to rent his wagon. Billie says that with the Blue Jays winning again ■s there are so many people jumping back on their bandwagon they may have to rent extras. FRIDAY: Billie was saying he was down to the big city to see the big wrestling match last night. More than 60,000 people packed in to see Hulk Hogan wrestle. Tim says with that kind of popularity and money he’s think­ ing of digging out his swim trunks and trying the game himself. Julia says you have to be good at faking tremendous pain to be a wrestler. Tim says he’s had a lot of practice at that. Whenever his wife asks him to cut the lawn he develops an excrutiatingly sore back. Billie says you can talk all you want about wrestling being fake but looking at the shape Tim’s in, if Hulk Hogan smashed him down on the ring floor, Tim wouldn’t have to fake the pain at all. OFFICE HOURS FOR THE CITIZEN’S BRUSSELS OFFICE Monday Wednesday Thursday Friday Closed on Tuesday, Saturday & Sunday 10-2 10-2 10-2 10-2 [640523Ontario Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Published weekly in Brussels, Ontario P.O.Box152 P.O. Box429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. N0G1H0 N0M1H0 887-9114 523-4792 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00 foreign. Advertising and news deadline: Monday 2p.m. in Brussels;4p.m. in Blyth Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Beverley A. Brown Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968