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Times-Advocate, 1987-10-14, Page 64 Paw, 4 Times -Advocate, October 14, 1987 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S0 Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 519-235-1331 cn nes PCNA Wi% LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Advertising Manager BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVR(ES Composition Manager ROSS HAUGH Assistant Editor DICK JONGKIND Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $25.00 Per year; U.S.A. $65.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' Mulroney owes Canada Brian Mulroney owes it to the people of Canada to call a federal election. By negotiating the current free trade agreement, Mulroney and the federal Conservative party have placed a price tag on Canada. And they have done so without the consent of Canadians. Granted the Prime Minister did have Gallup polls which indicated that more than 50 percent of Canadians were in favour of some kind of trade agreement with the United States. It is unclear, however, when Canada discarded its system of voicing opinions through the process of free election in favour of the easily manipulated , often inaccurate popular poll. It should be noted that, along with free trade polls in the Prime Minister's possession, there are surveys indicating that Mulroney's is the most unpopular government in the history of Canada. (There are also recent polls which in- dicate that less than 50 percent of Cana- dians now favour free trade with the U.S.). The Mulroney government has push- ed through an ill-considered plan govern- ed by American terms which is revolu- tionary for our nation and the North American continent. And, as his govern- ment has always done, Mulroney has placed economics in front of all else, in- cluding our nationhood. In exchange for a dispute -settling mechanism which ultimately will not work, Mulroney has relinquished control over our energy policies, control over American investment in Canada, control over agriculture and culture. But more than anything else, by signing the free trade agreement in principle, Mulroney has untied the fragile threads which hold Canada together. At the time of Confederation, na- tionalists like Sir John A. Macdonald did everything in their power to establish strong east -west relationships in our country. The Canadian Pacific Railway was a direct result of that. Measures were taken to prevent north -south railway lines from being built to ensure economic ties between provinces. They did so in the knowledge that strong economic ties create strong cultural ties and promote a feeling of nationhood. In one swift motion, Brian Mulroney has swept away those tenuous 'ties. He has shown, through the `Meech Lake agreement and now the free trade deal, that he completely lacks a sense of history -- something imperative to the leader of a nation. Mulroney was not elected on a plat- form of free trade with the United States. Now, as he proposes to substantially alter the course of Canadian history, as he challenges the political wisdom of 120 years, he must take the question to the people. If he fails to do that, he will be nothing more than a dicator, making a mockery of our democratic system. Should they advertise? Tobacco companies, and their apologists, 'are not giving up easily. They seem determined to fight to retain the right to advertise their deadly products. A ban on promotion of tobacco is one of the few issues on which the federal Conservative government is taking the high, moral road. It is a cause with con- siderable redeeming social importance, and one that transcends the natural preference of Conservatives to support the interest of big business. Tobacco is big business, but it is dooni- ed to virtual extinction within little more, than a generation - if citizens continue to ,demonstrate common sense about eliminating such an obvious health problem. A complete ban on advertising is one of the most logical, and inoffensive, ways of dealing with such a widespread practice. No matter how much proof is ac- cumulated to show the dangers of tobac- co, it will never be possible to ban its use. Prohibition has never worked; as well, one of the prices that people pay for freedom is that they allow themselves to consume various unhealthy substances, and engage by choice in many dangerous practices. Some use of tobacco ( but under very restricted conditions) is likely to persist. It is reasonable to assume that it will always remain marginally legal. That is a key point, because it is that principle that apologists for the tobacco industry are attempting to exploit in their campaign to prevent a ban on advertising. They argue that smoking is legal (and will likely remain so), and that it is, therefore, undemocratic to prevent a legal product from being advertised. That argument has some ring of truth to it - but only in a very hollow sense. Elmira Independent Start reading .early Most adults take reading for granted. They pick ,tp the newspaper scan it for the sports, the local news, the comics, and never think about how that skill of reading is acquired. A great deal of research has gone on in the field or .!. :rtion to find out why sots ; E t better readers 11 :i n ; ors, nu how we can imp,ovth( ability of the children who u Tito or r schools. Some interesting ansWer4 nave come out of that research. One conclusion that will pro- bably come as no surprise to parents is that children who have been exposed to a lot of language activity right' from birth (story books of their own, stories read to them by mom and dad) do well right from the start. The motiva- tion and encouragement are there. Children who have had lots of time spent on nursery rhymes and rhythmic singing activities also seem to have a good head start. Research points to language being taught as a whole rather By the Way by Fletcher than isolating little bits and pieces which may be mean- ingless to a small child. This is not to say that phonics (e.g. word beginnings and endings) is no longer taught in primary classrooms. Good teachers make sure children see the relation- ships between groups of words but try to make sure that the words are part of a logical whole which makes sense to the children. For example, the teacher would have a story about the "big bad black wolf" which would il- lustrate the "b" sound. There could be a song to accompany the story which would emphasize the repetition of those three or four key "b" words. The idea is that the child will see the words in meaningful relationships which are easy to learn and will be re- tained for a longer period of time until they become automatic. It is truly an amazing thing to watch children in grade one sud- denly become aware of words for the first time. They come in there from kindergarten only knowing eight or 10 words (usually the col- ours) and by the time they have completed that first year they know over a thousand words. When you consider that in the English language that if a person can ,lead about 2000 words that he/she is functionally literate then you realize the extent of the above accomplishment. Make us thankful I ate my Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie with mixed feel- ings this year. I kept thinking about a letter I had received from a Jesuit priest who works with the poorest of the poor in the Dar- jeeling district in India. Father Murray Abraham had been moved to tears by the gift of a half-grown cucumber. He writes: "When Sharmila-ko- ahma left my room, carrying her baby, her three tiny boys trailing behind like ducklings, I looked at the cucumber she had brought and cried." The priest goes on to explain that, in a monsoon season gone mad, his area had been subjected to 15 days of incessant, torrential rains which were still pouring down. Many of his friends had already been forced to flee their, villages on the steep mountain- side when their homes were caught in the path of the daily landslides and destroyed or buried in mud. Sharmila-ko-ahma had picked the baby cucumber before her lit- tle garden vanished. Father Abraham met her a day before on the partly washed-out road up the mountain. She look- ed exhausted. "Father", she said, "Our cow - barn collapsed. Our house is cracked. The land in front has opened up. Last evening we mov- ed everything over to our neighbour's and we (parents and five children) slept with them last night". All Father Abraham's con- siderable powers of persuasion could not convince the woman to leave such a potentially dangerous situation for the Reynold's Rap by Yvonne Reynolds relative safety of the school and farm at Saint Alphonsus Social and Agricultural Centre to stay with the priest and his extended family. To illustrate the magnitude of such a move Father Abraham wrote "To leave their house was bad enough, but to abandon their land was unthinkable. For most of our people in India, their land is their life. I slept little. This morning I met Sharmila-ko- aham again. Even in the midst of turmoil and tragedy, she was still carrying her six litres of milk up the moutain for two hours because the money it brings ($1.80) is, for this family, survival. "1 stopped my jeep again, determined to persuade her. I didn't have to. Looking like death warmed over, her eyes filled with grief, she said "Our land is crack- ed everywhere. ("Everywhere" being all over their two acres, the average size of a Himalayan farm!) It will all go! "And with it will go a great part of life of Sharmila-ko-ahma and her husband. Twenty years of struggle, skimping, back- breaking labour to build their home ( just finished last year, after living in a "temporary" shack for 18 years) and to plant enough rocky -land grasses to feed the two cows which are their living." The next morning 12 SASAC student -workers were sent to help the family carry their belongings and walk their cows up the moun- tainside along dangerous narrow and slippery paths. On the way, Sharmila-ko-ahma had remember to pick the cucumber for Father Abraham. The priest concluded his letter by saying "And now what will I do? I will eat Sharmila-ko- ahma's baby cucumber. Other- wise she will think I don't ap- preciate her gift. Perhaps cucumbers taste even better seasoned with a few salty tears". The next time I am irritated by some minor annoyance, or speak impatiently to someone, or take for granted my many blessings, I hope I will think of a woman in India and a half-grown cucumber. Kites that don't fly Three or four years ago, I had bought a cheap, unspectacular, black plastic kite that responded well to the wind, stayed up in the air, and survived hundreds of crashes. We'd still be flying it, if it hadn't been left out near the driveway the night before gar- bage day. It looked so ragged that our sanitary disposal crew pick- ed it up in the morning and ship- ped it off to the township dump. On my next trip to the big city I went kite -shopping. Surprise! Something has happened in the kite industry. They ve hired in- dustrial designers to muck around with an object that has been perfect ever since the Chinese invented it 3,000 years ago. The result is truly amazing: kites that won't fly! Did you know that kites were used as means of military com- munication in the Battle of Hastings in the year 1066? ( I didn't know either until I looked it up.) In 1752 Benjamin Franklin used a kite to prove that thunderstorms were caused by electricity. I bet that none of these kites were designed by in- dustrial designers, because in- dustrial designers hadn't been in- vented yet. The kites I found in the toy departments and specialty shops were the most colourful and im- aginative I had ever seen. I bought one of the cheaper models for 19.95 and was very pleased with myself. Yesterday the boys and I went out in the field to fly our new ac- quisition (Stephanie preferred to throw the boomerang). As soon as I had taken the fancy wrapp- ing off the kite, I knew something was wrong. There was no string. Slightly annoyed, we all drove into town to buy a spool and 200 feet of nylon string to attach to the keel of our new kite. When we PETER'S POINT • got back, I reached for the keel, but I couldn't find it. In fact, there was no kite. What I did find in- stead was a do-it-yourself kite making kit and sixteen -page in- struction booklet, with text in Japanese, Urdu, Icelandic, Bulgarian and English. The English text turned out to be the least useful and the most confusing. After I had connected Flag C (did they mean Flap?) to Flag D, as instructed, the kite looked like a dying pigeon. And when I "Wound Corbel J oser Portal K", I was beginning to doubt whether the thing would ever fly. I read on: "In case of tempestuous stop in course of fly, open the portals and close at once, and command descent by leaning on the string and, even- tually, on the descent." Since it is difficult to find peo- ple around here who can read Japanese, I attached the instruc- tion booklet to the string and let Duncan run with it against the wind. You can take my word for it, the instructions were the best flying part of the entire package. In desperation (and being coaxed into action by Alexander the Impatient), I tried to make a kite out of the scraps of card- board, plastic and wire that cost me $19.95 plus tax. Twenty minutes later, a kite -like struc- ture emerged. Now it was only a matter of rescuing Duncan, because he had become com- pletely entangled in 200 feet of string and was fighting for his life. During all this commotion Stephanie was peacefully and most successfully flying her bommerang. We cut Duncan loose, knotted sixty-seven pieces of string together and attached them to the designer's dream. Then I realiz- ed that.what we had here was not a kite that was meant to go up in- to the sky, but one designed to buzz and spiral behind'a runner. And true enough, if you held it by about six feet of string, it' did a remarkable amount of buzzing and spiralling. Stephanie was continuing to make her bommerang come back. Tomorrow the bo)is want me to drive to the dump to recover our old five -dollar kite. The one that came all assembled. With string. Without instructions.