Loading...
Times-Advocate, 1984-04-11, Page 4Pog* 4. Times-Advocote, April 11, 1984 Ames - Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 dvocate Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Advertising; Manager BILL BATTEN ROSS HAUGH Editor Assistant Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager DICK JONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $22.00 Per year; U.S.A. $60.00 C.W.N.A., O.C. O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' But Brian — what, exactly, do we STAND for? Anything the public will FALL for! What makes a hero? Although there were never more than 7,000 American servicemen on the tiny island of Granada during or following the recent invasion by U.S. forces, no less than 8,612 medals have been awarded by the American defence department. Eighteen servicemen were killed in that action. Abour 50 achievement medals were awarded to personnel who never were closertotheaction than their own offices in the Pentagon at Washington. Still other medals went to support staff in the "rear" areas at 0 Fon Bragg, N.C., Fort Stewart, Ga. and Fort Lewis, Wash. An American forces spokesman said 275 medals were awarded for valor, combat deaths or wounds. In addition 8,337 medals were distributed for individual performance. Given a real war to fight the American defence department might find it difficult to maintain its supply of guns and shells;availablesupplies of the necessary metals would probably be required for the minting of medals. - W.bQpaysth..piper? .: The New Democratic Party has been persistent in its demand that current governments do something realistic about inflation. They point to the erosion of the buying power of workers' wages as prices of goods and services continue to escalate, in some cases faster than pay cheques. But the NDP is equally concerned about the high rate of unemployment in Canada. The party's leaders are now calling for a shortened work week, as little as 32 ours,,,sq,that available jobs may be spread over a greater number of workers. They demand, however that weekly wages be maintained at their present levels for the shorter work week. Somehow the two proposals don't seem to fit one another. Just how, we wonder, can any employer manage to produce the same amount of goods, pay the wages of considerably bigger staff and at the same time avoid raising .the price of his product? The net result, of course, would be inflation op a truly grand scale. •k Good will never legislated A government committee which has recently con- cluded a long-term study has decided that Canadians are a people with very definite racist bias. We don't welcome newcomers to our land; rather we try to ex- clude them from equal opportunity both socially and economically. Many of us might protest that statement as total- ly untrue. Many among us have nothing but good will to offer the people who have come to us from the far corners of the world. We live at peace with our new citizens. Witness the assistance which has been free- ly given to the "boat people" in their effort to in- tegrate successfully into Canadian life. All of which is true - of some Canadians, but not all. We who live in small places, where the numbers of newcomers are not significant,find no difficulty in extending the hand of welcome - for the obvious reason that we feel no threat from their presence. It is quite, different, however, in larger centres where the people from a given country tend to find housing in the same neighborhoods; where newcomers The study committee recommends the passage of legislation which would force employers to provide work for new Canadians on a percentage basis of total find jobs that Canadians have missed. There have, in- deed, -been ugly incidents, even in our smaller cities, in which racism was clearly apparent. payroll. In other words the law would enforce what natural • good will fails to provide. If such legislation is passed, as it probably will be, it will eventually prove more bane than boon to the peo- ple of other races who will live among us. Whatever antagonism now exists among native Canadians will be crystalized into active hatred and organized methods of circumventing the law itself will be found. Racial good will cannot be -legislated, any more than morals or good manners can be enforced by law. What is needed is a broad -scale effort to educate and inform Canadians about the many admirable qualities of our new citizens, and a program of advice to the newcomers about the ways to avoid unnecessary ir- ritation in a land where customs are unfamiliar. Getting our goat . The goat is a much maligned animal. Before becoming capriologists ( goat - keepers) Don and I KNEW that goats din- ed on longjohns and linen tablecloths, tin cans and lilacs. And their sexual appetite was reputedly just as varied and pro- digious. Playful Pan, the ancient Greek god of fertility, was supposedly half man. half guess what' We are still sorting out fact from fiction. Contrary to popular belief, goats are very fussy eaters. They will not touch hay that has fallen from the manger to the barn floor. The only part of a tin can they would relish would be the label, and laundry would be pulled 'capriciously' from the line only as a joke. However, goats are browsing animals, and would soon demolish your forsythia and prized hybrid teas. Gourmands, no. Gourmets, yes inc'eed. Goats have been domesticated for thousands of years. Although Biblical goats were usually the bad guys - separating the sheep from the goats and all that - we have appropriated Proverbs 27:27 for ourselves: "There will be enough goats' milk for your food, for the food of your household and the maintenance of your maidens:', even though our maidens are a dog, a cat and six little hens. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob owned huge herds of goats, ancestors of our present - Reynolds' Rap by Yvonne Reynolds • d -day Nubians, those bugle -voiced, Roman -nosed, pendulous -eared characters that come in as many colours as Joseph's coat. King Solomon, wishing to pay his paramour a compliment, told her "You are beautiful, my love....your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead." This flattery must have work- ed. Solomon ended up with 700 wives, plus 300 more women in a less formal relationship. The Bible also mentions a gift from the Wingham Advance -Times Arabs to King Jehoshaphat of 1,700 he goats. I'll wager the Arabs made their presentation during mating season, their generosity spurred by the overpowering stench coming from the billy goat corral. The male has other nasty little habits I am too prudish to divulge. Even two and three week male kids are disgustingly precocious. We keep only the females. Goats are intelligent, relatively hardy and resistant to disease. The same amount of pasture needed for one bovine can sustain 10 "poor man's cows." Babies unable to digest cows' milk are often kept alive with goats' milk. The Ontario Goat Society gave Prince Charles and Lady Diana four young goats as a wedding gift. If you read sometime that the Royal Couple are leaping over tall buildings at a single bound, butting in where they don't belong, and generally acting like kids, you'll know why. Our little Nubian doe, Honey, presented us with quadruplets last week, albeit with the help of our vet. Mother, two sons and two daughters are all doing well, and are a delightful sight to behold. 1Vye 1 EpMON,om ..JNsitW L Not for special weeks I'm not much of a one for special weeks. It's not that I don't approve wholeheartedly of Na- tional Cat Week or Na- tional Sauerkraut Week. Though I'd just as soon tickle a snake's belly, I'll scratch a cat's ear if I have to, and I'll choke down a forkful of sauerkraut, though I'd en- joy a mouthful of mouldy moss equally well. It's just that I don't become aware of them un- til they're all over. By the time I realize it'sNational Fireworks Week, and have written a hot editorial about it, we're right into National Fire Prevention Weeks, and there I am, telling everybody to run around with a match in his hand, sending off rockets. All this preamble, as any idiot child could guess with one head tied behind his back, is merely a craf- ty way of leading up to my nomination for a special week. I'm fed up with everybody being fed up with his job, and wishing he, or she, could do something else, that looks twice as rosy. For example, a butcher wants to be a surgeon because he believes he was cut out to cut up, there's more money in it, and anyhow, it easier. A dentist thinks he'd make a dandy politician, but he hasn't got the pull. A street cleaner wants to join the air force, because he knows how to pilot. If you are now whimpering for mercy, I'll tell you about National Switch Jobs Week. Here's how it works. I must admit that I real- ly feel sorry for the federal Liberal party these days. It's always with such a sense of loss that you bid your leader good-bye knowing that no one will step forward to seek to replace him. No one else is willing to traipse over eighteen continents sear- ching for peace. No one wants to come back to the party after publicly dis- dairung it years ago. Not a single person is willing to push himself into applying for that little homestead where Pierre pines away with his -pitiful set of ser- Once a year, for a full week, each of us has a chance to tackle that job we know we should be do- ing if an evil fate hadn't tossed us into our present rut. It might be a mite con- fusing, but look at the fun all the ordinary hands will be moving up into the ex- ecutive offices, where the work is so much easier and the money so much better. Naturally, there'll be a lot of executive vacancies, because all the Sugar and Spice Dispensed By Smiley we'll have. Best time to have this special week would be right about now, when everybody is com- pletely browned off with winter. Say you're a hydro linesman, and you think teachers have it so much better. Nice warm classroom, when you're out in a piercing wind. Snug in bed at night, when you're called out to fumble with a broken line after the sleet storm. Hours nine to four, and two months' holidays. Well, all you do it take over a classroom during Na- tional Switch Jobs Week. There'll be no trouble get- ting a classroom, because all the teachers will have switched jobs with truck drivers, because the latter make more money, accor- ding to the teachers. And there'll be no shor- tage of truck driving jobs, because all the truck drivers will be working in factories, as they're sick of being away from home so much. And there'll be no lack of factory jobs, as bosses are sick of the ten- sion and responsiblity and all they want to do is have a little farm of their own, where they can get back to the simple life, sleep nights without sedatives, and conquer their ulcers. Farms? There'll be lots of them. The farmers will all be taking over stores, so they can sit around on their fat butts all day like the merchants, and watch .the bank balance grow. The stores will all be available, of course, because all the merchants will be away sailing on the Great Lakes where the REAL easy money is. See how simple it is? It works for women, too. All the housewives would become attractive models, all the models ac- tresses, and all the actr- resses would be able to revert to being the simple little housewives they are at heart, with eight -dollar aprons tied becomingly over their bullfighter's pants. Personally, I'm going to put in for a preacher's job A sense of loss vants and the little old swimming hole out back. And of course no one I really don't know what they will ever do to replace Pierre. Not a per - Perspectives By Syd Fletcher wants to toodle around the country by helicopter or jet or that 200,000 dollar Cadillac which the good old Mounties supplied for our beloved leader. orf: son wants his power or all his goodies. I'm sure that all Jhose fellows like Monroe and John Turner are saying "Look fellows I really during the grand switch. Work one day and spend the rest of the week drink- ing tea and shooting the breeze with jolly old ladies who are only too glad to help you run the church. You can't beat that for an easy living. Well, how does it strike you? Myself, I think it's the greatest idea since psychiatry was invented. One week's dose of another fellow's job, once a year, would sweep away all the envy, malice and boredom that afflicts the human race. I can just see them at the end of their week. The hydro linesman would be scrambling frantically up the highest pole he could find. The teacher would be ready to adopt that tippy teenager he couldn't abide. The truck driver would be hurtling down the highway with a song in his heart and his foot hard down on the gas pedal. The factory hand would be crooning over his lathe. The executive would be. tossing down his tran- qulizer pills hilariously. The farmer would kiss the first cow he saw when he got home. The merchant would hum a merry tune as he gaily punched out the accompaniment on the cash register. Friend housewife would be so glad to get out of that girdle she had to don as a model, she'd sail in and redecorate the whole house. And yours truly would be just as overjoyed to get out of that dog - collar, and be able to swear, look over the dames, and have a beer again. don't want to be Prime Minister. Don't you think you can find someone else to do' the job, someone with better qualifications Surely there is a gooa honest man or woman out there who could lead this country to the position of greatness that it deserves, someone in the grass roots of this party who stands for everything that is de- cent. Sorry boys you and I know that I really don't want this job." And if you believe that I have a neat Edsel I'd just love to sell you.