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The Huron Expositor, 1984-09-05, Page 2OPINION Huron �.. orator SINCE 1860, SERVING THE COMMUNITY FIRST BIDE'-' RIBBON AWARD 1983 Incorporating 8tuam As Post 10 Main Street 527-0240 Published In SEAFORTH, ONTARIO Every Wednesday morning JOCELYN A. SHRIER, Publisher RON WASSINK, Editor JANET MACDONALD, Advertising Manager Member Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc Ontario Community Newspaper Association Ontario Press Council Commonwealth Press Union International Press Institute Subscription rates: Canada $18.75 a year (in =its Outside Canada $55.00 a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFRTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, SEPTE ®ER 5, 1984 Second class mail registration Number 0696 cn ,.a Be safe The first day of school started Tuesday and for the next 10 months, hundreds of students, some as young as five years of age, will be travelling to and from school. Some will walk or bike, but most will be travelling in the familiar yellow school buses. 1n either case, motorists should proceed with extra caution. They should be alert for kids, who oft their daily walk to school, have to cross major highways and streets. Some kids, in the excitement of the moment, whether It's playing tag or chasing a bail, may dash onto the street .from behind a parked car. An alert motorist can avoid causing Injury or even death. A "stopped school bus with flashing red lights means all vehicles approaching the bus from both directions must stop. Some students must cross in front of their bus to their home and it's imperative that motorists obey the flashing red lights. The Huron -Perth Separate School Board has taken it upon itself to educate first time kindergarten age students about bus Safety. These young students are taught about bus safety in efforts in avoid needless accidents. Parents who already haven't, should reinforce good safety habits with their children, whether their children are walking or riding. Most children are aware of safety rules as are the motorists. Let's keep It that way and be on the lookout for our school age citizens. For some five -year-olds, school is a new and sometimes terrifying experience. They're heading -for the real world and sometimes it can be cruel. Let's all work together and keep Huron County safe for our students. And let's drive defensively. - R.W. Speed up mail Canadian and American postal officials recently signed a new agreement that is supposed to create a more co-ordinated and reliable mail service in North America.. •' ; 7%7 '� ••. r ' ' • t • ` President o& Canada Post orporalliiii 1Gittriei' W rr i"Itfr'ttaRia ltd the United States realize that the level of service between the two countries is inconsistent and doesn't mean acceptable standards. The new agreement In effect means "evaporating the border" between the two countries. But more importantly, it could mean another $20 million a year in revenue for Canada Post. - "While the average time for delivery between Canada and the United States is six tq seven days, it can often take longer than that," said Mr. Warren. If mail service is as slow between Canada and the United States as it is within Canada itself, then mail delivery to the U.S. in all Ilkelihoild takes longer than seven days. Though it's improved somewhat, mail service in Canada is still pitiful. For example, to deliver the Huron Expositor 25 miles can take from two to five days. It only takes 30 minutes to drive the same distance. A visitor from Europe was going to send a letter from one location in Ontario to another. He was advised against it because by the time he would receive a reply, which could have taken f rom one to two weeks, he would be back in his home country. The visitor was astounded. He said mail delivery anywhere in his country was' guaranteed to take no longer than two days. It's time something was done within the postal system to Improve mall service. There may have been a problem between Canada and the U.S., tut the same problem exists within Canada. Let's clean up the whole situation and get our 32 cents worth. - R.W. Best way to learn Each of the three political leaders have their separate proposals to reduce unemployment in Canada — as well they should. John Turner's only concrete plan so far is one which would subsidize on-the-job training for young people who have not been able to find work since leaving secondary school. Turner says he would set up a program under which young trainees would receive $65 per week in government aid during an apprenticeship period. We wonder whether any of these politicians have ever paused to consider the basic causes of widespread unemployment among young people. Turner is right when he identifies the present problem as "now work without experience and no experience without work". However, his proposal to pay young people generously out of the taxpayers' money may fail. Apprenticeship in years gone by was a system Which not only afforded the beginner a chance to attain skills; it was also a system which called for monetary sacrifice on the part of the apprentice. He didn't get a great deal of money for the first few years, and he was not necessarily, allowed to spend all his time on the job of his choice. He was often required to sweep the floor or clean the mac1Inery. Now, mind you, he didn't like being the "joe-boy" but he did absorb the fact that if he wanted to get away from the broom he had to prove himself a reliable skilled hand who could pPaduce efficiently. Most apprentices emerged as dependabtp workmen who could hold satisfactory jobs. What happened to this system which produced millions of skilled, self-reliant people over the years? Minimum wage laws, widely -touted as fair and just for the working man or woman, ended the apprenticeship system. Few employers could afford to pay the rates demanded by law, while at the same time providing the learner with a machine to operate and a skilled workman to teach the apprentice. A new plan for teaching skilled trades is an obvious answer to the problem of unemployed young people. But unless those same young people are willing to sacrifice to some extent the results may be a total failure. (Winghatr Advanta -Times) Olympic games PARTICIPATION was low for the Olympic Games at the Seaforth Library on Thursday. But the kids who showed up had a great time. Matthew Wheeler and Aaron Broome, top left, were In the three-legged race. Jennifer Gridzak, top right tosses a golf ball and high Jumps. Michael Hamon, bottom left, was a hat race winner and Carly Price enjoys coloring. (Wassink photo) Life never stops in New York New York city has to be one of the most stressful centres in the world. Life never stops, not even for red lights. The pace is hectic., In SeaforthI can take a leisurely stroll , -.down . Mals Street and if walking with another persdn, it's that person whdi has , '`rnnntttekeePIrif,-ImNew Yuck everyone runs 1 had to keep up with them and for someone who's used to sslall town life. running is something else. 1 mentioned theroblem of parking our van. We finally did find a spot right in the middle of what seemed the dirtiest, grimmiest, section in the southern part of Manhattan Island. That's where the van stayed for two days and where we stayed for one night. Before we started our trip, our plan was to park in a campground near the city. By camping, we hoped to save money by not having to rent a motel or hotel room at what we presumed would be astronomical prices. The camping part of the trip was just great (in the Catskills) the first night, but after the SENSE AND NONSENSE ms of finding a parkirig spot and of the sles of fighting New York city garbage trucks 8 d cab drivers for a too narrow opening id the traffic, we decided to leave well enough alone. We slept in the van --in an area which seemed inhabited by winos, bag ladies and bums. From then on, we took public transporta- tion. After visiting the World Trade Centre. a ride on the subway was a thrill. The Centre consists of two. 105 storey skyscrapers. If the smog and fog is thick enough, you can hardly see the top. Approximately 80.000 people tour the centre, each day! And another 50.000 are employed in the World Trade Centre offices. Combine the population of all the towns in by Ron Wassink Huron County and you'd be well short of the 50,000 total. The building was breathtaking. A ride in the elevator to the top floor takes less than one minute. You end up on floor 105 but your stomach is still in the basement. I was told that the earth excavated to build the Centre was used as fill. And that fill created 23 acres of additional land after it was dumped into New York harbor. That's one quarter of a one hundred acre farm! We only rode the subway once. getting on after touring the World Trade Centre. Our timing was perfect --it was rush hour. I'm told that New York has the second busiest subway, next to Tokyo, Japan. In Tokyo. employees of the subway literally push people through the doors, jamming them in the subway like sardines. We weren't pushed into the subway in New York, but we were jammed in like sardines. It was like getting a ride and not knowing where you're going. We went into the gi'dilnd ht rile sdUth end of Manhattan Island and emerged, blinking our eyes to the blinding sunlight, near Central Park. The subway ride was 90 cents per person. And that was cheap compared to the hbrse and buggy ride. In New York, the buggy is called a hansom, but New Yorkers don t call a buggy a buggy. A hansom only has two wheels. The thing we rode in had four. Central Park wasn't what I'd expected. 1 thought I'd see neatly manicured lawns, inter -locking paving stones for sidewalks, and flowers galore. What i saw can be compared to Algonquin Park. But Algonquin doesn't have as much garbage. Grass was worn away in some areas, showing only arth. There were lots of people, some were SEE NEW YORK/ ON PAGE 3 Adults know()education is important All across the continent young people are moving back to schools from kindergarten to university, but one can't help but get the feeling that education, as someone once said about love, is wasted on the young. Experts will tell you that youngsters have the greatest capacity to soak up knowledge but once they get past their initial eagerness to learn and have mastered reading. writing and the fundamentals of arithmetic, they seem to want to stop learning. But for the next dozen or so years, are educated despite themselves. 1t doesn't seem to be long before it's not mol to like school. It often seems that the less successful you are, the better you're accepted by ybur classmates. There was, in my day anyway, a time in grade nine and 10 when there were whole dasses of students just putting in time until they were old enough to quit school. Even in later high school years and in post secondary BEHIND THE SCENES by Keith Roulston education, you were somehow looked down on if you extended more than the minimum of effort needed to get through. It's only as you get older that you again find out how exciting it is to learn. Nearly all of us do it in one way or another. Some people who wouldn't read a book for instance, delight in learning about other ways of fife through travel, People who were never interested in history in school can suddenly tell you a detailed, fascinating history of a Scottish castle or a French cathedral as they show you their vacation slides. People never interested in school science can tell you all the bewildering specifications of their particular home computer. People who were bored with psychology can rattle off the latest research m the learning abilities of preschool children and how they're using this information to turn their special child into a genius. In my own home there are several bookcases full of books some of them left over from my school days. Books that i just managed to get through back then Sot even managed to bluff teachers into thinking I'd read) are now drawing me back. Books 1 thought were deadly dull 20 years ago, i now find fascinating, Books I enjoyed back then 1 now find have much more in them than 1 ever thought possible. Freed from the feeling of being forced to learn this and that. I now find myself wanting to learn more and more. Copies of National Geographic magazine, which I once thought deadly dull, are now read cover to cover and the well -thumbed back issues are filed away. Now it's likely to be the silly sitcoms that get turned off on television while I watch the documentaries and science .shows. . Knowing this, many of us would like to go hack and live our lives over again to make use of those lost years. Often we try to do it through our children, getting them excited in the things that we found dull at their age but interesting now. Most often it doesn't work. You can stock their bookshelves with ail the classics in the world but kids, just like we did. would rather read the Hardy Boys and watch reruns of Beverly Hillbillies. They. like us, have to make their own mistakes. And when i look on the shelves and see all the books 1'11 never read, realize all the things i'11 never know. Ab -dl T'think it's sad. The humanics are coming Some things are just so stupid that they are nearly impossible to believe. Accounts in the newspaper of the strange activities of some people makes one suspect the sanity of the human race. Some people seem to deliberately want to hurt. inconvenience or just ridicule the people around them. They operate on the notion that they are doing everyone else a favor by enforcing their personal beliefs on the population. Last week in Colorado, a man named Paul Crawford attempted to sue the city of Glenwood Springs. He was objecting to a spraying program to control mosquitoes. r. Crawford did not suffer any personal harm from the spraying program - his motivation was just a tittle stranger than that. He wanted to help "the flora and fauna, fishes, fowl, insects and all things great and small". Mr. Crawford actually brought the case Into court seeking damages on behalf of the dead mosquitoes who lost their lives because of the city's insect control program. The case was thrown out of court because Mr. Crawford's arguments were "essentially cosmic" (what ever that means). 1 sincerely hoe that Mr. Crawford was literally thrown COUNTRY CORNER by Larry Dillon out of the court room too. CONCERN IS ADMIRABLE A concern for the plants and animals that inhabit the earth is an admirable quality in a person. Unfortunately, like many good things, carrying it to extremes can be stupid and harmful. Mr, Crawford's actions were stupid. We have in our own country similarly misguided individuals engaged in equally stupid activities. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a division which is assigned to watch the activities of extremist groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, a group which uses violence to gain public attention for their cause. The practices and beliefs of vegetarians in our society are an acceptable expression of individual rights. The vegetarians in the Animal Liberation Front and in similar groups carry vegetarian beliefs and animal welfare beliefs to harmful extremes. These extremists have been responsible for Violent commando style raids on meat packing plants and research centres in Ontario. ENOUGH PROBLEMS The injury of innocent people and the destruction of private property are some of the methods used to achieve their aims. Today's farmers have enough problems, without having to worry about terror groups like the Animal Rights . Militia attacking them. The problem is not as remote as we would like to think. it can also appear in areas we would not expect. A representative,of the Ontario Pork Producers told me of a public school in a nearby city where one of the teachers is alleged to have started morning classes by asking each student what kind of "dead animal" their parent's "forced" them to eat for supper the previous evening. The teacher was trying to express a personal belief about the rights of animals. In this case, carrying that belief to extremes interfered with the beliefs and rights of the individual students and their families. The teacher's actions were a deliberate attempt to hurt, inconvenience and ridicule the students and families who were not vegetarians. ALARMED The farming community is becoming alarmed by these outrageous incidents. The Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board has reacted by conducting a number of public meetings to voice its side of the story. it has participated with the various levels of government and with the humane society in developing a code of practice for proper treatment of farm animals. it has even developed information.packages-.for distribu' tion to the school systems. The reaction of the farming community cannot be as strong as the actions of the extremists without making the farmers the villains. Farmers will have to tolerate these humaniacs, and hope such groups continue to make fools of themselves like Mr. Crawford did. With any luck the RCMP will catch up with the most violent of them before they can do too much damage.