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4-- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tues. November 15, 1983 comments editorial \) " Well, how be | Just leave my card ? : gs J a. chatterbox by John B. McCleliand MORE METRIC A reader in his letter to the Star this week (see op- posite page) takes me to task slightly for my ideas on the metric system put forward in this column last week. I'want to make it clear I am not against Canada go- ing metric where necessary for international trade, etc. As I said last week, it makes good business sense for any company trying to trade overseas to be well vers- ed in metric. What I am against is the forced metrication of every facet of Canadian life from the weigh scales in the cor- ner grocery to the gas pumps, the weather forecast and the road signs. This total and forced metrication has been a waste of a lot of money. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why the entire country must go metric, without a choice in the matter. Forcing me to buy gasoline by the litre, grapes by the kilo, and peanut butter by the gram is not going to help some businesses sell products in metric to another country. That's my point. Enough said. CHRISTMAS I love the Christmas season: the feelings of good- will and friendship, the significance to the Christian churches, the fact that often it is the only time of the year people can get together with family and relatives, the look on the faces of my children as they go to bed Christmas Eve with all kinds of magical visions danc- ing in their heads, the wide excitement as they see the tree next morning. And like most people, Christmas brings back some very special memories of my own childhood; memories that are still so vivid it's like they just happened last week. . I like Christmas. I'm the last person in the world to be a '*bah-humbug Scrooge type" about this special day of the year, but I am fed up with commercializa- tion that starts November 1, a full eight weeks before the event. Here it is not even the middle of November, and already I've had my fill of Christmas ads on the tube, in magazines and so on. I look the other way when walk- ing by a Christmas window display in the shops. Much of the Christmas shopping in our family has already been completed. Do you know that people can do their Christmas shopping in shorts, t-shirts and sneakers? They drive to the stores with the top down in their cars. They hurry to get shopping done on a Saturday morning so they can have the rest of the day to play tennis or go golfing or take a boat ride. It's taking all the fun and the mystique out of Christmas. I agree it's nice to plan ahead, but I just can't get in the mood for shopping unless there's lots of snow on the ground and cold enough for gloves, parka and scarf. . Even though I fear I'm now in the minority, I refuse tolift a finger on Christmas shopping or preparation un- til at least December 1, more likely December 15. I'm not a last minute shopper out of laziness. It's just my way of silent protest of the Christmas season which starts November 1, about six weeks too early. These same arguments get bandied back and forth every year, to no avail. The people who really control Christmas -- the giant retailers, the whiz kids in the ad _ business -- they have no intention of letting up. They say Christmas starts in November and so it does. I know a guy who does his Christmas shopping in Janury to take advantage of the half-price sales. He's pretty smug about it too, telling me how much money he saves, chiding me for paying top price just before Christmas. OK, that's fine for him. I feel sorry that the biggest charge he seems to get out of Christmas is saving a few lousy dollars by shopping 11 months ahead. That's a pretty utilitarian approach to a very magical time of year. Anyway, the eight week Christmas season doesn't put a damper on the way I feel about the special day itself. I just ignore it all and pretend it's still October, or maybe March. By the way, there's just 33 shopping days left. Yikes, I'd better get moving or the shelves will be bare. GOOD INVESTMENT What a person stops breathing due to choking, heart attack, suffocation, electrocution, it takes under six minutes for the brain to die from lack of blood and oxygen. : Cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a life- saving technique designed to stimulate a heart beat and get a victim breathing again. Learning CPR takes about five hours under the direction of a qualified instructor. That's a pretty small investment in time for 'something that could save the life of your baby daughter, your spouse, your grandfather, a friend, or a complete stranger on a street corner. "A new organization, Durham Save-A-Heart has undertaken the ambitious goal over the next few years of seeing that one in five residents of this Region knows CPR. The organization will be offering the course here in Port Perry before the end of the year. You may never have to use that training, but when and if the time ar- rived, the knowledge and skills of CPR could mean the difference between life and death. Let's hope as many people as possible from here take the opportunity to learn CPR this year, and again when the course is offered next year. Five hours to learn how to save a life. What have you got to lose? Get in touch with the Save-A-Heart organization by calling 571-1152 in Oshawa. Someday, somebody may thank you very much. Just Plain Stupid If the so-called peace movement in this country wants to gain support for its anti-nuclear protests, it took a giant step backwards November 11 by insisting on a confrontation with the Royal Canadian Legion over the use of the poppy in protest literature and by holding a demonstration at a memorial to Canadian war dead. The Legion, quite understandably was aghast to see the poppy being used in protest literature. Aside from the fact the poppy is copy-righted property of the Legion and cannot be used without permission, it quite simply has no place in anti-war or anti-nuclear protests. It is a symbol to the memory of brave Canadians who died fighting for this country and freedom. November 11 is Remembrance Day, the one day of the year that ordinary Canadians pause for a moment to remember the sacrifice and pay tribute to the war dead. An anti-nuclear, anti-war protest at 11:00 A.M. on that day at a cenotaph in Toronto is totally un-called for, and nothing more than an invitation to confrontation. The peace movement in this country generally has a credibility problem. No matter how well intentioned, there are a lot of people who look on the movement as just a bunch of rabble rousers, motivated by politics as much as anything else, radicals with nothing better to do with their time. This is not the case as there are many, many reasonable, rational level-headed people involved in the cause of peace and the reduction of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, when a group insists like it did last week on pushing the Legion to the wall over the poppy, all the people in the movement are smeared with the same brush. The decisions made by that group last week were just plain stupid, a major set-back in credibility for all who work in the name of peace. They wanted a confrontation and they got it. Now, they may be facing a law suit for using the poppy without Legion permission. As for the legitimate crusaders who want to see a halt to the nuclear madness in this world, they should put a lot of distance between themselves and the radical group of rabble rousers. It's too bad a few of them are Drunks The statistics are chilling. Nearly 50 per cent of fatal accidents in Canada in- volve the use of alcohol. In the past decade, more than 20,000 Canadians have lost their lives in traffic accidents where one or more of the drivers involved had been drinking. That total, by the way, is about one-third of the number of Canadians who lost their lives In six years during the last war. The number of people seriously injured, some of them for life is stunning. The property damage runs into the hundreds of millions. The grief, heart-ache and mour- ning for lost loved ones just can't be calculated. For all of these reasons and more, we note with in- terest that federal justice minister Mark MacGuigan an-- nounced last week that stiffer legislation may be on the way for those who insist and persist in drinking and driving. One aspect of that legislation could be a life-time ban on driving against a drunk involved in an accident causing loss of life or serious injury. Already, critics are saying that such a ban would be almost impossible to enforce, as it is estimated that in Toronto alone, some 40,000 people whose licences have been suspended get bshind the wheel every day. So be it. Enforcement would be a major problem to be sure. And no doubt some lawyer would challenge such penalties under the Constitution as cruel and unusual punishment. However, as MacGuigan says quite correctly, the problem of drunk drivers Is one of the most serious social issues facing Canada in the 1980's. Quite simply, cur- rent laws and their applications are not having the desired effects in keeping the drunks off the roads. Heavier fines, jail sentences for repeat offenders, longer licence suspensions, even the impounding of vehicles may be needed to impress on people that socie- ty will no longer tolerate the drunk driver, even the *'once- in-a-lifetime mistake." Some European countries, especially those in Scan- dinavia have imposed what look like Draconian measures to get people to stop drinking and driving. And they've worked. : Why hasn't Canada done the same thing? A com- bination of tougher laws and better education are a step to reducing the needless carnage on our highways.