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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2005 GRAPEVIN < Ey KATIMAVIK KID Acton's Kira Larsen, 19, is on the adventure of her young life with Katimavik -- a youth volunteer ser- vice program based on the concept of service learning, incorporating personal and professional develop- ment. Kira left last Wednesday for Weyburn, Saskatchewan for an orientation session, and will spend the next nine months in Hawkes- bury, Ontario and Cheticamp, Nova Scotia. Participants get job and life experience working on community projects, and also receive training in leadership, official languages, environment, cultural discovery and healthy living. : LENTEN JOURNEY Trinity United Church invites all ages to begin the journey in Lent and celebrate Ash Wednesday on Febru- ary 9 at the Mill Street church. A light supper will be served at 6 p.m., with the Worship service at 7 p.m. Crafts made by children and adults -- cocoons, butterflies and a hallelujah banner -- will be used in the service. ACTON IMPORTANCE Tory voters in Acton are on the leading edge when it comes to decid- ing which provincial PC candidate will be sent to Queens Park. During the Wellington-Halton Hills riding association annual gen- eral meeting at the arena/community hall on Saturday, party stalwarts noted parts of the recently redrawn riding with active party members are "light." Acton is in good shape, and im- portant to the big picture according to Halton MPP Ted Chudleigh, who noted that since 1975, whoever won Acton, won the riding. YUK YUK Former Acton High School grad Jeff McEnery will make a return performance as a member of the Yuk Yuk's amateur comedy troop for a February 17 fundraiser at the school. The event will help the school's concert and jazz bands pay for their May trip to New Orleans, Louisi- ana. : McEnery, who graduated last year, credits his Acton High drama teacher Miss Jen Ross for encouraging his love of performance, especially improv. When school officials approached Yuk Yuks about staging a fundraiser and found out that McEnery was available, they booked him right away. : Tickets for the fundraiser are available at the school, at Prosper- ity One, Home Hardware and Al's Barbershop. BANDSHELL PLAN The results of soil boreholes drilled in Prospect Park last week will help determine if the Rotary Club of Acton can proceed with a" proposal to build a bandshell/amphi- theatre near the end of the "point." In December, Rotary officials approached Town staff with their proposal to build the bandshell as a Rotary Centennial project. Rotary was given permission to have the boreholes drilled, work necessary be- fore the service club could complete the conceptual design of the structure and finalize cost estimates. While noting that the project has no status with the Town at this time, staff said they support the initiative, subject to receipt of three items --a letter detailing Rotary's role in recovering all costs, an insurance certificate from a geotechnical consultant naming the Town as an additional insured and a business "plan. MURDER MYSTERY Rehearsals are underway for the next production from the Acton Old Town Hall Dinner Theatre group. It's a murder mystery called The Final Cut and will be staged on March 5, in the old fire hall at the Acton Town Hall. Tickets are on sale for the perfor- mance -- they've sold out in the past --at Halton Hills Furniture, the BIA office and Home Hardware. The $40 price includes a buffet dinner, catered by Tanner Restaurant. The Old Town Hall Dinner The- atre Group has also been invited to stage another murder mystery at the Mohawk Inn on March 19. PEEWEES PLAY Peewee players from across South- _ ern Ontario will converge on Acton arena tomorrow (Friday) for the start of what is billed as the oldest Peewee hockey tournament in Ontario. Twenty-two teams, including seven Acton House League Peewee teams, will meet in round robin play, beginning with the 35th ceremonial puck drop at 6:45 p.m. on Friday, and continuing on Saturday. ~ Acton Kinsmen will fire up their BBQ, and there will be puck tosses and a raffle at the tournament that wraps up with the championship and consolation games on Sunday. WOMEN'S BREAKFAST The Victory Singers from Free- dom Village, USA, a program for troubled American teens, will entertain at the annual Women's Breakfast on Saturday, February 12 at Bethel Christian Reformed Church. Proceeds from the breakfast are earmarked for small group lead- ership development at the Acton church. ACTON ALANON . The Acton Alanon Family Group has a new location for its weekly Wednesday night closed meetings. The meeting for the voluntary self-help fellowship for people 'concerned with someone else's drinking will be held at Trinity United Church at 8 p.m. Alanon also meets weekly at 1:30 p.m. at St. Joseph Church For more information call 1-800- 891-4862 HISTORICAL AGM Once members of the Esquesing Historical Society take care of busi- ness at their annual general meeting on February 9, former Society presi- dent, historian John MacDonald, will give a presentation on the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that swept the world. : All are welcome to the free méet- ing at Knox Church, Georgetown THE NEW TANNER crafted.-Julie Conroy photos. MINIATURE PRESENTATION: The pre- sentation of miniature houses and cottages by the Omega club at the Acton Seniors Centre on Janury 18 created a lot of inter- est in the workmanship and imagination which went into the various display (top) a. Frank Bellenger, right, shows a miniature of a Tudor home in England that he has As usual, the nay-sayers and American bashers were totally wrong. Last weekend Iraqis turned out in the millions to vote. Despite murderous terrorist attacks and threats of further violence, Iraqis clearly demonstrated that they look forward to control over their own future. The extensive cover- age I saw didn't indicate to me that the ordinary people saw their liberation from Saddam as being an unjust war. Those of us who. grew up free don't really appreciate it. The Iraqi election reminded me of the historic first election in South Af- rica. I recall an elderly black lady voting for the first time in her life and being so excited. She stood for hours in brutally hot temperatures to make her mark for Nelson Man- della. We saw similar scenes in Iraq last Sunday. Some people walked 13 miles and more to vote. People who voted couldn't hide the fact. One of their fingers was marked with indelible ink after they cast their ballots. I guess you could say they were giving "the finger" to the terrorists and nay-sayers who said this election would never work. Our mostly anti-American press forecast a bloodbath with less than 25% turnout. At this writing it ap- pears that between 60 and 70% of eligible Iraqi voters turned out. There were some attacks on poll- ing stations, about 50 of them. There were eight suicide bombers but Iraqi security agents kept them well back from the polling places. About 40 Iraqis were murdered by terrorists on election day. No won- der Iraqis want to rid their country of this scum. No wonder they're grateful to the American/British coalition which has started them down the road to freedom. Winston Churchill referred to the D-Day landings as "The end of the beginning." That's where I see Iraq to-day. The countrys's three main factions, Kurds, Shiite and Sunnis, ate miles apart. Old hatreds and mistrust lurk just below the surface. Civil war. is a real possibility. For these reasons American forces won't be coming home anytime further training before they can properly defend the new Iraq. Still to be determined is what the ey Iraq constitution will look like. soon. Iraqi army and forces need . fi Freedom on the March! The Way | | See It with Mike O'Leary Undoubtedly, Muslim clerics will play a bigger role than religious figures do in western countries. I see Iraq voting to establish a secular country rather than a theocracy. I doubt the people of Iraq will want to live under a repressive regime like their neighbours in Iran. And given the well publicized jubilation by Afghanis over the overthrow of the Taliban, why would anyone, other than the most radical want to move from one form of dictatorship to another? It would be a mistake, however, for the west to assume the Iraqis will choose a mirror government to ours. I believe we share basic human wants and desires but the way we expect to achieve effective governance is markedly different. And there's nothing the matter with that. The Iraqis, and only the Iraqi people, have the right to choose their method of government. That's what democracy is all about after all. I wonder if the French, Germans and Russians will now join the coalition rebuilding Iraq? There's still lots of bloody work to be done. Their hope that the Americans would fail, and the lucrative trade deals they had with Saddam would survive, is fast fading. If they want on the bandwagon at all they'd bet- ter hop on soon. The election in Iraq is much more important in the Arab world than the one in Afghanistan. Firstly, the Americans didn't appear to be as much in control in Iraq as they did in Afghanistan. Secondly, Iraq is a much bigger, more diverse country. With both Iraq and Afghanistan vot- ing for democracy, the other Arab nations must be getting nervous. Other than Israel, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, the rest of the Arab world lives mostly in poverty and oppression. In today's electronic world those downtrodden masses will see the Iraqi people gain their freedom. Soon they will begin to wonder why they too can't live in freedom. Democracy, once it takes root, spreads like a benevolent weed. I expect Iraqis, once they get their country on track, to help spread the democratic ideal to their Arab brethren. I realize that sounds idealistic but hope is the fertilizer that grows strong democracies. I prefer to look for a positive out- come rather than be a pessimist. We will never defeat radical re- ligious terrorism by force of arms alone. The spread of democracy to oppressed people is a much more effective weapon. People who have the opportunity to work and raise their families in peace have no incentive to become suicide bomb- ers or crash planes into buildings. In this way to democratization of Afghanistan and Iraq is very much a war on the root cause of terror. President Bush looked very happy last Sunday when he spoke to the world about the election. Bush's recent re-election pretty well guarantees that the march to freedom in the Arab world will continue. If successful in the great- er scope, and millions of oppressed peoples gain freedom, President Bush may well go down in his- tory as the best American wartime president ever. Don't forget that as well as the Arab states there are other brutal regimes in the far East and South America that may get caught in the juggernaut. I'm not saying that will happen but I do enjoy the thought of the many Bush haters in this country going apoplectic as they read about the possibility. I was surprised to see that Iraqi- Americans who lived in New York had to travel to Washington to vote. Wouldn't you think the United Nations would have had a polling station? On the other hand, the election was conducted by Iraqi organizations. I can understand them not wanting to have anything to do with the group that defended the former dictator who murdered more than a million of their rela- tives, friends and countrymen to say nothing of the Iranians and] Saudis killed during his wars. We}. won't even think about innocents murdered by Saddam's support of terrorism. No, I don't think the Iraqis think this was an unjust war. I, for one, will take their word for it. Ss