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THE NEW TANNERTHURSDAY, MAY 03, 2018 5THE NEW TANNER THURSDAY, MAY 03, 20184 Just a thought And we're worried about chickens? sports talk By Trish Bell Oh no... it's LeBron again! By Michael Oke The New Tanner welcomes your Letters to the Editor, but, please keep in mind that letters must include the author's name, address and phone number in order for us to contact you if needed. Letters that are sent in anonymously will not be published. They may be edited for content or length. They are published as a first come first serve basis and we do not guarantee publication due to space availability. looking Back By: Scott Brooks For most basketball enthusiasts, supporting teams in the NBA's Eastern conference, any shot at the NBA title typically requires their teams to beat a team that has LeBron James on its payroll. No team without Mr. James has progressed to the NBA finals playoffs since 2010. To put this into perspective, the last time a team without LeBron won the NBA Eastern conference, Dalton McGuinty was still Premier of Ontario, Vancouver had just hosted the Winter Olympics and Drake won the New Artist of the Year category at the Juno Awards. In other words, a lot of time has passed since then. So it was understandable that all the teams in the East were hoping for an upset in the playoff series between the Cleveland Cavaliers--a.k.a. Team James--and the exciting Indiana Pacers led by Victor Oladipo. The Pacers certainly surpassed all expectations by taking this first round series to game seven. The Cavs finally pulled through and will face the Toronto Raptors in the next round, which starts this week. Now the Rap to r s , who it must be said have been punching above their weight for some time now--clinch- ing five division titles in the last 11 years--have some his- tory with the Cavs. They were knocked out in the conference finals by the team from Ohio in 2016 and got whitewashed by the same team the following year in the second round of the playoffs losing four straight games. It goes without saying that they would have preferred any other team but the Cavs. How- ever, the Cavs it's going to be. A review of the seven game series against Indiana pro- vides some insights into the approach required to over- come the Cavs. The first point is that the Raptors have to win their home games, doing these alone should guarantee their progress to the Eastern Conference finals as they have home court advantage-- games one and two as well as five and seven if required. The second tip is to reduce turnovers. This was the bane of the Raptors in their series against Washington. Thirdly, the much-revered Raptors bench needs to bring back their regular season form-- the return of Fred Van Vleet should help with this. Final- ly, the All-Star back court of Demar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, needs to show up. They cannot afford to have one bad day. All in all, I am thinking it will be third time lucky, and the Raptors should have this in six games. Let's go, Raptors! To the Editor, I should like to publicly praise the quiet Eramosa heroes who clean their neighbours' drive- ways of snow after they have struggled to do their own drive. But those big-hearted folks also are aware of others who need their help in other seasons. They drag out blue boxes too. What makes these Eramosa heroes do this? The Bible calls it love thy neighbour. This is my sincere word of ap- preciation to a deserving person. Sytske Drijber letters The views expressed in these published letters are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The New Tanner Publishing Ltd. Heartfelt thanks Discounts have always been provided by stores to give costumers a lower price on goods. Pictured are tokens from Henderson & Co. with various values-C. 1910s. Photo Credit: Dills Collection I won't l i e : t he words f ree-range conjure up an idyllic image of farms. I pic- ture happy-go-lucky farm animals--especially chick- ens--roaming freely without being subject to cramped spaces and man-determined rou t ines . And i ron ica l ly enough this image makes me feel better. The alternative seems cruel and inhumane --ironic since they are being raised for dinner, I know. Yet, I must not be alone in such thinking because any trip to the grocery store will dem- onstrate that we now market to this ideal; labels affixed to our meat products telling us that our soon to be entrée was raised in accordance with our expectations of a humane existence. To the vegans and vegetarians, such antics are too little, but to the many of us who continue to put pork on our fork--and beef and chicken--it does ease the con- science a bit as we consume our protein with less heavy hearts. So, why is it that when the same descriptors are used in relation to raising children, eyes roll, tongues wag and society seems to get its figura- tive girdle in a knot? Perhaps unlike children, who science now demonstrates need both boundar ies and f reedoms for healthy development, us grown-ups secretly like being told what to do. Sure, we don't like how it sounds, but the evidence seems pretty conclu- sive, considering we seem to need laws to tell us to get off our cell phones and not con- sume alcohol or drugs while operating motor vehicles, lest people be killed. I mean at some point perhaps the more sensible thing to do would be have all those with actual com- mon sense take a short hiatus so that the cosmos could al- low those without it to remove themselves from the gene pool. No, instead we celebrate our evolution by passing laws that tell us how to do pretty much everything. From wear- ing your seatbelt to when you can use your hydro to what pronouns you must use when raising your children, we've got so many rules keeping us so-called grownups in line, that even our kids know they call the shots. So, it is no won- der our generation helicopter parents. Why would we let our kids have sugar, get hurt and make mistakes when we can prevent all that, right? Such thinking seems to become a self-fulfilling prophecy more stress and more problems, cre- ating a never-ending need for more rules. So, it should come as no surprise that while we were all so busy having our 1.6 kids and keeping up with the Kardashians, we allowed a world to emerge in which laws are required to "allow parents the right to raise their children as they were raised." Sound crazy? Well, a Utah judge this week passed what is being deemed a "free-range" par- enting law. Basically, this first of its kind law clearly defines what does and does not consti- tute child neglect. Apparently so many do-gooders were con- tacting the police every time they saw a child walking home from the park that a law was required to actually allow par- ents the option of giving their children some freedom and responsibility. I mean some of us remember growing up by streetlight timer, Kool-aid drink, and occasional smack to the backside and despite what the powers that be would tell us, we seem to have found our way forward in this world. Even in the heights of rule- less-ness, children did endure. Where did we get i t so wrong that the chickens have our compassion more than our children? Free range does not mean free for all. But kids can't learn responsibility if we do everything for them. Sure, they wil l make mistakes. They'll get hurt. And, heaven forbid, some will not make it through to adulthood, but, I ask you, how is that out- come any different than the choreographed one we or- chestrate now? Never mind all the growth they'll gain… independence, problem solv- ing, courage, negotiating, patience, respect. Unfortu- nately, it seems the chickens might have it better.