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Basic data: Science, Discover Even more interesting is the fact that the exâ€" â€"Progressive Cc ministers involved in the purchase of Ginn from Paramount in the recall nothing of any kind of oral agreement. The entire episode stinks. As any parent of schoolâ€"aged children can acknowledge, the Canadian books and teaching materials used in our schools 1 enough, without having the country‘s major textbook company pla eign hands. The government still has the means to stop the sale and every action to do so. Heritage Minister Michel Dupuy has said the government was forced into the sale under some kind of oral agreement struck in 1989 between the Mulroney government and Paramount. The gist of this ‘deal‘ was that the feds would sell Ginn back to the U.S. firm this year. Curious then, why the government will not make public the details of a legal opinion they received on the deal. And the ministers involved, won‘t even say if the sale was discussed in cabinet. â€"EDITORIAL How embarrassing, then, for the Grits to approve the sale of Ginn while all the while saying the protection of Canadian culture was a major plank in their policy platform. j Having been caught with their nationalism down, the Liberals have been quick to jump into the fray with some damage control. Well, kind of ... If the sale had been among private companies, there would have been litâ€" tle the feds could have done. When the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA) died a terrible death under the last government, every Canadian comâ€" pany was fair game for a takeover from foreign but mostly U.S. interests. Sales were rubberâ€"stamped by Ottawa and so it went. But in the case of Ginn, the TFories, to their credit, took over the company making it a crown corporation to protect Canadian interests and retain conâ€" trol of what our students read. The theory was that Ginn could then publish texts with a Canadian slant using domestic authors and topics. The sale of the Canadian company to U.S. interests had earlier been approved. It was a good idea then and it‘s still a good idea, especially if the Canadian publishing industry cannot support the niche textbook market. Enter the new Liberal government complete with its new way of governâ€" ing using the ‘Red Book® of policies brought forth in the October election as its bible. On the face of it, most Canadians might shrug thelr collecuve shoulders and say "so what?"" A classic example of this was the recent sale of Ginn Publi Canadian company specializing in textbooks for our schools, to the United States conglomerate, Paramount Communications. ‘ ’ J hen it comes to any kind of business news, it‘s easy for the eyes of Canadians to glaze over. But when the federal government gets involved in a business that has a major impact on the country, taxâ€" payers would do well to take an interest. Ian Oliver Publisher Robert Glasbey Advertising Director Norman Alexander Editor Geoff Hill Circulation Director Teri Casas Office Manager Tim Coles Production Manager ‘O Missing Links Shoshonius More primate links, directly Ieadmg to the evolution of humans were It‘s about integrity WEEKLY FOCUS 467 Speers Road, Oakville, Ont. L6K 354 845â€"3824 Fax: 845â€"3085 Classified Advertising: 845â€"2809 Circulation: 845â€"9742 or 845â€"9743 35 80. 25. 2 Million years ago ing matérials used in our schools is minimal country‘s major textbook company placed on forâ€" the recent sale of Ginn Publishing, a â€"Progressive Conservative ‘aramount in the first place, it should take amount of ibbons Not all languages are spoken either. The deaf and the mute have sign language. Boy Scouts and aircraft carrier signalmen use semaphore. Various Indian tribes used to communicate by smoke signal. There is Morse Code, Braille, NHL referee hand signals. And there is the drum. Most of us in North America don‘t consider the drum to be a prime source of communication among human beings. For us, the drum is a loud, rather tiresome Ottawa Valley Speak is not in the top 100. Mandarin Chinese. English is second, then Hindi, Russian, and Spanish. And not just English. There are some 9,000 languages and dialects spoken around the world. The most popular is How did that come to be? Nobody knows precisely when Grok the Caveman grew tired of waving his hairy arms around and decided to use grunts, growls, and snorts to express himself, but anthropologists know that the human throat was capable of speech anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 years ago, so it‘s a safe bet that we nattered at each other for several thouâ€" sand years before somebody got a bright idea and said, "I say chaps, how be we call all these noises we‘re making ‘Enelish‘?" cLuhan was right. Every syllable of spoâ€" ken word we know, from Hamlet‘s soliloquy on the battlements to Jean Chretien‘s sound bites on Prime Time News â€" nothing but organized stutter. Language is a form of orgaâ€" nized stutter. Art of communication is as varied as the world‘s culture â€"Marshall McL.uhan PREACHER IN A GILDED PULPIT And when the muchâ€"revered President of the Ivory Coast died last year, the tribal drums throbbed out a dirge that translatâ€" ed as â€" "The great elephant has And how does a drum mesâ€" sage "read"? Not cut and dried like Morse Code. More like a soliloquy from Hamlet. West African drumspeak is highly poetic and beautiful. A plane crash translates as "a canoe that flies like a bird has fallen out of the sky." In hours, a message can sweep across thousands of miles without the benefit of telephone poles, highways, or communicaâ€" tions satellite. Very effectively, too. A good West African drummer can pound out a message that will carry for nearly 40 miles. That message will, in turn, be picked up by other drummers in all directions who will each transmit it to their "listening audience". They do in West Africa. The Akan people â€" who are found throughout the West African countries â€" have been using drums to talk with each other for centuries. But we in North America don‘t know diddleyâ€"squat about drums. quasiâ€"musical instrument employed to drown out other musicians. It owes its current popularity to Mister Ringo Starr, a largeâ€"nosed Liverpudlian, who regularly assaulted a drum kit on behalf of the Beatles. I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would say about that. It was whistling. The people on the island of Gomera speak a language of whistles called silbo. The piercing whistles carry so well across valleys (or up mountains) that a "speaker" can be heard up to five miles away. The two Canucks were masâ€" ters of suspense. They waited until I paid for a round of drinks in the ship‘s saloon before they explained. But how? How could they know? What they couldn‘t underâ€" stand was how every villager they met seemed to be expecting them. Odd, considering they were climbing a goat path and there were no roads or teleâ€" phones on their route. When they reached a village on the top of the mountain, they were astoundâ€" ed to find that the townsfolk had killed and cooked a goat in their honor. Yes, the head man told them, they‘d been expecting "two foreigners". "Bienvenido." Reminds me of my most memorable encounter with a nonâ€"spoken language. Actually, it was a secondâ€"hand encounter. I heard the story from two wanâ€" dering Canucks I met on a Spanish freighter waddling along the west coast of Africa. The two Canadians had been living on the island of Gomera â€" a tiny, volâ€" canic atoll among the Canary Islands. They told a story of climbing one of the many rugged mountains on the island. A little more majestic than "KENNEDY SHOT!" wouldn‘t you say? lost its teeth. The leopard has lost its spots. The baobab (tree) has crashed down."