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4 The Canadian State man, Bowmanville, December 27, 1978 Editorial Comment Ho Ho and Humbug Here we are on Christmas night economist willcome out with a much trying to write thought-provoking more optimistic forecast. We've editorials while groaning from too found over the years that the bigger much turkey and snow shovelling the economists, the less likely they and wondering if we'll be able to get are to agree with each other. out of the back parking lot where the We at The Canadian Statesman snow is drifting in tþe wind. The hope to have a big celebration next white stuff looked so pretty this year to mark the 125th anniversary morning on the trees and in the of this newspaper's humble begin- backyard, sort of real Christmasy nings back in 1854. We're not quite like you see on those scenic cards sure of the date that it began so we'll that do the rounds every year with a probably settle for some time in the horsedrawn cutter going down the spring when weather conditions road amidst the colorful lights. It have improved. Unfortunately, we was beautiful until we decided to dig don't have a copy of the first edition out the driveway and the snow. that we could reproduce to show blower wouldn't work and it had to what it looked like in those days, but be done by shovel. we'll do our best to come as close as Oh well, it's winter and we've been we can. It must have been a real lucky so far but why it all had to land chore every week to pick each letter this morning when there wasn't a of type out of a specially designed hope of getting anyone to remove it, drawer or case and assemble it in a we'll never know. Now, we can't composing stick and when it had help wondering what's going to hap- been printed, distribute it back into pen Tuesday morning when the staff individual compartments, ready for members drive in and have to aban- next time. That was long before they don their cars all over the back lot had Linotype machines and the prin- because of the drifts. Maybe they ters of those days would certainly just won't show up. We wouldn't have looked upon today's high speed blame them too much. electronic machines as miracles, But, enough of this moaning, which indeed they are. But, they things could be worse, the snow published a paper every week and could have arrived a month ago and our hats are off to them. Mind you, be piled up several feet high instead there weren't any pictures as we see of just a foot or two. and expect today, just reading Let's change the subject to New material with tiny headings. And we Year's and good old '79 that's just suppose the subscribers in those around the corner corne next Mon- days probably read the local news day. We see where the new chief of with as much interest as today, the Conference Board of Canada, maybe more because there wasn't whatever that is, is predicting the television or radio to distract them. new year will bring worse unem- But, now we must go and end this ployment, continued inflation and rambling. We hope everyone had as below potential econo mic growth. good a Christmas as we did, in spite He's a 36 year old pessimist named of the complications, and that good Thomas Maxwell who isn't likely to old '79 will be filled with happiness improve his popular ty with the and a reasonable measure of federal government with such prosperity. Frankly, we're just glad predictions, especially with an elec- to be alive and comparatively tion coming up next year. We can healthy. There's a lot to be said for only hope he's wrong and within the it. Happy New Year! next few days another foremost Get Tough on Bad Drivers Row of Birch Trees Near Mos!ort Sugaekran Se Some Week YW Other than the car drivers who are going to be hit hard by new regulations, we think the vast majority of Ontario citizens will be pleased to learn that times are going to be tougher for those who endanger their lives and the lives of other drivers and passengers. The recent changes to the High- way Traffic Act mean t at motorists who are convicted three or more times for impaired driving will face a mandatory three-year suspension of their driver's licence. It had previously been an automatic three month suspension on first conviction and mandatory six-mnth suspen- sions on the second an subsequent convictions. Truck drivers who often seem to be playing tag with each other on the highways will now have to find other ways to relieve their monotony because the new rules forbid them from following any v hicle closer than 60 metres when travelling at more than 60 kilometres an hour. Hopefully, this will eliminate or reduce a considerable amount of tailgating. There's anotherI sensible regulation that will permit motorists A cartoon which appeared a few years ago on the front page of the Manchester Guardian Weekly is a challenge to the rehigious sentimen- tality some of us indulge in at this tîme of the year. There are two figures in the foreground -- Santa Claus and a small boy. Santa has been reading to the boy from a book which is identified on its cover as "The Christmas Story." Santa has a puzzled expression on his face, and we can understand his puzzlement when we read the cartoon's caption to make a left hand turn on a red light when the driver is turning from a one way street onto another. We've often wondered why this hasn't been allowed previously because it ap- peared to be just as logical as a right hand turn in similar circumstances. There are other changes making it easier for police to close highways in emergencies and allowing aircraft to make emergency landings and take off again without dismantling the plane, but they don't apply to most of us. Now, if it were only possible to provide those who drink and drive with some device that would automaticallyclose off their swallowing apparatus when they have reached a certain point, there wouldn't be any need for all these regulations. But, in this day and age when alcohol, drugs and sex seem to be increasing in popularity as though they were new discoveries, we suppose the mandatory use of such devices, if there were any, might be considered contrary to the Bill of Rights. Now we can expect the new regulations to fill the courts with banned drivers who continue to drive. which indicates that the boy has just asked him, "And how did it end?" In the cartoon's background we see the answer to that question -- a large cross in silhouette, with a man hanging from it. Not a very Christ- masy drawing. Not the kind of thing we put on Christmas cards, but it does make the point that the Christ- mas story should not be isolated from the rest of the story of Jesus Christ. Christmas was not celebrated in the Church before the second half of Well, it's been quite a week. I've been on TV, twice; I've slipped on the ice, fallen and sprained my wrist; and I've had an operation on mnynotse. I was terrific on TV, or so they tell me. Itmissed it.dThe chap who did the interview told me when it would appear, and I promptly forgot. I called him to ask whether it would be shown again, and he told me when. I made a special trip home at 1 p.m. to see it. It had been shown at twelve noon. My wife was furious. I was just as glad. If I'd seen it, I might have quit my job and run off to Hollywood, there to become just another ambitious starlet, subject to the whims of casting directors and other such vermin. As for spraining my wrist, I won- der if it weren't a psychological ploy. I was halfway through marking the pre-Christmas exams, and my mmd was beginning to crack. I'd begun wondering whether the students and I had been reading the same plays and stories. One student, dealing with a story set in South Africa, had a moose in- volved. A moose. In South Africa. Another informed me that Lady Macbeth, the great, darksmurderess of Shakespear's play, was sweet and kind at first, and we sort of liked her, but she got mean later. Frankly, when I slipped on the ice and fell, I wouldn't be surprised if I deliberately let my wrist fold under me, hoping it would break. At any rate, I whimpered around for several days, claiming I could mark no more papers with a broken wrist, until an unsympathetic doctor in- formed me it was a mild sprain. I didn't whimper on the operating table. I just groaned and grunted with agony. First, the doctor covered my eyes with various towels and things, so I couldn't see the needle and the scalpel approaching. I gritted my teeth so hard a filling fell out. Ever had a needle in the nose? Don't, if you can help it. Tell them to knock you out with a total. I've had them in every portion of my anatomy, and the nose is Number One, except perhaps for the shot the fourth century. Apparently some Christian leaders were uneasy about a festival being established at the time of the traditional pagan mid- winter festivals, such as the Roman Saturnalia. (Perhaps some of the good citizens of Rome complained about the sneakiness of the Christians in trying to "rehigionize" the Saturnalia). Easter was the great central festival from the earliest days of the Church. It proclaimed that the crucifixion did not mark the end of the mission of Jesus, but, rather, that it marked a new beginnng. from the dentist in the front upper gum. There is, though, something mildly intriguing when the doctor says, "You have very tough skin on your nose, for some reason." This, while he's sewing you up, and snip, snipping the loose ends of plastic thread. The whole thing didn't hurt any more than a smash in the face with a knuckle-duster. At any rate, Il never again to able to say, scornfully, "It's no skin off my nose." However, I had lots of fun with the nose. L went straight from the operating table back to school, and the students, understandably, were fascinated. "Hoo hitcha, sir?" Told them they should see the other guy. "Jer wife get violent at THIS hour in the morning?" No, I told them quietly, it happened the night before., "What happened, sir?" "I had my nose bobbed, Debbie. My wife has been complaining for years that she can't kiss me properly, because of that big nose, so I had a chunk removed. Told another group that my nose had been smashed into ground ear- thworm texture by the Gestapo in World War Il, and theesteel braces inserted by an eminent British surgeon to give it a semblance of shape had finally rusted, and been removed. To another class I stated solemnly that my big, hooked nose had always bothered me, as being short or fat or riddled with acne bothers other people, that I'd finally decided to do something about it, and that if they could wait until next Monday, when the stitches came out, they'd'find I had a charming, turned-up nose with round nostrils through which they could peer and see my brain lur- ching around. To still another class I suggested that a hyena had escaped from the nearest zoo, pushed in our unlocked cellar window, crept up the stairs in the middle of the night, and bitten off my nose at the roots. A very large bandage on a very large nose made any of these stories acceptable, and the more far- There can be no doubting that when Christmas was adopted as a special celebration of the Church it was viewed in the light of Easter, the festival of the resurrection of Jesus. It is not enough at Christmastime for Christians simply to concentrate their attention on the infant Jesus, the Babe in the Manger. They must also remember that the man Jesus brought his purpose and his mission into final focus in his death on the cross and in his resurrection. Christmas isolated by sentimen- tality is, in the long run, Christmas made irrelevant for faith. fetched the story, the better it went over. I do believe I received the most compassionate looks from the kids to whom I suggested that I'd had to have the nose amputated because I'd bent so close to a pound of hamburger, looking for some meat in it, that a rat had leaped out of it, nailed me on the nose, and I'd had to have it cut off because of possible cyrhosis of the liver from a rat bite. I told them no nose is good nose, and they agreed. Golly blue, this isn't ruch of a A, corner Winter's crown Beautiful snow, Falling below - Mystical treasure of white; Earth you adorn This glowing morn, With wondrous jewels so bright. Diamonds so clear, Sequins are here, Shining like gems in a crown. Snowflakes still stray, Who Runs Y( R. Alan Hay, executive director of the Ontario Hospital Association, clarifies some important points about ownership and control of the hospital in our community. Here are his words: Who runs your community hospital?i Nine out of ten Canadians would probably reply, "the government." Although the government has the responsibility for financing the health system through OHIP (On- tario Hospital Insurance Program) premiums and tax revenues, it is still the community hospital boards that have the legal responsibility for the operation of hospitals and the quality of care provided in them. Community Hospitals are self- governing, non-profit corporations which operate under The Publie Hospitals Act and The Corporations Act. Each hospital prepares its own bylaws approved by the Lieutenant- Governor in Council. The ownership of the property of a public hospital is vested in the hospital corporation, not in the ministry of health . . . although the ministry does own and operate On- tario Psychiatric Hospitals. Hospital boards are made up of trustees, sometimes known as "directors" or "governors", generally members of the local community, who are elected at the annual meeting of the hospital association by members of the cor- poration. Membership in the corporation is usually open to the community, usually on payment of a nominal fee. The average hospital board has Christmas column, is it? Oh, well, Christmas is a big pain in the arm, anyway. Beginning as a pagan celebration, it has passed through a spiritual celebration, based on T doubtful birthday of Our Lord Jesus, right back to a pagan rite based on advertising, materialisro and turkeys, of all things. Anyway, try to have a happy one, everybody, and we'll try to do the same. It's the best we all can do in these perilous times. for Poets Snowflakes still play, As they drift lazily down. God of the white, God of the light, Giver of Glorious sheen. On this fair day, Father, we pray, O may the Giver be seen. Bertha P. VanderArk our Hospital? about 20 memners. Some boards have ex-officio members represen- ting municipal government, local industry, the hospital auxiliary, hospital medical staff or service clubs. Hospital trustees receive no remuneration from the hospital cor- poration for the work they do on behalf of the hospital. (Editor's note: some board members are paid on a per meeting basis by the municipal governments they represent). Although community hospital boards have the legal responsibility for the operations of their in- stitutions and the quality of care, trustees exercise a strictly "direc- toral" role. They are not involved in the day-to-day running of the hospital. The board delegates this managerial responsibility to the professional hospital administrator. The administrator, in turn, ap- points other senior staff to exercise control over nursing, pharmacy, dietary, housekeeping and all other areas. It is the board's job to grant hospital privileges to physicians who demonstrate the required com- petence to practise in the hospital. The board then relies on reports from the hospital's medical advisory committee to oversee the medical care organization within the hospital. The partnership between indepen- dent community hospitals, physicians and government has enabled us, in Ontario, to have free access to a standard and range of care unequalled anvwhere in the world. Wingham Advance Times Beyond Christmas Sentimentality