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SLA ry Se SE TX SR JE. Yi RSF TP Sant 3 . ~ - ¥, = 4 - my hp, Sent WP Ng tN PED SEY SF wy ~~ - GE a a XD PA SE Lym 5 -- ) ~ dd ea es C2 ax a) J hs Rd Gu ~ - Say ~ « wT ay dh SI pbs STE TA TA se SR BEC os Sr = >t % op te RRA . Street. Los 88 MoS '] 3 ~ daar Fal Ne editorial poge Why All The Fuss There are a couple of topics getting a lot of criticism in the last week or two. The first was the annual Santa Claus parade held Sunday in Toronto, sponsored of course by a major department store in that city that has something of a vested interest in Christmas. Well, like everything else in this country these days, the parade attracted its share of criticism because, the critics said, it was too early in the season, too much in advance of the Christmas season and just a ploy to get people to start shopping and spending earlier. : : Come on, now. The decision people make as to when or how or how much they spend on Christmas shopping is hardly dependent on whether a parade is held in the first week of November or two weeks later. The commercialization of Christmas happen- ed long ago and the date of the parade in itself is not going to do anything to reverse that trend. Besides, the Santa Claus parade is for the enjoy- ment of children. The youngsters who lined the route Sunday afternoon watched in comfort in warm sunshine, rather than standing there freezing and sniffling and catching cold on a miserable day in December. The harping about the date of the parade and all this nonsense about the exploitation of the Christmas spirit is just one more small example of how Canada has turned into a nation of critics. We are not happy, it seems, unless we are crying about something, no matter how small, insignificant and foolish it all sounds. It would be a pity if we had something to really complain about. The second incident was the recent decision by a Toronto judge to "sentence'" Rolling Stone Keith Richards to a one year suspended sentence and have him give a benefit performance for the blind. Richards pleaded guilty to a possession of narcotics and had a second, more serious charge of trafficking, dropped. Well, the critics immediately said it was hypo- critical, that Richards had 'bought' his freedom, that he should have been thrown in the slammer, and that blind people and their national organizations were somehow being degraded if they accepted any money from this benefit performance. Nonsense. Throwing Keith Richards in the slammer would not have served justice. He is an addict (or reformed one) not a pusher of drugs on the The benefit concert is a way of forcing Richards to make a positive contribution to the betterment of society. The gross revenue from a Rolling Stone concert will be in excess of $100,000. If the CNIB or its membership is feeling a little squeamish about accepting this rather large sum of money from a rather unusual source, it should back off. There are no doubt dozens of equally worthwhile public organizations that would accept the money gladly, and find a darn good use for it. If the critics want to carp about something, they should see to it that the courts-and legal system force the Rolling Stone to comply with the terms of his sentence quickly and in good faith to insure that every penny goes where it is supposed to go, and the dollars don't end up getting skimmed off by a bunch of promoters and middle men. Oops!!! Was there a bit of a lack of communications here? Was somebody not doing their homework? Seems that Scugog council got caught sitting on its hands over the annual deer hunt in the Township, which got underway on Monday and ended today (Wednesday). LA TESA FFA CLR WT Foonf Ny EUR Xs REY : els NA Mle wl Nx s 3 RY SPE : Ay Um aile Council thought that just because it wasn't told by # Natural Resources ahead of time, there would thus be no deer hunt in Scugog this fall. Not so. The hunt was planned all along, and the council was indeed informed, by letter back in February. That letter was included in the council agenda February 28, and the minutes of that meeting record that it was duly received and filed. . Well, February was a long time ago, or course. Maybe the Natural Resources office should have" informed the Township in the last couple of weeks that the hunt was going ahead, especially in light of the fact that there have two letters in front of council in the past few weeks complaining about the hunt and the invasion of private property. Knowing the stink this hunt raises every year, it is little wonder that it wasn't advertised on the front pages of the newspapers. But that is water under the bridge now. * The hunt has come and gone and damage (if any) or trespass on private property has been done. Too bad. (N1] NP --_---- --~ STILL STRANDED AF THIRD J --~ 72 7 i: 7 / 7% hn Hea Wl 27 / = bill LEAVE US ALONE WHY can't the big brutal world out there leave us little guys alone to get on with the difficult-enough business of living: putting on the storm windows, changing into the snow tires, digging out last winter's rubber boots with the hole in? Not a chance. It's always showing a ham-fisted hand into the delicate machinery of our daily lives. Today I received a summons to appear in court in the city to answer to a charge of illegal parking, with all the *" to wits" and "whereases'" and ~ threats that accompany such blackmail. And that's what it is - blackmail. I haven't been in the city for four months, I don't even own a car in my own name, and I certainly was not hanging around disreputable Par- liament St. on that occasion or any other, with or without a car. Oh, but I have a choice. If I don't want to travel to the city at considerable expense to plead innocent, or have a lawyer represent me at considerably more expense, I can just BT smiley plead guilty by mail and send along $7.80. But dammit, I'm innocent. So what ddI do? Lose a day's pay, spend the money to get there and back, just to prove to some frumpy traffic court that I'm as pure as the driven snow? Or take the chicken way out, and pay therap? That's blackmail, brother. A month ago, in came a bill from National Revenue, stating that I owed them several hundreds of dollars plus interest. No explanations, just a bald statement, accom- panied by the usual dire warnings of the consequences, if I don't ante up. More blackmail. I don't mind paying my bills. Well, I mind, but I pay them. But these mindless, inhuman, computerized attempts to make me feel like a criminal merely succeed in making me sick. Down in Ottawa, the waffling and weaving and ducking and bobbing go on, ministers fall like autumn leaves, and nobody lets the left side of his mouth know what the right side is saying. Trudeau, after losing a dozen able mini- sters in the last half-dozen years, totters along with a turncoat Tory, Jack Horner, insensitive arrogancies like Otto Lang and political retreads like Bryce Mackasey, who, as I recall "solved" the last postal strike in only six weeks. And His Emminence floats among these lesser fish like an octopus past his prime, still dangerous, still slippery, but given to emitting squirts of ink, disappearing into a hole, then tentatively thrusting out a ten- tacle to pick up the latest poll, before retreating into the rocks once again. And as if the general state of affairs weren't enough to give me a big pain in the arm, there's the local. My wife, after lugging her smashing new expensive white coat for about 10.000 miles this summer, in and out of 20 hotels, on and off countless buses and boats, trains and planes, has lost the blasted thing in her own home town. My daughter, with three degrees, is working as a file clerk, an honourable I have a brand-new set of gold clubs with which I can hit the ball twelve feet. On a clear day. With a strong tail-wind. Itell yez, b'ys, if it weren't for all them old - people, I'd be tempted to pack it all in, head vocation, but scarcely one to make the creative impulses throb. My son-in-law is looking for a job, a rather harrowing business these days. And my grandboys are out of all those fine new clothes we bought them last spring. The only thing they're not out of is energy and fiendish ability to dismantle things that electrical engineers would be afraid to touch. for Floridy, and sit on a bench in the sun, mumbling my gums. But I guess things could be worse. I've got enough money to pay that $7.80 blackmail for a non-parking parking ticket. I can fight the Feds on that mysterious assessment. I can live without the post office, though they sure know how to hurt a syndicated columnist, dependent on the mails. And just maybe, when the dollar has hit 75 cents, unemployment has hit 10 per cent, and inflation settles in two figures, we'll get sore enough to kick those tired flacks out of Ottawa. My wife will find her coat. I found my pants last year, after they'd been missing four months. They were 120 miles away, in the hall closet of my father-in-law. And there was a twenty dollar bill in the pocket. My daughter will get a job, probably as head of the CBC. My son-in-law will get a job, probably as his wife's copy and coffee boy. My grandboys will develop into great engineers. Or form a wrecking company and get rich knocking things apart. Maybe I'll stick "er out a few months yet. But I wish I could do it like the groundhogs - just fatten up, crawl into a hole and sleep until spring. N