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editoriol Democracy It is very difficult not to be incensed at what happened in Iran over the weekend. Students in the capital city of Tehran, apparently with the personal blessing of the Ayatolla Khomaini, seized the American embassy and 100 hostages to back demands that the deposed Shah be sent back to Iran to stand trial. As the students were occupying the embassy in ) Tehran, other Iranian students, supposedly in the United States to further their education, marched through the streets of New York City and chained themselves to the Statue of Liberty, also to demand the trial of the Shah. It is supremely ironic that while the Iranian government violates the territory of the United States by allowing occupation of the embassy in Tehran, students can at the same time march and demonstrate quite freely on American city streets. It is not hard to guess what the fate of demonstrators would be if they dared to take to the streets of Tehran in opposition to the policies of the fanatical Ayatolla. Freedom of assembly and speech is non-existent in that country, and the firing squad is the normal method for dealing with opposition. Unfortunately, this rather poignant lesson in what democracy really means will be lost in countries like Iran and countless others around the globe, where the average citizen lives under the iron fist of despotism and oppression. While it may be difficult for those of us who do enjoy the rights and privileges of democracy, not to become very angry over this situation, we should at the same time remember that peaceful demonstra- tion and assembly is part of the guarantee of democracy and a free society. In this case, it may be a tough price to pay, but it's more than worth it. Big Business - Lacking But Not Lost For a while big business appeared to be God incognito. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and above all, concerned only about the needs - later rewritten ""desires" of the faithful. The masses had merely to respond like commercial fundamentalists with unwavering, unquestioning and unthinking obedience: with a flow of unending dollars. But now the brass has tarnished. Gone the way of all imposters. Exposed as finite, corruptible, transient, human. The profits and power remain awesome. The adoration and prestige is lacking, like a rock group whose last Top 10 effort was two years past. » COE a ALERTS * ATE AI IO LAS BARE REACH IY Intentions are in doubt. American Yankelovich surveys, in 1968 70 per cent of the public agreed that "business tries to strike a fair balance between profits and the interest of the public". By 1977, only 15 per cent of the populace shared this view. The corporate salesmen knock. The farmer's .daughter responds with suspicious cynicism. Gone is the wide-eyed expectancy. There is growing concern over the amount of power that is now concentrated in the hands of a few. The skepticism compounds when the ethics of those charged with the care and feeding of the mammoth corporate beasts appears subject to reproach. In 1966, 55 per cent of Americans had a "great deal of confidence in the people running major companies." By 1978, the bottom had fallen out of the confidence market and only 23 per cent would so testify. Not surprisingly recent surveys seem to detect a According to the new willingness to limit the power of big business and a readiness to take a harder line in dealing with commercial corruption. From 1966 to 1978, the percentage of people who favoured limited that most sacred rite of the free-enterprise cult - the boosting of corporate profits - rose from 25 per cent to 55 per cent. Gasps are still being heard in boardrooms. When a man will sell his Chrysler for a Rabbit, anything might happen. Those who sit in high places grow wary. They have sent their rusting corporate image to the bodyshop, hoping that new paint and some chrome will inhibit the oxidation. But, alas, it may be too late. For once the kind has been seen without his drawers, it becomes increasingly diffi- cult to exact the old homage and adoration. 'Unchurched Editorial' United Church of Canada bill FESTIVE BLUES Remember that column I wrote last week about the glories of October? Forget it. I must have been in an euphoric mood. Reality has returned. Caught one of those deep and heavy colds that make you cough up stuff that gourmets pay for and call oysters. Had to take two days off work, first time in two years, and went back far from well, but driven from the house by my wife's solici- tude. Had the turn signals and the heating fixed on my car, reached into my pocket to pay the bill - maybe thirty-five dollars - took a look at the bill, and had to be helped into the front seat of the car. One hundred and one dollars, plus change. Approximately 30 per cent of the entire value of the car. You could buy a pretty good jalopy for that sum, not so long ago. This morning, when I looked out the window, I nearly keeled over. I can see six roofs from the bathroom, and every one of them was white. Snow! smiley Today, when I got home from work, it was hailing. And I'd forgotten to put the garbage out. Thought I'd give my wife a treat and cook the Thanksgiving dinner. She wasn't keen on a bird, as there were only the two of us. But you have to keep up traditions, like the British dressing for dinner in the jungle. And that's just what it was like. Dressing for dinner in the jungle. On the Saturday, I picked up a nice roasting chicken, about four and a half pounds. Didn't pay much attention, as it was in a plastic bag, and felt fat and juicy. Got up a bit late on Thanksgiving Day, and the stuffing was made. I usually do this, because I love experimenting with season- ings. A shot of this, a dash of that, a soupcon of something else. It usually turns out to be either pretty exotic or inedible. Anyway, she'd beaten me to it, not wanting to feel beholden. Feeling beholden is when your mate does one of your jobs, and reminds you about it for the next three years. Well, I didn't mind. But that's the easy part - the stuffing. The tough part is getting it in, and wrestling with the bird, and trussing it. You usually wind up with a mixture of butter and dressing all over you, up to the elbows and down to the knees, and a bad temper. Often you have to scrub the kitchen floor, there's so much goop on it, once you've got the beast in the oven. But I didn't mind. I've been through this sweaty struggle before, and know well the sense of triumph when the slippery monster is finally in the oven, basted in butter, and ready to start sending out that ineluctible odour of roasting fowl. This time, however, I was rather shaken when I pulled the bird out of the plastic bag and prepared for battle. It looked as though it had just come through Grade 1 of Butcher's School. All the skin was missing from the left side. It had one leg, one, stuck up at an obscene angle. The neck looked as though Jack the Ripper had been at it on one of his bad nights. And all the good guts - liver, gizzard and heart, had been stolen. These, along with the neck, are what I make my magnificent gravy from. The neck was there, all right, and as tough as the neck of a vulture. Did you ever try to truss a one-legged chicken, semi-skinned and make it come out like the usual work of art? Don't. Your heart won't be in it. I was so disturbed that I had to resort to a preprandial nerve relaxer, and this led to further disaster: the pot with the vegetables burned black, because I can't smell smoke, and my wife was upstairs, staying away from the blue air that often fills the kitchen when I am cooking. It was doubly blue this time. It will take a week of scrubbing to get the carbon off the inside of that pot. To further the jollity of the occasion, we got a call from my daughter who is teaching a thousand miles away, in the north. It was a bit like getting a call from Hades. She had a wracking cough, and had been off work for a week. Her students are "hard as nails", and there were dark rumours of wild-dog packs that will attack if you slip and fall on the ice, and wild-dog kids who will do the same. She was so lonely she could scarce hang up the phone. She has to walk a mile and a half, in windy weather, to get anti-biotics from the doctor. She is horrified that she gets only a little more than half her pay cheque when all the deductions are made. Hah! After years of being a student, living on loans and grants (and handouts from us) she has entered the chill world of capitalism and income taxes. But it wasn't all black. That one-legged chicken didn't taste bad, if you had enough pre-dinner . tranquillizer to destroy your taste buds. We did find that the damper on our fireplace works, after twenty years, and we got it closed to save heat dollars pouring up the chimney. And thanks to the town work crew, who cut down one of our maples, the boy next door, and a double saw-back, I have my winter's fireplace wood in the cellar. And I know my daughter, tough stuff, will whip those kids into shape. | 0 a Be SBA AES --