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'4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Wed.; January 21) 1981 editoriol Flexibility "needed It is not surprising that CUPE representatives and Scugog Township outside workers reacted with anger and dismay last week when they saw the details of the initial proposal for a new collective agreement. While there is always a certain amount of ""posturing" on both sides when negotiations for a new agreement get underway, there should also be a degree of flexibility to allow both parties a little bit of room to give and take. Obviously, the initial offer from the Township council was so far below what the Union is asking that the CUPE negotiator had no choice but to reject it and view it as an insult to the workers. If the intent of that initial proposal was to antagonize the 15 Township outside employees whose contract expired January 1, then that is just what has happened. The union has called for the appointment of a conciliator and the employees have served notice they won't work any over-time unless in the event of an emergency, which could be a problem if there is a snow storm on a weekend. And further, if any employees feel they have been insulted by their employer, it does not make for very good morale on the job or overall relations between the two. Township council should come up with a new offer; one that is at least a point of departure for bargaining around the fable, and one that-the = employees are not going to view as an insult. Scugog's Works department seems to function in an efficient manner. In winter there are some 250 miles of roads to be kept clear of snow, sanded and so on, and in summer the same roads must be maintained. That efficiency could suffer serious effects if the guys who do the work feel they have been hard done by. And even worse, an impasse could lead to a work shut-down. On the other hand, what the union is seeking in a new contract may be too much, too fast this year, and Township council would be remiss if it did not 'bargain tough." But surely there is enough room on both sides for some flexibility before the situation goes from bad to worse. Free at last As of Monday morning, it appeared as if the 52 American hostages held by Iran for the past 14 months would finally be set free, possibly by the middle of this week. An agreement had been worked out over the weekend, and outgoing president Jimmy Carter ub rr // Mit "You MEAN THE announced early Monday that all that remained was translation of technical details involving the transfer of the frozen Iranian assets from the United States to banks in Algeria. One of the most important, yet saddest interna- tional events of the past few years was finally drawing to a close. The ramifications go far beyond the taking, holding and eventual release of the 52 hostages, for over the last 14 months, the world has watched as the most powerful nation on earth was rendered helpless by a rag-tag band of scruffy "revolutionaries' devoted to a fanatical religious mystic. The hostage drama is a warning to the civilized world that tyranny is the order of the day in many countries and the usual custom of international relations and the sanctity of embassies on foreign soil is meaningless in the face of this tyranny. What kind of impact will it have on how the United States deals with other countries? With new president Ronald Reagan taking office this week, there is a growing mood among the American people that the pride and honour of the United States should never again be degraded like it was during the Iranian crisis. ~ If a similar incident should occur again involving Americans, the chance that force would be used has' increased, and likewise the chance that one of the other super-powers could become actively involved. While it may be a happy day for the hostages and their families now that' the crisis appears to be coming toa close, it is a sad day in many respects for it has show that the use of force is still a viable option, and as long as some countries are willing to use that option, the chance of escalation into world conflict stays with us. bill smiley NEMESIS AND BOOKS Here's a promise. If I don't get a book published in 1981, I'm going to die trying. And you're all invited to the funeral. No flowers, please. Just bring a mickey of rye and sprinkle it gently over the cremation box, the undertaker, the preach- er and any relatives who happen to be lurking about. Reason for'mention of the mickey is that Nemesis has struck. Again. Last Friday night I struggled into the house with two arms loaded with groceries, newspapers, and other miscellaneous garbage. Right in the middle of the load was a mickey, just to conceal it from the neighbours, who would withdraw their children from my Sunday School class if they saw the naked article. The mickey, that is. I gave a sigh of relief after kicking the back door shut, and my rubbers off. It must have been the sigh that did it. The mickey slipped through its camouflage and dropped squarely on the middle toe of my left foot, breaking same. At the exact moment of the hit, I dropped the rest of the stuff. Have you ever crawled around on the kitchen floor, mopping up milk and broken eggs, scrambling behind the fridge for apples, with your left foot stuck out behind you, simultaneously calling on the gods to punish the perpetrator of your pain? ST Well, the gods seemed to be otherwise engaged, as ususal, so I decided to punish that mickey myself. And I did. With one foot in the bucket of ice water, I punished it. In fact I killed it, although I am a gentle soul at heart. ' All this, of course, has nothing to do with this column. I am merely using the rather trifling incident to impress on my students what Nemesis is. When they asked me on Monday why I was limping, again, I just said: "Nemesis. Retributive justice. If you insist on buying mickeys, which do bad things to your head, you can expect them to do bad things to your feet." That explanation certainly cleared up one dramatic term for them. What I really began to talk about in this column is "putting together' a book. Very few people write a book any more. They just put it together. Thus we have two books on that silly little soap opera Dallas. One is called The Quotauons of J.R. Ewing, and the other is called something equally idiotic. And there's a third in the "putting together" process, called The Women of Dallas or something. I can't think of anything more horrible than being stranded on a desert island with only these three books. Even if it was 9:30 in Newfie. No, I can't stand the Ewings and their lousy oil. I sort of like old J.R., because he treats his wife just the way mine treats me. Although I can't stand Sue-Ellen with her ever-quivering lips and her ever-batting eyes. What really gets me is that another old side-kick of mine has *'put together" a book. That's bad enough, him beating me to it, but what hurts is that it's a pretty good book. In fact, one of the reasons I'm a little ferocious is that I stayed up half the night reading it, and I'm grouchy as a would-be writer with a sore toe today. It's not the sort of thing your average housewife would sit down to read while she's having her morning coffee, or while waiting for Edge of Night to come on. But it does have bad language, a bit of sex, and lots of violence in it. and it's pretty honest--an unusual thing in a book these days. (Wait'll you see the truth-embroider- ies in mine.) Terror in the Starboard Seat is the name of it. It is vastly over-priced but well produced, $12.95. And it's about 41 operat- ional trips aboard a Mosquito by a Canadian airman, Dave McIntosh, during World War II. The Mosquito, built of wood, was one of the most interesting aircraft in that guerre des anciens combatants (that's what it says on my pension cheque.) The Mossie was a nightfighter, intruder, bomber and general har-har-asser of Germans. It was fast, heavily, armed, lightly protected and pretty well operated on its own, with a pilot and navigator. Dave, an old friend at college, and since then a journalist all over the world, and a grey eminence in the newspaper world of Ottawa, was the terrified young navigator in the right seat. I can't believe he was quite as terrified as he claims he was. When I first knew him, he was a sports editor at the Varsity, and deliberately taunted, in his daily column, various Incredible Hulks of his day, in the form of jocks with wounded egoes. He weighed about 134 at the time. On the other hand, as Mackenzie King would have said, I believe he was as terrified as he claims. Because I was too. He didn't even have any flak on his first trip. I did, and I thought it was a combination of hell and Christmas. It's a great read. Blunt, critical, credible. Better and better W.W. II books are being written. Wait till you read mine. But McIntosh, if you and your pilot were the two guys who shot up the German freight train in which I was lying prisoner, hands and feet tied, I'll go down to Ottawa and personally strangle you. a ------ A I SPAR (DRI