The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, November 14, 2000 - 7 Question of the Week... What do you think is the most important issue Margaret Burrows Health care.'| have three children and in the Upcoming that is the most federal election : important issue to me. Larry Lee Kate Archer Changes to the Health care is the Young Offenders Act. most important issue. It needs to be tough- ened up. Erin Fairweather The deficit. It's the subtext behind all that is happen- ing. The GST, which we all despise, and our health care problems have to do with our deficit. When we tackle the deficit, then we can deal with these other issues. Lloyd Pascoe | think health care is the most important. LETTER Skateboarders disruptive To the Editor: There is something incredibly relaxing about driving down the hill into Seagrave after a long, sometimes fast-paced day in downtown Toronto. When my friends ask me why I choose to live out- side of the city, I simply explain how the drive down that hill, across the bridge into our idyllic vil- lage is the greatest stress therapy in existence. | love Seagrave because it is quiet, we have a great home, terrific neighbours, and the vil- lage allows our kids a fine place to grow up. Increasingly, over the last few months, Seagrave has become less than quiet, and certainly not idyllic. A group of skate- boarding teenagers set up ramps on the road or sidewalk in front of the general store, and noisily go about their sport. For an hour or so it would not be so bad, but I think after a certain time of night, it becomes time to shut things down. Not these guys. They yell, they swear, they smash their skateboards hard on the pavement or ramps, an obvious effort to cause noise, and have no consideration for the people living in the sur- rounding homes. A friend of mine commented to them this past Saturday night at 10:45 p.m. about the noise, and was greet- ed with profanity. | know at least one of the kids, and have several times asked him to keep it down, and he simply smiles and says "OK". Of course, he was among the kids out in front on Saturday night... again. A call to the police did indeed get rid of the ramps, but not the noise or the kids, who have the confidence of knowing Please turn to page 18 It is more than a little bit inter- esting to note that giant killer aster- oids are back in the news. A couple of references in the = past week caught my attention, as things like this tend to. First came word that some large piece of matter - maybe an asteroid, maybe a bit of space junk left over from a lunar expedition - was hurtling toward the planet, and was due to arrive, packing an impact more powerful than several hundred atomic bombs, in, oh, about 30 years. How does one deal with information like this? Start digging a shelter? Grow a beard? Say to hell with the lawn? . Remember a couple of years back when scientists announced that a doomsday asteroid was screaming through space, toward a projected rendezvous with earth in 70 years? A unique experience, that. For a short time, we knew exactly when the world was going to end. A short time, yes, because those same scientists (or maybe some rival scientists, | don't know) admitted they'd made a wee bit of an error, and the world wasn't going to end after all. At least not when they'd predicted it would... as far as they could tell. (That's reassuring. "Bad data" seems to be every- where these days, and created another end-of-the- world scenario last Tuesday night, as far as Republicans in the the U.S. were concemed. What is it about Florida? They lead the world in laying asphalt and pointless handgun slayings, but Page Seven DEATH FROM ABOVE by Jeff Mitchell they can't count a few thousand ballots. | wonder: Did Tom Brokaw retract the killer asteroid story, t00?) Anyway: This week a company was meeting with Canadian aerospace officials to pitch an idea that would see them launch a satellite whose express pur- pose would be to scope the heavens, and search out unpleasant bits of rock and metal that might, you know, suddenly bring about an end to life on the "planet. It is difficult to gauge what benefit this system might provide. Because although we may be able to look at all the rocks and asteroids and such (My! For a whole lot of nothing, space sure is cluttered, isn't it?) that can assume a collision course with us, there's diddly we can do about it, if and when it occurs. ...Just watch it get bigger, | reckon, and reflect on how the mighty do tend to tumble. First the dinosaurs, now us. Another Goliath felled by a well-aimed pebble. And so it goes. You wash the car, it rains. You build an enormous and complex civilization, and it is obliter- ated in a freak, billion-to-one collision with a big rock. More proof that this existence is a cruel hoax, foisted on us by some malevolent higher power? Or just the way the cookie crumbles? It matters little in the long run. In the meantime the bank will still want the mortgage, the grass will keep on growing and need to be cut, and Publishers Clearing House notices announcing you've won millions will continue to arrive. Like being picked out of a crowd by a movie producer or pooped on by a bird, it's a fluke, this sudden celestial destruction thing. Stuff happens. Random Jottings by J. Peter Hvidsten ELECTION OVERLOAD As | sit down to write this column, it's election day in Scugog, and for that matter across Ontario. Area residents will not be march- ing off to the polls today (Monday), simply because they can't. In all likelihood, everyone who has an intention of voting did it far before election day, by way of the new mail-in-ballot. For me, the whole process loses something with this new method. The excitement and anticipation leading up to election day just doesn't exist. For most, the election was over almost two weeks ago, when they started mailing back the ballots they had received through Canada Post. I'm not suggesting for a moment that the new method of voting isn't better in some ways. Figures released last week have already proven that there will be far more people voting in this election than possibly any election ever held in this community. As of last Tuesday, it was estimated that close to 6,000 people had cast their votes in Scugog. Compare that to a total turnout of just over 6,400 ballots cast in the last municipal election, and you can project a huge increase the voter turnout. It's not hard to believe that voter turnout could be as high as 50 percent - or more - of the 16,600 voters eligible in Scugog Township for this election. But for me, | miss the adrenaline rush of an election process which doesn't shut down until the polls close at 8 p.m. election night. Watching the candidates run until the very last poll closes is part of the thrill. In effect, this election has been over for the best part of a week. Most political hopefuls stopped knocking on doors days ago, and the past week has been one which has put most candidates in limbo. But despite all that, I'll be at the community centre tonight (Monday), with dozens of other interested resi- dents, and candidates, watching with anticipation as the results are tabulated. Scugog should be proud that so many individuals entered their names in this year's election. Our congrat- ulations to each and every one of them for their interest "into the same time period... in this community, and their willingness to step forward and become involved. This November will, without a doubt, go down as one of the most confusing ones for voters. Locally we've had to contend with the barrage of political meetings and advertising, spewing the merits of each of the candidates in the municipal election... Of course everyone has known for more than a year that in the U.S.A, the presidential election would take place in November. Our airwaves have been filled with political speeches, newscasts and debates for the past two months... Then, in his wisdom, Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, opens up the Pandora's box by throwing an unnecessary federal election into the mix. Over the past month we've had to listen to more politicians, spouting of their virtues, amid mud-slinging statements and derogatory commercials from all the parties. Elections are extremely important events, but when the public has to contend with three elections, all thrown it's just a little too much. The Canadian system should be changed so elections take place every four years, not earlier or later, or at the whim of whomever is in power at the time. Maybe that would help prevent this bottleneck of elections all falling within the same month. At least that's the way | see it!