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

WHITBY FREE PRESSe WEDNESDAYs NOVEMBER 19,_1996, PA~GE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility againat every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson Advise. andDissent MISCELLANY Oshawa Mhi Week opened an office ini Whitby last week. Some Cf our friends (and our eneies) think thia wiil put a lot of pressure on us. Not so. When we bought this newspaper, we fully expected the competition to capitalize on the transition, so thefr new office cornes as no surprise. The strength of communlty newspapers la in the word "community". Whereas the Whtby Free Press stresses the distinctiveness and vibrancy of Whtby as a separate cornmunity, Oshawa This Week promotes it as part of something it calls Oshawa-Whitby.,We can't lose. An ongoing paradox for most smail newspapers la how much news (free) coverage do you give to businesses and, do you tie that coverage to advertising. At the Whitby Free Press, that décision resta with the èditor and wiil be determnined according to ita news value and ita 1ntereat to our readers. Business openings are covered because our readers are interested i what is going on in their community. The presence or absence of the mayor or any other politician is not.in itself newsworthy and our coverage wi tress the business itseUf. Our politiciana %et ample (fee> exposure. every week in our coverage of council ana corprnittee meetings. The decision of the board of the Doctor jo eph O. Ruddy Generai Hospital to change the name to "Whitby Genbral lUosIital" bas my whoiehearted support. As one who worIked wlth thp "Ruddy" name for some 12 years, I can attest to its tongue-twisting.qualities. When dealing with outside suppliera who were rrot familiar with the name, the aimost unanimous reply was "St. Joseph's where? " an!dwhenthey filed it, it might be under "D" for Doctor, "J" fer Joseph, "R"' for Ruddy,. 'O" for O'Ruddy, or "W",for Whtby. To say that thè hospital lacked an identity is an underatatement. I don'tthink thaItanything should be named after people who are stili alive or .who have only rêcently died. The 19gacy may seem generous and appropriate in ie emffion of the moment, but ail too frequentiy it becomes an embarrasament to the individuai or the famiiy, especiaily where, as in a case like this, th ' namne is changed baok tosomething more identifiable after a period of several years. Remember the fusa about two years ago when Town Council wanted to make Whitby into a city. T~he proposai was inspired by the change of the Toronto boroughs (ffrst North York, then Scarborough, then 3tobick). to' city statua. East York was the only borough Which didn't switch and when I? drove fromn Toronto into East York last week. I was cionfrontèd by a lage sign which proclimed "the ONLYM borough in Canada". "Inti e tat Whitby is still a town and not just anothe cityý. Nominations for the annual Peter Perry awar d for Wiitby's outstanding citizen are now being accepted and I Was delighted W see that the Chamber of Commerce had decided (somewhat beiatedly) to .recog *nize. the 15th aniniversary of Peter PeMrys arrivai in Whitby in 1836. Nominatibil forma are availabie at ail the b anka and wili ba accepted onfi>until the enil of the mnonth. The award wili be apnounced in January, ,wardi- There have beenrumblings for severai years now about the nded to find a new home for the Durham Regional government to replace the overcrowded Court House liuilding on Rossiand Road. Considerable politicAi1 jo<#eyi)g. bas already taken place but Oshawa's offer of land and money to locaeqôn part of the old GM property in the heart of Oshawa caugt everybody else asleepàt the gate. This latest move by the City of Os)iawa to grab the new headquartera from Witby can'ha expected te hae folowed.ln short ordi; by formai bida from Whitby and probably motof the other member municipaities. t The benefita to the municipaiity whicib* eventualiy jgets the" prize las considérabe and Ed Buffet, chairman of Whitby's Downtown BIA, bas expregsed to me a strong desire that the nàw building be iocated in downtown Whitby. Athough it's not qulte what he had in mi, I wouid suggest .that Witby's Centennial Building, built in 1853 as the Ontario County Court House, could ha readily readapted and expanded as the new regional government building Not only was it once the seat of the county goverrnment, but nowhere willthe region ha able to create a building with as much identity and character as this one aiready bas. Modern architecture tends tolook pretty tacky after 30-40 years whereas classicai structâres like the Centemiîai Building simpiy meiiow as tbey get older. The future of the Centennial Building la currentiy the subject of a study which resuits from a need to revamp some of ita current uses. Perbaps those uses- the "Y" the Red Cross, the Historicai Society archives and the Wbitby Litte Thetre- would bebetter off in diffrent faiities. In competing with Oshawa for regionai headquarters, Whitby needa some aces- it needa to ha able to offer a concept which la different from Oshawa - sometiiing, inspired, not just another moden building. Witby's Cèùtennial Building la obviously notilarge enough as it stands but the large parkcingilot bhind it provides ample space for expansion. Some smailer municipalities have very successfully restored their old city halls for continued use, but a project to restore the oid Court House as a regionai headquarters would ha unique in size and scope. It would generate awlot of poetive interest i Whitby, and, aithough not located right in the downtown, it woud certainly enbance and stimuJate that area. IiTH OUR. FEET UP Byl BhSwan tlhe stroller gieâiftied on the showroom floor. It.was, at a glance, a pie&é of èngineerizjpar ei*céllqe, e(That'sF'rench lor good.) ý Perfèctly suited for baby's.mîany iýioods, it foIdLi Ndown for afternoon waik snoozies; hardas in the middle for uprighlposture. The liap*cué swngs two ways, ailowing baby the'vaqtage otfacin& forward or backward. ,Depending Ã"èn, of course, whether- baby at the moment wants to see where she is goizlg or where she bas been.. With one deft release of a clasp, and a dexteroue eIove, the whole vehicle collapses into a *small, Qat Iapeibin ideal for carrying. *Like Henry'Fordýs Model A, you could have it in any gplor-you wishied. as long as that color was burgundy.' I know. Henry Ford's Model A came la ocly black. *But* thekprincipie 'la the same. Undoubtedly thatfiàture cime fi1om the marketing deparment, as asop to fathers. ý Seil ration and ralaed consciousness flot withstanding,.. mothers stili get to -select baby. strollers. But aàthers need a voice i the matter. ,So?ý Letthém'piék the color. Thes if the darned thing cames in o#ly one color,'the poor guy has oniy one choice and he can't go too far wrong. 1 digresa.4. Let me recap. The stroller: it foida, it benda, it coilapses. Enginers apent years perfecting it. Why then, dolI complain? Because the engineers, i reaching to provide ail the extras demanded by the marketing department, forgot one thing. *Stroilers are meant to bepushed. Thet means you get to walk behind the strollers, see,.w~ith 'youy banda on that littie bar (called the handle) anclybu push 4s you waik. Simnple, huh? Try it with this little beauty. Ten minutes and your back feeis like a three-day vacuum blitz. Push It two days in a row and you're hant over; three daysin a row and scolloala setsi. Su unless you have arma like an orangutan, the only answer lies in. walking beside the darned vehicie and pushing sideways witb one hand. This takes a bit of getthig used to, but prevents the back probiema. *Even so, we end up on neighbors lawns and in ditches and take other littie unpiantned excursions. Why couldn't the engineera started with a stroller that a human could push and then plan the extras around that? Stroliers aren't my only beef.,, Praise be, we are a marketing society. Thus, how a prodyct wil perforni on the sales floor becomes moreimportant than its intended functidn. An txarple: in our kitchen we have a marvelous devîce tli*t wii sulce, cruah, crumb, cbop .grate, pulp, pulverize, destro mince, dice or scaffop any type of food. At the press of a button, WHIZZZ... Saves bours. That la, until you try tcleaiik' >ood geta lodgecl weil up into the safdty, chiid-proof cover. Dishwashing machines'C'an't dislodge it. Soaking ~won't heip. Hligh pressure buses fail. Pickig at it with spaghetti noodles ain't enough. It's worse than trying" to get the eighteen-year-old maie who lives atyýo&rhouse to coil up the garden hose whenhe finiahed washing hia car, and to return the scrub bucket to th e hook in the basement. But again, I digreas. 'Some where, some time, Swan's reveage wiil arrive. The engineer who designed this food proceqsor .... Strange name, that. Food Processor. Could only have been coined by some marketing person in the '70s, the age of the word processor, the foodpr oceàsor, etc.) At any rate. Picture thia engineer standing over the sink, picking at the forod parti des lodged in the upper recesses cif the cover jof the pjWeh designed herself.*. riacnee And when she/he f inlsbs, he/she then takes the baby for a walk in the brnd neW stroiler. The one tiiat folds, hand, stapies, mùutilates. The 'burgundy one. Andi after one brief walk, theflr creature (the parent, not the baby) si#fers a bkseizure. And diacovers that the ý,babý, stilUpr pushes perfectly from a kneeiiqg pýsitlopi. ,Engineer Vta into aomething the marketing degrtrueàt can live with.