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

Page 5, News, Tuesday, April 17, 1990 How casually the parents of today talk about the allowances they give their children, and how casually the kids accept them. Well, shucks, I guess if somebody handed me five bucks or more a week just like that, I'd grab it without asking questions. Five bucks! I can't believe it. That would have been a small fortune to any of us Seniors who never got allowances and figured we were pretty lucky to be tossed the odd penny, nickel or dime. Fifty cents at Christmas or on one's birthday from parents' friends, or a whole dollar from some doting uncle or aunt, was like manna from heaven. But five bucks? We would have expired from the shock of it. No wonder middle-aged me still gets shocked to see some six, Olga Landiak Sa seven or eight-year-old haul:a fistful of dollar bills out of his jeans pocket or her cutesy little purse. What the heck do these kids need so much money for? To teach them how to handle the stuff? Where? At the local corner store in an over-indulgence of junk food and comics? Maybe in their teens there might be some justification for an allowance so they won't lose face in their peer group, but only if earned by doing household chores. What chores? Good question in this technological world of gadgets and gidgets. Shucks, from the way I hear it, the kids don't even have to save up for something big and special. Dad (or Mom, since so many Moms are bread winners these days) can always be wheedled into anteing up. That's to salve their consciences for not having any of this 'prime time' left over to spend with the dear little things in the first place. Pure 'ransom money' I calls it. As for expecting them to con- tribute to the family coffers when they get their first jobs, forget it. They're not only spending all they make, they're also begging for loans which are never repayed. And then there are even those classic 'Ann Landers' char- acters who, for some reason or other, come roosting back to the old nest and proceed to live off the old folks who haven't the guts to throw the beggars out on their you-know-whats. And it all starts way back there when they are lit- tle things being spoiled rotten by this crazy 'allowance' stick-up. Allowances are teaching greed Okay, okay, before the hordes descend to mash this cranky, crabby old lady right into the ground, I'll admit there are proba- bly some responsible ones who really do learn how to sanely han- dle the filthy lucre, but I'd bet my last looney they are few and far between. There's a heck of a lot to be said for the non-allowance and denial days of my youth. It makes for real appreciation of those things which come about through one's own big efforts. Makes for a lot of character, too. Childish greeds can only grow into adult greeds, and so we see a world being resource-raped by its collective secular greeds for materialistic things. And so, Virginia, that's how we come to the end of everything. For me, making meringue is one of the most difficult things to master in my kitchen. After my last failure (The pie was great but the topping was miserable) I decided to shelve my pride and call on the Egg Marketing Board. They gave me the low down. Now I am able to pile my pies high and make lightly golden crisp creations to be filled with fruit and cream. This is what I found out. The secret of a successful meringue is producing a stable, egg white foam. 'The egg whites begin as a liquid which, as beat- en, incorporates air, forming first in large bubbles (the frothy stage); then, in countless tiny air cells. The liquid has become a white foam, smooth and moist in appearance, Unless stabilized, the foam will return to the liquid state. This is why acid ingredients such as cream of tartar, vinegar, or lemon juice are added at the frothy stage. Anita Stewart Sugar also stabilizes the foam but, at the same time, it retards or slows down the foam formation. For this reason, we recommend that the sugar be added slowly, a tablespoon at a time, once the foam has reached the soft peak stage. Use only a metal or glass bowl. Separate eggs when they are cold. Be sure that no yolk slips in with the white. Then, let the egg whites stand for 30 minutes to reach room temperature. They will whip to a greater volume than when cold. "Soft peaks" are mountains of egg white that, as you lift the beaters, fold over onto them- selves. "Stuff peaks" are mountains whose peaks remain upright after you lift the beaters away. SOFT MERINGUE TOP- PING FOR PIES. For a 9-inch pie: 3 egg whites, at room tempera- ture 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla Beat the whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar and continue to beat until the whites form soft Add the sugar gradually, a tablespoonful at a time. Beat constantly until the sugar is dis- solved and the whites hold stiff, glossy peaks. Beat in the vanilla. Pile lightly on the hot pie fill- ing, making sure to seal the crust all around the edge of the pie so it will not shrink while baking. Bake in a preheated 350F for 8 - 10 minutes or at 425F for 4 min- utes, until set and delicately a y browned. Cool at room tempera- ture. HARD MERINGUE SHELLS These shells may be made days ahead of serving if stored in an airtight container. Fill them with ice cream or custard and fruit. For a superb garnish, driz- zle them with a little melted, bit- ter or semi-sweet chocolate. Maddening meringue made easy 4 egg whites 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 1 cup granulated sugar 1 tsp vanilla In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until the whites form soft peaks. Add the sugar gradually, a tablespoonful at a time, beating constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites hold stiff, glossy peaks. Beat in the vanilla. Using about 1/3 cup of the meringue, Shape into "nests" with a spoon onto a baking sheet that has been lined with baking parch- ment or ungreased paper. Make them about 3 inches wide, build- ing up the edge to form a rim. Bake in a preheated 250F oven for one hour, or until firm. Turn off the oven and leave the meringues in the oven, with the door closed for one more hour. Remove from the baking sheets,and store. Makes 12 shells. The messenger is the message | The late Marshall McLuhan, the mass communications guru of the 60's told us that "the medium is the message". His theory, widely accepted and popularized at the time, was that the medium itself - television, print, or radio - was the message. Content, according to McLuhan, had less communicating power than the medium being used. Politicians and advertisers concerned about using the tools of mass communi- cations adopted his theories, and brought us the policies of image (instead of an emphasis on plat- form), on selling the sizzle, rather than the steak. Thirty years later, society has changed, along with the media McLuhan theorized about. Two generations are now maturing, not knowing a world without the all- pervasive influence of television. Television and radio have become more specialized, and thus more fragmented, reaching ever more isolated sectors of the audience. Media owners now complain they are no longer "broadcasters", reaching for the widest possible audience, but "narrowcasters" - reaching out for specialized slices NORTHERN INSIGHTS of society interested in special- ized services. In most towns and cities, there are now cable ser- vices carrying specialized chan- nels with nothing but religious programs, nothing but news, nothing but movies, sports, cour.- try music, or rock videos. But in the real world beyond those television sets, the faces watching those glass screens are not homogeneously white, and no longer have predominantly English as their mother tongue. By the end of this century, according to one study, Canadian society will consist of over 70% people whose first language is not English. Canada is under increas- ing pressure to take more and more immigrants and refugees from all over the world. We have. by Larry Sanders a large land area, with a relatively small population. Our domestic birth rate has been falling for 30 years, so we are no longer replac- ing ourselves in numbers. Yet the population of the rest of world is mushrooming, leaving many thousands to seek a new land full of promise and opportunity. All these trends and develop- ments were discussed at a confer- ence held recently in Thunder Bay. The gathering was spon- sored by the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association, Lakehead University, and the Thunder Bay Press Club. The turnout was disappointing, both from the multicultural community and from the media professionals. But the interchange was incredi- From the perspective of the ethnic and native groups repre- sented at the conference, the media has not been doing its job. The faces on the television screens, both in news and enter- tainment programs, have been predominantly white, even though the faces on any street comer are 'also brown, black, and yellow.. The language used in many news reports and other types of broadcasts unfairly stereotypes members of certain racial groups. Pervasively, according to members of the Multicultural Association, media Owners, managers, and editors display either ignorance or insen- Sitivity to cultural and racial dif- ferences. _. From, the, perspective of the . media people at the conference, the Multicultural Association demonstrates both reluctance, and a lack of imagination, when it comes to getting their views heard. I pointed out at the confer- ence, for example, that the voice of the Multicultural Association was heard too softly and too late, during the recent "English-only" debate in several municipalities. The media managers and broad- cast educators complained that they wanted to recruit more visi- ble minority students to become broadcasters, but the minority groups themselves seem to be more interested in other profes- sions. How then, the broadcasters asked, could the faces reading the news become anything but white, when there aren't brown, black and yellow faces to train and hire? The conference could have become a bloodfest of media- bashing, given the pent up frus- trations. Instead, it became a pro- ductive exercise in bridge build- ing between the ethnic groups and ¥: continued on page.10