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All The World's A Circus Page 5, News, Tuesday, January 15, 1991 Life, According To "Baba" As my all-time hero, Harry Chapin, wrote and sang: "All my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown. The moon roams through the night time til the daybreak comes around." Harry's life circle was smaller than it should have been but fuller than any harvest moon he ever wrote about. It has occurred to me that in completing the circle, a man passes through 10 distinct stages in his life, the first being actually prior to birth. It's warm and peaceful, you're safe and smiling and the only sound you hear is a faintly familiar voice of someone who has just walked past and reached out and touched the outside of your shell and said: "He just kicked!" That's STAGE ONE: - NO REAL AGE - "HE JUST KICKED!" Fhat's how it Starts. STAGE TWO: BABY - TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON! Although a state of constant confusion, the baby stage is not at all bad if you've developed your sense of humour. For instance, not only are you permitted to go to the bathroom in your clothes, you're in fact encouraged to do so and handsomely rewarded with fresh, new clothes once you've done it. No questions asked. STAGE THREE: AGE FIVE - DON'T LET ANYBODY FIND OUT THAT YOU WET THE BED! Mom knows of course, but mom is not a real person. Any real person you meet in your first five yéars-of life wouldn't dream of carrying you around in their stomach for nine months. But no one else must know. Your best friend jumps on your bed to the sound of a crinkling plastic sheet - "It's too much starch!" Another time a wet spot emerges through the bedspread - "Shhh - it's the dog. If they find out they'll have him put to sleep." STAGE FOUR: AGE ELEVEN - GIRLS ARE YUKKK! Your dad tells you they're the root of all evil, your mom stages of a man's life William J. tells you they're not to be toyed with, even if you are "a very good doctor for your age" and at age 11 you conclude they're both right. Girls - who needs 'em? If they don't carry a jackknife and can't take "the garter snake in the desk" joke - what good are they anyway? STAGE FIVE: AGE SIXTEEN - GOING ALL THE WAY.. "Look Brenda...will you forget about "the garter snake in the desk" stuff...I was a kid then...Brenda, I'm a man...a man has certain needs...Brenda, do you have any idea what could happen to a guy in my State if you don't..." STAGE SIX: TWENTY- ONE - TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON. Although a state of constant confusion, 21 is not at all bad if you've maintained your sense of humour. Your dad wants you to be a lawyer out of sheer revenge for the society that created them. Your mom wants you to be a dentist. You know by now you're not going to play for the Oilers or Eddie Van Halen. You only went to school because you-can't get credits at the pool hall. And all you really want is to bump into Brenda in a bar. Just once. STAGE SEVEN: THIS IS THE CRISIS STAGE. You're 46 years old, fat, balding, twice-divorced with three unemployable children who mistake you for a savings and loan office. You've survived two mothers-in-law, two stormy marriages, three really bad affairs and spend four hours a week thinking up new lies to stave off your ex's lawyers. That's right - STAGE SEVEN - 46 and fading - GIRLS ARE YUKKK! E STAGE EIGHT - You made it! You're 65 years old with a $630 monthly Canada pension cheque in a world where a jar of roasted peanuts costs $375 and a case of beer lists at the price you paid for your last car which you would still be driving if it weren't for the $1,100 per day insurance CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Thomas Oh great! Now the provincial N.D.P. government of Ontario is going into the 'murder' business euphemistically called 'abortion', and we, the tax payers are going to have to fund it whether we like it or not. Well, yer ole Baba doesn't like it. Abortion, no matter how you clothe it in a cover-up of scientifically high- faluting words and explanations (a la Dr. Morgentaler) is still deliberate, cold- blooded murder. No one can convince me that the fetus, that miraculous coming together of sperm and ova, even in its infinitesimal beginnings, is NOT a human being. What else is it going to be, for heaven's sake? A dog, a cat, a pig, a monkey? Well, maybe the evolutionists among us prefer to believe the latter, them and their ape-like ancestors, but I, for one, have never believed other than in a miraculous Creation. And a fetus is just such a creation, a creation of man and woman, and it is alive even before it leaves the womb. So what is all this asinine argument by medical and legal persons as to when this wondrous combination of blood, tissue, skin and bones, is a person or not? Good heavens, have none of them looked at some of those pictures of the development of a human being and seen that it is recognizable as such even when in its most primitive early form? Especially that head, that over-sized head which is supposed to contain the greatest miracle of all - the human brain and mind. I say, 'supposed', because. in light of the stupefying arguments going on, you'd wonder what it is that some people have up there in their still over- sized heads. A lot of egotism, if you ask me. Egotism that they know better than the Creator of All. And so, we have governments legalizing the abortive 'murder' of unwanted children. It's a dilemma, because either way, aborted or non-aborted, that particular child is most definitely unwanted. And so, what to do?. Quickly 'murder' it before Government murder Olga Landiak it leaves the womb, or slowly 'murder' it afterwards by abuse, brutality and all those other horrors so prevalent in our society today. There is a third option, of course. The child can be brought to term and given up for adoption. There are more than enough childless couples ready and willing to take such unwanted ones into their T.L.C. Let us hope they are not all waiting for that 'perfect' one; we are all born with a certain number of warts of imperfection. Of course, the biggest option of all is NOT to become pregnant in the first place. Ah, but here comes the rub. We want to have our sex-cake and eat it too, without suffering the inevitable baby-consequence which arises out of ignorance. And why does such ignorance still abound in this day of instant communication, knowledge and education? The lack of any morals among arrogant teen-agers, brutalizing husbands, rampaging rapists, and devastating incest- makers. And politicians, it seems. This is the societal problem of all of us, and until we have cleaned up our act, so to speak, and removed the daily pressure of the sexual aspect of it, then we can expect human minds (and other parts of the human anatomy) to be on red-hot alert constantly. And a heck of a lot of unwanted children in the making. If we help to promulgate this kind of irresponsible sexual activity by wide-open provincially-funded abortion clinics, then we are not only condoning legalized 'murder', but also a terrible form of contraception. And how can we live with that on our collective consciences I ask? Easily, it seems. Legalized 'murder' appears to be as acceptable as cold- blooded murder by knife, gun, garrote, car or whatever. We are a brutalized society intent only on our 'fun and games', and to hell with morals of any kind. But it's all catching up with us in one form or another. Just look around and see. - When you woke up on January first, did you feel 7 per cent poorer? Despite the kazoos and yahoos in the Senate, we now have the GST. This means we're either all at least 7 per cent poorer, if you believe the opponents to the GST; or, we're headed for greater prosperity, if you believe Michael Wilson, our bond trader-turned Finance Minister. The opponents of the GST now have some well-documented evidence to support their side, at least as far as northern Ontario is concemed. The evidence comes in a report prepared for the Northern Development Ministers of the provinces and territories, which examined the effects on the north of Tory tax changes like the GST. The report correctly diagnoses the GST as "a tax on distance". Since everything we produce in the north for sale somewhere else has to be shipped a greater distance than if it's produced closer to the market, we are at a competitive disadvantage. Northern-based exporters will thus have to charge a lower base price for a commodity that's produced by a transportation costs will be higher for us. Similarly, goods brought into the north for competitor in the south, since the. purchase (either by business.or consumers) will cost more, since the 7 per cent GST is added to our larger transportation bills. For firms already hard pressed by the recession, this double squeeze - lower rates of return and higher input costs - could spell economic ruin. The report, prepared by Ermst & Young Management Consultants of Toronto, points out that GST amounts to a tax on distance GST paid on liquor, food gas and most other things they purchase here will not be eligible for a rebate. The GST also makes it more attractive to travel through the United States, rather than Canada. We already know about the motor homes choosing to use the Ameri- can Interstate Highway system to cross North Amer- this "tax on NORTHERN ica, instead of distance" also INSIGHTS Canadian penalizes one a highways" - of our main by Larry Sanders given our economic diversification options - tourism. It already costs tourists more to reach the north - however they get here. Now, it's going to cost them 7 per cent more of that higher transportation bill. As well, Michael Wilson has made it hard for - foreign tourists to get a rebate, by forcing them to apply for it, instead of adopting the much more practical European system, where hoteliers are allowed to give foreigners their tax rebate on the spot. How many German, Japanese, or American tourists will bother filling out a GST tax rebate form? In addition, these foreign tourists will not be able to claim a -rebate.on much except.accommodations. higher gaso- line taxes, poorer roads, and higher-valued Canadian dollar. The report concludes that the only benefits of the GST for the north will come to the resource sector - especially mining and forestry - which have been penalized in the past by the inequities in the old 13.5 per cent Manufacturer's Sales Tax. However, Emst & Young conclude that the benefits of resource exports being more competitive will be more than offset by higher costs of doing business - buying anything will cost 7 per cent more. Michael Wilson replies that any business can apply for a rebate of the GST they pay _on purchases. j ieieey 8 pr13 However, we all know the government is notoriously slow paying its bills. Thus, to quote the report, this will force businesses to bear "the cost of financing the GST between the date they purchase products and the payments of GST credits by the government. The Canadian Lumberman's Association fears that lumber distributors along the Canada-U.S. border which unload and repackage wood for American buyers, would find 'it beneficial to move to the U.S. to avoid these financing costs, since they would then be able to purchase from Canadian suppliers without paying the GST." _ The Ernst & Young report goes on to point-out that the costs of living and doing business in the north are already higher, thus making the GST an additional penalty for living in the north. Since its a "value added" tax, we will pay 7 per cent on all our higher-priced goods. Thus, those of us living close enough to the United States to make our purchases will do so in even large numbers than we are already. True, we will have to pay the 7 per cent GST on our purchases (if we declare them) at Canada Customs, but we will be paying 7 CONTINUED ON PAGE 6