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Page 4, News, Tuesday, May 21, 1991 a Editorial me Tel.: 825-3747 The Terrace Bay - Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, 13 Simcoe Plaza, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT 2WO Tel.: 807-825-3747. Second class mailing permit 2264. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association Junk mail blues at the postal box There was a time when finding a letter in my post box was an exciting event. I remember the thrill of sorting through all those bills in the hope of finding something different - a letter from from a friend, my tax refund or even better, that little card informing me I have a parcel waiting for pick -up. Today the thrill comes from sorting through all those flyers hoping to find a bill. As a matter of fact, great care is required to make sure the real mail doesn't get tossed in the garbage bin with the junk. I find it odd, though quite considerate, that the Post Office provides three large garbage bins - and they are always full - so that we can dispose of our junkmail right away without ever looking at it. Advertisers pay Canada Post to place their flyers into each postal box. The majority of postal box users, after sorting through their mail, place each flyer in one of the three garbage boxes. The municipal garbage disposal service picks up the garbage boxes and deposits them in the municipal dump. Three bags of junkmail a day becomes 15 for a working week and 16 when you add in the the weekend. Nearly 900 bulky bags of paper, having served no useful purpose whatsoever, end up in the municipal dump. This method of advertising is incredibly inefficient and a waste of resources on a grand scale. Operators of direct marketing systems, which this is, consider iheir advertising to be successful if as little as one per cent of the people targeted respond. Think of the number of resources wasted - trees, power, labour, fuel - to reach so few people. Junkmail has no saving grace. For the most part these flyers cannot even be recycled. Most of the fancy papers and coatings used in junkmail are unsuitable for recycling. So how can we make our post boxes, while we have them, the exciting things they once were. Let Canada Post Corporation and the federal government know they are causing a massive waste of resources by encouraging advertisers to use junkmail. Discuss the situation with the advertiser directly. Let them know our feelings on the matter. Return the junkmail to Canada Post, to the federal government or to the advertiser. There are ways of doing this at little or no cost. Every time we dump the contents of our post box into the garbage can we fill up our landfill site, operated at our expense, with something we didn't ask for or use, even once. Robert A. Cotton Local communities support Cystic Fibrosis Dear Editor: This letter is to thank all the residents of Schreiber - Terrace Bay and Area who generously donated to the Kinsmen Cystic Fibrosis Telethon on Mother's Day. It is because of people like you who support Cystic Fibrosis research that I am able to be 15 years old. It is through research and updated medication that people with Cystic Fibrosis are able to live longer and better lives. I would also like to thank the students and teachers of the Terrace Bay Public School for the money they raised, organizations like the Moose Lodge and many businesses in the area who donated, as well as the many people who stayed inside on such a beautiful day and watched this telethon and supposed me. there have been many people, family and friends who have shown the really care and I would like to take this opportunity to say 'Thanks'. Carla Long PINEERIE TSE RES ' Publisher...............-:s000++ Sandy Harbinson Sg co Con tates, Advertising MgP.....c..- linda Harbingon GS CNA $18 per year /seniors $12 EGUROM.............-seesseereeeeseereees Robert Cotton fo) (local); $29 per year (outof Sales Representative.............. Lisa LeClair cn perpen oat eed a Admin. ASSt........0.:::ss:e++ Gayle Fournier = yearly subs. Production Asst..........-.--- Cheryl Kostecki THE BLACK FLIES ARE EARLY THIS YEAR owerless pacifist My deepest feeling is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible, and carefully humored. W.H. Auden on politicians There's no whore like an old whore. B. Mulroney, same subject I wish I could persuade Doc Adams, the old GP on the TV show Gunsmoke to make a house call north of the border. I'd like him to take a look at this pasty, consumptive kid called Canada. If Doc Adams could slap his stethoscope on Canada's rib cage, I think I know what his diagnosis would be. Depression. This country's browned off, brought down and bummed out. As usual, it's the politicians situation. The people we elected to 22 get us out of an earlier mess have | created a bigger one. Normally, we would just wait for another election, sling the incompetents out on their duffs and elect someone else. But this time there's a problem. There is nobody else. Oh, there are other political hopefuls we could vote for. The trouble is, they look just as two-faced, unreliable and all round unworthy as the bozos already aboard the gravy train. Makes you wonder what would happen if a Mister or Ms. Clean, a Political White Knight suddenly showed up on the steps of Parliament Hill. Would Canadians rejoice? Would there be a groundswell movement to get him or her into office? Would the country be racked by a bout of hero worship that would make Trudeaumania look like a historical hiccup? Probably not. White Knights have a notoriously short shelf life. Jimmy Carter washed into the Oval Office on a tidal wave of good will. Alas, he was a little too Christian for the job. When the time came to 'kick butt' he turned the other cheek instead. And became perhaps the most reviled U.S. President in modern history. As a matter. of fact there is a world leader, rthur Black stateless, condemned to remain semi- permanently on tour thanks to a Chinese invasion of his country back in 1950. He is the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. For the past 31 years the Dalai Lama has led a government in exile, trying to enlist world support to get his country back. Alas, the Dalai Lama isn't much of a politician. As a Buddhist, he pursues a simple life, bereft of limousines, servile flunkies or closets full of Gucci loafers. As a man of peace, he's largely useless to international gunrunners and military establishments that like to play power politics using nation-states for dominos. Is there a powerful army in the Himalayas ready to back the Dalai Lama? No. Does Tibet sit on vast oil reserves? No. So the Dalai Lama roams # the world, trying to get help for his country. And everywhere he goes he hears the sound of government doors hissing shut in his face. In England, it was decided it would be 'not right' for the Prime Minister to see him. In Washington, George Bush, who has cut deals with Noriega and Saddam, was still declining meetings with the Buddhist priest as of last month. Needless to say in Ottawa, whence waggeth the Washington tail, the Dalai Lama was likewise cut dead. Mulroney and his minions refused even to acknowledge his visit. The Dalai Lama is undeterred by such shabbiness. He remains cheerful and committed to nonviolence. How does he do it? I don't know, but here's his favorite prayer: For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain; until then may I, too, abide to dispel misery of the world. You won't find the Dalai Lama's name on _ your next election ballot.