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Page 4, News, Wednesday, January 25, 1989 Editorial Page = The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0 Tel.: 807-825-3747. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Assn. and the Canadian Community A Sih et ----_-- Single copies 40 cents. Subscription rates: $15 per year / $25 two years (local) General Manager......Paul Marcon Editof......-.-.-.-.-.-..... David Chmara Admin. Asst..........Gayle Fournier and $21 per year (out of Newspaper Assn. Production Asst...Carmen Dinner town). Decentralization Like BEN JoHNZON ~ THEY GIVE YOU AN AWARD, SiR ,HOw DOES IT FEEL TO BE NAMED THE 1988 must take place The centralization and moves businesses and govern- ment are making to Toronto and other large cities at the expense of small, rural communities must stop. When the city of Toronto gains 10 jobs here and there to the detriment of small towns across Canada, what does it accomplish? : What it does is increase housing prices in Toronto. Also, due to the rapid and constant growth of Toronto, inflation is increasing, and the rest of the country, as well as Toronto, suffers. And what happens at the other end. Small communities lose their people. Their economic base shrinks and young people in these towns are forced to move away to chase the jobs going to larger centres. . As a result, these towns suffer increased unemployment and families are split up as younger people no longer have the job prospects that their parents once had. With the high cost of living in Toronto, people working there must make substantially more than in other parts of the country to live. If these jobs were located elsewhere in Canada, people would not have to live in the inflationary, economic chaos of Toronto. And when Toronto gains 10 jobs here and there, the ben- efit is negligible compared to the loss suffered by the towns that lose the jobs. So what's to happen in the future - once Toronto and other larger cities swallow up the important jobs of small towns? Is the government going to be willing to subsidize entire communities through welfare or unemployment such as what is taking place in Newfoundland? I seriously doubt it. Is everybody supposed to move to Toronto to add to the inflation, the housing prices, and the growing numbers of homeless living in that metropolis? Small communities, in the majority of cases, are essen- tially one industry towns and the lost jobs have a dramatic impact on the economy of such towns. Continued on page 5 MAN oF THE WEAR ? a THEN DUMP ALL OVER YOU f @ Tourism development committee Dear Editor: This letter is to clarify the objec- tives of the Tourism Development Committee re: Council news col- umn in Jan. 18/89 issue. While it is correct to say that our objective is to have a Tourist Information Centre built in Terrace Bay, the study that is to be done is to define Terrace Bay's tourism potential, identify and _priorize development, and justify building a Tourist Information Centre. details Council is.to.be commended for their initiative in trying to improve the town and this committee hopes that the residents of Terrace Bay will support Council and this com- mittee in our efforts with this study. We will be liolding public meet- ings and we invite the public and _ media to attend and lend your sup- port. Thank you Mike Moore Chairman T.D.C. Letters to the Editor are always welcome. Please address your letters to: Editor Terrace Bay/Schreiber News Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ont. POT 2W0 © In order that we may verify authorship, please include your name and phone number. Feel free to use this forum to express comments, appreciation, inform or advise people on anything of public interest. 'Cars are built for speed, and highways are built for speed. What is not built for speed is the human _ body." U.S. Transportation Department official. "I told my people that when I stepped down on the throttle, I want to be scared." Fred Schaafsma, engineer. As chief engineer of the Corvette division of General Motors, Fred Schaafsma is in a position to get pretty much what he wants, automobile-wise. This spring, you'll be able to get it, too -- the Corvette ZR-1. Three hundred and_ seventy-five horsepower under the hood. Capable of going from zero. to 60 'miles an hour in four seconds. To be fair to the folks at Chevrolet, the new Corvette isn't . the only absurdly over-powered buggy you'll be dodging when the snow melts. A magazine ad for Honda's Acura Legend Coupe boasts "Even the interior was designed at 125 miles per for BMW's M6 sedan calls it "a most elegant argument for tripling the national speed limit." And you've probably seen the TV promo for Porsche that purrs "For lunch it prefers Ferraris, although it has been known to. © snack on Corvettes." There's just one small problem with all these wheeled rockets the car makers are pumping out -- nobody this side of the mosport race track needs them. There is not a public road on this continent on which you can legally drive at 125 miles an hour -- and how often do you need to get from a dead stop to a mile a minute in four seconds? 1 don't know about you, but I'm _ just three points away from a polite tete a tete with the local gendarmerie regarding my propensity for showing up on their radar guns -- and my car couldn't get from zero to 60 over along weekend. But whether we need 'em or not, the new supercharged cars - ° -@ oo eee Human bodies are not handle them, and neither, five'll get you ten, can the amateurs who'll be buying them.. But they're here: big shiny toys for man-children who believe a certain combination of chrome, Black rubber, steel, fiberglass and an internal combustion engine will transform them into Lawrences of Arabia. We've been down this built for speed 60s, when much of the citizenry was into headbands and flower power, the knuck!e-dragging segment was buying GTOs and Shelby Mustangs. Muscle cars. Bulging behemoths that looked like ordinary cars pumped up on steroids. they guzzled gas like 741s, but they were undeniably powerful. And popular -- at least among those members of the populace who breathe through their mouths, lean to a diet of beer and pizza and have LOVE and HATE tattooed on their knuckles. Z Those muscle cars went fast alright. A lot of them stopped even faster -- fast enough to send their occupants through the windshield and the insurance rates for muscle cars right through the roof. That, plus the Great Gas Scare drove the muscle cars to the brink of extinction. But not over, alas. They're back. Oh, they're not calling them muscle cars this time around. The image makers are going for sleek and elegant instead of bulgy and menacing -- Wayne Gretzky over Mike Tyson, if you will. But they are muscle cars by any other name. Cars which, as my old sea captain would put it, carry 'way too much sail for the size of the craft. As muscle cars, they will inevitably do what they were designed to do. They will go too fast and some of them will go out of control and crash, killing and maiming a whole lot of people who perhaps right this moment are falling under the spell of those slick, beguiling television commercials. But you don't have to own a muscle car to get hit by one. A Jot of us have a rendezvous with those cars that we wouldn't wish on our 'vorst enemy. Maybe you. Maybe me. Maybe Fred Schaafsma. I don't know if Fred's scared, but Iam.