Terrace Bay Public Library Digital Collections

Terrace Bay News, 12 Mar 1986, p. 4

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Page 4, Terrace Bay-Schreiber News, 'Wednesday, March 12, 1986 Terrace Bay Schreiber Editorial The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published eve Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, ADVERTISING EDITOR ......... OFFICE......... ptm: Conrad Felber Se Ee Sees ET ee Gigi Dequanne ee ies Gayle Fournier ae Mary Melo ry Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing POT 2W0. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. Single copies 35 cents in-town -- $14.00 Subscription rates per year ~ ; y out-of-town -- $18.00 Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The Canadian Community Newspapers Association. ' 'Day care free Months after it was revived as a possibility for the Ter- race Bay area, day care continues to be a hot topic, although there is really no reason for it to be such a controversy : Apparently some local residents have forgotten that the existing Day Care Committee is merely thinking about the possibility of considering a Day Care Centre for Terrace Bay. They are nowhere near actually going ahead with the proposal. Even if that were the case, what's the big deal? It is likely that the users of the centre would pay for the ma- jority of the operational costs, and the initial expenses would be met at least in part by federal and/or provincial grants. It is doubtful that the taxpayers of the Terrace Bay area would have to contribute anymore than a fraction of the costs, yet many have already complained that they don't want their tax dollars wasted on such a project. Besides, it wouldn't be a waste. Day care may be a lux- ury for some, but for others it is a necessity, especially single parents. Those who are against day care should try to see the issue from the eyes of those who have no other option but to bring their children to such a centre. Yet, as it stands now, the area doesn't have such a facility ... and that's a shame. Terrace Bay should not be day carefree. Governments. Theyre scum. Nah, I don't really mean that, but I did catch your attention, didn't I? Actual- ly, Ido have a gripe or two to register about governments, both federal and " provincial. Z Let's begin with the provincial government. I've never come across a worse group of spineless hypocrites (ooops, there I go again. Oh well, I ' guess I just don't want you to get bored). You all know that the Ontario Film and Video Review Board (which I still call the Censor Board because that is, after all, what they really are): is a special pet peeve of mine. Before the last provincial election, I heard a lot of talk from the Liberals and how they would fix that Board real quick if they were in-power. Well, now they are, in power, and nothing has been done. Arthur Black You know, for a short word, ""coke" sure has a_ twisted etymological pedigree. Less than a century ago, coke was strictly sdfiiéthing associated with stoves and locomotives and coal yards. When I was growing up, 'coke' was the ac- cepted vernacular for a seven-cent beverage that every kid on the block lusted after. Then, not so many years ago, the word metamorphosed again and began to do double duty as slang for both a soft drink and for a not- so-soft drug. It's a funny word, alright. What's 'even funnier -- perhaps 'bizarre' is closer to the mark -- is the totally out of whack impact that one sugar-loaded, carbonated and nutri- tionally useless beverage has had on the entire planet. It's unbelievable. At the end of World War II, a French observer noticed the phenomenal upsurge in sales of Coca- Cola to his country. One bottle of the American import cost more than a litre of decent vin ordinaire. It was unmemorable and gassy -- and the tavernes and the cafes couldn't keep "w FAITH AN' BEGORRAH /7'S THE CANADIAN AMBASSADOR { " In fact, Premier David Peterson was quoted in the March 5 Toronto Star as saying that his government has no intention of disbanding the cerisor board and that they can continue to edit or even completely ban films. This is ridiculous. When will we have a court challenge this mess to show, once and for all, that what the Board is doing and what the govern- ment is' condoning is not only unethical and undemocratic but also unconstitutional? Until changes are made, though, we Ontario movie goers. will continue to be treated like children. **A place to grow" indeed. But I'm not through with the pro- vincial government just yet. Let us not ignore the Ministry of Natural Resources. Terrace Bay Councillor Jim Ziegler was quoted in this newspaper last week as saying that the Ministry is populated with peo- ple who act like **snakes"'. Now, I wouldn't go that far (and I should add that Mr. Ziegler was not referring to the local Ministry office when he made that statement), but I would agree that the MNR has been pretty evasive in the past, to say the least. : I could tell you all about the Detour Lake Road controversy which took place a few years ago in Northeastern Ontario, but I don't have the time or space, so I will tell you instead that many Ministries, including the MNR, have been less than completely honest and open with the people of this pro- vince in the past. The recent Slate Islands caper is a good example. What does the Ministry really have in mind for that provincial park? Sure, they'll tell you _ that their plans all depend upon public input, but I'm sure they have a few ideas of their own, which I feel they should share with us. Instead of Background Information Packages and various Options, we ought to get more straight talk from them. But I guess that would be asking too much of a government body. Now to the federal government, perhaps the worst of the lot. They are forever whining about how they have » to cut down on the deficit by raising taxes, but the real way to do it is to reduce government spending, if you ask me. I could offer a few suggestions to them. You should see the worthless Junk that comes in through the mail (and sometimes by expensive courier!) to this News office. If they would just cut down in that depart- ment, I'm sure they would save thousands if not millions of dollars right there. What they should also do is hire some tough-minded, impartial yet in- formed person to go through their books and suggest (or I should say in- sist) some specific reductions. Ah .. that. won't work after all. The only qualified individual for the job is busy working in Terrace Bay as editor of the paper. Oh well, it was a good idea while it lasted ... ; it in stock. Coca-Cola was the vanguard of the global love affair with things American. The French observer dubbed the phenomenon **Coca-colonialism.** The ensuing 40 years have done nothing but accelerate and intensify the happening. Coca-cola is now the largest selling soft drink in the world. You can buy it in 155 countries. Every day, 279 million bottles or cans of the stuff get opened. For the 67,000 people who own shares in Coca-Cola, the results have been predictably profitable. The com- ° pany reports annual revenues of more than $3 billion. It employs a staff of 33,000. Coca-Cola is the world's largest single consumer of granulated sugar and it runs the world's second largest fleet of trucks... only the U:S. Post Office uses more. When you tote it all up and return all the empties, Coca Cola is a larger and more prosperous entity than a- good number of third world nations. More stable, too... at least until the onset of the Cola Wars. To most of us, the Coke versus Pepsi feud is nothing more than a series of brainless and inane TV ads featuring blindfolded fluffheads engaged in endless taste tests. In reality, the War is bigger than that -- international, in fact. Remember way back in the Sixties when Richard Milhous Nixon was in- flating his reputation as an interna- tional statesman by shuttling back and forth between Moscow and Washington and Peking? It wasn't widely reported at the time, but Richard Nixon was making those calls as more than just the president of the United States -- he was also.do- ing time as a pop salesman. Through the machinations of President Nixon and his business associates, the Com- _munist world was introduced to the wonders of American soft drinks. Russia got Pepsi. China got Coke. But that was nearly 20 years ago. Since then, the Coke and Pepsi in- fighting overseas has been ferocious and without mercy. And lately, Pep- Si seems to have been gaining the up- per hand. Wayne Calloway, president of Pep- sico Limited was in Canton recently for the official opening of his firm's second plant. : Calloway says the new installation will make Pepsi the number one soft drink in China. **We beat them easi- ly in the Soviet Union," boasts Calloway, "and the Chinese market is virtually limitless." Even allowing for the standard cor- porate hype, Calloway and the Pepsi team have obviously done something to ingratiate themselves with Orien- tal officialdom. During the tour he and his party were chauffeured around Peking in the largest automobiles China can offer -- a fleet of enormous blue Cadillacs, complete with back seat bars and television sets. The question that keeps swimming around in the unseduced mind is -- why? How can a simple, intrinsical- ly silly recreational beverage generate so much agitation in the economies of entire nations? For the Russians and the Chinese, it's a lucrative -- albeit cynicial -- ex- ercise in balance of payments. They trade off their markets against a hef- ty commitment for American invest- ment. In Russia, for instance, Pepsi has pledged to buy vodka for resale in the U.S. in exchange for the Pepsi concentrate it ships to some 16 Pepsi plants in the USSR. Russian teeth and blood sugar levels for American livers and kidneys. Tit for tat, I guess. Coca Cola has similar deals with countries around the world. Still I can't help but wonder what future archeologists will make of it, as they twirl-a rusty pop can in their hands. I have this recurring hallucina- tion... I've travelled 110 years into the future, and I'm thumbing through a 21st Century edition of the Cana- dian encyclopedia. I come across a list of great diplomats of the 20th Century. Pierre Trudeau is there. So is Dag Hammarskjold and Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat... and right at the bottom, with a big footnote... there's Bill Cosby.

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