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

Too much sex breeds twisted minds ur technological society is an ideal breeding ground for the sexual predator, with the silent majority unwitting parties to their horrendous acts. Iraditionally, television was the great corrupter with the Jerry Springer and realityâ€"type television shows parading the worst of mankind, not to mention the banâ€" quet of hard and soft porn inviting young, impressionable minds to take a peek Mix in a ton of violence with the widespread effort to discredit the family by poking fun at the father figure and you have role models resembling a horror show. The PC has opened a whole new range of frightening possibilities from global chat rooms offering an easy exit from your marriage to websites trumpeting the best in lad die porn Champions of noâ€"censorshipâ€"atâ€" anyâ€"cost have won the day as the Taylor should have done more homework Mnny Taylor holds himself out as the Waterloo may oralty candidate who will watch the public purse He also happens to be the councillor who was push ing for a RIM Park inquiry _Iam not opposed to some kind of an inquiry. It‘s the cost benefit I‘m concerned about You said it The Waterioo Chronicle welcomes individuals to submit columns on issues that would be of interest to our readership. All columns should be signed with name, address and phone number and will be verified for accuâ€" racy. Submissions may be edited for length, so please keep the column length to 500 words. Authors will not receive payment for their submissions. Copyright in columns and other materials submitted to the Publisher and accepted for publication remains with the author, but the publisher and its licensees may freely reporoâ€" duce them in print. electronic or other forms. Our mailing address is 75 King St. S., Suite 201, Waterloo, ON, N2J 1P2. Our eâ€"mail address is editorial@waterloochronicle.ca. and our fax number is 886â€"9383. QUESTION WHAT‘S YOUR FAVOURITE OKTOBERFEST ACTIVITY ? He told us it would cost around $600,000, but I Columnists welcomed o9 i i S h computer runs amok through our homes and workplaces, the latter where many an employee has been sent packing for indulging his or her fantasies on the boss‘ time. Combine these electronic family members with a rush to solitary lifestyles, where it‘s possible to live a hermit‘s existence with bills paid onâ€"line and groceries delivered at the door, and you have the perfect climate for the twisted mind. The lonely mind embraces the kinky without the tempering of human contact It isn‘t a great leap from imaginâ€" ing to acting out in the real world. a world that glorifies sex to the extent that a passionate kiss between Britâ€" ney and Madonna made the front page The underlying problem is that we‘ve stood by and allowed Holly wood and the business community define our lives ag if sex were the beginning and en?}f our lives "The drinking. Also the parade is enterâ€" taining." "Kitchener has a great drinking setup. You can walk up and down the street, or into any bar you want, and meet new people." THE CHRONICL] Melissa Henry Leah Forsythe COMMENT How can we support candidates who can‘t get the analysis done to get the numbers right? understand the bill will come in at about seven times that number Love is pictured as a feeling, a cureâ€"all to problems when in fact it may may complicate our lives in the context of marriage. When it no longer feels good we opt out, leavâ€" ing untold wreckage in our wake. The truth is that love is an action where we commit to stick by this other persen through thick and thin. Love is possible without sex. Put sex in its place and let‘s get on with life, which is being producâ€" tive and serving others. We stand on the sidelines shakâ€" ing our heads at how low society has sunk instead of taking up our pens and paper and writing our politicians demanding laws governâ€" ing decency in the media Television and computers must be our servants, not our masters. The death of Holly Jones shouldâ€" n‘t be for nought "I like the drinking, and the free buses too. So, if you get drunk just take the free bus." "I like seeing the peoâ€" ple in their costumes. It‘s just people drinkâ€" ing and having fun, and the heritage aspect is really aweâ€" some too." HRONICLI Lusie Comier Jim Newton New Dundee Roy Snyder Waterloo The same could be said for every majority government elected in Ontario since the midâ€"1930s. Not surprisingly, none of those fauxâ€" majority governments has seen fit to change the firstâ€"pastâ€"theâ€"post electoral system that put them in office. If change is to occur, it will be up to voters to demand it. en the ballots were all counted on October 2, Dalton Wh‘ric(}uint_v's Liberals won 72 seats out a total 103 available. While that stands as an impressive majority of seats, they achieved that result with a minority of ballots cast (just 46 per cent}. Of the many disappointments that ! felt at the end of Bob Rae‘s five years in office is that the NDP government didn‘t even broach the subject of electoral reform, let alone do anything about it. While acutely aware of the fact that he had been elected with a mere 38 per cent of the popular vote â€" indeed, he regularty cited that fact when excusing his failure to act boldly in a particular policy area â€" Rae nevâ€" ertheless kept the system in place that made that feat possible. The system had its revenge on Rae (and the electorate) when it subsequently facilitated the election of two majority Conservative governments, also elected with less than half of the ballots cast. Besides the way that the current system translates ballots cast into seats awarded, there is considerable evidence that it also affects both whether people vote and how they vote. Particularly when opinion polls sugâ€" gest that the outcome of the election is a faitâ€"accompli, many voters feel that they needn‘t bother to cast a ballot. Combined with the loss of doorâ€"toâ€" door enumeration, the perception that one vote won‘t make a difference is the single biggest contributor to the plumâ€" meting turnouts that have plagued us in recent elections. In addition, the firstâ€"pastâ€"theâ€"post sysâ€" tem exacerbates the pressure on voters to give their vote to a party that can win a particular riding. In the recent provincial election, that translated into thousands of voters casting their ballots for the Liberals when they actually would have preferred to vote either Green or NDP. Under a different system., people would be largely free from such pressures, as every vote would count equally. But, even assuming that everyone voted exactly the same way under a reformed system, the legislature resulting from our latest exercise in balloting would look a lot different. Fair Vote Canada (â€" www.fairvotecanada.org), a multiâ€" partisan citizens‘ campaign for voting system reform, estimates that an electoral system based on proportional representation would have given us the following results: The Liberals would have had about 48 seats and a minority government. rather than a 72â€"seat majority govâ€" emnment; the Tories would have had about 35 seats rather than 24; the NDP would have had about 14 seats rather than 7; and the Green Party would have gained about 3 seats. This result would have led the Liberals to seek the support of the NDP and/or the Greens, and the resulting government would have been exactly what voters wanted. he Liberal platform stated: "You will decide how elections work... After consulting with the public. we will hold a referendum on whether we should keep our winnerâ€"takeâ€"all voting system or replace it with another. Alternatives to our voting system could include some form of proportional representation, preferential ballots or mixed sysâ€" tems." Curiously, the Liberals‘ federal cousins recently used their own parliamentary majority to kill an NDP motion which called for a national referendum on proportional representation. exactly what the Ontario Liberals are proposing for Ontario. Still, Daiton McGuinty has been fairty adamant that some kind of electoral reform is overdue. In a 2001 interview with Pundit Magazine, McGuinty cited "waning confidence in government" as the impetus behind this position. He went on to say that "the two alternatives that would be on the table would be preferential balloting, which requires only modest changes to the system that we have in place, and proâ€" the world. What 1 want to do is have a debate. I want to inform the public about the options, and then I want them to make a decision. They may decide. at the end of the day, to say ‘thank you very much for the opportunity, we‘ve had a review and we understand what it is that we have. its upsides and its downsides, and we‘re sticking with what we have .‘ Or they may decide ‘no, we‘re going to make a change And I just think it‘s very important that we have a debate." Let that debate begin now. But don‘t let it be a debate between politicians, academics and newspaper columnists Get informed. and get invoived. This may be the best chance you have to create an electoral system that works for Time to create a more representational vote So, what are the prospects for change? Better than you might