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

u wfel5kjbni5er pgp stux j eri or fax us numbers at right mental health services need a leg up even in the boom times mental health issues took a back seat but in this precari ous economic climate they stand to fall even further behind sure there was always the easy handout of symptom reducing prescrip tion drugs but no real gains in delivering alternative ser vice to the sufferers and fam ilies ironically its during reces sions and depressions that people services are most in demand yet the reality is such that funding dries up and layoffs and cutbacks will be felt keenly in the area of mental health and other social services jo ann stevenson where churches and neigh borhoods once played this role public agencies for the most part are responsible for those who need a leg up ser vices have jumped from the personal to the public paid for by the taxpayer the good news is that tax payers are also good citizens and many of them are stretching their own mmmm resources to look out for the other guy as well events vjgwpoint such as the springtime festi vals that abound in our local communities cost very little and go a long way toward drawing people into involve ment with the people they live among and at the agency level some movement is taking place a special committee has been struck by the province to advise the min istry on the reform of ontarios mental health ser vices and rather than listen to professionals only the com mittee includes consumers someone who has experi- jfikttj apr it wwpfowkerlnthepirtviro flkea0urj i v 1 i i- 1 i i t vptto wfc about enced service first hand and family members as well as representatives working in hospitals and community ser vice organizations to become more involved in local service consider joining the canadian mental health association the york region branch holds its annual gen eral meeting june 21 at 7 pm and will feature a special performance by the kent county mental health play ers focusing on stigma markham economist and sun stouffville tribune uxbridge tribune weekender edition a metroland community newspaper paislciapappasipubiisher jo ann stevenson editorinchief paula ckowell editor andrew mae editor debrawelleb director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vivian otffill business manager pamela nichols operations manager marlrhm 2942200 sales 7987624 classi fied 2944331 stoofivilfe 6402100 uxbridge 8529741 2948244 distribution and administration 9 heritage rd mnrkham l3p 1m2 fax markbam 2941538 stouflville 640- 6477 uxbridge 8524355 the markham economist and sun stoufrvihe tri bune and uxbridge tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group of subur ban newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post collingwood connection etobicoke guardian the liberal georgetown inde pendentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week milton canadian champion mississauga news north york mirror oakville beaver onllia today oshawawhitbv this week peterborough this week scarborough mirror the era banner contents not to be reproduced without written permission from the publisher fish tank display popular as tv fare imagine what it would be like if tv were actually good it would be the end of everything we know marvin minsky an american media executive with the unfortunate handle of newton minow esquire once defined north american televi sion as a vast wasteland mister minow may have been mokerchallenged but philo sophically he was bang on the money if you doubt it go to the only oneeyed piece of furniture in the corner of your living room on any weekday afternoon and turn it on you will be rewarded with badly acted soap operas huff ing and puffing airheads in spandex workout suits and a plethora of talk shows hosted by miketoting hosts examining the problems of transvestite bank tellers from broken homes and their pets or you could flip up the dial until you hit the weather channel the weather channel think about it for a moment do you think newton minow would ever have believed that some day television would feature a channel devoted to nothing but weather reports 24 hours a day whats really scary is that the weather channel is often the best thing on the box not counting the shopping channel of course now theres a magnificent milestone in broadcasting history a channel that features still pho tographs of elvis paintings chia pets and phonylooking necklaces made of cubic zirconi um and theyre all for sale thats not all the national cable association down in the us is offering a whole raft of new video services next year including a channel called atv that stands for advertising television it features an end less reel of five to tenminute commercials one after another i twentyfour hours a day who watches this crap well its hard to say exactly basic black tkssv mi i arthur black who the hard core tv addicts are out there being mesmer ized by the tube but we know a few things about the gaping maw called the television audi ence we know for instance that you dont want to get them riled last summer a cabletv company in columbia south carolina stationed a tv cam era on a tropical fish tank and broadcast the resulting drama on an otherwise empty channel when they finally replaced the static aquarium shot with some actual network programming outraged viewers lit up the cable tv telephone switch board angrily demanding the return of the fish tank they won the company now broadcasts the aquarium on another channel nonstop from nine in the morning to mid night and it looks like television is poised to take an even bigger bite out of our time whats the title of that old springsteen song fiftyseven channels and nothings on make it 160 channels ladies and gentlemen allow me to introduce you to death- star its the slang name for a los angelesbased news service and entertainment package that will soon be targeting all north american televisions with a hundred and sixty chan nels you know that humongous satellite dish your uncle shelled out a couple of grand for last year tell him he now owns one of the worlds biggest bird- baths deathstar offers its clients a rooftop dish no bigger than a large pizza ann landers said it best television has proved that peo ple will look at anything rather than eaqh other