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WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1986, PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson îi EwU THE~ CROW'S NEST by Michael Knell You know, it's the little things in life that make you mad. For example, did you watch the free time on Canada's much heralded pay télevision channels last week? I did. Some of the programs were well worth watching - they offered information and entertainment not offered on main- stream networks. But there's a small problem. Like standard television, they have commercials. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to pay the local cable company for the privilege of watching commercials. It's bad enough that the government subsidizes the CBC with our tax dollars and we have to watch commercials on that network. So, I think it's a bit ridiculous for a private net- work to charge us a fee for watching commercials. Another thing that makes me mad about pay TV is that you don't get the channels you want. For example, all I'd ever watch or want are the news chan- nel, the arts channel and the movie channel. But I can't buy just those three.'To get them, I have to buy ail of them. And I object to that. Aside from baseball, I'm not a sports fan so I don't need the sports channel. I'm not into the garbage currently labelled music, so I don't need the music channel and from what I've seen that life channel is a joke. But to get the movie channel I have to endure them. Why don't they give the subscriber free choice in cable channel selec- tion? Do you want miy opinion? Pay TV is a joke in this country. No, it's not a joke. It's a rip-off. Government is a constant source of anger. For instance, our dour and terrible uninteresting Minister of Finance, Michael Wilson, is going to introduce his second budget to the House of Com- mons and to the nation next week. The pundits and even the mildly well infor- med are predicting that taxes are going up and government services are going down. Well, that's nothing new since it seems this government is bound and determined to cut the deficit at the expense of the ordinary working Canadian. I mean, if the Mulroney government was serious about reducing the deficit and making life more prosperous for the ordinary Canadian why did he give Conrad Black $1 billion of our money? Conrad Black doesn't need the money and neither do any of his untold number of business interests. On the other hand, my wife and I could put the money we pay in income tax to good use if the government didn't need it in order to give it to Conrad Black. It angers me that the government consumes enough of my family's income that because of the tax we pay, we cannot currently afford to buy a house. It makes me angry that the government would give a highly successful businessman like Conrad Black who bought a highly profitable company $1 billion of our tax money (in the form of tax credits etc.) and refuses to leave my family enough of our income to buy our own home. And what really ticks me off is that Muddlerunney and Wilson have the nerve to tell me that it's for my own good. They make my family poorer and Conrad Black richer. I wouldn't mind if I had as much money as he does. I'm also mad at Conrad Black. What right does he have to enjoy the riches, rights and freedoms of this country without assuming his responsibilities and obligations? Why doesn't he recognize and accept his responsibilities by paying his fair share of the load. (While he's at it, he should meet his obligations to those employees of Dominion who he recently cast into the dark moor of unem- ployment). Who else am I mad at? Oh, yeah. The doctors. What right do they have to hold us ail to ransome simply because they want the right to earn a pre-determined income based on their current relationship with Revenue Canada? Nobody is denying that the doctors have the right to earn an income that is reflective of tifeir training, their dedication, their hours and their investment in themselves. I would have more respect for the doctors if they started to talk about the general financial state of the health care system in Ontario and ways to make it better. Instead, the doctors want to'talk about how they have the right to earn more than $100,000 a year if they want to. Then, they have the nerve to tell us that if we don't grant them the right to charge whatever they want for one of the most basic of human needs, then they'll pack their bags and move to the United States or somewhere else where such larceny is tolerated. Those, namely the Tories, who suþport the doctors say that if we don't grant the doctors the right to extra-bill, we run the risk of ruining the health care system because we'll chase the best and brightest to greener pastures. Well, the converse is also true. The poor will be afraid to seek medical help if the only doctor who can help them will charge considerably more than the OHIP scale and will expect thern to pay for it out of their pockets. If the doctors want to talk about raising the OHIP fees, that's fine. If they want to talk about new ways to create revenue for the health care system, that's fine too. If they want to talk about ways to improve the medical professions, I'm all ears. I am angry that the doctors think they have a right to hold the health care system of this province to ransome for a few pieces of gold. No one is denying them the right to make a decent living. But in exchange for the big bucks we already pay them, we have a right to expect them to assume their respon- sibilities like mature adults, not the spoiled brats they are presently making themselves out to be. There is so much in this country to be angry at. Most of it is caused by gover- nment and entreprise that wants privilege, not freedom. Most of these things are designed to do one thing: part the ordinary Canadian from his money while making him like it. Well, folks, I don't. WITH OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan Frivolous subjects, such as market value assessment, give us chuckles and laughter amid the storms of the computer age. Stop me if you've ieard this one before: you take the assessed value, multiply by the mill rate and violai - but for shame1 Should give you the punch line you may convulse yourself in laughter. We should not endanger your health with such matters. Instead, this week we bring you a brief discussion of the weight and serious matters of modern living. Item the first: birthday cards. I recently celebrated a birthday. A part of birth- day is card. But what do you do with birthday cards after the event? The sane thing would be to simply turf them out, right? But they're all so pretty, and signed with love and all that. Loved ones have been known to spend days to find The Perfect Card. What do you say when that special someone finds The Perfect Card, between the leftover broccoli and the scalloped potatoes? It's a problem that tests relationships. Right now I'm working on a special reusable card cover. Made of clear vinyl, the cover slips over standard greeting cards. The sender signs the vinyl instead of the card. After the birthday, the vinyl can be washed clean and the card and vinyl reused time and time again. We're now working on a method to reuse postage stamps. If that works, we can cut the cost of card- giving down to the cost of envelopes. At the present time I have in my possession: a rocking chair I dare not rock on; a computer table, on which I now write; a crib, in which is sleeping - for the entire night (please! the entire night) - one seven-month-old infant; and a... But enough! What do all these things have in common? First that I-bought them. Second, that I brought them home from the store in plain cartons. And third, that I assembled them. With tools which don't fit. By putting screws into holes that ain't there. By reading instructions that make no sense. From looking a pictures that. work backwards. Using pieces that ain't all there. Attached to which are a few Christmas Eve horror stories. Item the third: modern chemicals. For those of you who have been wondering, and there have been many, science has found a solution to the Ultimate Question. (In the science-fiction triology The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the Ultimate Computer con- coted the answer to the Ultimate Question. The an- swer was 42. The difficulty then still lay in finding the question to which the answer is 42. But I digress.) The Ultimate Question: Why do you need a dif- ferent detergent to wash dishes in the dishwasher than you need when you wash dishes in the sink? To solve this problem, I set up a scientific ex- periment. For this presentation, let us just say the situation simulates a common household problem: we are out of dishwasher detergent. But we have lots of Palmolive liquid. Why not, so the ixperiment went, use the Palmolive in the dishwasher? They're both detergents, are they not? They will both get the dishes clean, will they not? Right, then. On with it. - At the beginning of this test, the scientist did not think consciously of surface tension. Most days he doesn't think of surface tension at all. (Surface tension is the stuff that makes water stick to itself so those little spiders can run across ponds, and it also keeps water from flowing out of tiny cracks. Like in dishwashers. Unless you use liquid detergentin them.) When surface tension is lowered enough, water - and suds - flow out of every little pore in the old front loader. Enough suds, be the way, to cover the kitchen floor. About knee deep. A free bonus: the science of household efficiency holds that when conducting the above experiment, the Ultimate in Efficiency is achieved should you decide to scrub the kitchen floor immediate after- wards. This added information is offered gratis to you at the planing stage. should you attempt to duplicate SEE PG. 9 9000