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" PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, June 4, 1985 -- § letters "Fair Queen" contest sexist! --_---- Dear Sir: The Sunderland Agricultural Society is indeed fortunate to have uch an articulate and enthusiastic represen- tative as Debbie Don- neral to represent it as Fair Queen. This, however, does not alter the fact that a contest that is open to only one sex is, by definition, "sexist."' While the sexism of Fair Queen Contests pro- bably does not impinge greatly on the lives of the young men of Ontario the situation changes when more important matters are discussed. Would Debbie be as enthusiastic had she been told not to bother applying for a particular job or position because she is female? She might remember re- cent correspondence in this newspaper regar- ding a dinner for people involved in community work to which only male service club members were invited. The women thus slighted were not amused. In the future, when she joins the work force, will she be excited about earning less than 70 per cent of what she would earn as a man, a figure that has not changed appreciably in the last twenty-five years? To repeat, Fair Queen Competitions ARE sex- ist, and one might take the view that if one is content to be treated in this fashion over something unimportant then one must also be prepared to be treated the same way about the important aspects of life. Yours Sincerely, Judy Jensen. Feels pity for Queen Editor's Note: The following letter was sent to Sunderland Fair Queen, Debbie Donneral, with a carbon copy to the Port Perry Star. Dear Debbie: Thank you for your let- ter. I am glad you had 'the opportunity ... to become independent and gain self-respect." However, any girl or any one "who wants a challenge, a chance to meet new friends' does not have to be a beauty queen to accomplish this. A contest involving the whole community, not one that discriminates against anyone who is not female, single and eighteen to twenty-three, is more representive of the community. Your family and the Stor PORT PERRY STAR CO LIMITED - 233 QUEEN STREET PO BOX 90 PORT PERRY ONTARIO LOB INO (416) 985-738) | {* CNA [&B (099) J. PETER HVI 1984 AN CO " > nA! Mm NIP) - i DSTEN Ag "a Member of the 4 ' Canadian Community Newspaper Association ~and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. yi Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash payment of postage in cash. Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 Subscription Rate: In Canada $15.00 per year. Elsewhere $45.00 per year. Single copy 35* =} friends have many reasons to be proud of you I'm sure. A panel of judges, whatever their profession, does not have to confirm this fact. It is a pity that you felt a need to parade like a young filly, before these opportunities were awarded to you. Nora Richards R.R 4, Sunderland, Ont. Star Wars riot a safe, or sane path to follow Dear Sir: Over 500 National Academy 'oi Science members, including many Nobel prize win- ners from a variety of disciplines have urged President Ronald _ Reagan to refrain from escalating the arms race to an even more dangerous level by conti- nuing to insist on "Star Wars" research. These are experts; some even worked on the Manhat- ten Project which developed the Atomic Bomb. They know what they are talking about! Defence/offence - at this point it matters little! These sane, and very knowledgeable people have insisted that S.D.1. (Star Wars) is not a safe or sane or even a prac- tical path to follow. Dump meeting Dear Sir: Over the past two weeks the Star has writ- ten of my problems with the council and the Blackstock dump facilities (or lack of them). Also, the fact that I am to be charged for something that Durham Region can't seem to put a finger on yet. However, due to these reports, my phone has not stopped ringing with people complaining about the restrictive dump hours, being turn- ed away because of some posted closing hours. I have talked with all our local politicians and the chairman of the Region, and they all ap- pear to want to pass the buck (is this an election year?) Some area residents, including myself, have rented -the Nestleton Community Centre for a 'meeting to discuss the dump situation. That meeting will start on Sunday, June 9 at 1:00 P.M. and all are welcome. For more in- formation, call 986-5640. Yet Canada has dallied with the invitation issued by the U.S. President, (almost an ultimatum since the decision was to be made by this month). We are considering the carrot of research jobs! Not. research on energy resources for the future, or how to clean up our lakes and rivers polluted by toxic waste, not research to find a cure for cancer or the hundreds of other cruel diseases that affect us and our neighbours in this world, not research on weather prediction or even a rust-free automobile, but research on space weapons! My God! What has happened STARDAZE to us? There are so many reasons to say NO to this request for approval by our neighbours in the United States; politicians og are not the experts that they would have us believe. I urge each of you to respond by sending a card or letter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and/or the Minister of External Affairs, Joe Clark. It only takes a minute and it costs nothing. It is our right, indeed our duty to speak out on our own behalf. Sincerely, Andrea Jones, R.R.2, Port Perry. -- © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the advertising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reprodeced ~== without the written permission of the publishers. arbitrary rule by the a ae ¢ J ws i _ dump manager, also, Yours truly, most recently the dump Bill Linington, \_ Popds gon being closed before the Nestleton. bill smiley & TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE Humans, though not as tenacious and purposeful as the ant, nor as busy as the bee, have much in common with them. Ants, of course, can't swim. Or they can, but they can't hold their noses when they go under, so they drown. Who'd want to be an ant? Bees, on the other hand, can fly, and we can't. But they are unable to jump, even to a conclusion, and we can, so that evens out. We don't have the single-mindedness of ants. They know where they are going, or what they are doing. We don't. We go wandering about and get squashed. They do too, of course, but at least they were headed somewhere. Bees bumble, but never on the scale that we do. They zero in on a flower. We stagger into a cactus. They, "Vrooom, vrooom'"' We flood our motors and go, "Ka- whuck, ka-whunck, ka-a-a-glunk!" There are other similarities and differences, none of which prove that humans are sifperior. Ants don't have sexual hang-ups. They know that they are workers, or soldiers of whatever. Humans don't, half the time, know whether they are punched, bored, or kicked in with a frozen boot. Bees also know who and what they are. Like us, they have a Queen, but theirs doesn't have to consult the Labour Party before deciding what to do about unemployment. She wipes out the workers. That automatically creates new jobs. Imagine a world in which bees had unemployment insurance. You'd not only have a been in your bonnet. but a bee in your bum, your brain and your bra. have poor aunts who must be kept under cover, rich aunts who must be toadied to, and crazy aunts who threaten to come and stay with us. Bees don't bother much about other bees. They just buzz about, sucking honey. What a life. They have no rotten kids, frigid wives, drunken husbands, goofy grandchildren, aged parents. So far, it looks as though we've got the short end of the stick, and the ants and the bees are in clover. But there's one thing that drags them down to our level. We all live in cells. You didn't know this? You say humans have free will? You think we can call the shots, be masters of our own destiny, choose between good and evil, live as long as we like, go to heaven or hell, decide what to have for dinner? Nonsense. You are sitting in a cell as you read this. I am sitting in a cell as I write it. Maybe your cell has a refrigerator and an electric stove, and mine has an ashtray and a filing cabinet. But they are cells. At night, we move from the TV cell to the cell with the platform where we, for no reason expect to go to sleep. We wake up in the same cell, after nightmares about being in a cell, and proceed to a smaller cell where we peer at ourselves, shake our heads gloomily and remove various normal blessings. Can you image a bee shaving his God-given whiskers? Then we romp down through a vertical cell with no windows to another cell with orange juice and coffee. Ants and bees get spilled sugar and honey. No coffee, no tea, no caffeine problems. Next, we leave for a mobile one, with FM radio, win- dow wipers, and automatic knees, legs, windows. Mean- while, the ants and the bees go about their business, get- ting exericse, fresh air and a keen curiosity about what's going to happen today. . We know nothing new is going to happen today. We go to a big cell, where ladies type in a little cell within a bigger cell. We pick up our little cellular pieces from the ladies and go off to our individual cells, where we spend the entire day convincing other people that they should be happy to even have a cell. Sometimes we are happy. We go to a big cell and browse around, hummng and snufling things and touching the untouchables. But it ends all too soon. We are brought to a tiny cell, where a young woman pun- ches out some tentacles that drag us back to the big cell, where the Queen Bee informs us that we have no taste, no common sense, and less intelligence than a bee or an ant. While this tirade is taking place, what are the ant and bee doing? Biting, stinging? No, they are anting around and beeing around, with no sense whatever that they are the lowest of the low, dumb slobs, cretins. The words don't mean anything to them. Some day, humans will rise to the level of the ant and the bee. They will accept their cells, instead of try- ing to kick the sides out of them. They will do what they are supposed to do, without a lot of its, ants and bees. Someday, humans will stop gossiping about each other. Ants don't. Someday humans will stop stinging each other. Bees don't, except when you bug them. Someday humans will stop asking "Why?'" The word is not in the vocabulary of ants and bees. But humans must have a care. If they don't, the theme song of the Twenty-first Century might well be, "My cell is your cell. Your cell is my cell. And our cell is our cell .... " On the other hand, perhaps we are not lost in the cells. Ants can multiply, but they can't divide. Bees can buxx, but they can't beam. Maybe there's a future for us, if we can just get out of those cells. Unlike us, ants don't worry about their ants. We