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

‘Peige 4~ ‘Hatton Hills This Week’ Wednesday, December, 196d Opinion HIS WEEK Halton Hils This Week Georgetown, Ont. L7G 48}, LE. Web Ping. Han is pyri pant ania aetna ‘an offer to sell which may be atary time, PUBLISHER: | Ken Bel Bellamy” OFFICE MANAGER: Jean Shewell Well, here it is! The first day of December; the unofficial start to the Christmas season. Why gosh, it seems that only yesterday it was Nov. 30 and we were all-taking a collective breath before plunging head-first into crowded shopping aisles to find that one special gift that - in truth — nobody else wanted. If the truth be known, I have never been much of a shopper; Christmas presents or otherwise. I walk into grocery stores, see the magnificently | displayed products, utter something like “Talk to !” to the array of food quite literally seducing shoppers, and walk out with three bags of chips, a loaf of day-old bread and a can of sardines — which are on special because (according to the sales pitch) they have just been rushed down from Moosonee or some other god-forsaken place and are offered at this unbelievable price because they only have a shelf-life of something like 250 years. As a kid, I used to like Easter because you didn’t have to buy anyone any presents and for four days were allowed to feed your face with all the chocolate and other goodies you could scrounge or steal from your sisters until your stomach fell out. Then, around about the time the first acne pebble appeared on yon manly countenance, I was taken aside by my parents and gently informed that it was ‘Better to give than to receive — or pilfer.’ That Easter I gave my older sister a pair of white socks (only worn once and that was during a test- walk) and gave my younger sister my beat-up and battered old basketball just in case she should ever grow pond three-foot nothing and wanted some- thing to. My eke habits had been established. Thanksgiving, again, never really posed a prob- lem, until those. ubiquitous ad-masters who beckon for our bucks decided it would be a nice touch to exchange little tokens of our affection for family and friends. Now “Hold the phone here!” I protested. It’s bad enough we have to draw lots to see who gets the drumstick, now I have to shell out for sweet noth- ings that, when all is said and done, give new mean- ing to that particular phrase - especially at Thanksgiving. Nothing can be more painful than that achingly empty hole in your pocket. Valentine’s Day is another present-giving bash I would just as soon skip over; although I did get one memorable card signed by my pet dog when the mud-encrusted mutt came charging through the liv- ing room while I was lying on the floor trying to compose a love-poem for my Grade 4 heartthrob. (We broke up the next fall, she claiming she was more mature than a snowball-throwing jockstrap — or words to that effect.) Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to Christmas and REALLY LARGE gift-giving. The problem this time around is that very few Canadian families have not been touched by our economic woes. What money might have been put aside for that little extra something for the young- sters or the aging parents, now must go to paying the grocery bill, the mortgage payment or other debts which seem to accumulate and grow (like dust-bun- nies, who knows how?) almost before our eyes. Everyone likes getting presents — that’s a given. By the same token, there is that special glow than surrounds an individual when his or her present is truly appreciated. Before the gift-buying binge really gets underway, however, families should sit down together and real- istically look at what their budget will allow. Then follow the budget through, even though it might mean that Uncle Willy won’t get his annual fish embroidered tie. A family can be the best gift of all - Christmas, so shop accordingly. and not just at Colin Gibson Tis the season HALTON HILLS THIS WEEK IS 873- e People’s Corner EDITOR: Colin Gibson CIRCULATION MANAGER: Marie Shadbolt OWNED & FAX:873-20918 Writer did not promote totalitarian viewpoint To the Editor: I was fascinated by R. Bramwell’s Nov. 20 response to my letter of Nov. 13. It has demonstrat- ed for me just how far a point can be missed. My reference to phyloge- nesis, or the birth of a species, was a purely metaphorical device. The point was to describe the profusion of species that occur at certain evolution- ary periods and compare sight!” Heaven help us all. I was thoroughly bewil- dered to witness Bramwell extrapolate my interest in these policies into support for Hitler’s atrocities. Bramwell displays an uncanny ability to locate and denounce Nazis even where they don’t exist. This obsession was played out on the work of the great Jesuit ~ priest, Teilhard de Chardin. I proudly admit to have been inspired by the vision that to the profusion of\ of this famous humanitari- political parties emerging in our country. I think that’s a healthy process for nature and politics alike. The point at which one species. surpasses the others was the same point where the political metaphor was abandoned. I clearly made no promotion of totalitarian world domination. My explicit goal was to applaud the National Party’s policies on, as I said, “sustainable development, responsible resource management, full employment, environmental quality standards, and jus- tice for native peoples”. T« which Bramwell replies “Ideas such as Russell’s must be destroyed on an. Sir Julian Huxley paid tribute to “his combination of wide scientific knowl- edge with deep religious feeling and a rigorous sense of values”. Her Majesty Queen Marie-Jose (another famous Nazi?) said, “Chardin, a figure-head of a new cycle in the life of mankind, moves us pro- foundly, not only by the amazing lucidity of his sci- entific vision but also by his love, his immense love, of God.” The noted catholic scholar, N.M. Wildiers S.T.D. said “Teilhard’s thought is revealed as being mnbeaen and_profound- in accord with the ieee of St. Paul.” MS Society thanks : Dear Mr. Gibson: On behalf of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada and the organizing commit- tee of the Seventh Annual Bachelor Classic, I would like to extend our sincere appreciation for displaying our public service message. With your help we were able to raise $250,000 on November 19th, 1993 - rev- enues which will be allocat- ed to medical research and services to people who have MS and their families. _ Thank you again for your generous contributions to the MS Society. With warmest regards, Kymberlee Brown National Public Relations Assistant Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada New Foodshare home To the Editor: It has been an exciting time for the Acton Foodshare. We were successful in locating a new home at 163 Perth Street, Acton with the assistance of Mr. Rick Bonnette and the generosity of Mr. Fred Dawkins and family and Mr. Ron Heller and family. We were once again over- whelmed by the generosity of the surrounding commu- nities where over 8,900 pounds of food, along with some monetary donations, were collected during the Scout and Guide food drive. Our sincere thanks to the donators, to Mr. Gerry Rivers and his team for their efforts in coordination; to the Scouts and Guides and families for their work and to Mr. Mugs, Al and Al’s Red Brand Meats and Freezer Frenzy for their donations. Thanks to Acton IGA, Acton Foodland and the Acton Free Press for their assistance in weighing. S Goy’s Transport for truck and dri- ver, United Aggregate for their assistance in weighing. To all the volunteers who helped to drive; sort and box food thanks. We, at the Foodshare, are looking forward to our offi- cial reopening at Perth Street. Please come by and see our new location and see how your Foodshare is assisting recipients with more than just emergency food. We welcome you any- time. Call the Foodshare at 853-0457. Thanks again to all!! Arlene Fritz, Secretary Acton Foodshare For Bramwell to wha in newspaper t “Teilhard’s equally Sane views provide a red carpet for Nazi thugs and their ilk to act in Hitler’s place” is appalling. The freedom which both Bramwell and I passionately support also includes the freedom to abjectly miss the point. Murray Russell Georgetown Too much government To the Editor: Re: The Free Trade Farce Garth Turner’s letter in response to a recent opinion piece on free trade and your reply prompts me to intervene before the two of you start swinging keyboards at each othe ler. Both of you are fighting about free trade agreements. The agreements still allow measures on all sides and in the case of NAFTA, clearly. allows governments to contin- ue granting monopolies which is definitely not free trade. Turner is right: free trade is a good thing but only if everyone has the advantage of trading freely which is not the case with the FTA or NAFTA. Vested interests (including government) on both sides of the border have made a mess of a very simple thing. How simple? Well, for the benefit of the non-combat- ants, your readers, I offer this example: T have this wonderful pen 1 am prepared to sell for 7550. No way, you say, but consid- ering it’s got a spell checker built in, you might part with $30 to use it to write tender of endearment to your truly beloved. So you give me $30, and I give you the pen. That’s free trade. You'll notice no one else was involved and it only took a few sentences to describe the process. When you look at NAFTA, it took over 4,000 pages of legal text to describe free trade. You have to know it was more about politics, pro- tectionism and special deals de. And not all of those special deals, excep- tions and exemptions were for the benefit of the average working person. What about the job losses? They’ve gone down the tubes because of socialists in Ottawa and Queen’s Park thinking they can “plan” a free” economy. And then tax the hell out of everyone to pay for their mistakes. The Russians thought they could do it and we are on the same path to the same mistakes. No politician can do it because we are the market- you and I, Old-line politicians don’t like the market because they can’t control it.and there- fore control you and I. It’s the last bit of freedom we have! The minor increases in freedom these agreements provide ‘infringes on political power and that’s one thing ur rulers don’t want to-give up. Their greed in the form of taxation and regulation has put us at a compete so the rest of us-can. Big government is still the problem, not the cure, for lost jobs, opportunity and hope for the future. So, while you two are blaz- ing away at the keyboards, the smoke billowing from your monitors is hiding the real problem - government: too many layers of it, too much power in its hands and no brains running it! And when you both stop tapping at ae think about it, you know _ Cox eader Libertarian arty of a. Editor’s note: oa ulations! Not once did you use the big bad “P” word. You know the one, ‘People.’