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Page 4, Terrace Bay-Schreiber News, Wednesday, July 9, 1986 'Terrace Bay The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by: Laurentian Publishing Co. Ltd., Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ontario, POT 2W0. Telephone: (807) 825-3747. PRODUCTION MANAGER EDIILOR.... 2s . Se ee a ees ee Conrad Felber ADVERTISING. .. = 33. = oe a ae Gigi Dequanne OERIGE ic) Se eae ee Se ee Gayle Fournier So er Mary Melo Single copies 35 cents Subscription rates per year in-town -- $14.00 out-of-town -- $18.00 Member of Ontario Community Newspapers Association and The Canadian Community Newspapers Association. Editorial Reveen review The Canada Day celebrations in Terrace Bay and area last week were an unqualified success. Everything, from the horseshoe tournaments to the annual Bed Race to the concluding fireworks display on July 1, was well attend- ed and lots of fun for all involved. Congratulations and thanks are therefore extended to all members of this year's Canada Day Committee and their helpful assistants. The Reveen show at the Terrace Bay Arena on July 3, which was indirectly connected to the Canada Day fest- ivities, was also a success...of sorts. Those who attended the unique event all seemed to have a great time, but the problem was there were few of them. The Arena was half full at best, and one organizer said the income generated by the affair would probably not cover their expenses. So what happened? Of course, many local residents were probably out of town at the time, but many others just didn't bother to show up, perhaps due to their fear of Re- veen's so-called "Superconscious Psychology," or maybe because their priest urged them not to attend. Things that are new and different are not necessarily dangerous or evil. Reveen said he would return to Ter- race Bay next year, so if you missed him the first time around, you'll have no excuse come next September. By Conrad Felber Uh oh. The monarchists are feel- ing threatened again. A Liberal MP, Marcel Prud'Homme, has suggested that on the new one dollar coin Can- adians: are about to find jingling in their pockets and purses, the Queen's - profile should be replaced with John Diefenbaker's mug. As far as yours truly is concerned, I think it's a great idea (even if Dief is a bit less good- looking than QEII), but there are a few who are opposed to the scheme. In a recent letter to the editor of the Toronto Star, one John McLeod ask- ed what is so progressive about dec- orating a country's coins with "'pict- ures of deceased politicians" instead of the image of its reigning Queen. '*The only possible explanation I can offer is that our very progressive neighbors to the south do the former, By Arthur Black Notice anything... spiffier about your newspaper today? Particularly in the headline depart- ment? I don't want to take any special credit, but it's probably because the editors had an advance peek at my column and decided to clean up their act. We are talking about headlines in this space today... great headlines, terrible headlines, hilarious headlines and boring headlines. Years ago some wags on Fleet Street held an unofficial contest to see who could pen the most boring: headline. Claude Cockburn, a sub- editor of The Times in London won with this entry: SMALL EARTH- QUAKE IN CHILE, NOT MANY DEAD. That's pretty boring, alright, although I'm not sure The New York Times or | The Globe and Mail couldn't outyawn it on a slow news day. Headlines don't have to be boring to be memorable. Some are worthy of immortality just because they're so doggone good. A few years ago, when New York City was on the * "and by special aigpensalior from : John Croskie, you may rou kigs the hride ! Lv N NN SS OL xX OL S, iS x SOX xX Y S o, ro S < o, N, x SS. SS <> < Ma S SS y SS WN Ye while we benighted Canadians have always done the latter," he added. If you manage to penetrate the smokescreen of sarcasm McLeod has erected in his letter, you might find he has hit the nail right on the head. It may not be progressive to put dead Prime Ministers on one's coins, but it sure adds variety, and variety is, after all, the spice of life (not to men- tion numismatism). s I, for one, have grown tired of see- ing the Queen peering out from the little money which I possess before I spend it. I greeted with relief the trend a few years back to replace her face with:that of Sir John A.'s and- others on the $10 bill and $5 bill. Bumping Her Royal Majesty froma coin or two would be another step in the right direction, and our new $1 coin gives us the perfect opportunity to do just that. Of course, our weasly politicians will probably shelve Prud'Homme's proposal, but I hope they at least give it some serious thought. Remember, once the Queen steps down, Prince Charles will take her place on the throne and also on all of our curr- ency. That is an eventuality which chills my blood, and we simply must do all we can right now to keep his inevitable future appearances down to a minimum. OK, Chuck can be on the penny, but that's it. All joking aside, I am proud and thrilled to be living here in Canada, land of the relatively free and home of the reasonably brave. I wouldn't want to exist anywhere else, with the possible exception of the US (and if you want to get specific about it, the state of California). But America is not all it's cracked up to be. A recent newspaper story about that country reminded me how great things are up here. After all, south of the border they have to deal with things like waning civil rights, rampant racism demonstrated by the mere prescence of the Ku Klux Klan in many Cities, the lack of an effect- ive health-care. system, 'a; growing xenophobia which masquerades as "national pride," a paranoid senile cowboy in the White House, and per- haps worst of all, the gun laws (or lack thereof). I am honestly afraid of a country where, according to the' newspaper article mentioned above, there isan annual total of 9,800 murders caus- ed by handguns alone. When will them damn Yankees come to 'their - senses and outlaw the sale of those deadly weapons, you ask? It'll never happen, not as long as they continue: . to. believe they have a Constitutional right to bear.arms (which, of course, they do not). Meanwhile, dozens of people are killed by handguns in the U.S. of A. every single day. Uh...maybe I will just stay here for a while, where in 1981 handguns kill- ed only 52 people, thanks to our tough gun control laws. Who says the States is the best anyway? We may be boring in comparison, with ugly coins to boot, but at least we stay alive! es verge of bankruptcy the city fathers -appealed to Washington for a finan- cial bailout. President Gerald Ford turned them down. The headline writer at The New York Daily News summed up the rebuff in one pithy line: FORD TO N.Y.: DROP DEAD. But when it comes to concise and punchy headlines, Variety magazine does it best. Headline writing is an art form at Variety... so much so that the magazine has spawned a whole series of headline words such as "'boffo"" for gigantic, "B'way"' for Broadway, "biz" for business and "*sez" for says (saves one letter). Variety language manglers also love alliteration and it shows in my favorite headline, written to sum up the results of an American poll which revealed a sharp drop in popularity of movies about small towns or rural life. Variety slugged it: STIX NIX HIX PIX. : Also not bad was a Variety headline that appeared when a blizzard in Buf- falo, N.Y. tied up the city and strangled the week's movie box of- fice receipts. Variety announced: BLIZ BOFFS BUFF. BIZ. Variety editors work hard at their headlines. A lot of newspaper and magazine editors don't work nearly » hard enough. For instance, the editor who wrote: MAN FOUND DEAD IN CEMETERY. Or the genius who penned: ESCAPED LEOPARD BELIEVED SPOTTED. Mind you, screwed-up headlines are not always the fault of overwork- ed (or overproofed) editors. Sometimes they are the work of what newspaper people are pleased to call "*gremlins."" Gremlins (notwithstanding the movie of the same name) are tiny, leprechaunish creatures that nest in the innards of newspaper machinery. They thrive on a diet of old typewriter ribbons garnished with editor's visors and washed down with mugs of printer's ink. A gremlin's whole reason for existing is to make life miserable for editors and pro- ofreaders by introducing random and otherwise inexplicable errors in what appears in your issue of. the newspaper. If there are ever, heaven forbid, any errors in this column, you can rest assured that gremlins are behind it. é We don't tolerate human frailty here. Gremlins have done their dirty work on headlines over the years. Sometimes they. only sabotage a single letter, such as: MIXED MAR- RIAGE CONDUCTED BY RABBIT. And just to show their virtuosity, the same gremlins caused this headline to appear: FARMERS THREATENED BY PLAGUE OF RABBIS. Most headlines, alas, are not humorous, intentional or otherwise. The majority of them are merely deadly -- which accounts for the fact thai the game invented by bored Fleet Street flacks more than 60 years ago is still going on. Recently an American magazine, The New Republic, invited readers to unearth a newspaper headline more a recent issue of The New York Times. To wit: WORTHWHILE CANA- DIAN INITIATIVES. Michael Kinsley, a writer for The New Republic observed in a snide aside: "References to Canada are not essential to a boring headline. Mere- ly helpful."' Ah well. Mr. Kinsley is more to be pitied than censured. He has to live and work, after all, in that emporium of ennui, Washington. He has to put up with air pollution, traffic conges- tion, filibustering senators, larcenous lobbyists, and 16.7 junkie/muggers per city block. Have mercy on the guy. Send him your copy of Lakehead Living as soon as you're through with it.