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Citizen comment Minister attacks Playboy philosphy Dear Editor: There has been a lot of talk lately, about the public display of magazines that some people believe to be pornographic. The discussion was sort of brought to a head last week, when the Midland Police Department requested store owners to remove the current issues of Playboy and Penthouse from public display. A number of folks who have spoken to me on this matter, have taken the position that this is an invasion of personal freedom -- the freedom to read whatever one wants to read. Others have applauded the move, as a protection of public decency. I would certainly support the right of any mature adult, to buy and read whatever they want to spend their money on! That I would see as one of the basic rights of a democratic way of life. But at the same time, I would contend that the moral values of children and young people are absorbed from the surrounding culture, just as a dry sponge drinks up the water around it! And the unmistabable message of the public display of magazines, billboard advertising, and any sort of ad- vertising for that matter, is that society covertly approves of such material! Let us be very clear -- the things we publicly display, become the raw data of our children's moral values. The thing that I think is misleading about the Playboy - Penthouse Philosophy is not the sexual data as such, but rather in two specific areas: (1) Sexuality is presented as being central in the male - female Compassion Dear Sir: The action of our local Police Chief in removing porno books has the thoughtful citizen reassessing his or her interpretation of the word 'freedom'. Some would interpret freedom as licence to 'do their own thing', not realizing that true freedom is always accompanied by a sense of responsibility for others. This is shown in the UNICEF declaration that "The Child shall enjoy special protection and be given opportunities by law and other means, to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy, normal manner." Every citizen is respon- sible for maintaining a community that is free of environmental and moral pollution, for the sake of its children. What of the retailer who has no freedom to refuse shipments of these magazines? As a responsible adult, he must decide if or where to display them. Murray Koffler of Shoppers Drug Mart acted with intelligence - he took them home to read, then issued a memo suggesting his managers do the same, and that was pretty much the end of it. I believe in the individual's right to the reading of his choice. But when values of human dignity and the sanctity of the home are being undermined, I have a respon- relationship. Granted, it is very important, but certainly not as important as such things as mutual respect, affection, and over all friendship. A relationship that is bound primarily by sex, soon becomes truly miserable. (2) The other error of the so called "skin magazines", has to do with our understanding of womanhood. Through most of history, woman has been thought of as man's plaything, something to be used or abused in any way he pleased. Only lately have women been saying: "Knock off this ugly performance! Treat us as equals, not as rubber dollies!"" But men find this a dangerous challenge to an old and very fond illusion. Hence we see the great popularity of the Playboy - Penthouse Philosophy -- that woman is a pretty toy, to be used primarily for the pleasure of man. If anyone should be protesting this image, it should be the women of the world! It's the very thing that kept them in bondage for the greater part of the world's history! By all means, let people buy and read whatever they want. But at least let us avoid inflicting impressionable children with a philosophy of life, love, and the male - female relationship, that will create in them dangerous and misleading attitudes. And above all, let us avoid indoctrinating them with an image of women as_ sensual playthings -- empty headed Barbie dolls, designed to be used and then thrown away when the paint peels off. Yours truly, (Rev.) Al Farthing and concern sibility to speak. It was Hegel who said "History teaches us that man learns nothing from history"'. In his monumental work "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', Edward Gibbon gives five causes for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire: 1. The breakdown of the family and the increase of divorce. 2. The spiraling rise of taxes and ex- travagant spending. 3. The mounting desire for pleasure and the brutalization of sports. 4. The continual production of armaments to face ever-increasing threats of enemy attacks. 5. The decay of religion into many con- fusing forms, leaving the people without a uniform faith. We are reminded that the cycles of all former civilizations have followed the same pattern: bondage - spiritual faith - great courage - liberty - abundance - selfishness - complacency - apathy - dependency - bon- dage. Where would you say we are? The Bible says: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Yours with compassion and concern, Velda Webster Keep the heat on Dear Editor: We would like to give public praise to Chief Geere in Penetanguishene and Chief Bates in Midland, for their recent stand on smut and pornography being blatantly and openly sold in many stores in our community. We know they have and will come under criticism from segments of our populace, who will scream about basic loss of freedoms etc., etc., due to their actions. What about the freedoms of the majority, who not only do not want to expose their children to this smut, but are repulsed themselves when being bombarded from every conceivable direction (milk stores, gas stations, card shops, drugstores, and on and on) with nudity, sex, homosexuality, which is slowly helping to destroy the moral fibre of our community. CWL support Dear Sir: On behalf of the Penetang St. Ann's Catholic Women's League we would like to congratulate Midland's Mr. Ernie Bates Chief of Police for his part in removing ob- scene magazines from the public view. Yours truly, Mrs. Bernard St. Amant President St. Ann's Catholic Women's League We too say "Shame Shame". Why have we let it go on this long? We solicit the God-fearing Christians in our communities, to stand up and be counted. Speak out against pornography in the stores and in the theatres where it is sold and displayed. One final question: Have we driven the smut dealers just underground to reappear after the heat's off? Let's keep the heat on. Bob and Rita Robitaille Censoring "archaic" Dear Sir: In an era when our society is growing toward increasingly liberal perspectives, the police department's censoring activities appear archaic; so does their reasoning. I feel that they've just made a grand jump into non-credibility by not relecting the trend of the times. Treating symptoms, instead of causes, of sexual explicitness is illogical, and the fact that the police department and crown at- torney should control "morality matters" is unacceptable. The question of sexual ex- plicitness and the availability of related material should be under the purview of our Ministry of Health. Sincerely, R. Sauve me Penetanguishene Citizen Me A PERS AssOne YEwspapers CO 75 Main Street TELEPHONE 549-2012 Andrew Markle Publisher Victor Wilson General Manager Kevin Scanlon Editor Member of Audit Bureau of Circulations Member of the Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Mail Subscription $9.50 yearly in Canada $16.0 in USA Audit Bureau of Circulations regulations require that mail subscriptions be paid in advance Second Class Mail Registration Number 2327 Sugar and Spice Some chaps' wives go off with a boyfriend, ' leaving behind them a broken home. ~ My wife went off and came home with a boyfriend. So, at the moment, we have a menage a trois. The home is not yet com- pletely broken, but it won't be long. It's being smashed bit by bit. As she threatened, she brought my No. 1 grandson home for a visit so that his mother could continue going to lectures and get her degree, tramping about the campus with No. 2 grandson strapped to her back. Things have certainly changed at the universities these days. When I went to college, we lived in a monk-like residence for men. Females were allowed in the building once a year, for a cocoa and buns party ona Sunday afternoon. It was extremely well chaperoned. We were allowed to come in at any hour, but anyone caught with anything as lethal as one bottle of beer in his room was kicked ou' of residence. : In the girls' residences, things were even tougher. They had to be in by 9:30 or some early hour, and sign in under the grim supervision of a house mother. They got to stay out until midnight once a week, and had a "late pass'"' -- until 1 a.m., once a month. Nobody -- but nobody -- going to university was married, including most of the younger professors. Entertainment consisted of an occasional well supervised dance, totally dry, and the odd movie. It was a fairly sterile, far from murky life, not exactly bohemia, but we were so naive we thought we were happy. Today, university life is so different you'd think you were living in a different era, a different civilization. Almost every campus has at least one pub, some of them half a dozen. Drinking in residence is tolerated, if not encouraged. Some campuses have co-ed residences, where you can live in an apartment, or in sin, or in anything else that's the current fad. University Life Smoking in classrooms is commonplace. And there are thousands of married students. Babies everywhere, despite the Pill. The Lord knows what they live on, in -these inflated times -- grants and loans and love, I suppose. Somehow, I can't get too incensed over the new freedom. In fact, occasionally I find myself thinking wistfully that I was born a generation too soon. In my day, the universities produced some fine graduates, but on the whole, they were a dull bunch of sticks, narrow, self-righteous and with a sense of superiority because of their degrees. Then, the universities were basically elitist, whatever you may hear about people working their way through college. From the small towns, the sons and daughters of the local doctors and lawyers and teachers might go to college. The children of the so-called working class hadn't a chance. / § é by Bill Smiley Today's mixed bag is a refreshing change. Anyone with the intelligence is able to go to university. There are gaping breaches in the rigid walls of the old, hide-bound university traditions. Standards in the universities have been lowered, but I think their end-product, the graduate, is just as bright, a whole lot more sensitive, a good deal more tolerant, and far more articulate (even though badly spoken), than the large majority of my con- temporaries. Today's students are not as polite, but they are far more honest. They are not as "moral", but they are far less inhibi q They are not as steady, but they are far afraid. They are not as couth, but they are less prejudiced. They are more likely to kick over the traces, but not as likely to be led by the nose. : Perhaps that's why about 80 per cent of the male population of Canadian universities vanished into the armed forces after the war began. It was like getting out of prison. Courses were excellent, but narrow. Most | professors were pompous and few were teachers. Students were, for the most part, not taught to think, but only to regurgitate. It was a rather shallow and snobbish inworld, out of the main stream of life. : Not so these days. Rigidity has been shattered, channels have been widened, and experimentation is welcomed, perhaps too much so. There are fresh winds blowing. And one of the freshest is the new status of women on campus. In my day,-the females were, with few exceptions, grinds grimly headed for a spinster's life in a classroom, or rich girls there to have fun and get a husband. Not so today. There are thousands of young women of all colors, shapes and sizes heading with determination for the bench, or the operating room, or the newspaper offices, or whatever, but heading for a freedom to be a person. I'm glad my daughter wasn't a mother of two 30 years ago. She'd be stuck at home, "keeping house" and bringing up the children, instead of swaggering off to lec- tures gallantly, baby on back. When a cat rolls over and plays dead it usually is Ne by Shirley. Whittington A current television advertisement shows a cat gracefully endorsing a particular brand of cat food. This clever animal, set free in a sea of unopened tins, daintily places a discriminating paw on the tin of his choice. Iam so fascinated by this little drama that I cannot remember the name of the spon- soring cat food company, and I really don't want to know. What I want to know is the name of the animal trainer that made that little scenario possible. In my experience it is impossible to teach cats to do tricks. They only do what pleases them and they like to think of themselves as masters of their own destiny. Dogs are obsequious creatures and will perform all sorts of tricks to please the hand that feeds them. Cats; on the other hand will not fetch your slippers or bark when the mailman comes. When a cat rolls over and plays dead, he usually is. This is surprising because of all animals, cats seem to have the time to concentrate on obedience school homework. Dogs are always frantically busy - digging holes, running away from their masters or eating up priceless documents. One would think that cats could put their unlimited leisure hours to work, studying or ,,making practise runs with the pipe and Slippers, but they just lie around the house all day plotting their next coma. I do not want to teach our cat tricks just in order to improve his chances of social ac- ceptance. I already have my work cut out for me, teaching the children not to belch at the table and not to tell Aunt Fanny that Daddy said she drank like a fish. But if I could just meet the man who trained that cat to perform so obediently for the television camera, I'dgét him to set a course of study for our Bill, the cat who has shared our beds and window sills for the last ten years. I wish, for instance that I could train the beast not to stalk people who dislike him. Some of my best friends are afraid of cats, or allergic to them. When they come to visit, guess who walks in as bold as brass, and leaps, uninvited, on their trembling laps? On the other hand, when cat lovers come to visit they can call "Kitty, kitty" till they're blue in the face. Bill remains unreachable, in conference with himself under an upstairs bed. He won't come out till the company's gone. I would also like to train our cat so that when he has a choice of a freshly pressed black velvet skirt and an old bathrobe to snooze and shed upon, he'd choose the bathrobe. If I want a mohair skirt, I'll buy ce) that he is not Burt Reynolds. Veterinary surgery has rendered him incapable of playing the great lover, yet he flaunts himself shamelessly and all the liberated lady cats in the neighbourhood yearn noisily after him. I wish he would learn that if he must do beastly things like clawing the furniture or disgorging hair balls, he shouldn't do them in front of our Daddy, who is kind of lukewarm about cats and suffers Bill only because he is outnumbered. Most of all, I wish I could train that cat to point out what kind of food he prefers, like the ne. I wish I could get through to that animal © cat in the ad. I've given up trying to divine his tastes. b When I'm grocery shopping, I have enough decisions to make. By'the time I've figured out how many sheets of toilet paper I'm getting for my money, and the difference between 284 milligrams of something at three for a dollar, and 16 ounces of the same thing at 49c, I'm in no mood to tackle an entire row of shelving devoted to pet food. A cat owner faces more choices than a delegate to a leadership convention. Tender Vittles or Nine Lives? Miss Mew or Pamper? Sea food dinner, tuna, liver, egg and cheese, beef, kidney, herring delight or chunky chicken stew? It's enough to make you want to end it all by throwing yourself under the' nearest gravy train. ~ Now, if I could just get Bill to perch in the kiddy seat of the shopping buggy and to place his furry paw on the brand of cat food that takes his furry fancy, we wouldn't have five crusty dishes of decaying cat food lined up at his feeding station. It's an impossible dream, of course because you can't teach an old cat mew tricks. In fact you can't even teach a new cat old tricks, or a middle aged cat any tricks at all. Which is why I'm fairly certain that that isn't a cat at all in those cute cat food com- mercials. It's a tiny dog, dressed in a fur coat. Pages torn from the by Kevin Scanlon I sometimes wonder if people enjoy anything at all. Bitch, bitch, bitch, is all I get. Must be the time of year. A man said recently that everyone is suffering from cabin fever. I couldn't put it any better than that. Now it's my turn to switch on the bitch button. The little grey jelly computer has been programmed. Lights are flashing. Tape reels whirring. Bells ringing. Cards are coming out. 483-F X54 Item: Splash Cycle Every Spring and Fall I get caught walking on a warm day down a street with no lateral escape routes. The approaching vehicle does not slow down but seems intent on setting a land-speed record while throwing wide acres of filthy brown slush on each side. Inevitably I am swallowed by one of the slushy arcs and the driver moves on down the street none the wetter or wiser. Watching the approaching disaster is not unlike a small rat viewing with unabashed terror the approach of a hungry rattlesnake. And, as with the slush-are, the outcome is doubtless. SOLUTION: A full-length raincoat or the reflexes of the Six-Million Dollar Man. 564-PB851 ITEM: DYING FAST All the time I am told that I am burning myself out or killing myself young or (as one of my adopted mothers do quaintly puts it) putting myself through self-mutilation. There are words for what I think of those who tell me such things but I wouldn't want to use them in fear that some subscriber to The Screaming Citizen may read the paper aloud and cause a riot in a crowded restaurant. There are some facts in my defence: I need very little sleep and am capable of working 40 hours at a stretch (on occasion 60); I don't enjoy eating and find it a bothersome necessity, especially since my weight has virtually not changed in seven years; and I love working and enjoy what I'm doing so there is no reason for slowing down except for my pleasure time, which is rare. So there! SOLUTION: An "I hate sleeping, eating and not working" T-shirt. 431-TD747 ITEM: NOT IN THE PAPER It happens to every weekly newspaper editor at least twice a week, if not four or five times. A person will say something happened and ask why it wasn't in the paper. It infuriates me. If I had lived here for 20 years I might blame myself for not finding out but I haven't and I don't. All it takes is a simple phone call to get something in the paper (though it takes much more to keep something out) and the office does take messages. If (as is often the case these days) there is no answer at the Citizen office then a message left with the Midland Times will always get through to me. I don't have a telephone for very good reason. In the past I have found I would receive threats of future. violence, com--- plaints and even subscription orders at home. But it was usually at 3 a.m. when the caller was too drunk to know that he/she was making the call. When I go home I go there to get away from it all. SOLUTION: A _telephone-Tape-recorder system (which we can't afford) or another editor who doesn't mind calls at 3 a.m. complaining that the score of the house league peewees wasn't in or calls which threaten to carve the editor's heart out with a moldy milk carton because a name was in the police or court column. I love threats. Absolutely thrive on them. There is something about being told that you will lose both legs next week that excites me. And I enjoy it because I know that I am right and they are wrong. Regardless of the threat, the same call goes through to my lawyer that such-and- such a person threatened me with this or that or the other thing. Today I am smarter. Any threat warrants attention no matter how minor it may seem at the time. In the past (my youth) I was not so careful. I wrote a series of drug articles for a paper once which were featured prominently and I began to receive phone calls late at night threatening my life. t editor's notebook When I went to the police chief and told him the story, he said, "What do you expect when you write articles like this?" I was taken aback by that comment and asked him if I would get any protection at all from the police. "Who threatened you?" he asked. I told him. His reply was: "I wouldn't walk into a dark alley with that S.0.B. Have you thought of carrying a gun?" I left his office immediately. I should point out that he was forcefully retired late last year and an investigation was held into his activities while he was chief of police. I pray that there are no more like him. We don't need them. Banning Playboy is one thing but letting someone fend for themself is another. And that is not true in this town. Thank God. D'ouleS.O:S. par Claudette Paquin Brown Je le sais, je le sens...tout partout dans lVair...Pas le printemps, non, car le prin- temps est scédulé pour arriver tous les ans alors que ce que je sens - ce que nous sentons toutes - est quelque chose de plus rare: c'est le S.0.S. lanc€ tacitement par les h familiale, garder intacte l'image virile et non-€motive du mile et surtout éviter 4 tout prix tout ce qui pourrait @tre qualifié de féminin par les Ames bien pensantes ("jobs"' et passe-temps) Des le berceau, l'homme se voit imposer une couleur: le bleu. Bien sir, on habillera un petit gar¢gon en jaune, rouge, vert, mais pas en rose. Premiére restriction que la petite fille n'a pas & subir. En effet, la m@re peut habiller sa petite fille en bleu, surtout si elle a les yeux bleus, sans se sentir le moindrement coupable. Plus tard, le petit gargon n'a pas le . droit de pleurer. "Un grand gars, ¢a pleure pas!" (J. Barette). Faire la vaisselle, laver le linge, repasser: pouah! travail de fille...Dréle de raisonnement illogique pour des gens qui se définissent comme logiques. J'en suis venue & la conclusion qu'il y a deux raisons majeures qui font que l'>homme s'oppose si violemment et si illogiquement & la lib@ration de la femme. La premiere raison est essentel in €goiste: le travail de femme: ils n'en vetent pas (qui en voudrait?). C'est un privilege de ne pas le faire et ils ne veulent évidemment pas entendre parler de se faire enlever ce Je dis '"'tacitement" car on ne peut pas s'attendre A une autre facon de com- muniquer un probleme émotif de la part de gens & l'orgueil si mal placé. Je ne les blame pas cependant. Aprés tout, c'est déja beau ~ qu'ils ressentent ce probl@éme au point de nous le faire sentir! Mais je parle d'un probleme et je me rends compte que je ne I'ai méme pas nomme. C'est que quelqu'un l'a deja fait dans le Citizen de la semaine der- niere: le réle de 'homme dans la sociéfe et son besoin urgent de se libérer de ce role- carcan. Comme 1'a si bien dit l'auteur de l'article, Vhomme doit se libérer de son fardeau social: supporter 4 lui seul l'économie privilege. Ont-ils aussi un peu peur que la lib@ration de la femme signifie: se libérer du joug du mari? La deuxieme raison est du domaine de l'inconscient: ils sont plus pognés que nous dans leur role de male. La femme se libére lentement mais s(irement, tandis que l'homme semble croupir dans une position sociale qu'ils ont de la difficulté 4 Py aes mais dont ils sont incapables de se débarrasser seuls. Alors, ils ont besoin d'aide: d'ou le S.O.S. Soyons toutes généreuses et faisons-leur connaftre l'autre c6t€ de la médaille Cela leur rendra service et soyons franches, cela nous rendra service aussi...! Claudette Paquin-Brown PDD hh ea eheananean oem