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4 weekndehdvbwberstfsss stajx v children slipping through the cracks most of us believe we are a childcentred society but are we in 1989 all federal par ties committed to eradicat ing child poverty by the year 2000 no plan has been put into place in 1991 canada ratified its commitment to the united nations rights of the child yet was singled out in 1995 by the un as needing to take immediate action to tackle the prob lem of child poverty poverty is defined as 22000 income for a fami ly of three living in a mid sized canadian city our focus is on children as thousands of day care operators closed their doors yesterday to these young clients viewpoint jo ann stevenson the protest stems from expected provincial cuts to subsidies for day care spaces a few years ago it was the private day care operators who were protesting government interference with their market york region had a wait ing list of 3017 children for subsidized child care as of september 1995 campaign 2000 has a suggestion this group of social welfare and chil drens workers nurses and teachers wants to see children protected by social investment the same way as the canada pension plan protects the elderly and unemploy ment insurance protects the worker the merit is that it takes children out of the politi cal realm in york region we have the highest percentage of poor children from two- parent homes in ontario junior kindergarten and post secondary school funding is in crisis is the funding problem tied to our societal atti tude about children we like to believe our children are our priority -45- if they really are then working parents will choose the best private day care they can afford or stay home to raise chil dren and those families who can prove they are using subsidy as a handup not a handout will have access to quality spaces the recent provincial suggestion to find a neigh bor or a family member is out of touch with the times preferable would be to encourage the creation of more private worksite day care programs for starters the tribune weekender edition a metrolaod community newspaper patricia pappas publisher joann stevenson editorinchief andrew mair general managereditor debra welles director of adrertian g barry goodyear director of distribution vivian 0neil business manager pamela nichols operations manager the tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group of suburban newspapers which includes markham econo mist and sun ajax pickering news advertiser auroranewmarket era banner barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post cityparcnt collingwood connection etobicoke guardian georgetown independentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week milton canadian champion misissauga news northumberland news north york mirror oakville beaver orillia today oshawa-whitby- clarington this week peterborough this week richmond hillthomhillvaughnn liber al scarborough mirror tbdays seniors con tents not to be reproduced withoutwritten per mission from the publisher permit 1247 vikings predate columbus a body could get very depressed surveying the state of the world today if a body had a mind to theres aids and bosnia and newt gingrich and jacques parizeau not to mention depletion of the ozone layer the rape of the rain forests and jock itch but whenever things start to get me down i have a failsafe mantra that i chant to buck my spirits up i simply repeat in a low voice ten times at least we have no vikings its been close to a thousand years since anybody looked up from their sheep barn to see a swarm of wildeyed marauders with swords in their hands and horns on their heads kicking in the front gate i think theyre gone for good but they had a pretty good run peasants first began whispering about the wineings old eng lish pirates warriors around 780 ad for the next five cen turies the vikings raped and plundered the coasts of eastern europe using their long skinny dragonprowed knarrs to unleash lightning raids the viking ships were long skinny swift and remarkably maneuver- abler the vikings themselves were rapacious fierce and utter ly merciless and they didnt confine their predations to coastal towns and villages danish vikings invaded prance and germany swedish vikings smashed deep into what we know as russia in fact some people claim they created rus sia for sure they established the city of novograd in 862 the vikings werent just pirates of course they used their knarrs to cross the atlantic long before columbus was born viking ruins have been authenti cated at lanse aux meadows in newfoundland the experts best guess is that they date from at least 1000 ad i basic black arthur black even more intriguing is the near certainty that vikings got right to the heart of north amer ica nearly a hundred years ago a minnesota farmer found a huge rock ensnared in the roots of a tree on his farm the rock bore scandinavian runes chis eled into its face experts scoffed atthe minnesota stone and dis missed it as a hoax because the inscription was virtually unintel ligible last year a linguist afr cornell university declared the inscription is written in a dialect of ancient norse that has only recently been authenticated there is no possibility of any faking nobody in the 19th cen tury could have had the knowl edge but the vikings are remem bered for their temperament not their trekking almost every thing about their culture was steeped in violence to most of the world the little mistletoe is a cheery plant associated with yuletide festivities friendship and smooching to the vikings it was evil viking legend has it that a mistletoe spear was used to slay one of their gods its funny how national charac teristics change over the cen turies youd be hard pressed to recognize the viking marauder in scandinavians today twenti eth century danes and swedes are more renowned for their civility and stolidness even the words the vikings left us are well vikinglike anger comes from old norse and my favorite the most vikingish word in the english language berserkers