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jhetribhletttgsdav october wffl 5j7 st tuesday october 21 1997 vol 109 no 67 the tribune comment send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial strike by teachers would be a mistake teachers need to think twice about going on strike this week an illegal strike by ontarios 126000 teachers will not help them in their battle of wills with the provincial government more likely it will play right into the hands of the government as it tries to force through its controversial education reform package bill 160 if the teachers go out the public perception will be rightly or wrongly that they are the bad guys in this dispute many angry parents wont look beyond the strike to the drastic implications of the bill parents will feel their children are being held as ransom in the teachers battle with the province this will be especially true since talks were ongoing monday between the teacher union leaders and newlyappointed minister of education dave johnson he was at least sounding conciliato ry about teacher preparation time one of the key issues of bill 1 60 which is upsetting teachers he seemed prepared to meet teachers and discuss their con cerns while public hearings began this week on the proposed edu cational reforms inherent in the bill as long as there is commu nication between the two sides teachers should stay in the class rooms granted teachers are very concerned about some of the extreme measures in bill 160 in particular the matter of control over edu cation being shifted to the provincial cabinet that concern is echoed in sympathy and support from many students and their parents but to go on an illegal strike and throw parents lives into chaos and confuse and upset innocent students is a bad move it will only invite an angry backlash from their real supporters beware the animals are taking over blessed ore the meek for they shall inherit the earth matthew 53 a lot of thoroughly scientific people would subscribe to that biblical quote most of them would add that the meek will turn out to have six legs a shiny brown carapace and a penchant for living behind stoves and under refrigerators cockroaches scientists figure if any thing can survive flood plague drought andor nuclear armageddon it will be the cockroach maybe so but a lot of other animal species appear to be making a bid for the planetary drivers seat in ireland author ities are confronting the problem of urban horses herds of hundreds perhaps thousands of semiwild horses that roam the suburbs of dublin at will in moscow its basement mosquitoes that arc giving residents a massive collective migraine apparently these mosquitoes breed in the watery subbasements of moscows grim and badlybuilt highrises emerging each spring in ravenous clouds they dont hibernate in the winter says a russian spokesman and unlike normal mosquitoes they lay eggs without ever having fed on blood were witness ing the advent of practically a whole new insect and then theres the fighting muskrat of the netherlands i am not making this up back in 1906 a dutch count visiting north america fell in love with that lov able little rodent the muskrat on a whim he bought a half a dozen of them and had them transported back to europe there were a couple or three things the count obviously didnt know about his new pets number one each female muskrat can produce as many as 50 off spring a year number two in the netherlands the muskrat has no natural enemies number three next to making little muskrats muskrats most like digging labyrinthine subterranean tunnels dutch officials estimate that a single adult is capable of excavating approximately 13 basic black arthur black wheelbarrows of earth per year when the only thing that stands between your country and the north atlantic you can understand why the dutch are a tad nervous about their muskrat population last year they trapped and killed 326893 critters with out even making a dent in the muskrat population last month officials in the hague authorized the hiring of another 500 trappers even though as one trapper puts it this is a war we cannot win ah but thats on the other side of the ocean right nothing to worry about here in canada wrong the animals are on the move here too have you visited a park lately canada geese have taken over ravens are steal ing groceries out of the back of pickups from whitehorsc to flin flon the biggest and sassiest raccoons ive ever seen live not in the bush but in the back alleys of downtown toronto you have to watch your step when you go for a walk after sunset by english bay in downtown vancouver thats when the skunks come out they practically eat from your hand this morning i nearly got mugged by a crow he was dropping clams on my dri veway missed me by six inches coin cidence maybe but im digging out my hard hat just in case by the way you know what to do if an amorous pit bull starts humping your leg dont you fake an orgasm old homestead full of cranium flaws an article in the globe and mail on the topic of design flaws provided inspira tion for this weeks column turnstiles positioned to inflict maxi mum discomfort on the tenderest body part of a nonfemale person were among examples cited i would like to add type a vacuum bags which always end up sporting a couple of major league holes during my futile attempts to achieve the unachiev able ie lock the collar of bag firmly onto the receptacle designed i think not to accommodate it this results in the machines failure to adhere to the basic principle behind the vacuum causing dust to be blown to all corners of the old homestead rather than being sucked up neatly into a holefree bag as per proven scientific theory its not just objects that have serious design faults its people take teenage boys most it seems arc programmed to leave the toilet roll long since divest ed of its contents on the dispenser while decorating the tank with a cpllcc- tion of halffinished rolls in our house the latter provide hours of amusement for our frolicsome felines poc and spasm its really quite amaz- kates corner kate gilderdale ing how much square footage the shred ded residue from just one roll of cottony soft tissue can cover then there is the brain software which impels adults to put the top on the tooth paste after use deposit dirty laundry in the basket rather than somewhere around it and put dishes in the empty dishwash er and not in a precariouslystacked heap in the sink such natural impulses however seem to be mysteriously missing from crani- ums of the young and the restless this could be because young people have more exciting things to do eg party till dawn pierce portions of their anatomy for posterity and sleep until 5 pm on weekends while adults and other dullards who no longer have a life must content themselves with keeping canada tidy next we move on to men who no mat ter what goes wrong arc always to blame men can spend a weekend with a group of other guys on the golf course and never find out the most basic vital infor mation ask your significant other if his golfing buddy is married divorced with or without children employed or not and you will get a blank stare ask about his handicap and youll be rewarded with reams of statistics which will mean not one iota to persons such as myself who wouldnt know a birdie from an eagle and to whom the phrase below par refers to that lingering headache on the morning after the night before last but not least there arc animal companions in my case two deranged kitties whose idea of a good time consists of hanging from the top of the dining room curtains leaping from the floor onto my unprotected back and dissecting a newlypurchased bag of bagels which they have liberated from the top of the fridge no matter how annoying the foibles of people and animals however perfection is far harder to bear as joseph heller observed in catch 22 the texan turned out to be goodnatured generous and likeable in three days no one could stand him ihhtwijmi willllt stouffville tribune a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 9056402100 retail sales 9056402100 classifieds 9056402874 distribution 9056402100 fax 905 6405477 email thetribistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 the stouffville tribune pub lished every tuesday thursday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distribution group of commu nity newspapers which includes ajaxpickcring news advertiser aluston heroldcouricr barrie advance brarapton guardian burlington post cityparent coliingwoodavasaga beach con nection eastyork mirror etobi- cokc guardian georgetown indc- pendcntactoh free press kingston this week lindsay this week markham economist sun midlandprnctanguishcnc 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