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

f4weekenderi aanuaftvhv j on send your letters to the editor to 59 albert st uxbridge l9p 1es or fax them to 8524355 lets not lets pretend we care anymore if you have young children you know that they mimic what you say and do they have keen and unblinded observation skills perhaps as a community we should be looking for a reflec tion of ourselves in the actions and attitudes of our youth stouffville has many exam ples of young people working to better the lives of others just look at the numbers of cheques presented to chari ties thorugh the efforts of stu dents all year round if in stouffville there is a strong trend for young people to drop the studies of human ities in favor of pre business or law is it because we reward monitary ambition over ser vice if history is a seldom jo ann stevenson chosen option is it because we dont learn from or consult historians a secondary school diploma requires only one history and one geogra phy credit the diploma requires only one physical education credit too this at a time when the federal government spends millions on participaction advertising do as i say not as i do strong teachers are televi sion advertising and movie stars the average north american youth spends twice as many hours in front of a television as is spent in school a quiz published in harpers magazine was designed to help adults see what kids see when they look into our world it concludes that they are adept readers but not of books young people are voracious at reading the social symbols emanating from the world in which they will have to make a living heres a sample question according to television hav ing fun in america means a going blond b drinking pepsi c playing nintendo d wearing air jordans e read- ends barely meet but worth it to the editor i just thought i would take the time to write to you and let you know how i felt about your recent editorial your position is one that i wholeheartedly agree with i have two daughters who are 10 and six years of age i have been lucky enough to have been able to be at home with them since day one we barely make ends meet but it has been more than worth it our children are young for such a short period of time and i only wish more par ents would give it a try most people know in their hearts that daycare is second best but few will admit this i feel great empathy for the par ent who truly must work just to put food on the table but there are other parents who feel that the extras are just as important to them and argue that they too must work you showed great courage in voicing your opinion and i am sure that you will have many negative reactions to it i only wish more parents would look past the day to day aspects of life and realize what is truly impor tant if your editorial causes one person to change their childs sit- editors mail vw uation it will have been worth it your suggestions for alterna tive ways to spend taxpayers money were very valid i would also like to add that families which have one parent staying at home should be able to claim that as a childcare expense as working parents are able to claim their daycare costs it makes an awful lot of sense to do things that will encourage parents io stay home when chil dren are young instead of encouraging them to work with bigger and better tax credits julie richardson markham snow blocks family in to the editor there is nothing that can stop me from writing this letter when i read omar hayanis on dec 14 i have had similar experiences since i moved to markham three years ago i still remember the snowy winter of 1992 people were exhausted from shovelling snow almost every other day without exception my whole family spent hours outside performing such a big hard job every time when we were happy with how our work was so well done then came the snow truck that put our effort totally to waste we were desperate and help less to see that our driveway was thickly blocked with snow that was much harder to get rid of year after year we encounter the same difficulties during the winter time finally may i ask if this the kind of service we deserve from our town phyllis yusuf unionville adam by brian basset im ptofffmg nick off atuesahtmenrm rnbeeruviwte slucetuetwof ikhow ohcouw fvomey tuemofm lwh its rfemk6s medical ewehtes pportwlmen uegotfewmslck eating cttrlelust ing mark twain the illiteracy read bank ruptcy of our young the article says turns out to be our own reflected back with embarrassing force when we see kids dropping out turning to violence or apathy are they merely ignoring what we say but doing what we do instead if we are playing the game lets pretend we care its time to stop markham economist and sun stouffville tribune uxbridge tribune weekender edition a metround commun newspaper patricia pappapubu8heb joann stevenson bditorbxitf paula crowell editor andrew mair editor debra weller director of advertising barky goodyear director cfdistribttttoa vivian oubl bnriiwmimiger pamela nichols operation manager markham zmx20o sales 767624 clasai- oed 294331 stoafmlfc 6402100 uxbruc8glvm 2944x44 distribution and administration 0 heritage bd markham lsp lto fax markham 2941838 stouffvuio 640 6477 uxbridga 8524385 the markham eeonomut and sun stouflviiie tri- me and uxbridge tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one ef the mctroland printing publishing and distributing group of subur ban newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser bsrrie advance brampton guardian burlington poet coilingwood connection etobkoke guardian the liberal georgetown inde- kndentacton free press kingston this week ftdsay this week milton canadian champion miasiassuga news north york mirror oakville besver onllia today othawswhitby this week peterborough this week scarborough mirror the era banner contents not to be reproduced without tcitten permission trorn the publisher clay pipe head not for museum it hasnt made the headlines but the fact is even as you read this works of art are being systemati cally destroyed tens of thousands of works of art priceless antiquities irreplaceable artifacts the pieces include sculpture painted art works and other his torical treasures from the native cultures of north america cree commanche navajo and haida to name a handful so far an estimated 40000 cul tural and artistic treasures have disappeared american experts say if the plunder continues at this rate more than 100000 artifacts will be no more by 1996 but if the us experts know so much about these grave robbers and sitespoilers why dont they just grab em by the scrufls of their scumbag necks and toss them in the slammer call in the marines summon the national guard hell canada would be glad to donate a couple of squads of moun- ties to bring these villains to jus tice wellheh hehthats where the situation gets a little complicated you see the perpetrators responsible for destroying this us native heritageare natives and its all perfectly legal sanctioned by the us govern ment as a matter of fact back in 1991 the us congress passed a bill called the native american graves and repatriation act nagpra for short nagpra gives indian tribes the right to claim possession of cultural artifacts presently sit ting in museum display cases and university store rooms all over the united states well fair enough ever since the white man waded ashore on this continent hes treated the indige nous people like part of the real estate we killed all their buffalo we rendered the water unthink able we shunted them onto reserves so they wouldnt be in the way of our shopping malls and highway cloverleafs and we stole from their dead never thought twice about the indignity we were committing when we unleashed teams of uni versity anthropology students to paw over old tombs and scared burial sites how would you feel if a platoon of micmacs descended on your local cemetery and dug up the arthur black grave of your great grandfather chipped off a few bone samples to send back to the lab for testing wrote learned papers about the cavities in his molars or the gold masons ring still dangling from his finger bone well thats how many indians have felt for the past 400 years so nobody of a charitable mind begrudges the return of indian artifacts to the indians them selves where the problem comes is what the indians are doing to those artifacts theyre reburying some of them destroying others by leaving them where they were originally found exposed to wind and sun and rain and snow it makes perfect sense to the indians they reason that the ancestors who created the works of art never intended them to end up in a glass case in the smithsonian on the other hand it drives archaeologists nuts they see unique physical evidence of past cultures being lost forever and whos to say which side is right i have an indian artifact a clay pipe head found it about 15 years ago in a foot of water on the sandy shores of obonga lake north of thunder bay an archaeologist from lakehead university con firmed its authenticity and sug gested i donate it to the university i asked her why well we could catalogue it and add it to our collection i decided that civilization would not be substantially advanced by the addition of my indian pipe head to the university collection and its reasonable to think that the original owner of my pipe head wouldnt care much one way or the other besides i like it my indian pipe head is a nice thing to hold in your hand and stroke while you ponder large questions like the good and the bad of a thing such as nag pra m