St Johns Ravenscourt School - Eagle Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Page 65 text:

THE POLITICAL VIEWS OF A TROUBLED MEMBER OF THE NEW GENERATION One of the major issues that government is concern¬ ing itself with today is welfare. This is becoming a controversial subject. Is the government doing too much for those unable to support themselves or should it do more? The following are my views on this sub¬ ject. First, I will state that I am a thorough capitalist and my views are naturally biased. I am completely and utterly against a socialist state or a socialist govern¬ ment. Socialism tends to retard ambition and progress. If, no matter how much you work, you will always be the same as someone in a less responsible or im¬ portant job, you will lose your natural ambition. Why work when you can never get ahead? Now this is not the way things are operating in Canada today, but we are slowly approaching that state of being. Welfare, pensions and the threat of a capital gains tax are all steps in that direction. I am not saying that welfare or the pension plan are wrong. Up to a point they benefit the community, but when someone can sit back, do little or no work, and yet be supported by the com¬ munity something is amiss. To handle the situation fairly and honestly, the sup¬ port of the invalids and unemployed should be placed in the hands of the community. They can deal with the situation at a personal level. They know the capabilities of the people concerned and their wants and needs. They would be able to take the responsibility from the shoulders of the federal government and allow it to devote its time to duties of a more national importance. It has reached the point where the government is brib¬ ing the masses of voters. They promise to introduce better and richer welfare schemes than the former ad¬ ministration, if they are elected, and many of the more important issues are pushed into obscurity. To pay for the extra expences of their welfare plans the government has to tax a little heavier. The impend¬ ing capital gains tax and the present retail taxes are all proof of this. Increased welfare means increased spending which in turn means greater taxes. This is a socialist action. By taking from the rich and giving to the poor, the government is actually attempting to make everyone equal. This might not be such a crime but for the feet that it is chasing free enterprise away from Canada. It is a known fact that Canada has lost a lot of top personalities to the United States because they find that they can make more money and a better living there. Many companies have been moved to relatively tax-free countries because of the forfeits imposed in Canada. Why work hard to establish yourself when someone else reaps the benefits of your labour? It is far easier to set up your business office in another country and operate a subsidiary” here in Canada. The shocking thing about this is that at present it is considered a correct and honest way to do business. In a country as vast as Canada, with so many dif¬ ferent job opportunities, one might wonder how there can be so much unemployment. Perhaps if the govern¬ ment reduced welfare a little, everyone would tighten their belts, go out and fend for themselves as nature intended, and the unemployment rate might just drop. People might become ambitious again and Canadian commerce flourish. Unless this happens, I look to¬ wards Canada’s future with some apprehension. Jim Lawson, Form V Upper FURY We can see the devasting floods thrashing and lash¬ ing through the city. The muddy waters surge violently down the once quiet stream, and frothing water is smashing hard against the banks. From a far distance nothing but the sharp spray, ominous rolls and mad¬ dened whirlpools can be seen. The thundering tides blacken, scar and destroy all beauty. It can be imag¬ ined that soon nothing would be left uninundated. The skies are grey and sombre. Few of the districts population have remained to observe the cold, heartless fury which the God of Rains has brought upon them. Those that did stay look on in great sadness, but in¬ tense anxiety as they await the departure of the invading torrents. The people feel like a colony of ants being over¬ whelmed by a relentless horde of attacking ravagers. But there is resistance and soon all will return to their home to resume life anew. Scott MacPherson III 61

Page 64 text:

THOUGHTS FOR AN AFTERNOON Sir death, I will not try to fight The splendour of the holy light, Which shines through the night, And doth declare my fateful plight. While wandering lonely through the wood And listening to the birds, I heard the voice of god but could Not understand the words. The lily is the foot of God, Which is implanted in the sod. But soon this holy flower goes To be replaced by the rose. Sandy Chown — form IV SPAGHETTI EATING; AN ART WITH A FUTURE? It seems that the noble art of eating spaghetti de¬ velops with age. When you are still in a high chair Mummy cuts up the spaghetti into little pieces for easier eating and you eat in on a spoon. No fun at all when she sits by and tells you to eat up your worms. When you are between five and ten a new method is discovered. One end of a long piece of spaghetti is stuck in your mouth and then sucked in vigorously causing yourself and others at the table to get covered with greasy tomato sauce. So Mummy makes you cut it up and eat it slowly. When you are over ten a gour¬ met specialist says that the proper and sophisticated way to eat spaghetti is to use two utensils, a fork and a spoon and to put the fork on the spoon and wind the spaghetti onto the fork. All very confusing! Just as you are perfecting this method Mummy returns from Italy and tells you that you are doing it all wrong and that just a fork should be used. So you try this and either you wrap the whole plate of spaghetti onto the fork or just before the spaghetti is in your mouth it falls with a splat onto your plate. Either way you get frustrated and cut if up and eat it on a fork, slowly. Inevitably, very soon all the commercial makes of spaghetti will come reddi-kut” for all ages, and back we go to the high chair. Sandy Chown — form IV FAIR PLAY fair is foul” foul is fair” There are at least two ways of seeing this saying from the bard. On the one hand we can take it that Shakespeare is showing that fairness and foulness are relative to the mind that sees them. The perfect example is a bullfight — is it primitively cruel or a noble art? On the other hand the citation can be seen as a denial that the categories of fairness and foulness exist at all. Take the bullfight again. It would be logical for some¬ one seeing the contradictions in opinion over this sport to conclude that the element of the fairness or foulness lies more with the observer than the observed. That is, the bullfight in itself is neither fair nor foul. These two ways of seeing the witches ’ statement are obviously closely tied. The conclusion of the first, that the bullfight is both fair and foul, leads directly to the second, that the terms are not very applicable in this case. The problem with the line of thought is that man in his society needs some standard of fair play. He can¬ not admit the lack of some objective method of deter¬ mining the fairness” of such anti-social acts as murder, rape and larceny. In our society the contradiction between the need for a standard of fair play and the lack of such a stand¬ ard in the acts themselves is resolved through the use of laws in themselves. For us, these provide a basis for fair play. But does this mean that the laws in courts, not being dependent on some objective good” are arbi¬ trary. I believe that the answer is that they are not arbi¬ trary precisely because they grow out of the idea that fair is foul.” That is, the central idea behind our system of laws, of determining fair play, is that man does not have an objective standard to work with in this area. For example; our parliament is not restricted to one party. The verdict in our courts is given by twelve people, all ordinary citizens. And the verdicts of these courts based on the laws of that parliament are always subject to appeal. The result is that our standards and judgement of fair play are hammered out by different people with different opinions. The arbitrariness, the black and whiteness of an objective standard is therefore awarded and that is justice, that is proper fair play, because, as has been shown, such an objective standard does not exist. When it is held to exist, as in Communism, the result is slavery. Clive McEwen 60

Page 66 text:

CHILDREN SHOULD NEVER BE MISLED, EVEN ABOUT THE GREAT PUMPKIN It is doubtless that every child learns to love his mother at an early age, before even his father. As the infant grows, he is told of the jolly old man from the north pole. Gradually, he gets to know this future almost as well as his parents. Many young children believe in the Easter Bunny as well. Is it a good thing to encourage this belief in imaginary things in children? I am sure that the majority of children are told of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as early as the age of one or two. Most believe in them for four or five years when the truth is revealed. Because the majority of these youngsters do believe, those who have parents who disbelieve in such nonsense are often outsiders. They are often left out and ridiculed. In this problem conformity is of great importance. There are many hidden reasons for misleading a child that the parents are not aware of. Since he is a year old, he may be afraid of anyone who is strange to him. Santa is an exception. The average child knows all about Santa, every detail. When the child is taken to a store Santa,” he is unafraid. This may lead the child into trusting unknown people, and this is a tremendous disadvantage. When a person is young, things are needed to stimulate the imagination. When told the story of Christmas, and of the bearded man, he may begin to think of the man, and his mind fills in the minutest details. He may picture the Easter Bunny as fully as possible, and add to him characteristics. This would probably influence the development of the child’s im¬ agination as it would give it something to do, rather than just being idle. If there was no symbol of Christmas, it would be just another day, these glorious events would go un¬ noticed by the child. If he didn’t know of the symbol, he misses some of the joy of the season. The know¬ ledge makes the holiday seem brighter. These days will be treasured for the rest of his life. The child that has been misled has something to believe in and to trust, that is outside the world. Mother and Father are always available to check up on,” but St. Nick and the Easter Bunny may never be confonted, so trust is the only bond between them. The characters often divert the child from the material benefits of the day. The Great Pumpkin of Charley Brown fame is just such a character. The young child looks forward to Hallowe’en so he can see the Great Pumpkin, not just to all the candy he can gather. This may be bad for the child too. He may become so interested in the presents that Santa brings that he may forget the Nativity. Pleasure may over rule the spiritual reasons. Many children refuse to believe the truth when they are finally told it. They associate pleasure with the Easter Bunny, and are shocked to find that no such animal exists. In general the advantages of misleading a child out¬ weigh the disadvantages. It is probable that the majority of children are mislead, and end up in life none the worse for it. G. Morris, IV Upper S.J.R. Like a big red Country barn Sits Ravenscourt, It is all, All it should be, Teacher of hundreds, Dumb and smart, Its Red River Scholars. The masters on the Other hand, WTio teach the students, are. Respected, and Are paid respectively, WTiich shows The school is not One of those. Nicholson, Form IV 62