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

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THE CORRUPT WORLD Although technical advances have been abundant, swift, and continuous, it seems that the ethically raw insides of man’s character have remained. Theoretically, when applied to a graph, the scientific discoveries and imporvements as a function of time from early stages of man to today would form a rapidly rising graph, while if the advances were re¬ placed by moral maturity, there would be a straight line, sig¬ nifying that while this earth is being modernized material¬ istically, man’s sense of peace, brotherhood, and co¬ existence has stayed the same as in prehistoric times. This worldwide corruption is epitomized in the United States, where in a sense of capital and facilities the standard of living is high. There also, lie the violence of the Democratic convention in Chicago, a prejudiced and sadistic leader, George Wallace, and unjust treatment of Negroes. In certain southern states of the United States such as Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, the position of the Negro is deplorable. There, Negroes, who make up over twenty percent of the population, are the bottom of the economic, social, and educational strata. Negroes are for¬ bidden to use certain segregated buses; homogeneous schools are predominant; one large section of apartments in each city is generally the only accommodation for the Negroes, and few white people would “debase” themselves to lease an apartment in their building to a Negro. These restrictions are imposed upon a black man in the South solely because he is a Negro, and have been inherited from white forefathers who first made the Negro perform slave labour at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The southern states have sought to veil these misdeeds by passingvirtuous acts such as the Supreme Court decree of 1954 (that segregation in schools was unconstitutional), and the Civil Rights Act of 1965 which assured voting rights to Negroes; nevertheless, the ratio of eligible white voters who are allowed to vote to those who are Negroes is eight to five. While a prime example, the southern United States region is not the only microcosm of racial injustice. In Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, the government enforces the corrupt racial segregation. In these nations, buses, taxis, hospitals, streets, bridges, sidewalks, and parkbenches are segregated. Soaring above these park benches are modern edifices of science and technology. George Wallace and his policies lie within the shadow of his rise to power. He used a relatively modern, and definite¬ ly progressive institution, representative government, to become a southern United States Congressman and candidate for President. Since rising to his post, Wallace has displayed the sadistic and animalistic traits which have characterized many corrupt leaders who have risen in this manner. Wallace is a segregationist and aims to deprive American Negroes of the few rights which they have achieved. He revealed his characteristic barbarism while giving a reporter his opinion of s trikes and peaceful protests. His comment was that if a protester placed himself in front of Wallace’s car, he would not sit in front of another thereafter. A similarly corrupt leader of this century was Adolf Hitler. Throughout the world, these types of govern¬ ment officials are in evidence and dramatically exemplify the contrast between the achievements of man (stable government) and ethical injustice. Another illustration of the misuse of power was the brutality with which the Chicago police force dealt with Vietnam demonstrators at the recent Democratic Con¬ vention. Demonstrators at the recent protest who walked peacefully along the sidewalks of Chicago, stopped at traffic lights, and obeyed other pedestrian rules were viciously attacked by the policemen who had been instructed to act in this manner by Mayor Daley of Chicago. These men had obviously been told by Daley to attack without asking ques¬ tions. Many newspapermen and reporters were among the victims. In one instance, a pair of reporters from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation were caught in one of these massacres. All around them, placard-waving teen¬ agers and adults were being clubbed viciously. One of these reporters relates that two policemen took hold of the other pressman, beat him savagely on the skull, dropped his bleeding body, and pranced away, holding hands and chanting, “We got him! We got him! ” Another contem¬ porary example of the barbaric misuse of power was the Soviet strongarm invasion of Czechoslovakia in late August of 1968. Again, the deterioration of morals is found to be keeping pace with an increase of power. As the world progresses in the fields of medicine, science, and moon probing, among others, these achievements are omnipresent. It shows itself by way of misuse of power and position, and by inheritance of age-old morals, to name a few methods. Because of the proportional rise in each, a Utopian, free, and modern society which some visualize cannot be reached, and the opposite extreme may well be attained. Raj Anand Form III 85

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AN UNCONQUERABLE MASS The sea is something to be feared and to be liked. It is an example of luck. As Ian Fleming wrote, “Luck has to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of to the hilt.” It roars and pounds. It is lethal and should not be played with. It is almost unconquerable. But to conquer something you must know it. This is the fatal mistake and should be avoided. The sea can do terrible things but it still remains as a major attraction for foolhardy young hot-heads. The sea unfortunately has a mystic quality which it keeps using as bait to uncertain young men who hope to find adventure and romance without them over exerting themselves. But the sea soon repays them and they know it as they sink below the surface, bedraggled hulks of human beings. But on the other hand, to conquer the sea is a tri¬ umph almost unparalleled. It shows how puny a man is when he stands up to shuddering cascades of water. It is a power that when unleashed sends boats scurrying like ants from the horny snout of an anteater. After a single-handed triumph a man knows how precarious life is. He knows he is balanced on the edge of a bottomless pit waiting, waiting for the fateful moment which has to come, if a man returns back, he shows not the same foolishness again, but a feeling of freedom and knowledge of life as a thing. It seems impossible a man can fall in love with the thing that kills him, but it happens. The sea can be grey, green or blue or almost even black. But the sea also hides things like coral and sea fans. It seems these beautiful things do not belong in the sea which is just an oily, gushing and flowing mass. The sea is living not in the way we consider life but in a spirit which could be life. The sea is grey mark but can sometimes have a serenity that a student of yoga would envy. At other times it shows a wiliness and sheer exertion of sheer power which shames such a toulike thing as the atom bomb. It can rock a boat as gently as a mother and then smash it with its freight of human cargo to a pulp almost ready to be made into a newspaper. Then the sea digests it using voracious reptiles and the age old system of rotting. To an ordinary person it means death, until he has lived with it at which time he comes above our so called ordinary person, the thing about the sea is it shows us who we really are. It can either break a person or make him. The lethal question is: WHICH ONE? James Hutchison Form II DEATH The fiery sun was past its peak, and shone down mercilessly from the azure heavens, upon the placid waters of the lake. All was calm. All was silent. Then, as if the dazzling silence was too good to last, a foul earsplitting roar ripped the air into shreds of turmoil. The dragboats were out. Artificial thunder rippled across the water again and again as pistons whined and propellors whipped the tranquility into frothy fury. The shark-nosed monsters were all ready and belched furiously as they eased up to the start on now choppy waters. The gun cracked, and simultaneously, a dozen whini ng propellors churned, drivers cursed, and the fans roared as the streamlined fiberglass hulls sped away from the start and began the gruelling course. Knifing the waters out in front at the tumal tucrus pack two boats whizzed recklessly along, side by side, grappling for the ever so precious lead. The water boiled as the two skimmed along, neck and neck, with barely six feet between them. Then, suddenly, one of the two boats shot forward as its driver made one last surge to pass his opponent. The crowds gasped. With all its speed, the nose of the boat suddenly lifted .... hesitated . . . then, like a bird leaped into the air with a sickening whine as her engines over-revved. Slowly the dagger sharp nose spiralled upward, twisting and turning in its death dance. Then it came knifing down toward the other awe-stricken driver like a hurtling spear. The rending heat of metal split the air and sparks flew as the two bodies merged to one and tumbled across the water. The impact sent a wall of glassy water high into the air, which came twinkling down in a million glistening droplets. Before the mist cleared a gigantic, fiery red mushroom of flame, flecked with black, billowed up into the sky in searing gory, and a rumbling boom echoed across the lake. Then even the last ripples of water of sound lessened and faded away. The fiery sun was past its peak, and shone down mercilessly, from the azure heavens, upon the placid waters of the lake. All was calm ... all was silent .... Richard Alms Form V 84

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FOUNTAIN IN THE PARK The fountain stood in the heart of the park. From a distance it looked only as a shaped mass of grey marble, spewing forth the spray in crystal sheets. Its great beauty could only be appreciated when one was adjacent to it. It was formed in different ways in diverse places around its structure, and even these differed when viewed, from several angles. At one angle it was an embryo, expanding around a central core; at another, a maiden in the classical style astride a column, from which springs issued forth about her feet, and at another, it was an ascending order of platters, from which water would flow over one and would thus drop to the larger receptacle below it. At the southern end of the sculpture, there lay a pool, ringed by grey marble, and inhabited by fish of a deep, golden hue. It was fed in a familiar way, with streams of dancing water issuing from the mouths of beautifully formed fishes’ heads. A smaller “wishing pool” lay above the goldfish pool- constructed in the same intricate way, with smoothly- finished grey marble enclosing the clear, deep water. Then again, this smaller pool was terraced, all in masonry, into several smaller pools till each, fed by small and rushing water falls from the level before it, and each cataract rising in a steep crescendo as the water rushed by the layered pools. From another angle several figurines stood, formed with exquisite craftmanship and sculpted to a polygonal pedestal. From the midst of these shot out a powerful geyser of water, rising in height to some twenty feet. Ringlets of crystal spewed forth from the slate-grey pedestal, curving upwards graciously and falling back to a large shallow pool beneath it. Intricacy and detail were the two keynotes to this flowing, sculptured form. They were to be found everywhere about it. All were fashioned in velvet-grey marble—every aspect of the huge watery figure was of that slate-grey tone. The jets of spray were placed to their best advantage; the whole thing was enveloped in a curtain of it, that when penetrated revealed a fairy-land in stone. The original masons had been so exact in their work that at times the inanimate features and rings of pure, clear water seemed to contain living substance, and at other times they held an almost ethereal quality as though the inanimate hands of the figurines had spirit within them, and beckoned to you, not only in the graceful flourishes of stone, but also through this innate soul. All has been mentioned but the base of this massive piece. This formed a solid contrast to the rest of the fountain. Perfect symmetry lay behind this stern sentinel— everything about the base was perpendicular and somewhat angular. It was perfectly cubular, most unlike the flowing style of the sculptures about it. Yet the pedestal signified the fall from the “sublime to the ridiculous” and hence heightened the effect of the fountain by emphasizing more the stone figures supported by it. At night, tiers of coloured floodlights aimed at the fountain, and reflected off the mist, creating a pattern of rainbow shades as the light reflected off the spray. People came from near and far to see this nocturnal phenomenon, and it can be rightly said that none came away disappointed. So this masonry marvel stands, battling time and the elements to retain the lustre of its polished marble, and the intricacy and liquidity of its flowing flourishes. Thus it stands, a masterpiece in marble, a sentinel of the ages, a monument to the skill of man. Allan Bennett Form II 86