Harry Stemp Aug 20, 2009
Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
Previous
E-mails?
?Like everyone else I get a lot of e-mails. Most are welcome messages from family and friends, but lately I have been getting e-mails that are a wee bit puzzling. Invitations to become friends on Face Book or join their Twitter family. Puzzling because these invites are coming from people who I felt have been friends of mine for years. Even invites from nieces, nephews and in-laws. Most of these people I have known since the day they were born and now Uncle Harry discovers that maybe we haven't been friends after all and, like some married couples, we need to renew our vows.
My problem is, I have no interest in joining either of these web sites. I have checked them out and, for the life of me I can't understand the urge folks have to place their private life in a program that the world can see at will.
Some of these pages contain batches of personal family photos, plus a lot of personal information I look on as being confidential. Con artists and predators must be licking their lips in front of their screens.
Some readers will accuse me of being behind the times. But do I really care whether someone is up in the morning, sitting at the kitchen table enjoying their morning coffee? Or just finishing changing diapers on their newborn?
Checked in to one site and the lady was mentioning that she was just putting the potatoes and roast in the oven and was going to pour a glass of wine and relax. Wow! More information than I need to know.
Don't get me wrong. The web has made communicating a breeze. To be able to instantly communicate, or chat, with family and friends thousands of miles away is wonderful. Allowing one to conduct business transactions instantly is great. Searching the web for information is something none of us would want to do without.
But haven't we carried this a bit too far?
Blackberries have killed the fun of many a dinner party or coffee klatch. Look around the table and you see what appears to be a guest checking out his navel. Not so, he is reading, or sending e-mails.
And kids sit in a restaurant and e-mail their friends at another table. What's wrong with walking over and enjoying the art of conversation - something that could well become extinct?
But my rant isn't going to change anything. I'll be looked on as being old-fashioned and computer illiterate.
Be that as it may. I still enjoy sitting around the table with family, friends and a cold one and having a good old-fashioned chat. How about you?
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Decisions made in our courts these days tend to drive me nuts, and I know listening to others that I am not alone. Often one wonders if you wouldn't be better to be the criminal rather than the victim - you would be treated much better by the justice system.
Shook my head the other day reading two separate news items. One involved Robert Latimer. You will remember him as the father who murdered his severely handicapped 12-year-old daughter in 1993 in what he saw as a mercy killing and a relief to his daughter's 24-hour suffering.
Latimer, a model prisoner, is serving a life sentence and this week asked the National Parole Board to allow him to live on his own through the workweek and return to the halfway house for weekends.
His request was turned down. He will be eligible for full parole next year.
The second news item involved Angela Kuehl, a 27-year-old Ottawa woman who suffocated her newborn baby and threw his body in the trash. Originally she was charged with second-degree murder but that was withdrawn due to her “disturbed state of mind”. She pleaded guilty to infanticide and was sentenced to 18 months house arrest.
Two very similar criminal cases. In both a young life was snuffed out. In one case the guilty person has been incarcerated for 16 years. In the other the guilty person will suffer 'house arrest' for a year and a half.
Go figure.
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A tip of the hat to Ward 4 Councillor and Legion President Jack Ballinger for going above and beyond in the area of community service this week.
The past few weeks Jack has been bemoaning the sad state of the white fence in front of the Kennedy House property north of town.
“It's a mess”, he mentioned to me. “All those families using the property for soccer and people traveling through our community seeing the condition of that fence is a disgrace”.
Always one to put his efforts where his mouth is, Jack grabbed some paint and a brush and decided to paint the fence himself. Checking lately, he is getting close to the halfway point and it looks good.
If you drive by and see Jack hard at work, give him an encouraging 'honk' of the horn. Better still grab a brush and help him along.
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By the time you read this, I will be flying off to Istanbul, Turkey where I will join the Mediterranean Odyssey cruise organized by the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Excited, because it is an area of the world that is new to me plus the added bonus of travelling with many of my favorite Globe personalities, such as Christie Blatchford, Margaret Wente, Eric Raguly, Doug Sanders and Elizabeth Renzetti who will be holding Insider Breakfasts during our days at sea.
For someone who has been involved in the world of journalism for the past 60 years, it is a bit of a dream come true, and you can rest assured that they will know all about our great community of Uxbridge before the cruise ends.
