Politi
PEOPLE BEGAN acting
oddly in the Middle Ages.
People act oddly in all ages,
but they were particularly

loony at that time.

‘There was an ailment called the
Dancing Sickness.
People with the dancing sickness

a danced until they dropped. Some-

times they dropped dead.

“Did the neighbors say, ‘‘Some-
thing must be wrong around
here’? Not on your lily,

° The neighbors said, ‘‘The

«Smiths next door just like dancing
so much that they will die for it.”

Then they weat out and danced
like the Smiths until they were
raised in glory to the Great
Dancchall In The Sky.

:- There was a Children's Crusade.
Tens of thousands of poor little
tykes, aged eight to about 14,
formed up in battalions and
started marching out of central

‘Germany toward Palestine.

“ The theory was that their in-
nocence would overcome the in-
fidels who held Jerusalem where
the adult crusaders, with their
swords and siege engines, had
failed.

Did their parents say, ‘No,
Johnnie. You'll have to wait to go

ff and get killed i in the desert for
no reason until you’re older like
your late Daddy.’ :

They did not.

The parents sent the kids off
joyfully; telling them they’d love
military life and that war is really

un,

Farmers i in the regions through
hich the Children’s Crusade |
passed began putting a bounty on
them to protect their crops, and
the few who survived were even-

ally sold as slaves to the North

African Moors. .

ack on the farm Mum and

Dad sometimes wondered why lit-
tle Hans hadn’t-written, but then
hey remembered that he was too
young to know how to write so
they assumed that all was well and
that he was learning those --
aluable disciplines that all.

oldiers do, such’ as how to open a
beer bottle on your belt buckle.

“Nobody, apparently, ever
paused to consider that perhaps
everybody had gone quite mad, so
mad that they couldn’t notice it.

-It is only in this century that
research has indicated that it all

ame about because of spots on
he wheat.

The ergot produced a chemical
‘With hallucinatory properties and
this was carried into the bread so
that when people ate it, they
became rapturously insane.

“This now seems to be happening
around here, particularly since the
last election.” = =

_ = The national election (there was
One recently but you may have
forgotten if you've been eating
spotty bread) was a momentous

‘one, :

“Phe old governing party almost
disappeared, as did the old social-
ist party.

The big new parties emerged.
‘There had never been an election
like it.
4+ This is not to suggest that the
voters were insane. Their vote

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Si. Pierre

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

- probably occurred during a period

of remission from their normal
looped condition.

However, the peopie they
elected seem to be as mad as ever.
If there was one message that
seemed clear in the election result,
it was that Canadians are fed up
with governments pouring their

‘money down rat holes. ~ '

What is the reaction of Lucien

. Bouchard, leader of the Bloc

Quebecois? Mr. Bouchard an-
nounces that Quebec wants a
billion dollars compensation for
the jobs lost by cancellation of the
helicopter deal.

The heliccpter contracts are
being cancelled to save money.
Spend it anyway, says Mr.
Bouchard.

Presumably if we’re not going
to build helicopters we can use it
to install silver linings in the
House of Commons urinals, with
Quebec guaranteed a fair share of
the work.” |.

Did the Bloc Quebecois MPs

sickness fF

lead Mr, Bouchard gently to a
clinic where gentlemen in white
coats distribute ohbejoyful pills?

They did not.

Mr. Bouchard remains at large
without treatment,

Then another friendly political
face shone in our idiot lamps,
Nelson Riis, re-elected NDP
member for Kamloops.

Mr. Riis wants the NDP to be
given lots and lots of public
money for research and develop-
ment of party theory.

Official parties in the House of
Commons get such money,
whether the taxpayers like it or
not, but official parties must have
12 or more members elected.

The NDP elected only nine, so,
like the Bloc Quebecois in the
previous House, they lose party
status,

Mr. Riis never complained
about exclusion of the Bloc, but
he says things are different now.

Next, we may expect a demand
for public funds from the Liber-
tarian party.

They didn’t elect nine, two or
even one MP, but, like the NDP,
they can claim to represent an im-
portant segment of the Canadian
population (300 votes in our
riding) and can claim to be de-
serving of a few million tax
dollars so they can have a better
chance next election.

(To be fair, they haven't asked,
but they may be dancing in the
streets just now.)

Nobody, least of all the sup-
posedly aroused and angered gen-
eral electorate of Canada, seems
to perceive anything odd in these
new attempts to separate citizens
from their money.

Maybe we’re all mad.

The Children’s Crusade we al-
ready have. It’s called the En-
vironmental Movement.

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WEST VANCOUVER

November 14

» 1993

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