Words for teenagers and lazy adults ... "Get a job"

This may be the Rosetta Stone of child rearing.

Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. "Always we hear the cry from teenagers 'what can we do, where can we go?'

"My answer is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, built a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you've finished, read a book. YOUR TOWN DOES NOT OWE YOU A RECREATIONAL FACILITIES AND YOUR PARENTS DO NOT OWE YOU FUN.

"The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at ward, in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is no and that somebody is you!"

Thank you, Dalton McGuinty. My "Seniors' Property Tax Grant" gave me a good laugh!

The other day I received my Seniors' Property Tax Grant, the program that Dalton "Father Goose" McGuinty touted as being such a benevolence for seniors. Of course he didn't mention that the very first thing he did when he took office was the rescind Ernie Eves' property tax exemption for seniors. McGuinty has a talent for forgetting things like that. Anyway, here's how my benevolent tax grant worked out on a property tax bill of $2,000:

Basic grant: $500.00

Less: Reduction for income: $477.00

Net grant: $23.00 

Okay. It's something, and I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but compare this to what the McGuinty government provides for a child.

• A basic, no-questions-asked annual grant of $2,500 per child.
• A per-month child benefit payment
• Dental expenses
• subsidized child care
• etc., etc.

Oh, I guess I needn't mention he has two, school-age children of his own.

After much thought I've decided to donate my $23.00 to one of the opposition parties.