{ } 4 | ‘ i T 7 6. — = — Se he Castlegar school board has & een given a_— golden OurWiEWS ’ For the students opportunity to prove it is progressive. Tuesday, the board will vote on whether to allow Stanley Humphries and Kinnaird Junior students take part in a controversial survey. The province-wide poll — titled Youth Health Survey — will ask 25,000 Grade 7 to 12 students for straight-forward, no-nonsense answers regarding health needs in the education system. Promising confidentiality, the survey — which can only be written with parental consent — will ask students some 120 questions regarding their lives, feelings and attitudes. So far, so good. Enter the so-called controversy — sex, drugs and alcohol. Among these 120 multiple choice questions, students will be asked to honestly answer some six touchy questions regarding sexual preference, drug and alcohol use and suicide. It would be easy for Castlegar to refuse to take part in the survey and shield its students from the realities of the modern age. But that would be 5 Dave McCullough Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 a monumental mistake. The age in which we live is not an easy one — especially in the peer- Sex, drugs and alcohol are real issues to high school students. If we choose to ignore their existence, we choose to ignore the very world we had a hand in building. NS \ } S MAY WN DARN!...1 FORGOT THE SPIKING HAMMER . DO WE HAVE ANYTHING kz Sitting Television has changed a out on f upper middle-class lot in the last 30 years. In some cases for the better; in some cases not. The shows that seem to have fared the worst are the so-called “family shows” — in particular the family sitcoms. That was made clear to me recently when I saw a couple of old Dick Van Dyke shows. It was like being transformed back to another time. The Dick Van Dyke Ron NORMAN (_-' a” a Comments. : 224 from the Crossroads father is a doctor and the wife a lawyer. Big change, right? Not only is the family black — which was unheard of in the 1960s — but both parents work. There are other, subtle not-so-subtle differences. Like the role | of children in the shows. In the Dick Van Dyke '. Show the son, Ritchie, is on er family. The | show, for those who haven’t seen it, wa i early-- and mid-1960s and was the quintessential family show. It was about a white, middle-class -|-pressure world of children. ____________| American family: Rob and Laura Petrie and their small son. Rob worked as-a-writer on a TV variety show and Laura, well she © stayed home and looked after the house like all good 1960s moms. The closest parallel we have today might be The Cosby Show, which is about a black, —. virtually invisible. In The key part of the weekly tale. ‘Unfortunately, that. has given rise to one of the worst aspects of today’s family shows: the sitcom kid. Each show has to have a cute-as-a-button little tyke who makes ‘clever-comments. It’s a prerequisite to any show involving families. So just as kids who watched Dick Van Dyke saw a child who seemed to spend an r please see NORMAN page 7 @ Saturday, April 18,1992 ~ OtherWVIEWS | Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 Letters tow Ee ie ITO rR Freedom for all We, the three Sons of Freedom women, Mary Braun, 71, Tina Jmaeff, 67, and Pauline Berikoff, 55, are being held at the Burnaby Correctional Centre For Women for our deep religious convictions. We are messengers from God. We are carrying our faith and love, peace and freedom on self-sacrifice. Our Doukhobor fires are symbolic, given to us by God. Our forefathers burned their firearms for the sake of peace in Russia in 1895. We are still carrying the same - message to all people. Stop contributing to the oncoming overall destruction of all humanity, and to the wars of today that are killing millions of young people — all for material gain and power. We carry these “fires” through self- sacrifice. We have sacrificed our homes and all our possessions. For this, we are being punished and constantly being placed in segregation (confinement), where, day and night, we are locked in with no fresh air, and the cells are cold and damp. We are sick. We are worn out from these prisons and the constant fasting. Heads of this institution have informed us that this prison was not designed to keep people like us. Now, we appeal to the Government of this country, to the Human Rights people and to all Christian groups. We very much need your help to find us a place where we can live like human beings — not like animals in cages. Like any other human being on this earth, we also feel the pain. ~ Tina Jmaeff Mary Braun Pauline Berikoff Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women But unfortunately the actions of a few are making that difficult. A couple of weeks ago, over 100 softballs, 15 bats as well as helmets, shin guards, ball gloves and chest protectors were stolen. About 250 children, ages five to 15 had fun with this equipment last year. Our ball season started this week and it’s going to be difficult and expensive to replace the equipment. If someone should (or has). approached any ball team in the area with a quantity of equipment for sale, please get a name and - number and contact this office or the RCMP. Around the time of this theft, other (or possibly the same) individuals tried their hardest to burn down Winlaw Regional Park. Thanks to the efforts of the Winlaw Volunteer Fire Department, the damage was minimized. Over the last two years a lot of energy has gone into making this park a usable part of the community, but, even before this latest fire, the park has been suffering the marks of vandalism. Picnic tables have been used as firewood (although a cord of chopped wood is piled nearby) and broken beer bottles are just waiting to split open toddlers feet. Charges may not be pressed if our ball equipment is returned immediately. The same can’t be said for the park vandalism. Trees can’t be replaced so easily. It takes money to rebuild the tables — money that comes out of the pockets of Valley residents. I urge everyone in the area to come and visit Winlaw Regional Park. You'll see the mess that limited minds have created. Then talk to me, because I still want to see this park work for all of us. I am embarrassed to have to complain about these acts. This is my community also. I want to be in a place where we can come together by choice and share our enjoyment instead of being dragged rate of acceleration of global warming. That is, if there is an ecological brick wall ahead, and if all the goals of the Earth summit organizers are met, civilization will still be increasing the rate at which it accelerates into it. 1 saw the summit as dangerous, because, if successful, it would add further legitimacy to collective suicidal behavior. The vast herds of “mainstream” environmental “thinkers”, on the other hand, supported the Earth summit. After years of lip service by. national governments that there is an ecological crisis, an international agreement to act is the next logical step. However, preliminary diplomatic negotiations have resulted in all language referring to definite timetables for action on any issue at all being removed from all documents that will be signed in Rio. Anyone who had any hopes at all for the summit will be hard pressed now to describe what is happening in any way other than as defeat. Why anyone believes that any climax ecosystem can be “saved” on a planet undergoing wholesale climate change and a deterioration of its primary radiation shield is a mystery? David Lewis Crescent Valley Recycle today for tomorrow To the citizens of Castlegar: : We are all Grade 7 students from Kinnaird Junior Secondary School concerned about our environment. We were wondering what the public’s opinion would be towards the proposal of a recycling depot here in the city of Castlegar. At this depot the materials that may be recycled could be plastic, paper, metal and possibly other materials. Street WALK Mila Zolozsek Castlegar “They’re “No, they should be tougher.” to’ Question: Do you think Canada’s gun control laws are stri Rocky Raynor Nelson — Cody Lascheit Castlegar not too “No, they aren’t ugh.” strict enough.” Teresa Mercuri “Yes they are.” ct enough? Shawn Lane Smithers Robson “Yes, I think it’s hard to get a gun here.” or deliver them to 197 Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer —than-300 words. ~ Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The writer's name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional cases will letters be published anonymously. inthose cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Children get cheated It is with a certain degree of disappointment that I write this letter. It concerns the foolishness of some affecting- -the lives of many. — As the recreation co-ordinator for the Slocan Valley, my job is making sure my community has fun. together in anger to vent our frustrations. Craig Lawrence Recreation Co-ordinator Slocan Park Earth being ignored The Earth summit is supposed to produce an international treaty to limit the It_ may be similar to a larger city’s recycling program and could be run like a - garbage pick-up service. We realize the cost of this would be a considerable amount so we are willing to _hold_fundraisers to-raise-our-share-of the cost. Nichole Boultbee and friends Kinnaird Junior Secondary Norman continued from page 6 unhealthy amount of time in his room by himself, today’s kids come away with the idea that children are not meant to.be kids, but are really meant to be little adults mouthing punch lines. If you don’t think so, listen the next time your kids say their favorite phrase. It likely came right off a TV family sitcom. That raises another difference. In The Dick Van Dyke show the child was never smarter than the parent. That’s not usually the case in today’s sitcoms. In today’s sitcoms the child is often called on to-give Dad or Mom some sort of advice on how to live their lives. It makes the viewer wonder how the parents ever managed to make decisions before the kid was born. I don’t know about you, but that’s not anything like our household. If all I disliked about today’s TV sitcoms were sitcom kids, it might not be so bad. But it’s not. I also have trouble with what ~T call the “snicker” element of— most sitcoms. The nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more innuendos. That kind of comedy makes up a good percentage of family sitcom laughs. In fact, it’s a staple of what I term “junk sitcoms”. That kind of comedy was virtually non- existent in the days of The Dick Van Dyke Show. oe Instead, the laughs were based on pretty standard stuff. One show was built around Rob’s dilemma as he had to choose between his wife and a neighbor’s wife for a starring role in the PTA benefit (no one ~ said these shows were tied to reality any more than today’s sitcoms). Another was on a fellow who had just invented-a new dance — the Twizzle. (A take-off on the Twist which was, to use a phrase from that era, sweeping the nation). good fun. Now, in case you think I want to return to the days of The Dick Van Dyke Show — I don’t. There were lots of things about the family shows of that era that we just don’t believe any longer. For instance, the role model for a working woman in the show was someone called Sally. But she only worked because she couldn’t find a guy and get. married. Then there’s the reason why Laura suddenly quits wearing slacks. _The network ruled that she could only wear slacks a few times each season. The reason? American housewives always wore dresses, of course! Still, those shows had some things that our sitcoms today could use more of — like plain good fun.