OPINION WEDNESDAY, June 3, 1992 6A editorial comment Education and Politics: a bad mix Why is it that politicians always promise us great things, but sorry, you will have to wait until tomorrow before receiving them? The Harcourt government had promised a new, more open system of appointments to provincial boards and com- mittees, but we have to wait until next year. Even if time constraints were too great to implement a new policy, why was even the spirit of that openness miss- ing? When the axe finally fell on the Selkirk College Board last Friday, eight out of 11 board members were replaced by B.C, advanced education minister Tom Perry. Rumours of change had been in the air for the past few weeks. And not many people are surprised by the fact that at least five of the eight new members are supporters of the NDP. The Harcourt government had promised British Columbians a move away from the seedy political days of While the Board appointments might not be patronage, the government is stacking the deck with people who are likely to see things their way. The question.is:- why?.Ex-Board chairman Elizabeth Fleet, along with the sest ofthe board, had been overseeing a Selkirk College that was growing by leaps and bounds, and connecting into the new world of internationalism. The biggest problem the Board will now face is one of tion, the change should have been much more gradual. Even politically it would have been a better move. Four appointments still would have been minor surgery, but eight seems more like an axe-wound. The new appoi all have ent backgr in education, and some exciting new ideas for the future of Selkirk. They should be given the chance to help shape Selicirk. But, as a group, do they better reflect the makeup of B.C? Did 63 per cent of voters support the NDP in the last elec- tion? i We can only hope that the individuals that make up the board can remain true to the reasons why they were appoint- ed. To ensure, first and foremost, that the needs of Selkirk College and the areas it serves are met. They have big shoes to fill. CRS CAARILES By Don Addis \ THe HAZARDS OF FAST FIDDLING ] IS POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT AND A MEMBER OF THE STERLING NEWS SERVICE Established Novernber 28, 1990 Published by The Sun Weekly on 465 Columbia Ave., Castlegar, B.C. VN 1G8 “The Alice” of old lives on We were visiting Alice Springs, the main oasis of Central Australia. Although Central Australia is a desert region, the year had been unusually to heavy rains, and the Todd River, home to the world's only dry “boat race”, was actually in flood, The Straight talk on society not politically correct? All of this fuss about Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown misses the point. = To me, the debate isn't over whether or not the TV show was “mocking the importance of fathers” as Quayle put it, with the motherhood of the husbandless Murphy Brown, the TV reporter and anchorwoman played by Can- dice Bergen. No, the issue is “political cor- rectness” an the negative impact Mike Duffy Syndicated Columnist PC restrictions on straight talk are having on the political process. The divorced Murphy Brown's long-anticipated labor and delivery in last Monday night’s episode won it a huge audience of 38 million viewers, in the US and Canada. During a visit with ghetto kids, in LA, US Vice-President Dan Quayle allowed as how a loving family was the best anti-poverty program he could think of. He went on to say shows like Murphy Brown didn't help matters when they portrayed women opting to have a child out of wedlock. Quayle didn’t ever say so directly, but his remarks could be read as an attack on the continuing and growing problem of teenage pregnancy in American ghettoes. Such talk is not politically correct. But it is a fact that no amount of gov- ernment aid will solve the poverty as long as there is no solution to the problem of kids having kids. Take the crisis in education. Are we doing our kids any favors by building up their self-esteem, while ignoring their increasingly poor grades? In fact many don’t get poor grades, even when their work is marginal, because to do so would hurt the kids’ sense of se}f-worth. That leads to the situation where Canadian grade 5 students ranked sixth in a test of children from 24 nations. But by the time our kids got to grade 12, they'd dropped to 22nd out of 24! What happ to desert was a vast green sea of grass. The station owners were quick to move their cattle onto the rich plains, which normally offer not a blade of fodder. The Stuart Pea was in bloom in profusion along the dusty tracks, covered in the red silt that many wheels had flung over the landscape. That red dust infiltrates every crevice and opening, clogging pores and seams and rendering life miserable, for water is a precious dity in Central A i shower at the end of the day is most appreciated, when possible. I was anxious to explore the desert. I was mildly disappointed not to have experienced the normal desert conditions. Now-I wanted to seek out the deeper recesses, away from the city atmosphere of “The Springs”. My friend desisted. She would be perfectly happy browsing about town in the moke or sunning herself by the hotel pool or reading in the quiet recesses of the lush tropical garden. So I headed out with five others and two guides into the desert. We were a happy group, compatible and easy with each other, though we had never met before and, coming from all over the globe, were unlikely to meet again. Our guides were locals, bis andi ; exclaimed at “relic” palms, cycads and the many tropical plants left over from a more humid age, per- haps as much as a million years ago. We dabbled our hot, sweaty Elma Maund Syndicated Columnist feet in cool oasis pools. I had noticed a trout in a pool and point- ed it out to one of the guides. A trout! here, in the middle of the desert? “Unlikely”! He exclaimed, but there it was. A raven had spot- ted it too, with an interested cocked eye on a possible lunch. The guides had no explanation. “Dunno!” he said. Later, I learned that eggs can Stay dormant for years in the hot, dry sand, ready to explode into action at the first sign of life-giving water! We gazed in awe at the majestic sandstone cliffs, their faces carved into rich, dramatic shapes by the desert’s sandborne winds. The desert is an awesome place! On our return, we were having such a super time we delayed our eS ig. We forded rivers and streams, chugged through canyons and hiked up countless gorges through many oases and springs. We carried a tame Major Mitchell cockatoo on our shoulders, his proud pink feath- ers ruffled at the attention. We open dinner until late into the evening and the flies had driven us to seck shelter in the jeep. ah, the flies! I have never seen so many. Thankfully, they do not bite but they are a supreme nuisance. One of our with a crawling mass of insects. She said she had never seen so many flies either! We had to pack up camp in the dark. As we bumped and swayed through the darkness back to civiliza- tion, a full moon a rose, bathing the plains and shadowing the she om shapes. It was starkly i- gee Hoo that I had expected and anticipated, and more. Suddenly our driver swore, swerved and almost overturned us as a dark shape swooshed past. We just had time to catch a glimpse of a skeleton of a vehicle, with no glass or upholstery fats ing in the dark with no headlights. It rapidly disap- peared over a sand dune in a cloud of dust. Our guides explained the cir- cumstances. The Aboriginals have set up missions which have banned alcohol for all occupants. Enterprising individuals, mostly white, run “booze” into those who would circumvent the rules. It is said the Northern Territory Police have their own way of dealing with these “booze runners”. The arm of justice being short and the court states long, the police have decided to simply remove these perpetrators from the desert. When apprehended, they sim- ply drop a match into the gas tank, there is an explosion and an intense but brief controlled fire, and the cul- prit is left to fend for himself in the desert. Being attuned by now to the ways of the locals, I digested this explanation with a grain of salt, but the locals insisted that this was indeed an A Adelaide grouj Photographed her dinner plate, black what happ though not officially. It seems “The Alice” of old lives on. NEWS ITEM: SINGLE MOTHERS SUFFER GA% DROP IN AFTER-TAX INCOME. =“ Fight or pay the fighters Fight or pay for the fighting. Those were the roles of Canadian service people and taxpayers in the Persian Gulf war. Yet some among us would rather die than do any killing, and they similarly have attitudes in a fast-changing Euro- pean theatre. Remember, also, our helpful role in cruise missile test- ing and low-level fighter attack training. So there is cause for conscien- tious objection, but can a war tax opt- to paying for the machines of death. Conscientious objection to them in their teenage learning years? Lots of effort to build self- esteem, but not enough learning. However, it’s not politically cor- rect to point that out. In Canada the steady growth in support for the Reform Party, and in the US the incredible rise of businessman Ross Perot as a ial pre ial i has been rec- Gerald Rotering Syndicated Columnist P P can both be at least partially traced to voter frustration with PC. Perot wants to rewrite the campaign playbook, bypassing barnstorming trips and other traditional stump techniques in favor of live televi- sion call-in spots paid for by him- self. The Texan can afford it. He's a billionaire. He plans a series of televised “town hall” meetings in which Perot will field calls from voters across the US. The regular media can watch, they can even broadcast the pro- grams if they want to. But Perot will run the show, not some net- work TV producer. In the old days - such as venture - going around the established means of communication - would never have had a chance But in an era when the public feels betrayed by politicians - and a media elite who are following a political agenda out of touch with the average person's life - new ideas are catching hold. Quayle may not have been so far off the mark after all. y gnized for decades in Canada. Those who could not possibly kill were allowed to perform other work in service of the nation during two world wars. They were not cow- ards. That charge simply misses the point. Some paid a price for their objection. All worked constructive- ly — peacefully — for Canada. Decades later, we have not yet accomplished a simple system of financial opting-out of taxes for war. Hand-wringing cries of “chaos!” and “precedent-setting” echo from the halls of Parliament, where a conservative government fears fur- out work? If implemented, would our income tax system descend into chaos? Would democracy be under- mined? Of course not. Would others demand the same right on other issues of conscience? Probably, per- haps inevitably. So what? With the Supreme Court and parliament unable to resolve the social debate on abortion, for example, why not allow that sliver of our society that objects, to also direct their money away from that cause? Abortion will still be available. War will still be waged. But those who must can at least say these things occur without their help. Any number of mechanisms could be used to prevent abuse or endless expansion of opt-outs for conscientious objectors. First, it is only available for issues of life and death. Protesting implementation of the GST, for exam- ple, would not quality. An increment of five or ten per cent could be added on top of the diverted tax. For those of conscience, contributing a little more to the cause of peace or life should not Present a problem, but this would tem- ther opt-out ds and a cold-war military policy. Let us first recognize that although Canada is largely a peaceful nation which respects its veterans and army, it does play a military role in addition to its laud- per the of others, because their success would cost them more. The bottom line is that a govern- ment of conscience could accommo- date issues of conscience. We must and can avoid “the tyranny of the majority” imposing its will on that able United Nations p ping efforts. Looking beyond the Per- sian Gulf conflict, which saw a brutal United States-led UN mili- tary action that many thought was avoidable, Canada is blindly loyal to NATO, which retains outdated have objec- tions of conscience on fundamental questions of life and death. These groups must have no veto on the actions of society, but they have a right to not financially support those activities. We might remind ourselves V that’s no choice that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms open with, “Freedom of conscience and religion ...” A number of New Democratic Party MPs have tried to introduced Peace Tax bills and motions for several years, always to be rebuffed by a Conservative gov- ermment. Every indication is that a Liberal or Reform government would do the same. An example of NDP efforts is MP Svend Robin- son's motion, “ ... making it possi- ble for those Canadians who are conscientiously opposed to paying for war and for preparation for war to contribute the military portion of their federal income tax owing to a non-military use such as the Canadian Institute of International Peace and Security.” The issue is represented national- ly by Conscience Canada, which has a quarterly newsletter, various publi- cations and which trustees the Cana- dian Peace Tax Fund, to which some objectors have paid the military por- tion of their income taxes. The fund currently holds $144,629 for the government of Canada, awaiting release to a peaceful purpose in the names of contributors. Conscience Canada can be found at Box 8601, Victoria Central Post Office, BC V8W 3S2, phone 384-5532 For those who say ‘it can't be done’, we should consider whether our world can afford that it not be done. The cost to solve the crisis of needed water, food, health care, and education for the entire world is estimated at $17 billion annually, which is an enormous amount of money — about what the world spends on its military every 10 days. Gerald Rotering is a former mayor of Nelson, and is Constituen- cy Assistant to New Democrat MP Lyle Kristiansen. Wednesday, June 3, 1992 The Castlegar Sun Letters to the Editor Castlega Dear Editor: We're writing to thank Castle- gar residents for their enthusiastic and thoughtful support of the vol- unteer recycling project and to remind people that the next col- lection day is Saturday, June 6, The RDCK Recycles truck will again be located on the Safe- way Parking lot from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. On June 6 we'll be accepting papers and flyers please!), magazines, brown SHSS ‘mature’ students could learn from Dear Editor: This letter is in response to a recent column in your t Com- mending the students of KJSS for doing their part in keeping Castlegar clean. We live on Eighth Avenue in North Castlegar, just a hop, ski and a jump from Stanley Humphries School. The high school students who walk up town during their lunch hour use both Eighth and Ninth Avenues as a direct route to town. There are certain students who use r's reminder to recycle this weekend! paper bags, cardboard egg car- tons, phone books, corrugated cardboard and aluminum cans (not flattened). Unfortunately we won't be able to accept because the United Church received over 6,000 Ibs of papers and other goods from approximately 150 people. That's just as strong sup- port as we received on the first no market exists at this point for the paper. Everything should be clean and dry ... newspapers or other goods that are yellowed, old, wet or dirty just can't be used for recycling pr Ses. Last month, volunteers from these two streets as dumping grounds as they walk to town. Today was especially bad. When I drove home for lunch, I literally had to drive over carrots, uneaten fruit and sandwiches, juice boxes, lunch bags, pop cans, plastic wrappers and the list goes on. Keeping the earth clean and waste free for future generations starts at home. These “mature” students cer- tainly have not learned this yet. Maybe the students from KJSS can be have a day off from their Andrews-Kennay wed We would like to announce the marriage of Janice Lorraine Andrews, daughter of Mel and Audrey Andrews from Oliver, B.C., to Roy Herbert Patrick Kennay from Coquitlam, B.C.. Their wedding took place at the home of Cecil and Lori Post- nikoff in Shoreacres in a quiet home setting with Cassiopeid and Tyler Postnikoff as the attendants on April 4, 1992 at 3 p.m, with Polly Chernoff officiating the cer- emony. A special thank you to Rob Postnikoff for photographing the ceremony. Engagement notice Mr. and Mrs. E. Renald Hawkins are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Colleen Rosemarie, to Bradley Douglas, son of Mr. and Mrs. Burton O'Handley of Richmond. The Wedding will take place June 20, 1992 in Castlegar. Obituary Bonderoff Bonderoff, Nick passed away May 22, 1992. Mr. Bonderoff was bor October 20, 1918. Mr. Bonderoff was a long time resident of Pass Creek, then he moved to Kelowna five years ago. He was involved in the lum- ber industry for many years. He was predeceased by two brothers, Bill and John, and one sister, Tina. Mr. Bonderoff is survived by his wife Laura of Kelowna, three daughters, Ellen, Lil, and Winnie and two sons, Phil and Sarge. Nine grandsons, two grand daughters, and one great-grand daughter, and one sister, Laura. » be, AWS Please Recycle the Sun ROBSO MECHANICAL HEAVY DUTY AUTOMOTIVE AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION ° GENE WADDINGTON 365-7006 E -—Pili3—--tiia--e t CLEARING OUT Bedding Plants Half Wall Cedar Baskets Reg. $25 1 Cedar Hanging Baskets Reg. $25 | Mixed Patio Baskets Sm. *9” Now *1§ Large *12 20% off Rose Bushes e Climbing Roses Fertilizers e Mea@--EmMma- Tree Roses e Patio Roses Garden Tools e Pesticides Grass Seed Trees « Shrubs « Evergreens Blueberry Bushes « Azaleas Rhododendrons One Location Only 4375 Columbia Ave (formerly N. W. Mobile Homes) * Open 7 Days A Week | ‘piste Dates: June 3 -14 4 ! 1 % OFF i 20 4 ¢ 4 T Order your grad boutonniere or corsage (shoulder or wrist) All Include greenery, baby's breath & matching ribbon "s Nursery & Florist Ltd. [7/) Complete Landscaping Services e Free Estimates 2601- 9th Avenue © 4375 Columbia Ave. 365-7312 ©" 365-6676 uv day, and is a good indi- cation that Castlegar supports recycling. Hopefully we'll soon have our own Depot in town and recycling will become a regular part of our lives. Meanwhile, we're very grate- ful to Safeway for allowing us to use their parking lot for the col- studies to teach their mature SHSS counterparts a thing or two about keeping Castlegar clean. . I personally can’t wait until school is out for the summer. At least then our yards and streets on lection and commend their “good cil ip”. Also, we being able to use the RDCK Recycles truck for the collection. On June 6 volunteers from the USCC will provide the labour to receive and pack the goods. The Recycling Advisory Committee will again be on hand to talk to people about recycling and to Pass on information. Composters will be on sale for $45 (including all taxes). Unless another group steps younger peers Eighth and Ninth will stay clean and tidy until September. M. Forster Castlegar Thanks for the support Dear Editor: On behalf of the Canadian Red Cross Society in the Kootenay, I want to thank everyone who sup- ported our Caribbean Cruise Raf- fle. The winners of the two cruises where Anne Buchignani from Trail and Sandra Wilkinson from Invermere. Harry Grossmith Financial Resources Coordinator Castlegar It’s really a forward soon, we'll be taking a break over the summer and hope- fully resume the project early in September. We are still looking for local churches, service groups, school groups or others to “lend a hand” on a first Saturday of the month to keep Castlegar recycling! Yours truly, Ann Godderis, Nina Koodrin & Alice Maloff Sun classifieds sell fast! Call now 365-7848 Silver Rattle Antiques 301-11 Ave. Castlegar. (in Tulips Building) 365-5191 GOODSYEAR and at KAL@ TIRE you get Quality & Service at low low prices! 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