Poor Ri

Michael McCarthy
Contributing Columnist

KIDS, quit your
whining.

There’s been a lot of fuss
and bother lately about youth
unemployment. Weltare cut-
backs are putting you out on
the street. Competition for
minimum wage jobs is forcing
you to flip burgers for a living.
Tuition is skyrocketing.

Yet spare a moment to
consider a problem which vou
so blithely sweep underneath
the carpet. So obsessed have
we become with helping folks
in financial hardship, or with
emotional difficulties, or kids
who have suffered abusive
backgrounds — those, in
short, whom the system has
failed — that we have ignored
an equally deserving group of
social misfits: the stupendous-
ly wealthy.

As we approach the millen-
nium and evolve into the
most sophisticated city on the
face of the earth, we strive to
embrace all ages, creeds and
classes.

“Give us your runaways,
your strect kids, your
unloved,” we ery, “and we'll
turn ‘em into entrepreneurs.
Are there no jobs to fill at the
7-Eleven, no openings at
Burger King ?”

And so the downtrodden,
the young, and assorted
refugees dodging criminal
warrants flock to our shores,
secure in the knowledge that
there is indeed a home tor the
homeless, a warm welcome

ea

for the wretched here in
LaLaLand.

But what about the rich ?

Endeavoring as a society
towards tolerance and accep-
tance for all, regardless of
faith, color or wallet size, con-
sider for a moment our rot
marginalized group. Small in
numbers, unloved, forced to
seck shelter behind high walls,
unable through lifestyle com:
mitments to access public
transit, the fabulously rich suf:
fer in ways that most of us
cannot comprehend.

Vealth is a predicament in
every way as tragic as poverty.
Indeed, it is rather more so
given the fact that its victims
gain neither the sympathy
afforded those with more
obvious (and, shall we say in
the case of youth, more pho-
togenic) hardships. Derided,
and to a certain extent aban-
doned by a system that focus-
es on the less privileged, the
filthy rich are forced to look
to their own community for
succor and entertainment.

Take, for example, the

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matter of housing.

“The law in its majesty, "as
the famous saving goes,
“allows both ich and poor to
beg for bread and to sleep
under bridges.”

Yet the very rich face prob-
lems of proper accommeda-
tion that most vouth never
envision. Costs of professional
electronic security systems, for
instance, continue to rise.
Unless vou’ve checked out the
price of wrought iron lately
you've no cause to complain
about vour crummy squat.
And demand for monster
houses, chanks to the warld
discovering what a tolerant
people we are, is still through
the roof (so to speak).

As for transit, well, many
of the idle rich are forced ro
take to their yachts just to get
to the weekend regattas.
Pause for a moment, then, the
next time you trudge over the
Lions Gate in order to save
bus and east a glance at
the social mistits bearing their
lonely way over the waves in
their cabin cruisers and power
boats.

Remember, kids, there burt
for the grace of God go you
orl.

— Michael McCarty ts a
Nortls Vancouver writer.

The North Shore News requ-
larly allocates space for reader
input on a wide range of com-
munity issnes in the form of

guest columns. If you have a
column please send it c/o The
Editor, North Shore News,
1139 Lonsdale Ave., North
Vancouver, V7M 2H 4 or via e-
mail to trenshaw@direct.ca

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Wednesday, June 17, 1998 — North Shore News - 47

Our pharmacy department ts hosting a free sports training tnjury clinic
focusing on sports health for all ages. A community physiotherapist or kinesiologist
will be on hand to talk about the benefits of sports and exercise, the need for
the right nutrition, sports training and injury first ald, plus warm-up and coal-down
techniques. There'll be lots of free information. And you can bring in your kids’
sports equipment to see if they're getting the right protection. It’s going to be such
an action-packed time, we'll have free energy bar samples, too. See you there.

Monday, Jane 22, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
North Vancoover Save-On-Foods & Drugs
Park & Tilford, 333 Brookshank Avenue, Phone: 983-2147
Pemberton Plaza, 1250 Marine Drive, Phone: 985-2150

SAVE-ON- FOODS
Believe it.

www eaveonfoods.com

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