Ends and means The urge | “py, “the: new Liberal - solicitor- general, Bob Kaplan, to legalize the opening of mail by the RCMP in suspected drug trafficking cases is a disturbing sign. The ‘Post Office’ Act presently bars any. police force from: ‘opening mail for any purpose, but Mr.. Kaplan is reported as saying he is “rushing” new regulations to the cabinet which would do away with this protection of privacy. Meanwhile, the Tory opposition is demanding a full debate on mail-opening and all other police powers. No right-minded citizen will argue against the need for the police to fight the socially destructive drug trade with all the legitimate weapons they can muster. But when such weapons also have the potential to destroy basic individual rights and freedoms, it is time to cry halt. Unrestricted mail-opening has just such a potential. How can police know whether a letter contains drug information until they actually.open it? And what other information might a= national police force eventually become interested in — political views and activities for example — once mail-opening was an established routine? History has endless unhappy examples of societies whose rulers decided that the end justifies the means — regardless of what the means destroy along the way. Once that principle..is-accepted, for whatever ap- parently good ‘reason, there is no telling where the road will end. In two familiar cases it ended at Belsen . and the Gulag Peninsula. Law unto itself - Our. new-old : “masters in Ottawa have cancelled the slowdown in metric conversion introduced. by the Clark government. They have ordained that all remaining vestiges of North America’s historic measurements — inches, pounds and gallons — must be banished in Canada by next year. Especially in the food stores. Don’t argue that Parliament never passed such a law. Metric madness is a law unto itself. | sunday news north shore news 1139 Lonsdale Ave , North Vancouver, B.C. V7TM 2H4 (604) 985-2131 NEWS ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED CIRCULATION 985-2131 ‘980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright Eric Cardwell Classified Manager Production & Office Administrator Tim Francis Bemi Hillard Faye McCrae Managing Editor Fraser News Editor Photography Chris Uoyd Elisworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Keen North Shore News, founded in 1869 as an independent communi ty newspaper and qualified under Schedule Ill, Part fl, Paragraph tl of the Excise-Tax Act, is published each Wednesday and Sunday. by North Shore Free Press Lid and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mall Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions $20 per year Entire contents © 1960 North Shore Free Presse Ltd. All rights reserved No responsibility accepted tor unsolicited materia) inctuding manuscripts and pictures, which should be accompanied by a stamped, eddressed retum envelope VERIF CIRCULATION LN Oy ‘ 50,870 49,01 o13 G@ona SNe x. h } Wednesday o THIS PAPER 1S RECYCLABLE shake hands with your phone By DICK WEST WASHINGTON (UPI) - The telehone company’s ad- vertising slogan “reach out and touch someone” may be destined to take on new meaning. Imagine, for instance, picking up the phone and giving your brother-in-law a well-deserved poke in the snoot. If long-distance punching is not exactly just around the corner, something of that sort at least is on the drawing boards. They call it “Feel-A- Phone,” and if it comes to pass it could be the greatest advance in message delivery since the singing telegram. As envisioned by the newsletter Electronic Mail and Message Systems, the concept combines telephonic voice tran- Smission with recent developments in artificial “A telephone equipped with a hand, capable of transmitting human gestures such as pointing, feeling, waving, etc., is now within the state of the art of the NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY B.C. motorists and _ their passengers have ICBC road safety manager Hugh Earle worried — fewer and fewer are buckling up. Between March 1978 and last October the number of drivers using seatbelts (which became mandatory under law in 1977) dropped from 73% to 58%, and passengers from 58% to 42%. The worst offenders are in the Interior, where seatbelt usage dropped to 39% for drivers and 32% for passengers. Meanwhile, traffic accident fatalities over the same period were up 7% and injuries 11%. Mr. Earle sees a direct connection. All the laws in the book won't save your life if you choose to ignore them. Just a thought as you set out on your Easter weekend spin... Our editorial writer who gently chastized West Van School Board last weck for its reluctance to change its regular meeting night from Monday to Tuesday -- to avoid competing for the crowds with the Monday council moctings overlooked the fact that trustee Mark Sager pressed for the change about a year ago but got nowhere. The impression lingers on that the board prefers its Monday night schedule because healthy public attendances and detailed media coverage can sometimes tend to be a telephone industry,” the newsletter reports. “An irate bill collector, for example, could convey his. | anger by violently shaking ~ his -forefinger at a_late- paying custo with “Feel- A-Phone.” A bisiness deal conducted over the telephone could be topped off with a hearty handshake _Although the newsletter didn’t mention any potential problems, tactile telephones undoubtedly would have a few bugs to work out. For one thing, there is the question of how “Feel-A- Phone” wrong numbers and obscene phone calls. In the former, would the hand turn palm upward in the classic gesture of futility? During the latter, would it engage in lewd gesticulations? The newsletter is silent on that’ subject. Nor does it hazard a guess as to when such futuristic dialing might become possible. In the beginning, however, “Feel- A-Phone” apparently would would react to Ege be confined to the high rent district. The original models would sell for around $10,000, the newsletter estimates. But “as the applicable technologies drop in price,” the machine might be mass produced for as little as $250, it adds. Whatever the cost, the newsletter seems on safe ground in predicting “in- serting expressive hand gestures into daily telephone conversations” would “revolutionize” that type of sunday brunch by Noel Wright nuisance to the wise ladies and gents who grab about half West Van's annual tax dollars. By contrast, North Van School Board has long avoided conflict with council meetings and cheerfully faces the citizenry every second Tuesday... Cat lovers will be pleased to learn that their pets can now be nominated for an Oscar, just like Sophia Loren. Well, sort of. The Cat Fanciers of B.C. are holding their annual International Royal Merit Championship Show, April 27 «at Sunset Memorial Centre, 404 East Sist in Vancouver. It will feature the “Morris Award” donated by Morris, the famous nine-lives cat, for the best feline houschold pet. This trophy, say the Cat Fanciers, was made by the same company that developed the Hollywood Oscars. To enter, call John Stevens at 277-6141. You «never know what pussycat might bring home next ... West Van tax crusader Thelma Johnson, formerly the scourge of the school board, phoned us to protest about West Vancouverites having to pay the extra gasoline tax and the houschold Hydro surcharge for the new GVRD transit sct-up which = started operations last Tuesday -- in view of the fact that West Van is retaining its own independent Blue Bus system. The answer, Thelma, is too hideously complicated to spell out in detail here, but briefly West Van taxpayers and their Blue Buses have come out of the deal pretty well, thanks to some fairly agile political footwork by Mayor Derrick Humphreys and his council during the carlier bargaining sessions with the GVRD. Among other things West Van is getting a buckshee new million-dollar bus depot which will allow, at long last, development of the waterfront foot of 14th Street as a Community asset. And who would have wanted the rest of Greater Van- couver to invade Tiddlycove and run its pumps dry because gasoline there suddenly cost three cents less than anywhere elsc. MERRY-GO-ROUND: Chosen as the Lower Mainiand’s top tourism booster is architect Bil Lelthead of West Van, recently clected president of the Greater Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau... Happy housewarming to my old buddy Bill Greenwell and wife Donna of Insight Advertising on moving into their new West Van home (who's afraid of the big bad mortgage man?)... An apple apicce for newly appointed temporary teachers Janet ‘devices communication. Presumably, the manual “robotics” could be hogked up to recorded message already on the market. Thus, such services as “Dial-A-Prayer” would achieve another dimension. In another’ boon, telephone conversations might be conducted in sign language. And conceivably the telephonic fingers could be used for walking through the Yeliow Pages. Elizabeth Dayton (West Bay Elementary) and Lila Anne Grifflth (West Van Secondary)... Indestructible Marie Moscovitch has been re-elected by acclamation for an eighth term = as president of the West Van ’ SPCA, to loud barks and mecows of approval from all her guests at the shelter... Back as boss of North Shore Datsun is popular Grant Louie who'll be remembered from a few years back as a Toyota sales manager... A salute to Mrs. A.M. Silva of North Van who's been awarded a_ citation by Governor-General Ed Schreyer for the 75 pints of blood she’s given over the years to the Canadian Red Cross... Congratulations to Father William Ferris and the parish faithful of St. Richard's Anglican in Norgate on their Silver Anniversary. The church's 25th year celebrations on May 24 are being master- minded by Dorfs Ash... And more of the same to young North Shore divers Dean Nielsen and Nicole Vogel who won gold in the B.C. Winter Games; meanwhile, Tracey Nimmon and Scott English took silver in their respective classes. WRIGHT OR WRONG: As G.K. Chesterton ob- served, “blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously sur- prised”. Have lots of nice Easter surprises. ferns Now | | Fimess is a national issuc. We call it Body Politics.