6 - Friday, September 27, 1991 - North Shore News "NEWGITEM: RISSIIN SCIeNTISES RENeOL. THEY HANG BREN PRESERIING FANGS SOVIET BRAINS SOROTORS ye 1 AND THESE ARE RESERVED FOR THE COUP LEADERS $y I TTI | NULL bn a NEWS VIEWPOINT Deadly playgrounds HE VEHICLE runaway ianes at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal could be host to a disaster if something is not done to change their current signage and security. In a Sept. 18 North Shore News story, a North Vancouver woman reported secing children playing in the lanes while they and the rest of their families waited to make a ferry connection. The lanes were constructed after a runaway truck loaded with hot asphalt crashed into a van of holiday travellers in July 1996. A mother and her daughter were killed in the accident. In April of this year, a Port Coquitlam truck driver was charged with impaired driving after his truck and trailer rig drove through a closed ferry toll gate at Horse- shoe Bay. He was also charged with failing to maintain his vehicle's brakes. Accidents will surely continue to hap- pen; brakes will continue (to fail. And the steep grade leading to the ferry terminal is not about to change. The prospect of another runaway truck hurtling down the terminal road and des- Perately turning inte one of the new runaway lanes only to plough into a crowd of playing children is one too gruesome to contemplate. But it remains a prospect if signage on the runaway lanes is not improved and regular patrols of the lanes are not in- stituted to keep them clear, not only of children, but of adults who might not be aware of the lanes’ purpose. We do not need another disaster to en- sure such precautions are instituted. Swarbrick comments ‘defy fairness’ Dear Editor: Does Swarbrick have a cushy as the civil service. You can As if Noel Wright’s nasty and ill-informed comments about civil servants in the Sept. 4 edition were not enough, Brian Swarbrick adds further cruelty towards them in his Sept. 15 column, “Unionism a suspect activity in the 1990s.”” . One of his first generalizations is ‘‘when a guy I got paired with for a golfing round in Toronto told me, during a city transit strixe, that he was a ‘militant bus driver,’ the more bizarre elements of unionism began to impact.’’ Well what is that supposed to mean? Publisher . Associate Editor Advertising Director Comptrolier . . an .Peter Speck Managing Editor... Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Linda Stewart Doug Foot monopoly on golf? Is a bus driver who professes unionism not allowed an occasional game of golf for sport or recreation? Mili- tant or otherwise, the bus driver has probably done more for his fellow worker than Swarbrick ever has or will. Swarbrick also makes another incredible statement about shop- keepers ‘‘so plagued by employees swiping stuff ...’’ [ thought it was mainly customers who swiped staff, and exactly which specific shup or shops is he referring to? This clown goes further to say “‘there’s no job in Canada as Display Advertising 986-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax Newsroom 985-2131 Distribution Subscriptions Administration be inexpressibly lazy, nat to men- tion downright stupid, and it is practically impossible to get yourself fired.’’ Frankly Swarbrick’s comments defy all decency and fairness. This mentality, so typical of many conversative members of parliament, is why the current civil service strike is taking place. A shrewd politician would give the civil service a reasonable break, get them on their side in an elec- tion and then start trimming the fat after re-election. T.E. Peck Vancouver 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualitied under Schedule 111, Paragraph [Il of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday. Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Ctass Mail Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Maing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome bul we cannot accept tesponsibility for unsohcsted materia! including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a Stamped, addressed envelope V7M 2H4 em ONCE OF CoRDeTT Ye ARO WEAF Win CUVER SUNDAY + WEDNESOAY + ¢mDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. MEMBER SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents € 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Living through our 15 minutes of celebrity YOU YOUNGER tads may be wondering why [ keep coming back to this, but when a man has been in the newspaper business for nearly five decades, he has watched much happen in the world. If he has any sense of history at ali, it is not unnatural to look back upon his age and try to place the quality of its events into some kind of perspective. The reason for this is quite simple to explain. Whether we know it or not, all of us hope that it will be our privilege to have liv- ed in interesting times. Many cf our acts are performed with the express purpose of giving us some sensation that we are at the centre of things. Perhaps we are never fully aware of it, but we crave Andy Warhol's 15 minutes af celebrity. Well, [ don’t know how much personal, individual satisfaction you’re getting from the experi- ence, but this is it, friend. You and I, cight this instant, are living in the first few seconds of mankind's 15 minutes of absolute celebrity. So sit back and enjoy. And if you’re a touch confused by the proposition, let me phrase it more formally: 1 would be as- tounded if future historians did Brian Swarbrick SECOND OPINION Think of it. Ask yourself when in history the society of man has risen up to put down a tyrant who was bullying a weaker neighbor. We are the first world com- munity to take that action, and we should be very proud of ourselves 4&4 Ask yourself when in history the society of man has risen up to put down a tyrant who was bullying a weaker neighbor. 99 Rot accept the present pericd as nothing less than the dawn of the golden age of civilization. The whole course of humankind for a period that may extend into centuries will be guided by the events that you and [| are now witnessing. We are where it’s at. You don'i fecl any appreciative tingle, you say? Well, as with most other human functions, perspective is everything. In order to appreciate where we are now, you have to look back at where we’ve been, and see what there is back there that compares with what’s happening up here. In other words, ask yourself if you can think of any other time in human history that compares, not only with the events of the past year, but with what those events presage for the future. During the past year, mankind took two massive steps, the greatest steps it has ever taken, towards a magnificent objective: civilization. The first step: nations great and small, from all over the world, rose up in an atmosphere of brotherhood and went great distances at no small expense to carry out a single, unified, hu- manitarian act: to put down a tyrant. They did so instantly, coerced into it. No matter what motivation the naysayers might put on it, Desert Shield was not to us ordinary folk some mean-minded ploy to guard our oil interests, or any such self- serving political ploy manoeuvre; it was global affirmative action to achieve a goal of infinitely higher purpose than man has previously sought. — not as Canadians or Americans or some other national group, but simply as human beings — for exhibiting civilized compassion towards a little guy. That we didn’t go far enough in the removal of Saddam Hussein from the society of man shows that we're very new at the game of humanitarianism. But we'll learn, we'll learn. The second step: the decision by the half billion or so people who have been living under the op- pressive weight of Russian com- munism to stand up, virtually si- multaneously, and throw off the shackles. I find this a stunningly far- reaching event. It is without doubt the single most electrifying politi- cal happening in history. The world will never be the same again. All of us — not just the Rus- sian people or the Latvian .or Estonian or Hungarian or East German people — but all of us will be changed by the collapse of Russian communism, For that matter, how far behind does anyone think Chinese com- munism is? Remember Tiananmen Square. But what does it ali mean? What is the true significance of a huge sector of the world’s papula- tion performing acts that only a decade or two ago no one would have thought possible? I have no idza. Professionally, it’s not my place to know. I’m no political scientist. I’m no historian. Pm just an old newspaperman. I don't pretend to know how any of this is going to turn out. But f do know IJ live in moder- ately interesting times. Noel Wright on vacation