Doug Collins © vet this straight @ THERE | was, processing more constructive criticism on the old word processor, when Gray Eyes came flying up the stairs. ‘Have you seen this?’? she asked, waving Thurs- day's Vancouver Sun. She pointed to aw news item headed ‘Apartheid critics put heat on Socreds"’. And what the story said was that Transportation Minister Cliff Michael was in trouble with lots of right-thinking people over a newspaper column on South Africa he was distributing. The column had been in the Shuswap News Nov. 25, and Emery Barnes the MLA and the exolically named Zayed Gamiet of the South Africa Coalition were gnashing their molars like mad. They thought Mr. Michael was handing around porn. They didn’t like Joe Clark the sanctions man being called a pom- pous ass, explained the Sun story. Nor did they relish Archbishop Desmond Tutu being called a clown. (fo their mind, Tutu is a } saint, at least.) Barnes had asked Premier Vander Zalm whether he approv- ed of such ‘‘vicious and insen- sitive statemenis’’, and whether he was going to give Mr. Michael a wigging. The minister’s action, he opined, was ‘“‘disgusting and offensive’’. But that’s not the item, people. | The item is that your man Doug was reading his own words in the Sun. An hour later they came | back to him again on the CBC-TV news, courtesy of Bill Good. The explanation for this glorious bit of fuss is that the pseudonymous Irving M. Free of i the Shuswap News had made free with a few of my felicitous phrases. I know because the little folk told me who he was and 1 phoned him, whereupon he confessed. “Pompous ass’’, for example, is one of the gentler terms I have used to describe the Abominable Joeman, But anyone could think of that, Clark’s pomposity being f as clear as the wart on your grand- mother’s nose. There was no doubt about the source of some of the other stuff, however. That’s ‘why Gray Eyes deserted the spuds and rushed up the stairs with the paper. She knows my style better than I know it myself, The bit about Tutu being a clown came from my column of Nov. 5. Not that } invented it. | was quoting the Zulus of Inkatha, whom f had interviewed in Dur- ban during my trip to South Africa, ‘*Yutu,’? they said) in answering my question about him, ‘is a political clown,” Another quote used in the Sun via the Shuswap News and the North Shore News was that ‘it is Soviet policy to isolate South Africa and then move in’’, That was from my column of Nov, 9. In an earlier piece, too, | had written that ‘South Africa’s apartheid is like a Sunday school picnic compared with what is go- ing on in neighboring black } states’. That saw life again as “South Africa's apartheid is likea Sunday school picnic compared to the despots that Canada trades with and calls friends’’. And so on. But I am disap- pointed that Mr. Free did not use my bit about Vander Zalm deserv- ing a medal for wanting to trade with South Africa. All he said there was that the premier was right to advocate such trade. Which doesn’t glow so much. Not that the Shuswap piece was a straight lift from my columns. Irving M. Free read it out to me. It was simply that he recognizes an apt expression and sees no harm in handing it on to a wider public. | do the same sometimes with Shakespeare. As far as | am concerned, Mr. Free is free to make free with my words any time. Especially if ministers hand them around like pieces of cake and enrage Emery Barnes and Co. in so doing. Barnes is an even greater simpleton than f took him for. He also asked the premier, for in- stance, whether he thought it pro- per for Michael to be distributing material that ‘‘speaks in such abusive terms about a federal! ca- binet minister’’. Of course it is. Most of today’s federal cabinet ministers are double-talking pie-heads. And if Emery's English were the norm, we would have to take to our beds and pull the blankets over our brows. Taxi driver robbed A VANCOUVER taxi driver was robbed of $40 recently by two men who asked him to take them to North Vancouver, Police said the taxi driver had picked up the fares Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. at a mall in Vancouver. He was at the intersection of Crown Street and Lynn Valley when he stopped to check his city map. Police said the man in the cab’s back seat reached forward and put a 12-inch stick around the driver's neck while the other man stole his cash. For a career in Real Estaie Sales with Montreal Trust. If you have the desire to get ahead on your own terms contict: Ralph Kennedy, Branch Manager 657 Marine Drive West Vancouver, B.C. 926-5424 . a és Montreal Trust Well worth talking to. A S0-YEAR-old North Vancouver man hus been missing since Mon- day, and police believe he could be with a Vancouver woman who also went missing Dee. 8. David Jonathon Wild and Eleanor Sonja Jacobsen, 48, were acquaintances, according to oa Vancouver Police Department spokesman, Wild is described as six-foot, 9 — Sunday, Decembér 14, 1986 ~ North Shore News UNEXPECTED DISAPPEARANCE Local man goes missing two-inches, 190 potunds. He has green eyes, and short dark hair. His vehicle is an "81 vrey, four- door Subaru, with the B.C. licence plate LRC 446. She is described as five-foot, six-inehes, 125 pounds, short, blond hair, blue eyes. She has a ted birth mark on her neck. Anyone with information on these missing persons is asked to We’re overstocked! 77 New 1987 Honda’s must be sold by December 31, 1986! Accord LX contact the police at 665-2207 or Crimestoppers at 669-TIPS, WEBEL VE" ga TN oe Brand 9 S4P