Gey. YOU FORGOT YOUR GARBAGE! RUM Me | NEWS VIEWPOINT Moth menace HE AERIAL spraying program proposed for the North Shore and other Vancouver port areas appears to be the best solution to a problem that could spell disaster for the entire port area. The financial and environmental costs of the §5.5-million plan pale in comparison with those costs if gypsy moths become es- tablished on the North Shore. European gypsy moths have devastated forests elsewhere in North America and are now firmly established in eastern Canada. They have been found in smail numbers on the North Shore each year since a single male moth was discovered in the British Properties in 1988. During. 1991 the Asian strain of the moth, whose caterpiilars feed on both deciduous and coniferous trees, was discovered in areas around tke port; the moths arrived on freighters from Siberia. Bui it is not just the moth’s threat to local vegetation that has set off Agriculture Canada alarm tells. A locai infestation of the international pests could result in trade embargoes being placed on all products that pass through North Shore and Vancouver port facilities. The eco- nomic consequences of such international actions could be catastrophic. While widespread use of the biological insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis could af- fect other area butterflies and moths, such spraying has helped head off gypsy moth infestations elsewhere in North America. Agriculture Canada has searched unsne- cessfully on the North Shore for the source of various gypsy moth findings for the past four years. Another four years and it could be too Jate. | : LETTER OF THE DAY ’ Work for the benefit of all students Dear Editor: I am writing with regard to your page three story of Wednes- day, Dec. 18 titled ‘‘Parents take school battle to council.’’ Once again a small, dissident group, motivated solely by self- interest, is trying to scuttle a much-needed school project. If the comments attributed to Gerry, Humphries of the Irvin | Park Parents’ group were not so pathetic, they would almost be and ago. Humphries Publisher Peter Speck Managing Editor .. Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director .. . Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore Nows, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Paragraph il af the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and disttibuled to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mai! Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts #nd pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Newsroom V7M 2H4 laughable, as the planning process for the project where a new mid- dle school and recreational facility will be built in the western part of the municipality, discussed for the past two years it was part of the schocl board election debate over a year and his cronies should stop whining and work to ensure the students in the entire municipality are well-served and Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 not just those in his neighborhood. Ironically, 1 am sure if the tables were turned and the school board were suggesting a new school be built near Mr. Hum- phries, he would be the first to Scream ‘‘not in my neighborhood!"* The time for endless debate is over, fet’s get on with the job. George Madden West Vancouver has been 980-0511 Distribution Sutscriptions Fax 985-3227 Administration 985-2131 MEMBER SN See eee 936-1337 S@u North Shore 986-1337 ‘ 985-2131 <> SUNDAY + WEDNESDAY + FRIDAY a 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. = 7 SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Ali rights reserved. Pageants today a far cry from ‘meat markets’ THE RADICAL fems are gioating today about their iatest victory over one more of [ife’s traditional, harmiess pleasures — the Miss Canada Pageant, now cancelled. Fundraising fashion shows by church ladies’ groups are rumored to be next on their hit list. The demise of Miss Canada follows that of Miss Teen Canada whose pageant was canned (wo years ago. In each case for the same reasons, according to Cleo Productions of Toronto which ran toth events — rising feminist op- position and escalating costs. The second reason follows from the first. Militant women’s groups have been lobbying (read in- timidating) advertising sponsors of such shows to mend their wicked ways ever since the 1960s. The trouble with the fems, as with all other Politically Correct Thinkers, being their habit of inventing their own myths ard then using them like a drunk uses a lamp post — for support instead of illumina- tion. Myth No. | is that the pageants are ‘‘meat markets exploiting women for their bodies.’’ Believe me — as a former pageant judge — that is baloney. Modern pag- eants at every level long ago abandoned mere physical beauty as their yardstick. Mostly, along with swimsuits. The decisive points nowadays are scored for such attributes as brains, speaking ability, manners, deportment and personality. But if an entrant possesses, in addition, a pleasing face and a body in good trim, what on earth’s wrong with a few points for that, too? Myth No. 2 is repeated by Lynne Kennedy, B.C. watch- canine for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. ‘Young women are fighting 4 stereotype dished up in magazines,’’ she declares. TALENTS, all-round qualities... 1990 North Shore winners Stacy Dunn and Rebecca Hail. + Hoo ~ PAGEANT organizer Gertie Todd... ‘‘emphasis on skilis.”’ Noel Wright HITHER AND YON Publishers of Chatelaine, Seventeen and Cosmopolitan should be quaking in their shoes, but there’s no sign of it on the newsstands. Aren't the poor deluded young women who snap up such fat, glossy journals, bursting with glamorous stereo- types from cover to cover, aware they’re supposed to be fighting them instead? From Gertie Todd’s Miss North Shore all the way up to the global © Miss Universe pageant these events have delighted millions for decades. A far cry from ‘‘meat markets,’’ today’s pageants pro- vide a female showcase of ad- ; mirable all-round human qualities and talents — proven by the later career successes of many of their Participants. If the fems now kill them off altogether, they'll be making the world that much more drab and funless for no good reason. Or are they simply acting like the fellow who cut down the whole tree because he couldn’t reach the fruit on its upper bran- ches? , WRAP-UP: On Highways Minister Art Charbonneau’s desk this week is a beef by a caring North Shore driver about the Up- per Levels underpass under Lons- dale — pitch black on dark rainy . nights, inadequately lit, no cats eyes and badly painted lines that vanish in the rain and darkness. “The potential for accident is very high and it is most urgent that you deal with this now,” he tells Art ... North Shore Light Opera needs tenor, baritone and bass singers for its March production — cail Rosemary, 988-1876 ... And it’s open house 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, Jan. 10, at Rene Robertson’s Academy of Learn- ing, 2030 Marine Dr. next door to Denny’s Restaurant (turn off Capilanc Road southbound). Drop-in guests have a chance to win computer training worth $1,000 plus a computer. WRIGHT OR WRONG: One of today’s two big worries is that things may never return to nor- mal. The other is that they already have. EE