Bob Hunter

®@ strictly personal ®

THE MALE flight attendant at Wardair who won the
right to wear an earring, despite the company's fear
about losing customers, flust:2d a minor social issue with
megatrend overtones to the forefront.

It also brought out the cobra
in Doug Collins, who thinks that
only’ sexy young women should
be stewardesses and that guys
with rings in their ears should be
banned from handling the uten-
siis.

Come on, Doug! Am I actually
going to have to defend
everyone’s right to mutilate
themselves? Surely this is covered
in the Trudeau Charter.

The big question, when a man
wears an earring, 1 know, is: is
this person gay? It ain’t necessar-
ily so by a long shot.

Most gays don’t wear earrings,
so far as I know. .

I personally have known at
least a dozen men at one time or
another who wore earrings, and
while a couple of them were gay,
I gathered, the majority certainly
didn’t seem to be.

-’ | understand that in some cir-
“eles, wearing an earring is a sign
of radicalism. I’m not sure what
kind. But it is an anti-establish-
ment thing, which is generally
healthy.
Whether the ring in the ear

$7.3m contract
awarded in MVD

NORTH VANCOUVER District
Council awarded a 12-month pav-
ing and related works contract to
B.A. Blacktop Ltd. Monday.

The North Shore-based firm,
which also had the contract last
year, which includes paving for
new streets and street upgrading,
was the low bidder for $1,367,797.

Aggressive Roadbuilders Ltd.
was awarded a concrete sidewalk
and related works contract as the
low bidder for $219,110.

means one is a radical character
or gay depends, [’m told, on
which ear the ring is in. I would
happily report which ear, but I
get conflicting stories.

What happens if one is a radi-
cal gay or a gay radical, heaven
only knows. Both ears? Two
rings in one ear?

Now, of course, | am sym-
pathetic to the problems of
airlines, since | happen to think
that public and private airlines
alike are sacred trusts.

It is a well-known fact that the
airlines’ prime customer is the

business executive: travelling on -

an expense account. These guys
tend to be alpha males, 2nd while
some of them are homosexuals
too, naturally, the vast majority
of them appear to be ultra-
straight.

Whether the CEOs in First
Class actually draw back in fear
and loathing when a steward with
a gold ring in his ear asks them
what they’d like to drink is a
moot point. Some do, I suppose.

The judge who decided the
Wardair case didn’t think any

‘THE DISTRICT OF NORTH VANCOUVER

customers were going to be lost,
and affirmed the male flight at-
tendant’s right to have a bit of
metal piercing his flesh.

Historically, the attendant
would seem to be in the macho
tradition, actually. Rather than
having anything to do with sexual
preferences, earrings in males
have always signalled manliness.
Pirates, for instance, wore them.

As recently as the Second
World War, many Canadian
sailors wore them.

There are, of course, more
people in the world than
mainstream Anglo Canucks, for
whom an earring is a sign of ex-
treme weirdness. There are plenty
of countries it is no big deal, in
fact is normal.

Just because most of these are
primitive societies, by our stan-
dards, is no reason to be intellec-
tually snobbish about the prac-
tice, either.

We have a pretty primitive
society ourselves, in case you
hadn’t noticed.

While it takes a court case to -

establish the right of a man to
wear an earfing on the job in
Canada — in the 1980s, yet — we
take it for granted that half the
population is free to do this sort
of thing at will, and many of

MAIN STREET ROAD
REPAIRS
LYNN CREEK TO U.L. HIGHWAY
EXPECT DELAYS — JUNE 1
| to 18

WESTBOUND 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
EASTBOUND 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

= EJ. Bremner
-” Dir. of Eng. Services .

them do.

I haven't been able to find a
figure telling me just how many
Canadian women pierce their
ears, but I would hazard a guess
at, say, slightly less than half of
them.

It's a bloody and_ barbaric
business. Women who have had
it done — like my oldest daugh-
ter and my wife — go through an
ordeal inat reminds me of the
sadomasuchistic’ ‘‘manhood”’
rites that young North American
natives used to have to endure.

It is all very well to say that the
ear lobes are a particularly insen-
sitive part of the body, but they
do bleed, and special care has to
be taken to wear a gold wire
through the fresh wound to keep
it open while scar tissue ac-
cumulates, a process that can
take six months.

Fun, fun, fun.

The point is, if women aren’t
considered strange for having
themselves perforated, why
should we consider men odd for
the same little bit of self-inflicted
damage?

It’s a twisted business, sure.
But if people want to make holes
in themselves, I’ll fight for the
right. Just don’t make holes in
me.

THE NORTH Shore’s two school
districts will get $671,934 of the
additional $16.2 million allocated
to B.C. schools in 1987 for special
projects under the provincial
Funds For Excellence.

North Vancouver's District 44
will get $483,934 from the fund,
while West Vancouver’s District 45
will get $188,000.

Neither district has made any
final decision as to the allocation

- of the funds.

In 1986, the government
allocated $32 million for public:
school special projects from the
fund.

The 1987 grants are being
allocated primarily on the basis of
district enrolments and are being
distributed so that smaller districts
get more per pupil than their larger
counterparts.

School districts will get $43.75
per pupil up to the first 1,000
pupils, $38.75 for the next 500 and
$34.75 per pupil for the next 1,000.

Districts with more than 5,000
pupils will get $29.75 per pupil for
enrolment beyond 5,000.

Student enrolment in District 44
is 15,029. In West Vancouver's
District 45, student enrolment is
5,095. :

When you need
legal assistance...

Bradbrooke
Crawford %
@reen

BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS

980-8571

GERALO A. GREEN .
Ww. HOWARD BRADBROOKE
OEBRA VAN GINKEL
J, DOUGLAS CRAWFORD
: SARITA MISHRA
{ PATRICIA J, ARFASTRONG

600 - 171 WEST ESPLANADE, NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. V/M 3J9

ightoli

for you hod ‘or

sack; Pro
_M.Jomer

“{Whitesety:
ag plete

Leah be

Se te nanan a ae tteg ane ee dinette ne ce

ec eh ate,
TAA At Se ets Eye,

FER Lath tte caine