6 — Wednesday, December 30, 1992 - North Shore News INSIGHTS A boot in thef backside to a! horrible brat! | GOOD RIDDANCE, 1992 — Your own mother herself couldn’t have loved you. At home and abroad you were a horrible brat. No one will mourn you once you're dumped into history’s ashcan at midnight tomorrow. , Lost and found the Cypress Bowl recreation area last week has underlined the dedica- tion of local rescue teams and the tragic imprudence of skiing out of bounds on North Shore mountains. Teams of rescue personnel from the Nerth Shore, Lions Bay and Coquitlam began their exhaustive and exhaasiing search for the lest pair on Dec. 20, when the two were repovisd missing. Qne of the skiers was found alive on the foliowing Monday afternoon. Dog teams later joined searchers in the increasingly desperate search for the other skier. But, with avalanche concerns rising, the search was called off on Christmas T HE SEARCH for two lost skiers in LETTER Eve. The search teams are made up of volun- teers who give their time and expertise and put their own lives on the line to save the unfortunate and the often foolhardy who fail to treat the North Shore wilderness with the respect it deserves. Perhaps the proximity of local moun- tains makes them appear Iess threatening. But beyond marked ski and trail bound- aries is wilderness. It is local wilderness, but it is a wilderness like any other: it docs not suffer fools gladly. It can be dangerous and deadly. Those who disregard those realities offen pay a heavy price. OF THE DAY Sunshine Girl feature harmless fun Dear Editor: Having twice experienced the inrill and honor of being a Sun- shine Girl, 1 feel almost duty- Open your eyes a little wider, Ms. Botz; times and values may change, but sex always sells. Attractive human bodies — not second time when I was 20, cer- tainly old enough to know my own mind and be able to recognize the difference between ‘You were a pain in the you- know-what from Day One — the third year of what we’re finally caliing a world DEPRESSION, with 11.8% of Canadians jobless and even mighty Japan and Ger- many on the ropes. You killed off tens of thousands in one-time Yugoslavia — with no end yet in sight — and millions in starving, bandit-ridden Somalia. You brought violent death to fur- ther thousands in South Africa and more of the same on the riot-torn streets of Los Angeles. You kept Israelis and Arabs at each others’ ihroats. You strove to wreck the Royal Family, burn- ing down its castie for good measure. You spread AIDS to miliions more around the globe. And you added the sun to our enemies by punching a king-size hole in the ozone. Here at home, 1992, you cost us half a billion dollars and nine months of our lives for 2 futile, destructive referendum. You robbed us of al! remaining belief in our political system. You tried to shatter our econonty still further with lethal financial col- lapses of real estate empires, airlines and retail giants. You brought us monstrous ICBC rate hikes. You knocked our dollar off its ladder. You stole our faith in fellow humans — and even in the church — with stories of rampant sexual abuse and perversion we'd never suspected. And you taught 15-year-olds to resolve confticts by setting out (sometimes successfully) to kill each other with knives. We could go on and on about your perfidy, 1992, but the stom- ach will only stand so much. You were a disgrace to histezy. So get out FAST tomorrow — our bout in your backside as we try to forget you. eee And yet ... even 1992 was by no means the worst of the bunch. Our 2,000-year calendar has seen many years still more obnox- ious. But in ages past nobody knew or cared how TOTALLY awful things were. With no news- papers, radio, TV or phone they concentrated solely on their own little community — blissfully ig- norant of distant miseries. In today’s global village we dé a HEY FUTHER AND YON know it ALL every hour — in liv- ing, and at times gory, color. Soon, when wrist-watch TVs ar- rive, the whole world’s woes will te challenging us every minute; So if there’s a single bright side — at al! to horrid 1992, it’s the fact that even the worst of bad exam- - ples ciways have one goud use. They teach people how NOT io do things next time. And this, I guess, is the lesson we'll all be cagerly trying to learn once more on that hopeful, | unblemished dey-after-tomrrow! ean SIGN-OFF: Participants aged 17 to 20 in the 1993 Canada World Youth (CWY) exchange programs - with Third World countries are : now being selected, with ail costs for the six-month visits starting in July and August paid by CWY. Application deadline is Jan. 20 and forms are available at sec- ondary schools, libraries and Canada Employment offices ... North Shove Light Opera Society. still needs ‘‘a few good men” for its 1993 production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience — if you fig- ure you fit that description, call them at 985-3881 ... And happy Gist birthday greetings tomrrow, Dec. 31, to last October’s ‘Dr. No’’ — CKNW talk show host Rafe Mair. aan WRIGHT OR WRONG: Work hard next year and wher you at last find yourself on Easy Street, y6u’ll discover there’s no parking. RAC bound to stand up in defence of other local ‘‘models’’ and that of the feature itself. In her letter which appeared in the Dec. 20 News Ursula Botz questions the paper’s taste and succeeds in discrediting not only the Girls, but also the businesses who choose to pay extra to adver- tise on the same page as the always female, remember — have been used to atiract the attention of would-be consumers since the dawn of civilization, and no doubt wil! continue to do so long after you and I are gone and forgotten. And who is to say that a pretty face and a warm smile are not appreciated the world over? immorality and what is ‘socially acceptable."’ Please don’t treat us as dim- witted tarts; being a Sunshine Girl is fun and exciting and harmless, so try not to spoil it for those who have posed before and those who have yet to. Perry J. Scammell photos appear. I was a Sunshine Girl for the West Vancouver Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 986-1337 Fax 985-3227 Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsrcom 985-2131 Publisher....... Peter Speck Managing Editor .. . Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor. §... Noel Wright .Sales & Marketing Director. Linda Stewart Administration 985-2134 Comptrolier .. .Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an ad MEMBER independent suburban newspaper and qualified ae a under Schedule 111, Paragraph Uli of the Excise a ed + ‘ 7 . Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and a " " Ke > =" = NEWS photo Mike Wateileid Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every daor on the North Shore. Second Ciass Mail Registration Number 3685. ALL ABOARD for fun... Noreen MacKay became the first pas- senger this month on Kiwanis Lynn Pianor’s new specially bus — jointly paid for by Victoria, the Kiwanis Founda- Subscriptions North and Wes? Vancouver, $25 per Mailing rates available on request. ; d fon the Seniors’ ‘Lottery and $25,000 raised by the residents.. themselves. Printed on 10% recycled North Shore managed — 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, ~ North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. ear. Submissions are welcome bul we cannot accept esponsibility for unsolicited materiat including manuscipts and pictures which should be ~~ accompanied by a stamped, addressad envelope. 61,582 {average circulation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday).