x uh Se es "Tue eo. Socian CREDIT PARTY, FOR THE LAST 6 - Wednesday, May 22, 1991 - North Shore News | VIEWPOINT WwW RR 1d ar gePrn| 2 ENS RS Grant goof ORTH VANCOUVER District Council’s recent decision not to ap- prove the 1991 community grant recommendations made by a district advi- sory committee is difficult to understand at best and harmfui to the operations of various valuable community groups at worst. The decision means that money destined for almost 40 community organizations will be held up while council dickers over a budget already allotted for such wor- thwhile community groups as Emily Mur- phy House and Meals on Wheels. Council increased the budget this year for community grants to $225,000, a gen- erous 70% hike over 1990's allocation. But the increase remains generosity on paper only following Monday night’s blockage of funding disbursement. ‘LETTER OF THE Opposition to financial approval of the granis came from Aldermen Rick Buchols, Emie Crist and Janice Harris. Harris and Crist said they were concern- ed that the advisory committee had failed to allocate almost $69,000 of the totai grants budget; Buchols said council’s grant allocation in 1991 had been ‘“‘overly gen- erous.”’ And while the reasoning of Buchols is at feast grounded in some concern for finan- cinl prudency, the reasoning of his two fellow aldermen is, to be charitable, hard to follow. The mistake of the committee, they seem to be arguing, is that they didn’t blow the whole budget at once. With logic like that, district residents could be in for a long year in municipai politics. ‘DAY Making light of a serious matter Dear Editor: I somehow get the feeling that Brian Swarbrick is just trying to get a reaction from readers in the column headed ‘‘No rarely means no.” [ have never written to a newspaper before but I think that this topic is too serious to be made so light of. First of all, I don’t know the facts of the case he was referring to, but I can tell you that no woman in her right mind would want to proceed with a sexual happened. | think the woman had to be feeling very violated and Mr. Swarbrick has no right (nor is he very ‘‘insightful’’) to try and have fun with this case. Secondly, there should be nothing too mysterious or confus- ing about a negative response to a sexual advance. Mr. Swarbrick’s point seems to be that a woman is not capable of knowing her own mind, therefore a man has the right to proceed with sexual ad- vances even when he's been told she isn’t interested. Vhere are too many men who feel they know better or have more power than women. No always means no. A man has a responsibility to ask for a definite answer and should not continue unless she has said yes. Otherwise it is a rane. And just because a woman uses cosmetics or other means to con- form to society’s standards of beauty it does not mean that she wants to be raped. T. Hedman North Vancouver assault charge if it had not really Publisher . . Peter Speck Display Advertising 980-6511 = Distribution 986-1337 Gea Norir Shore Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions 986-1337 Nea @anasec Associate Editor Noel Wright — Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax 985-3227 Advertising Director = Linda Stewart —Newsroorn 985-2131 Administration 985-2131 Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in i969 as an FOE TONGS OS OMT AE WE SY COVER MEMBER independent suburban newspaper and qualitied . inder Schedule 111. Paragrapn Itt of the Excise RS Vv vax Act. ts published each Wweonesday. Friday and # — SN Sunday by Narth Shore Free Press td and , wy f Rae, & wf venttenne ans i th th Se 2 = paveanea tats distributed to every door on the North Snore BUNDAY + WEONEROAY + OORT e es Second Class Maw Regisitanion Number 3885 Subseriphons North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing cates availapie on tequest Submissions ate welcome but we Cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited materia: inctuding manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a siampec, addressed envelope V7M 2H4 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, Nartn Vancouver. BC Entre contents : SDA DIVISION 61,582 ‘average crculaton. Wednesday. Friday & Sunaay) 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All nghts reserved Home should /not be a refuge for criminals UNFINISHED BUSINESS ... another reminder came last week with a story that has all Britain rightly outraged and its foreign minister vowing swift retaliation. Douglas Brand, a 51-year-old U.K. engineer, has just been jailed for life by a Baghdad court for “‘spying.’* Engaged in contract work for the Iraqi government, he was arrested last year while trying to flee Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. Mr. Brand is small potatoes, of course, compared to the million- plus Kurds driven from their now devastated homes by Baghdad’s reign of terror. Half of them still afraid to return — not trusting the handful of United Nations “*peacekeepers”’ to protec! them, once allied troops leave. In ravaged Kuwait the midday sun remains hidden behind the black smoke pall from more than 700 blazing oil wells, which may take two years to extinguish. The waters of the Gulf are poisoned by the worst oil pollution in histo- ry. Together, Kuwait and the Guif are an ecological catastrophe. Yet three months after the crushing military defeat, it’s business as usuai for the author of all three scenarios. The Baghdad monster — responsible for the deaths of thousands of his citi- zens, billions of dollars of destruction and an environmental holocaust with long term effects yet unknown — remains happily in charge of the country he has ruined, What in the name of sanity is happening? Seddam Hussein’s continued grip on Iraq mocks both justice and common sense. Napoleon paid for aggression with banishment for life to a rock in the Atlantic. The First World War's defeated Kaiser fled to exile in Holland. Mussolini and his mistress were hung by their feet in a public square. Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. His henchmen wound up at Nuremberg. In Canada, for heaven’s sake, we still hound immigrants aged 70-plus for alleged war crimes in Hungary 50 years ago. So if the big boys on the Secu- rity Council are serious about their welcome new role as the world’s armed policemen, they must drastically rethink some of its implications. Notably, the sacred cow of ‘‘non-interference in a country’s internal affairs.” The UN even shrank from relief Noel HITHER AND YON for the starving, dying Kurds until forced to act by world opinion. When the crunch comes, being the WORLD’s policemen means you must give humanity and the planet priority over evil sovereign regimes. You don’t leave a crimi- nal free to commit further crimes simply because he takes refuge in his home. WRAP-UP: Major event in North Van District’s summer-long 100th birthday party gets under way at 4 p.m. today with the opening cer- emonies at Lonsdale Rec Centre of the four-day B.C. Festival of the Arts — biggest of its kind in Canada and the first ever held in the Lower Mainland ... Also honoring District’s first century will be the Lynn Valley Lions’ annual Lynn Valley Day Saturday, May 25 — with bands, choirs, Maypole dancing, crafts, races, car rally and live entertainment at Lynn Valley Rec Centre, plus the 10 a.m. grand parade starting at Grand Boulevard and [9th ... And still on the same theme, a very happy 73rd birthday tomorrow, May 23, to City Mayor Jack Loucks. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Life is a continual process of getting used to things one never expected. AEE gn NEWS photo Paul McGrath GOOD GUYS RECOGNIZED... Mayor Murray Dykeman (right) presents St. John Ambulance's lain Johnstone and Jacquie Bjornson with proclamation of St. John Ambulance Week, May 23-29, in North Vancouver District.