NEWS VIEWPOINT Cooking the beoks low-tech book struggles to survive. And in a national market dominated by foreign publications, Canadian books have a hard time standing out on the shelves. Recent statements by Norzth Van- couver Tory MP Chuck Cook will not help raise Canadian literature’s standing on those shelves. Cook teld an Ottawa Com- munication and Culture Committee last week that because only about 10% of Ca- I N THIS high-tech electronic age, the eadians read books the book publishing. industry was net deserving of $17 in annual federai subsidies. He said that of this 10% once “romances, mysteries, light fiction and ers’? were subtracted the figure was closer to 5%. Why he should not consider romance, light fiction and the like to be milion “‘books’’ remains a mystery. But figures here in his own stomping grounds tell a different story. Readership in B.C. is high — readers stick their nese in a book 712 hours per week on average. And our own West Vancouver library is renowned as one of the country’s most heavily used. Cook, himself an avid reader of three books per week, went on to disparage Ca- nadian literature with his comment that Canadian books were ‘‘nct of wide enough interest’ to merit his attention. He sug- gested the federal publishing subsidies be spent on other cultural pursuits. Cook should know that books are a lasting means of transmitting Canadian culture to Canadians and other countries and of promoting Canadian talent. If that does not merit subsidy, we may as well close the book on cuiture. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “I thought that’s a great idea — to buy McBarge and convert it in- to 2a new Kits coast guard base. The place looked really seat and it fit right into the area.”’ Coast guard member Will Hop- per, who helped fight the July 7 fire that destroyed the Kitsilano -coast guard station, on finding a permanent home for the facility. “Let’s put it this way — I’ve never been a believer in the sapernatural. After four years I have become a believer that there is something. Now I have never ; Pater Speck ling Editor . . . Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Manag Associate Editor seen an apparition in a white bed- sheet floating around — but the weirdest things happen.”’ Bridge House Restaurant man- ager Lutz Wolff, on the other- wordly goings-on at the Nerth Vancouver restaurant. “My trouble is that I was too good looking. The boys liked me. EF think I'd bave been a much more serious artist if I had been plain.” Portrait artist Elizabeth Smily, on her work as an artist. “What we are seeing is a great in- Display Advertising 980-0541 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Distribution Subscriptions Fax crease in stress-related leaves. This blip is not due to increased car accidents.”’ North Vancouver Teachers’ Association president Linda Wat- son, on the increased numbers of medical leaves being taken by local teachers. “People think they have the right te park in front of their homes and they don’t.”’ North Vancouver City Mayor Jack Loucks, on the continuing parking problems in the Lower Lonsdale area. Nosth Shore managed 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 A slippery slope with the bottom EUTHANASIA — a major debate is looming here as Washington State vows Tuesday to approve Initiative 119 calling for an “‘aid-in-dying’’ law. And the link with the ongoing abortion battle is inescapable. Does anyone have the right to terminate human life — whether that of an elderly, agony-wracked, terminal cancer patient or that of a fetus still months away from entering the world? For many the simple biack-and-white answer lies in the Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. Human suffering, however, is not black-and-white. It comes in infinite different shades — from suffering that is little more than a temporary discomfort or inconve- nience to suffering so devastating and prolonged that it destroys the very purpose of living. At this latter point the question of mercy cannot be evaded. When there is no medical hope for someone already close to death and in unbearable pain, the civi- lized solution is clearly to end the pain. Even if the procedure also Yastens the actual moment of death, how can the prolonging of such human torture ever be justified? Abortion, which involves TWO lives, is a more difficult issue. But here, too — leaving aside the right a woman may demand to control her own body — there are cases for moralists to ponder. How moral, for example, is it to bring into a world the fetus has never knows an unwanted child doomed from birth to deprivation, neglect, hunger and even physical cruelty? How moral for Third World women to keep on mindlessly bearing the masses of pitiful, starving, skin-and-bone waifs we watch dying in the Ethiopian desert on TV? These, like agonizing terminal diseases, are extreme examples for which abortion, like euthanasia, offers an extreme solution. But this doesn't alter their reality, nor their claims on our mercy. | That said, I’ve also some grave personal reservations about both. Forecasting HOW soon natural death will occur — or ever, : whether — is not yet a completely precise medical science in individ- ual cases. New treatments are constantly being developed. Un- wanted babies HAVE survived — or been rescued from — desperate conditions to become healthy adults. Unwilling single moms HAVE learned to love and care. The greatest danger, of course, with euthanasia (as already with abortion) is that widespread public acceptance could eventually Noel Wright HITHER AND YON change it from a true act of mercy to a mere convenience for other family members or even — God — forbid! —- a tool of social engineering. We'd better watch our step ap- proaching the legal ‘‘mercy-kill- ing”’ slope. It’s mighty slippery and the bottom is nowhere yet in sight. WRAP-UP: Welcome boost to the *“Special Edition” fundraising campaign for West Van Memorial Library’s expansion came recently with a $25,000 cheque from the Royal Bank of Canada — spark- ing similar gifts from the Bank o Montreal, Toronto Dominion . - Bank, Scotiabark, the Imperial Bank of Commerce, Hong Kong Bank of Canada and Canada © Trust. The sod-turning comes later this month ... Lynn Valley Schoo! of Danciug, busy planning a crle- tration for its 31 years, invites all 1960-1991 students and friends to get in on the fun by calling Alison »- at 984-6219 or Cathy at 980-8435... ... And West Van’s “Mr, Christmas’’ aka Don Fleming (926-0307), would welcome volun- -§ teers again to help him install the Christmas lights throughout the « community — ajobhke’s under- — - taken every year since 1944, WRIGHT OR WRONG: Why do humans whe get irritated wind up with ulcers — while oysters that _ get irritated wind up with pearls? A DH. Advertising Director ...Linda Stewart Newsroom 985-2131 Administration 985-2134 Compivrolier Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualitied under Schedule 111, Paragraph itt of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by Nonh Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibitity for unsolicited materiat including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a siamped, addressed envelope. 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, SDA DIVISION North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. FOR BOOKWORMS... a “Special Edition” cheque presented ‘to: West Van Mayor Mark Sager (left) by the Royal Bank’s westem fi 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) vice-president George Gaffney.