Caption “inappropriate

Dear Editor:
1 am writing in connection with
the cartoon on page 6 of the Sun-

day,” May 16 edition of your
newspaper.

I strongly object to the refer-
ence that ‘‘God”’ made the trees.

Which God? Who’s God? Was
it a Christian God or a Muslim

- God or a Shinto God or a Bud-
dhist God or any of a: large
number of other denominations of
gods and deities?

How ridiculous! Would it not
have been more appropriate for a
caption such as ‘Nature made the
trees’’?

Surely it is time that we stopped
blaming ‘‘God’’ whenever we need
a socially acceptable scapegoat.

l am offended by the linking,
eitner directly or by innuendo of
God to any political party or
cause.

I also object to your placing of
the AIDS quilt photograph under
the very inappropriate heading of
“*Fashion”’ (page 18).

Death is neither fashionable nor
frivolous, but rather a matter to
be treated seriously and with rev-
erence.

The quilt project is a memorial
to those who have died much be-
fore their time. Perhaps ‘‘Com-
munity Events’? would have been
a more appropriate caption?

Al Ingram
West Vancouver

Thanks for SeaBus help

Dear Editor:

Belatedly, 1 would like to thank
all those people who helped my
mother on April 21 when she
slipped (2) and fell in the SeaBus
terminal.

One lady ran and called 9-1-1
and she and others rushed to my
mother’s aid.

My mother would be interested
in knowing from those behind
her, exactly what happened. All
she can remember. is feeling
herself slipping and then seeing a
wall heading straight for her face.

She broke her right wrist,
strained her left wrist, left ankle,
deeply bruised her left knee, deep-
ly scraped both lenses of her
glasses, gouged her nose, bruised

An education

Dear Editor: .

The teachers going on strike is
wrecking my education.

The teachers want to be paid
More money for working fewer
hours a day.

] think if teachers want to work
less, pay them less.

her chin, the tip of her nose, and
both cheeks — she looked like
she’d lost a wrestling bout!
However, as my mother is 77
(don’t tell her 1 told you that!)
and has osteoporosis, she (and we,
her family) is (are) very fortunate
that she “‘only’’ broke her wrist.
We just wanted to thank all of
those citizens who came to my
mother’s aid (and she is very em-
barrassed about the public spec-
tacle!) as well as the SeaBus at-
tendant who called the people
whom my mother was on her way
to meet for lunch — and the
young ambulance attendant who
_ was very solicitous and kind.
Arfene S. King
North Vancouver

to be proud of

[ need a good education so
when I’m on my own PII do well
and get a good job.

An education is one of the
things my parents are proud of.

Joanna Disher
North Vancouver

i tte

INSIGHT

Dear Editor:

There has been a lot of
discussion on how to replace
the Lions Gate Bridge with
another bridge. I would like
to suggest that we look at an
alternative: a tunnel.

First of all, fet me assure
you that I haven’t costed this
out so I could be way off
base, but the concept seems
such a natural one that it has
to be asked,

First of all, the tunnel
would have to parallel the
present bridge to minimize
the length and allow the pres-
ent North Shore ramp area to
be utilized,

On the other side, I would
have the tunnel coming out as
an ‘‘open cut’. .vhere the
present causeway is.

it wouldn’t be an open cut,
but would be driven as an
open cut and then covered
over afterwards. The tunnel/
cut would then surface at -
Lost Lagoon.

T guess it’s really the result
that makes me like this idea.

First of all, we would not
have to destroy or disfigure
the present Lions Gate pro-
file, which I think is a real
Vancouver landmark.

Secondly, while traffic is
roaring along underground,
the causeway is now a wide
open, grassed, flowered and
bushed area for the pedestri-
ans, hikers, runners, bikers,
horses and probably some
kind of tourist transportation.

Costs? Don’t ask me, but
would a short tunnel and a
covered open cut cost as
much as the $120 million they
are batting around now to
replace it with a new bridge?

And if you don’t think that
$120 million won't escalate by
the time it’s finished, let me
be the one to sell you the
Lions Gate Bridge.

Bob Hartman
North Vancouver

THE HEADLINE on a recent column in the Vancouver
Sun hit me in the face like a wet mop: ‘IT have come to
this conclusion: The women's movement is the worst thing
that has happened to children since the Industrial Revolu-

tion.”

This from Alicia Priest, Sun
staffer and mother of a 20-
month-old baby.

I found this bold declaration by
Priest deeply unsettting because,
with two children under three, |
am grappling with this issue. Boy,
am [ grappling.

Like many 30-something
women, | have been conditioned
to “go for iv? and “have it all."
Yes, sisters, like Murphy Brown,
you too can have a knockout ca-
teer and motherhood as well.

When Hillary Clinton's tongue
slipped in the recent U.S.
presidential campaign with the
famous I’m-not-going-to-stay-
at-home-and-bake-cookies quip,
she expressed an attitude that
many of us have adopted with
varying degrees of zeal,

If I'm more unsettled now, it’s
because | have two young boys —
happy little planets who precess
around me like I was their per-
sonal sun.

1 found it a lot easier to be per-
sistent and enthusiastic about the
tight to achieve certain goals and
‘fulfilment’? (whatever that
means) before | had children.

Priest argues, and rightly so,
that we must look at ‘‘this
massive social change’’ (the
women’s movement) from a
child’s point of view. a

There’s absolutely no disputing
that if women take a leave-
your-brain-at-the-door attitude
and adopt a lot of the superficial
prescriptions of the women’s
movement, children can be in’
deep trouble. :

Nobody can blame the women’s
movement per se far the neglect
of children.

The women’s movement, which
is fighting to end violence against
women and children and the
poverty they can suffer, is a vital
social force.

But it’s up to individual women
to take responsibility for their ac-
tions.

For women who have challeng-
ed and suffered male power, and
yes, hatred of women, it’s not
easy to admit publicly that the
women’s movement might have
serious flaws.

When you read about the verbal

attacks on Hillary Clinton (proof
that a capable and talented
woman still scares the pants off
some folks), you aren’t exactly
ready to sit back and shut up.

But we have to start asking
ourselves some questions.

Why are we totally embarrassed
by our mothers’ generation, the
women of the 50s? Why do we
watch June Cleaver doting over
“The Beaver’? and Wally, and
groan? Why this cynicism?

I can now tell people that it was
absolutely central to my sense of
security that my mother was there
for me. Many of us have these
memories ... everything is horrible
and your mother, in a few se-
conds, makes it OK again.

Y remember running into a post
in the schoolground (I was
daydreaming) and waking from‘
my unconscious state to find
myself in the school nurse’s office
with a doozy of a shiner.

When I returned to class, I
became the adject of multiple in-
credulous stares, | cracked and the
school authorities sent me home.

Catherine

JUST ADD WATERY

f
To this day, 1 can recall flying in-
to the instant comfort of my
mother's arms,’

We have largely dismissed our
mothers because we have stopped
temembering any good they did
for our emotional well-being.

What we have focused on is the
so-called menial tasks done in
what seemed a cheerful, naive way
by the 50s woman.

As ] rebel against these tasks, J
ask “why?”

My husband, who has his own
business, works like a demon to
keep it going. Because ] work only
part-time, I have to do most of -
the chores around the home if the
family is to survive and flourish.

Yet I sometimes bristle, think-
ing that this work is just menial,
rather than my contribution to
our lives at this stage. Lk

So many of us accepted that we
have to stay on a career track, or
be doomed forever to watch the |
train of fulfilment race by.

Baloney.

1 used to admire the women
who could pull off the juggling
act of career and family (of
course, they were dropping balls
but we all wanted to think it was
possible to be Superwoman).

The women I know and admire
are those like my friend Laurie,
who gave up her job for her child
and her marriage.

She had the guts to look at
what was happening to her son
and husband (because of her job
stress) and say, ‘“‘There’s some-
thing wrong.’’

When I now hear about women
who have financial security, don’t
have to work for that reason, and
yet leave a baby to rush back to a
job, it depresses me.

I’m sorry, but I think that
child, who didn’t ask to be born,
is being cheated.

It’s that simple, that powerful.

If you’re a woman who Justs
after the rush from closing big
deals and winding up in the corner
office, you have a responsibility to
ask yourself hard questions about
having kids. .

If the thought of wiping pee off
the hardwood floors, helping a
toddler do the same puzzle for the
247th time, or pacing the floor
with an infant has little appeal,
then it’s time to think again.

There is no job more important
— or magical — than raising
children. We don’t have to aban-'
don a movement, we just have to
stop and think sometimes.

at rr