4@ - Wednesday, August 28, 1991 - North Shore News

The times they

WHEN THE dust settled, the astounding turns of affairs
in the Soviet Union reminded me, more than anything else,
of just how completely the world has changed in the last

eight years.

Except for those three cliff-
hanging days in Moscow when the
old Reds and the emerging demo-
crats unsheathed their swords (the
junta immediately seizing control
of Gorbachev's briefcase contain-
ing the codes that launch the
ICBMs), we have gotten used to
not worrying about global nuclear
war.

That’s a rather major change,
one so big it’s like the sky: you
hardly notice it.

By way of measuring this most
historic of changes — in such a
short period of time — ! checked
back through some old North
Shore News columns written at
the peak of the Cold War.

This particular one was ner-
vously tapped out in 1983, as a
dramatic television series called
The Day After was airing. As I
recall, most.of the people I knew
felt just as frightened as me.

Yet it seems so distant now...

lhadn’t intended to watch The
Day After, but at the fast minute
a friend who has never bothered
to buy a TV set phoned up to ask
if he and his girlfriend could
watch the show at our place.

A good friend, Hadn’t seen him
for along time. Couldn't say no.
Weil, I guess we’re watching it, 1

NVD tightens controls on pesticides | ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER

Barristers & Solicitors

Personal Injury
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Criminay Matre’s ony | 986-4366

#300-1401 LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC.

NORTH VANCOUVER District
Council has adopted a bylaw that
will require that 72-hour notice be
given for all major pesticide
spraying within the municipality.

By Martin Mitierchip
Contributing Writer

The bylaw includes all fertilizer
and weed-control applications, as
well as any insect or rodent ap-
plications; it applies to all resi-
dences with three or more dwell-
ing units and their grounds, all
non-residential buildings and
grounds, and al! parks and open

We have limited time to
liquidate our client's ‘
entire inventory of o¢
over $5 million :
of beautiful
tugs from
Persia & the
Orient. A wide
selection of designs

EXAMPLES

(from india)

330% W. BROADWAY, VAN.
tAgross from McDonaid’s Restaurant)

DOLATABAT 2.6'x4' $449 $99
(from Afghanistan) 2x22" $145 $35
BOKHARA ROYAL 2'x3" $195 $49
(from Pakistan) 4x6" $995 $249
WAR RUG
(from Afghanistan) 4’x6" $1545 $395
INDO-AUBOUSAN

6x9" $2340 $690

GPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

Bob
Hunter

STRICTLY PERSONAL

tell my wife. She groans.

We are determined, of course,
that our five-year-old son will nor
watch. He has enough on his plate
trying to figure out the alphabet
without me explaining that ‘‘A’’
means A-bomb.

So the kid is in bed with his
Star Wars toys and we sit down
with cheese and crackers and wine
and our friends to watch what is
in effect a Grade B sci-fi flick

NORTH VANCOUVER

DISTRICT COUNCIL

spaces.

Apartinent residents must be
notified in writing of the date and
time of any spraying, and be given
the common trade name, active
ingredient and concentration of
the pesticide.

In addition to the name and
phone number of the person who
wh! apply the pesticide, the notice
must include:
® advice and precautions for the
occupants;

* information about the Poison

and colours to enhance
every room, comple-
ment your furniture
and furnishings,
or, perfect as a
unique gift.
Now at a sav-
ings of up to 75%.
We pay the GST.

Reg. Liquidation

737-8687
10AM - 8PM

are achangin’ (again)

about the enc of the world.

Let’s see now, when was the
first time I saw one of these? It
must have been in the 1950s. Since
then, there have been dozens of
them, the only difference being
that the plot usually unfolds A
Century After or, asin Planet Of
The Apes, A Thousand Years
After.

We joke a lot during the show,
criticizing all the cornball stuff,
the cute symbolism, the trite dia-
logue. Then comes the part where
Kansas City is hit by two nuclear
weapons, and for a long while,
there are no jokes.

The special effects are worthy.
The bombs and their impact are
realistic. Awfully realistic.

The rest of the show is
downhill. For anybody who has
read about Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, it is obvious that the
make-up department is pulling its
punches when it comes to depic-
ting actual radiation burns.

And for anybody who has read
books like Johnathan Schell’s The
Fate Of The Earth, it is equally
obvious that the scriptwriters or
directors have wildly underplayed
the true consequences of a full-
scale nuclear exchange.

My 17-year-old daughter comes
home halfwzy through.

“Do you want to watch this?’ I
ask. ‘‘Are you kidding?’ she
replies. Smart.

When the show is over, our
friends leave. 1 offer a feeble gag

Control Centre and Agriculture
Canada’s National Pesticide In-
formation Service and the North
Shore Health Department.

Signage in public areas will be
regulated for size, placement and
visibility.

Application, of pesticides
without the types of notice
specified in the bylaw could result
in fines of up to $2,000.

ylvan helps
students
to succeed

Through a variety of programs and
teaching techniques Sylvan
Learning Centres help students to
reach their full potential, increase
their skills, and build their
confidence.

All students, even the brightest
ones, tack learning skills. The dual
purpose of supplementary
education is to fill in learning gaps
in certain subjects and, most
important, to help children acquire
study habits that will serve them
for a lifetirne.

Sylvan Achievement
Programs:

Reading -~ Designed to teach
young emergent readers word
analysis skills, oral reading, fluency,
vocabulary and comprehension.
For the older stuents, we
concentrate not only on the basic
skills necessary for success in
reading. out also on higher level.
critical, thinking skills which
transfer to all academic areas.

44 /t was the great French philosopher
Tielhard de Chardin who said the invention
of nuclear weapons spells the end of war.9¥

to the effect that we should get
together and have a good time like
this more often. Ha ha.

In bed later, my wife asks the
inevitable: ‘‘What would we do if
there’s a was?”

*tAh, we'd tough it out,’” J
mumble. ‘‘Play it by ear.”” It’s
not a conversation I want to carry
on, especially since, just the night
before, I'd been able to feel the
new baby moving around in her
womb.

In the middle of the nighit J
wake up. All the old images are
back from the recurring
nightmares I had as a youngster.
The bomb-blasted city. The ra-
dioactive rubble. The despair.

1 knew | shouldn’t have watch-
ed the goddamned thing!

In the morning, my wife talks
about how, if war comes, she
plans to get a lot of sleeping pills
in advance from our doctor so we
can all go to sleep peacefully
rather than face the real Day
After.

I assure her it won't come to

In School This Fall

Sylvan CLEAR Writing.™
This program will dramatically
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essays, reports and test papers —
the very thing he's graded on. It
can teach a student to think
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and to write with greater
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Study Skills — This program
helps students set up and apply a
structured method of studying and
covers such areas as listening.
outlining and note-taking, study
and reading strategies, test-taking
strategies. improved memory
strategies, and time management
techniques.

Basic Math — Focuses on
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Sylvan Program Benefits:

that. In fact, all this fear is a
good sign. People are learning to
become very wary indeed of the
new weapons.

It was the great French philos-
opher Tielhard de Chardin who
said the invention of nuclear
weapons spells the end of war. I
believe him.

A few days later, | make the
mistake of watching the news.
Pershing 2 missiles have been
deployed in West Germany.

The announcer describes it as
the equivalent of the Cuban
missile crisis from the Soviet point
of view. The Russians have walk-
ed out of the Geneva arms control
talks...

And I go down to my cabin and
write this column because there’s
not a single other thing I can do. I
think about my children. And
after a while I get down on my
knees and pray.

(And that’s how it was, boys
and giris, cight short years ago.
Things sre getting better, eh?)

268. 0086

Aigebra - Concentrates — on
developing the basic skills for a
solid foundation in a subject that
is a student's first experience with
theoretical math.

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