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“ ONVENIENCE STORES make
convenient scapegoats, but they are
a A ‘mot. the root cause of disturbances to
. surrounding neighborhoods.
“At. Monday night’s North Vancouver
. District; - Council meeting, a group of
; ‘Capilano, ‘residents vented frustration about
oo: | convenience ‘store’s ‘24-hour operation,
* which they stated in a 350-name petition at-
“tracts i criminal element and endangers the
- Safety of the surrounding community.
|» The| delegation to council followed a
; “Sept. (27 brawl! between youths wielding
_», baseball: bats, knives and machetes in the
"+. store’s parking lot. Two teens were subse-
quently sent to hospital suffering | wounds
“to the'arms and wrists,

te also: follows a. Sept. 24 incident in

‘eng you can find anyone who did vation officer

| — QUOTES

“NESTLED AMONG CUNT
CEDARS WITH SPECTACULAR
VIEWS OF PRISTINE
RAINFORESTS.”

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is
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which Sutherland secondary school was
spray-painted with obscenities by mindless
vandals. ;

The two incidents were not. connected
but they underline the growing. social
bankrupicy of some young people.

“It is an emptiness that begins ian empty
hemes, void of parental input and guidance
and is nurtured by the culture of violence
and urbaa oafishness promoted by. televi-
sion and Hollywood.

A convenience store stays open 24 flours
to compete in the marketplace. It becomes
by default a home base for wayward.
youth, It is only the well-lit location of the
moment for 2 portion of society that bas
no roots at home and neo parental
guidelines within which to live their lives.

/

OF THE WEEK

Mark. Hayden, “Instead of spending a lot of time

believe jit would be used for. the
debt Li have some BCRC shares
“Tm sure they would like to buy.’”
. Capilano-Howe Sound = Liber-
*: tarian candidate Bill Tomlinson —
to’ the question, ‘‘Why hasn’t the
GST gone exclusively to pay off
government debt?” (From an Oct.
I News story. 2)

$*1¢’s likely only one cougar is in
that area. Cougars do not occur
- with great density.”

Lower Mainland senior conser-

after a cougar was killed on the
North Shore, on the possibility of
more cougars being in the area.
(From a Sept. 29 News story.)

“7 put in a toilet the other day —
it was great. it was as satisfying as
winning a Jessie Award, and I
didn’t even have to make a speech
afterwards.”’

Actor Jay Brazeau, on the joys
of performing practical tasks.
(From the Sept. 29 Now
Spotlight.)

going doorknocking and getting
people off the toilet ... or coming
with the mouths full or holding a
crying baby in. their arms or
holding back the dogs ... you just
drop it (video) off. It’s also more
courteous.”

Capilano-Howe Sound Reform
party candidate Herb Grubel, on
distributing personal video cas-
settes as campaign advertising.(From
an Oct. 3 News election feature.)

1

i

. . Peter Speck
Managing Editor .. Timothy Renshaw
‘Associate Editor _— . Noel Wright
Sales & Mating Director Linda Stewart
Comptrolle: .Doug Foot

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Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

FIRST THERE was Robocop and then Robocop Ik. Part
human, part cyborg, part machine — and all science fiction
— these crime fighters had no parallel, at least in the 23rd
century of some writer’s imagination.

But now comes Robodoc. What
it loses in magical powers, com-'
pared with its predecessor, it more
than makes up in realism. Used
recently at Sutter General Hospital
in Sacramento, California,
Robodoc is a 90 kg (200 Ib.)
machine 20 times more precise in
its movements than mere flesh and
blood physicians.

In this instance, it wes used ina
hip replacement operation for a
64-year-old man.

it replaced the hand-held mallet
used to cut a hole in the thigh
bone in which the artificial hip is
placed. The medical robot used a
high-speed drill attached to its
mechanical arm, to great effect.

Although computers have been
used in the past as adjunct to
doctors’ scalpels, and in order to
find inaccessible tumors, this was
the first case in the U.S. where
actual surgery was undertaken by
a machine. :

In Europe, in contrast, robots
have performed the duty of assis-
tant surgeon in operations involv-
ing the brain, the prostate and the
inner ear.

About which, a few comments:
It is no accident that this new
technology has hit the U.S. before

Canada. For one thing, there is
the sheer disparity in size between
the two countries.

Anything new is likely to occur
south of the border before north
of it, if only because of the law of
large numbers, Nothing can be
done about this, nor should it be.

But there is also a more insidi-'
ous explanation.

The much vaunted Canadian
system of socialized medicine
allots less money on a propor-
tional! basis to health care than is
spent in the U.S.: 9% of GDP as
opposed to 13%.

Part of this difference is seen in
the consignment of Canadian
medical services to also-ran status
in the race for technological.
breakthroughs. ;

One cannot expect the American
Medical Association (and later,
the Canadian Medical Association,
when our term at bat finally :
reaches us) to view Robodoc with
equanimity. -

By Walter Block
Contributing Writer

The AMA has long been in the :
business of restricting entry into.
the health care profession. The
lower the supply of physicians, -
other things being equal, the. ;
greater the salary for each OF,
them. :

This doctors’ cartel has suc-
ceeded only too well in keeping a
lid on the number of human .
physicians by placing all sorts, of.
limits on the size of medical." - "
schools, and by keeping down the.
number of foreigners allowed to
practice at any one time. (Iti is no
accident that medical care in the .
U.S. is so expensive.) woe :

Will they now sit idly by white.
soulless machines ‘‘rob’’ them of:
their hard bargained -for economic
rents?

Don’t be surprised to see ‘orga:
nized medicine adopt roughly the
same attitude toward Robodoc as
organized labor has shown toward
automation which threatened its:
comfortable existence.

Robodocs, paradoxically, will

_ probably not cause any

unemployment withia the ranks of °:
medical practitioners. Instead,
they wiil now be able to suc- ' .
cessfully undertake operations that
were previously too risky. °°
This technolegy will free some.’
of them up and allow them to do
additional medical research whiie ©
still expanding patient care. 2.
Who knows. Perhaps Robodoc
will one day be indirecty responsi-

ble in this way for finding the cure.”

for cancer and AIDS. . pe
: Dr. Block is a professor in the :
Department of Economics at the
College of the Holy Crass, «.. :
Worcester, Massachusetts. ;

Noel Wright :
on vacation —

SFU STUDENT Jason Cohen was one of eight. successful
North Shore students to have lean applications approved by
the Challenge ‘93. summer employment program. AAA Stu-
dent Painters grossed over $43,000 in four montas and
‘employed up to four people at any one time. ©