4 - Wednesday, December 26, 1990 — North Shore News Is Webster really without substance? I HAVE just finished reading Jack Webster's autobiography, titled, wouldn't you suspect, Webster! Now I have to say that | have always enjoyed Jack. | was on his radio show a few times, and on his television show a few times. Despite his reputation as a man-eating monster, | always found him to be a pleasant, even lovable, pussy cat. The Oatmeal Savage role was something he reserved for people he either detested or wanted to bring down to the level of ordinary mortals. However, | have to say that his autobiography falls somewhat short of my expectations. There is something disappoin- ting about the revelation that, when aif is said and done, Jack had no hidden agenda, nothing he deeply believed in, no conspiracy to which he secretly subscribed. it might be that even in the book he is still playing his Weeebbssster game, so caught up in his public persona that, given the ultimate chance to divest himself of it, he cannot. There is all the philosophical consistency here for a New Kids on The Block fan. Jack tells us that he always considered himself a member of the working class, and was giddy with delight the night Dave Bar- rett was elected. But he quickly turned around and put the knife to Barrett. By the same token, he was so dazzled by the Queen that he got giddy again when the chance came to hang out with royalty, however briefly. Come on, Jack! Are you holding back or what? I don’t believe anybody could go through life, wielding as much influence as you did, and still be as deter- minedly apolitical as the character you present yourself as being. I'm sorry, but just from my brief encounters with The Mouth That Roared, | got the inescapable impression that here was a man who was much, much smarter than he let on. I was hoping, in Polluters revealed A NUMBER of the 262 provincial waste management, water, pesticide control and fisheries charges made public recently by the provincial environment ministry stemmed from incidents occurring locally. The environmental legislation charges cover the first six months of the fiscal year. In Squamish, CanadianOxy In- dastrial Chemicals Ltd. Partner- ship was charged in August for introducing business waste into the environment, depositing a deleterious substance and causing pollution. In Port Mellon, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper was charged in April for introducing a deleterious substance into water frequented by fish, introducing business waste into the focal environment and failing to comply with its pollu- tion permit. In North Vancouver, Preston Gacki was charged in August for selling a pesticide without a licence. Wayne Stewart was charged in July for handling a pesticide in’ a manner other than recommended. In West Vancouver, Sukhwinder Kahlon was charged in July for unlawful transportation of a pesticide. . Bob Hunter | STRICTLY PERSONAL the book, he'd let down his guard enough for us to see into his real thoughts. He does, however, let us in on his feelings, and it is the emo- tional honesty of the book that is its main strength. He doesn't Iet himself off the hook for the tragic mental problems of his wife, Margaret. His wife’s problems stemmed, he believed, from the fact that when he made her preguant as a youth, rather than marry her right away, he went along with a scheme to have the baby sent away. He did the right thing later, but it took until well into adulthood before his wife succeeded in track- ing down the lost daughter and bringing about a family reunion. For his part, Jack spent a life- time in emotional hell for that one youthful moral error. There is a powerful message here about the importance of morality and its karmic effects. Unfortunately, Jack doesn’t re- ally examine any of this, other than to acknowledge that he sometimes comes off sounding like a Victorian prig. There i. ne raention of anything remotely metaphysical or spiritua’, except in joking asides near the end when he interviewed Shirley MacLaine. He does ask the question: What are people for? But makes abso- Vately no effort to answer it. The fact that at the end he sounds almost exactly like the young man he presents himseif as at the beginning is either a failure of the writing or of the self-ex- amination, I believe that a very real extent, our personalities do not change over a lifetime, but our percep- tions should certainly evolve. It is the lack of a growth curve in Webster’s autobiography that tips me off to the fact that he made no serious effort to write anything more than a kind of super-Maclean’s article about one of his favorite subjects, namely himself. I must say that by the time ] got to the end of the book and Webster's apologia for Jack Munro, the iWA, and the attempt by the loggers to trash Lyell Island, my feelings toward Jack turned sour indeed, just as his writing did. J wish Jack hadn't contented himself with rehashing old news stories, giving his 30-second-clip insights into the corruption, abuse of power and downright wicked skulduggery that constituted Brit- ish Columbia's political reality during his tenure as unofficial media ombudsman for the pro- vince. In the end, it seems that Jack decided to forgo the angst of growing up and facing the real challenges of his era. How much easier to play media guru in an electronic circus. Sadly fitting, 1 thought, that his final act on the federal stage was to weasel out of the committee on national unity because it was turn- ing out to be more than a part- time job, and it was cutting into the amount of time he could spend flogging his book. Webster! Where are you when we need you? * HOCKEY OONT OPChee OPChee OPChee VO] Seore 8990 OPChee OPChee Score USICAN ph. 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