Tha North Shore News Is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, 8.C., ¥7E 2H4 % “| Bs PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) i.) [eos a i, Bg wal Doug Foot Ose Bhailwal Comoptrotier 985-2131 (133) 985-2131 (177) / Timothy Renshaw. . Linda Stewart : Managing Editor - 985-2131 (116) 980-0511 (313) ~ Pater Kvarnstrom :Valoris Stephensea Display Manages’... Classified Manages. , (l 983-6222 (202 ow: to:reec FeRAM SAND ft a 985-2131 (114) - “ Andrew McCredie-Sperts/Community Editor “ 985-2131 (147) Pa : LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” Letters must Include your name, full address — ~ 5... & telephone number. a VIA Internet: trenshaw @ direct.ca * COMPUTER GBS - 980-8027°- =. . mailbox * - and) distributed to every door un the Merth Shore. Canada Font Ceradian ‘Publications, Mail Sales Prot Agnement No. (0087238. Mailing netes snilable on request. : “6,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Fay & Sunday} & Entire contents i © 1996 North Shore Free Press Lid... All rights reserved.” Human Resoutces Manage Sales & Maviaing Decor aan EPO WRY eA TNL YEE ALE OLS NAT ANA NEF aS deren lanagers mismanaged mismanagement of managers. That appears to be the case in North Vancouver District. As outlined in a July 7 News story, district taxpayers will be carrying the financial bag for the Mel Palmer affair well into next winter. And although the approximately $12,000 per month resulting from the managerial muddle is perhaps not huge in the overall scheme of things, it’s no small piece of change either. Especially considering it could have been avoided. Open disclosure of the double man- ager deal has also been less than forth- SNAPSHOTS of a July ’ day: "Last Sunday in Vancouver, _ where the 11th international conference on AIDS is being held. A day of idyllic earthly beauty. Near B.C, Place Stadium copies of a manifesto of sorts by the group ACT UP conclude in large letters that this has been declared “a cop- free zone.” The cops clearly haven't read it. They're all around. Two worlds: the scientists and doctors here “for serious stuff and the demonstrators here for the strect politics, theatre and photo-ops, all of which help wring more public moncy for the serious study from the elected politicians. -. Who, of course, are utterly scorned — more to the point. debased as human beings, insulted. Interesting, considering the .ource, activists pleading for sensitivity. After speeches at Library 5.ju.rz, a march begins. moving down Beatty Street. In advance of the parade is a black-clad man with a sam era, who could pass as a pro photogi..vher butt hope isn’t. ; ; He suddenly lowers his camera and moves toward the marchers, gesturing and bellowing the words of their chant in a huge voice as if: they are Josing energy and need a cheerleader: “We want a strategy, not another tragedy.” One banner scorns Bill Clinton. Another bit- terly slags Dr. Hedy Fry — confounding those who consider the MP for Vancouver Centre, where support of the homosexual community is essential for victory, as a total supporter of that . an] SSS suas coming. Concerns over legal liabiiity aside, the public has a right to know how its money is being spent. In the case of Mr. Palmer’s departure as district municipal manager, that money appears to have been spent less than wisely. Mr. Palmer is currently being paid a full manager’s salary of $11,900 per month and will do so until the end of January 1997. At that time he will be eligible for a retirement benefits package totaling $126.000. Fair enough, you say. “community. But no outsider “~” can support gay rights * enough. | When federei Health . Minister David Dingwall offi- cially opeus te AIDS confer- . ence, hundreds of demonstra- tors, as chofeographed and well knowii to all beforehand, turn their backs on him and shout. | The government, naturally, hasn’t provided enough moncy to find a “cure” for AIDS. Also, it has insulted AIDS patients because Prime Minister Jean Chretien chose not to open the conference, a tangible slight. Needless to say, Chretien’s appearance or non-appeasance would not change the fate of a single AIDS patient. either way. Later a man in a gracious and leafy suburb — 2 world away from the exquisite sophistica- : garden of biases tions of downtown Vancouver —— ponders a host of clippings and reports. Among them:, "Margaret Wente, one of the best of the Globe and Mail's columnists though of course with the G&M’s obligatory support for the agenda, notes that a “definitive article” in The Wall Street Journal described how in 1987 the U.S. public health service “decided on a public-relations * campaign to bombard the public with the delib- erately misleading (my italics) message that AIDS is everyone’s disease.” Wente hastily adds that this — a huge tax- payer-supported lie that would have led to pros- ecution for misrepresentation if a private con- cern had ‘tried to pull it off — was perpetrated “py the health officials “with the, best of motives: The only trouble is that Mr. Palmer stepped down from his post on May 1° when Gord Howie — the new municipal. manager — took over from Palmer. _: Four council members have con- © firmed that Palmer originally offered to. step down July 1 and take his paid vaca" tion pay until his contract expired Jan 31, 1997. oS The timing of his replacement’s: arrival changed all that, adding the: seven months of full pay to the tab. It all adds up to a botched manage- ment changing of the guards thiat is cost ing North Vancouver District taxpayers. needlessly. - erialid ine : ark deaf to ‘traffic chaos Dear Editor: © °° 0» Premier Glen .Clark’y annoyed with the federal govern ment for not listening to the legit imate concerns he. B coastal communities regarding: the. fishing. problem, and. ‘calle the. federal: government: arre and stupid... f the:Nort _- The ‘ill-timed repairs ously hurting the tourist business: in particular. and ‘causing: hard . ships to, everyone else.in a “Give back Mr. Clark: hi words and let us see wha about our legiti ‘Abrahani Karibdin _ North Vancouver It-was the only way they could get pay attention.” (The fascist and com - Orwellians made precisely that argume cial ties were OK in the service of a:“highe goal.). ye es a Thus vast amounts of money. are wasted 0 warning — and terrorizing — people at yirwu ly no risk. (In Canada too.) - 7" The fact is that'in our society AIDS stflerers overwhelmingly belong to.two behavioral ¢ gories. Health Canada's quarterly, AIDS repo! whose figures are rarely published, is cle Under “AIDS cases by exposure category as of Dec. 31, men who have sex with men: (MSM) constitute 80%: injection drug‘use / (IDU), 2.7%; and MSM/IDU that is, con- cerning men who practice both anal sex and IDU — 4.5%. Total, a stunning 87.2%. (No ©, identified risk factor is a further 3.9%)..." Heterosexual contact is in two categories: _ sex. with a person at risk, 3%, and “origin in a Pattern Il country,” 2.9%. ob Pattern 17, Flatly, that means countries ” where heterosexual anal sex is culturally much more common than here. Aha, but when you read the gay-driven AIDS propaganda, you are* led to presume that this involves vaginal inte ‘course. You aren’t told that this is men sodo izing women. And sodomy —- not a nice word — is.what.:7. AIDS, overwhelmingly, is all about, with a: much smaller component of back-alley illegal... drug shoot-ups. Bus the cunning campaign of, misinformation is sinfully misleading the pub lic. me No major disease is as preventable as AIDS.. In at least four-fifths of the cases, prevention of: “AIDS ‘is no further away ‘than the end of man’s dink.