6 - Friday, July 22, 1994 - North Shore News New frontiers EL ARMSTRONG took his first step on the moon 25 years ago. Many of us who were around to watch and remember the historic event believed the step to be the first of an inevitable series of mamned-space adventures to other planets. The Apollo mission seemed to validate the televised hijinks of the first crew of Star Trek. A Jetsons lifestyle was just uround the corner or at least well within a lifetime. Regardless, it was all about possible futures and the testing of edges on the fina! frontier. Some argued the push into space was pure escapism on the grandest of scales; - Vietnam got too hot, and the Russians got too uppity with their own rocket program. The space race presented a handy ploy to fire up patriotic hearts. Too many troubles back on Earth? No problem, we simply leave our dirtied backyard behind before we choke on our own filth and misery. A quarter century later we see the. most spectacular results in space coming from robots and cameras. Earth’s oceans offer a new frontier for the explorers among us. We have yet to establish a colony on Mars. We have not built our first lunar McDonald’s restaurant upon tite rocky shore of the Sea of Tranquility. But the thrust heavenward benefited us in an unforeseen and profound manner. The technology developed to place a few men on the mooa is now driving an informa- _ tion age that is linking humanity in exciting new ways. Paradoxically as we explore new frontiers, we find ourselves, LETTER OF THE DAY Domesticated cats can be killers too Dear Editer: I am sure that everyone who saw the picture of the injured and surgically stitched domestic cat that was on the front page of your July 8 edition felt very sorry for both cat and owner. I read that the injuries were the result of a coyote attack, The other side of the picture is one that is not often publicized. It is about the serious injury and death that domestic cats inflict upon wild birds. Publisher Managing Editor ... Associate Editer.. The cat, too, is a predator. The difference is that most cats are eagerly and rightly red by their owners. The coyote has to find its own food — a difficult task if a litter has to be supported. T earnestly ask that your read- ers try te empathize with the diffi- culty of existence of both coyote and cougar, and that they are predators of the domestic cat, just as the cat is a predator of wild birds. Perhaps we would he wise to Display Advertising 980-0511 Distribution exercise caution when dealing with prime predators, because we too are part of nature. Most prime predators have for- ward facing eyes. Sadly, about 200 people were kilied and about 8,000 seriously injured in Canada last year by those with forward facing eyes, who, presumably, held valid dri- ving licences! A.M. (Tony) Webb North Vancouver Wild Bird Trust of B.C, 986-1337 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions 986-6222 985-2131 Classifiad Advaitising 985- 2131 Sales & Marketing Newsroom Comptroiler.. North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Frae Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility | for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. V7M 2H4 North Shore Managed Administration MEMBER 14 39 onsdale A ‘Avenue North Vancouver B.C. SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1994 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. WHITHER David Mitchell? Yes, that could have been the opening sentence of almost every story ever written about David Mitchell, of which there have been many. In fact, although our Independent (and independent) member of the legislature for West Vancouver-Garibaldi looked extremely fit when I jast saw him, and is so much younger that statis- tically he is odds-on favorite to out- live me, I'd like to be around when he leaves this earthly turmoil if only to recommend that very epi- taph on his gravestone: “Whither David Mitchell?” Because when Mitchell faces the Great Party Whip in the sky, and is offered his choice of joining the Heavenly Caucus (virtucus but slightly boring) or the Hellish Caucus (hot and bothered but stim- ulating), it would be perfectly in character if he mulled the matter for a few seconds and said: “Can I think it over?” Or, possibly: “Frankly, I'd rather start a third party.’ And perhaps God would be glad to give him that opportunity. The Deity might not appreciate having 66 Here is aman who had a good shot at becoming leader of not just one but of two parties. 99 in his government someone who is quite so persistent in advocating recall and initiative. The heavenly elect perhaps is just as reluctant to have their power trimmed as the earthly elected. Mitchell is a maverick among the pit-pcnies of politics who obe- diently suppress any notion of kick- ing over their traces at the snap of the party whip. He is a minority of one who openly enjoys his independence. He is brainy as well as thoughtful, articulate, broad in his learning, and much more objective than most politicians — an interviewer’s dream. The subject of today’s lec- ture, however, is: Has David Mitchell missed the boat? Make that plural: the boats? Here is a man who had a good shot at becoming leader of not just one but of two parties. He didn’t muff them. He let both slip away. Having broken with Gordon Wilson when Wilson led the Liberals, Mitchell might have exploited Wilson’s long lame-duck period — when the latter’s political admiration for Judi Tyabji ripened into personal and very public romance — to build a solid base for seizing the party leadership. True, Mitchell, not an instinc- tive party player, would have had his work cut out for him to attract alienated former comrades. But power has an amazing way of smoothing out differences. The rookie Liberals who almost to a man and woman owed their success to Wilson eventually dumped him Trevor Lautens GARDEN OF BIASES rudely anyway — proving they were vulnerable to a takeover bid from someone all along. And Mitchell stood by while Gordon Campbell methodically assembled the machine to carry out the takeover. Maybe Mitchell pragmatically calculated that nobody could whip the well-organized, well-funded . Campbeil. But Mitchell, Campbell's intellectual superior and with the advantage of legisla- ture savvy over the untried mayor of Vancouver, let the chance go by default. Next up, the provincial Reform party leadership. Again, an oppor- tunity unsnatched, Mitchell by then had dropped his self-designation of independent Liberal, split with a patiently loyal Liberal constituency association, and become a plain- vanilla Independent. He might have astutely locked ahead and demonstrated a prefer- ence for party leader Ron Gamble in Febmuary’s Matsqui byelection. But Mitchell loyally stood by an old and geod friend, Sociai Credit leader Grace McCarthy — who, to the regret of those who admired her like rny own good self, was destroyed at Matsqui. And when Jack Weisgerber and two other Socreds dramatically shifted to Reform at the legislative session opening on March 14, Mitchell — relishing the excitement — was on the sidelines. Before and for weeks after- wards, his office in Victoria was a high-energy neutral meeting place fa; the slivers that were neither New Democrat nor Liberal — nine MLAs uncertain which way the shaken-up pieces would fall. Mitchell enjoyed the confidence of many. But he didn’t become the broker for all. History. Yet relevant. There are a couple of rumors out there. One, Mike Harcourt could call a snap fall election. (And how many North Shore votes for the NDP and especially David Schreck, North Vancouver-Lonsdale, will the announced Westview overpass yield?) Second whisper: Mitcheil could join — tardily — the Reformers. An independent is in tough, financially, running against party-backed opponents. Whenever the writ drops, Mitchell could find his independence a diminishing asset. Is he a maverick — ora grasshopper in summer, who enjoyed his sunny days of freedom and will have to pay for them when the chilly winds of political reality begin to blow?