You are not yet the centre of the universe LISTEN KID. | am talking to you in the head. Paul St. Pierre PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES Although you are graduating from high school today, you are not yet the centre of the universe and the sun did not rise today because you asked it to. Whatever adult gives the ad- dress to your graduation class won’t talk this way. He’ll proba- bly congratulate you on being the future. Big news. Exactly who else could be the future, your great grandparents? We taught you, by example, that anything you like you should have because the bill can be pass- ed on to somebody else. The joke, the point of which you don’t fully appreciate, is that you are getting our generation’s bills, an un- payable national debt. Before your children reach Graduation Day, you will have undergone a fearsome economic calamity when debt and taxes fi- nally collide with reality. You have grown up in a society in which both parents work in most families. Many say they have to in order for their kids to get the good things of life. That’s true for some families. For other families, the good things of life are a bigger TV screen, muscle cars the day you get to be 16 and holidays at Club Med for mum and dad. There is no family which doesn’t miss having one parent around the home for long, long hours, one to whom a child can talk about big matters at those small times when big matters can be raised. One of the sadder court stories in this province was of a little boy who was sexually abused for years and eventuaily almost killed by a neighbor. The judge said ‘* Why didn’t you tell your Mum what was go- 44 We gave your care over to television which has proven to be the one unmitigated disaster of this century. 99 He may even apologize for not having spent enough money to straighten out your morals and your tecth. Well, I have just look- ed up my school tax bills and I don’t have any apologies about the amount I spend on you. The speaker is also likely to la- ment that we adults are leaving you kids a world which is in such a mess. J will level with you on this subject too. In that, he is cor- rect. We have failed you, dismal- ly. But it wasn’t a failure to buy you schoo} lunches or send the basketball team to Singapore for a week, We failed to strengthen your moral fibre. We failed to give you dreams to dream. We have of- fered you no goals, not even the easy ones. We gave your care over to tele- vision which has proven to be the one unmitigated disaster of this century. It has done more damage than the atom bomb, industrial pollution or AIDS; TV has degraded both minds and souls. For fun generations, it has baby-sat kids, telling them that the cheap and tawdry things of life are good. it has made every form of wickedness, depravity and violence a commonplace thing to you. It has taught you to murder and rape and now your parents are paying a terrible price for TV’s baby-sitting: they are afraid to go out on the streets at night. We gave you too much money and too little love: too much to want and too little to respect. ing on?’’ The little boy said “Mum was always busy.’’ In material things, you have had it better than any kids before you in history. Food, clothing, health care, shelter, entertainment and any of God’s number of idle amusements. We have probably given you too many material goods. But we starved you spiritually. A century ago an old Indian in Washington State had a sobering comment to make about the white men who had supplanted his peo- ple. Chief Seattle of the Ouwamish said this: **The whites, too, shall pass, perhaps sooner than other tribes. “We might understand if we knew what it was that the white man dreams, what hopes he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into their minds so they will wish for tomorrow.’ What Chief Seattle foresaw has come to pass. You have been given no visions, inspired to no dreams. You have been told no stories during the long winter nights. You've been told to watch the TV and eat your junk food. You can call it tragedy, but what geod does that do? What’s done is done. Somebody has to repair the present and the future. That is you. Who else? You're the future, aren’t you? Well be the future. So get off your ass, kid. Good luck. TANTEI 8 Friday, June 28, 1991 - Nerth Shore News - 9 PLANNING FOR OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE The North Vancouver Teachers’ Association is pleased to announce the winners of the NVTA scholarships for graduates who plan to become teachers: Argyle - Leigh Murray, Nia Williams Carson Graham - Valerie Wood Handsworth - Kathryn McLeay Seycove - Daphine Tobin Sutherland - Anna Meyer Windsor - Catherine Black Congratulations!! North Vancouver Teachers’ Association Local Association #44 British Columbia Teachers’ Federation 404-1124 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H1 pesttieippreetpess FAX 980-8092 Phone 988-3224 TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION | & SUMMER INVENTORY — 3 DAYS ONLY — June 29, 30 & July 4 |BUY ONE ITEM 30% or |BUY TWO ITEMS OFF BOTH ITEMS 40% 50% OFF EVERYTHING BJ* WEST VAI 12463 MARINE DRIVE | WEST VANCOUVER § 926-0742 Sat. 9:30-5:30 BSun. 42-5 LMon. 9:30-5:30