A right
winged
cheotity
Vidicuallus

* STAND foursquare behind
‘= though, compared with

him, well behind — Doug
Na Collins, who is on the front-

7 _ lines ‘of an assault on freedom
“. of speech allowed and abet- °

‘ted by. the mini-Mcoist Mike
. Harcourt government in
~ Victoria in the form of the
* loathsome Bill 33. '-
<> The B.C. Council of Human
Rights is currently investigating. -
“© whether to proceed on a complaint.
:. lodged by,the Canadian Jewish -
“Congfess against Doug over a col-
umn published last year in the

_-: North Shore News.

» ) «disagree vehemently with
Doug’ $,conclusions about the
Holocaust and with his huge-club-
we with: big-nail- -in-it harsh language. .
ing the subject.: .” ;
oo sO agree vehemently with his
“right,to say his piece, And the entire
media corps in this area, through - ,
* their Organizations ‘and as individu-

als, 3 are toughly:: supporting Doug in
this‘ matter. :

Right, fellow journalists?
Thunderclap of applause, eh?

“a: Surely none of you are over there .
: “with the mini-Maoists, secretly (or °°
openly) hoping they shaft Doug?”

‘’¢Or, perhaps more despicably,

me keeping carefuily quiet, winning the’

|, cheapest of all Brownie points —

“oy the Brownie points of silence i ina

difficult time?. :

Trevor |
Lautens

GARDEN OF BIASES |

ing, free-speech pages of the North -

Shore News, where there is no”
gauleiter orTrotskyite celi or — :
more insidious) y — unspoken air of

‘ ‘self- -cénsorship, 1 am a shameless

, pro-Semite.

1 adore Jewish intellect, energy,
family’ values, humor, wisdom (the
best short story of this century is
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Gimpel the
Fool). Warmly support Israel, with
all its many problems and faults,
Was delighted with one of my early
newspaper assignments, oh, “bout
1957, to write enthusiastic editorial

- copy in support of State of Israe}.

Bonds. Have'strongly argued for .
justice for imprisoned Jonathan

T'S REGRETTABLE that an initiative to

formally integrate the management ser-

vices of Lions Gate and Burnaby hospitals
has been rejected by members of the Burnaby
Hospital board.

The plan would have seen the 680-bed
regional Lions Gate Hospital and the 515-bed
Burnaby Hospital, a community health cen-
tre, save at least $5 million annually three to

four years down the road.

By rationalizing administrative, executive
and support services, the hospitals could have
shaved about $1.4 to $1.8 million per year
from their budgets. An additional annual sav-
ing of $3.4 million could have been realized by
amalgamating hospital corporate services
such as human resources, computer systems,
medical records and finance.

Rising costs are inevitable given hospital
worker wage settlements and the increasing

costs of medical technalogy. Both the abitity
of government to pay and the commitment of
taxpayers to foot open-ended bills are at the
breaking point. The twin reality is changing
the business of health care. A large full-ser-
vice hospital in every community of substance
will likely be a thing of the past.

‘Moving health-care services from hospitals’:
to the community level should be accelerated
so that. hospitals can focus on. what they
should be doing: providing efficient, short-

term support for patients in need of. acute !

care,
Unless the two hospitals act quickly on

implementing cost-saving operating efficien- -

cies elsewhere within their systems, the deci-
sion by Burnaby, which ironically is the most
financially pressed of the two hospitals,
against integrating management services is a
bad one.

No big deal, any of it. But I've
no hesitation in pronouncing myself
very favorably disposed toward Jews
— and extremely horrified about the
Holocaust. Never again. ;

And it is no contradiction to say °
that I also unequivocally back
Doug’s right to speak his mind on
this or any other subject::

I pause here to pay enormous’
tribute to The Jewish Western |:
Bulletin; which, with typical Jewish
respect for fair debate, ran two
opposing (and, each in its way, com-
pelling) arguments on the subject
when Jewish organizations moved to

«bring Doug before the B.C. Council
of Human Rights. ©.

I hold in high regard the
Bulletin’s editor, Sam Kaplan, jour-
nalistically schooled at the Winnipeg

- Free Press,a deeply thoughtful and

warm Orthodox Jew with a gener-

_ ous spirit of diversity,

Now, the other day there came to
hand an example of why free
inquiry, even (or especially) about -
the Holocaust, must be protected —
tolerating, albeit through clenched
teeth, the right to repugnant opin-:
ions and Suspect “facts.” .

It was a review by Chrystia
Freeland in The Financial Times of
London, reprinted in Canada’s -
Financial Post, of a new book, The

° _Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall

of a Show Trial (not yet available at
the West Van library). Its author,
Yoram Sheftel, was defence counsel
for John Demjanjuk, the retired

extradited to Israel in 1986 after he
was fingered as the “Ivan the
Terrible” at the Nazis’ Treblinka
concentration camp.

Apparently it is a garish and self- -
Dear Editor:

promoting book. But the core argu-
ment is devastating and well-docu-
mented. Not only was Demjanjuk
not “Ivan,” but, Sheftel writes, ‘the
whole affair began with a despicable
plot, an international conspiracy of
.. the Soviet Union, Poland, the
United States, Germany and Israel.”
Appallingly, the U.S. Office of

_.. Special Investigations knew all

along it had the wrong. man.
Documents were concealed. But -
Sheftel flails “the Israeli establish-
ment” most of all for its zeal for
conviction. Thankfully, the Israeli
Supreme Court exonerated
Demjanjuk. *

The lesson here is plain. Without
open inquiry — in this case, at the
last-chance level of justice — an‘
innocent man could have been rail-

. roaded to death by Nazi-hunters

who were not honorably dedicated —
but prejudicially obsessed —— thus
debasing, as the reviewer notes, the
memory of the Holocaust. That’s
why anything that pares'back free
speech and free.inquiry, however
annoying, must be challenged. And
why everyone — journalists, above
all — must back Doug Collins
against the Big Brother/Sister in
Victoria who would silence him.
And who, have no doubt, would

‘ doesn’t.

While © shopping recently os ta
passed by the familiar tank of live
lobsters and crabs, ‘claws taped,
piled one’ on top’ of.. another, and
thought how little. 1 knew of these
crustaceans. a

Here's: what i found, out about
lobsters... by ;

They, have’ long childhoods and
_ an awkward adolescence. They use;
* complicated signals to ‘explore and

establish social relationships. They .

flirt, Their: pregnancies: last “nine
‘months:and they can live to be over...

100 years old.
They are shor stones “Some.

are pale pink, others‘almost black.

Some ‘are right-handed ‘others’ left-
handed. ‘ : :
They like to walk“ Pp.

miles a: year. Yet, although’. they
evolved over 100 million’ years ago
and can. read ocean cuirents,; only
01% of them: survive : their; most

: devastating predator, humans.’ Most
_are killed by being boiled alive:

Makes one wonder. and rethink,
it?. They “flirt,”
month pregnancies.” I know people.

like that. Well, as L always say, “if it! '
had a face, it is-‘not‘on my plate.”

Yes, lama vegetarian. a
i. Mason

“nine-,

4

come later for any of us they chose.

As P’ve said on the free-wheel- Pollard, Ete., etc. , Cleveland auto worker who was Vancouver

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