The Herth Shore Mews is published by North ‘Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonstale fveces Werth Vaecenver, B.C., V7 284 PETER SPECK Publisher “Tet rust nce yur ae, full = address & telephone nurnber. VIA intemet: trenshaw @ direct.ca Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Alt rights reserved. . world would: look at a home in the” in Suethead. You” should NoT To THROTTLE THE VOTERS... ALLO? Dear Editor: To anyone who cares: It has come to my attention that we have a serious problem here on ~ the North Shore. We are perhaps the most spoiled people on the planet yet we con- ~’stantly whine about this or that “major, problem”. or “impending doom.” Recent stories and letters to the tor have contained complaints "ranging from 16-year-olds not being s allowed : to..own: firearms to noise. sal Owning a gun is not a right; it is privilege. In in our society you do not ~ So if you want to go . and these facilities are going to be built the high pitched whine of the NIMBYs can be heard. ___News flash: The district will not : be building any facilities in anyone’s . All facilities will be built on pub- lic land for.use by everyone in the community. Afyou are a NIMBY and you start to fecl angry and selfish over these facilities go do some vol- unteer work. “It will make you feel good and you might learn the true meaning of community. ~ Bassam. rbassam@mail.dowco.com ie jet ‘planes: give 1 me a reak! Billions.of people around the ies with envy and you | plain about the planes fy. ashamed of yourself. = The way [see it you ‘have | two doices, live with the noise or move. the most irritating whin- ing of! late has come from North Van District. In the last election the citizens of ‘the district voted to spend a lot of money to build many needed facili- news viewpoint ties. Now that the money is available - ‘No man is an island, entire of itself .. HAS individualism gone too far? And if that’s possible, what better day than Sunday for a little moral philosophizing about the problem? History will classify the 20th century as the supreme “age of the individual”. Eight decades ago the old social and moral codes based on ily, church and state — which had dominated civilized society for hundreds ; of years — first began to crumble during the First World: War. Since the o Second World War they have eroded at an ever faster pace. ; ; Alike for both the victorious west and its defeated etemies, Germany « - and Japan, the second half of the century heralded an ‘era of unmatched : material prosperity. It was driven: by the post-war baby boom of kids raised ina cult of unbridled consumerism—an Ongoing quest for i instant individ- ual gratification. Boosting the process, they became the Woodstock hippies of the 1960s (“if it feels good, do it!”). Twenzy years on, their focus had shifted from ‘: flowers to Ferraris. “The ‘Me’ Generation” said it all about the often self centred, avaricious, middle-aging boomers of the 1980s. Mcanwhile, church attendance nosedived. Couples divorced as often they wed. Single-mom families, often poverty-stricken, and transitory *: “common-law” households mushroomed. Women’s rights exploded into growth industry. Decriminalized homosexuals beat the gay rights drum. Rights, indeed, started in che hospital delivery room. Parents faced -' being hauled into court on assault charges for daring to spank their rebel- : lious infant. Five-year-olds tearned the social services number to call for. «:.. accusing mom or dad of “child abuse”. In the schools, Grade 7 student- thugs beat up teachers for vainly trying to discipline them. Our leaders set the same tone. Every action of Jean Chretien, | Glen. : Clark and their cabinet colleagues are motivated by a single goal: to. ‘hang _on to power at all costs by evading any individual accountabulity. For: today’s politicians, President Harry Truman’s famous desk sign — —THE. BUCK STOPS HERE — might just as well have been written in Sanskrit. ° In short, half a century of excessive concentration on the allegedly sacrosanct “rights” of the individual has led us to increasingly ignore the responsibilities of the individual to society — without which he or she, in . the end, has no definable existence. It is the relationship to society that. measures individual worth. An individual existing alone in a vacuum could. obviously have no measurable worth at all. So your scribe humbly suggests one of the most urgent social tasks ‘of. the new century will be to strike a much better balance between the indi vidual’s rights and his/her responsibilities to society at large. * Before 1914 the individual's rights were all too often subjugated to the. unbending social and moral rules of the age. But the 80-year revolt against this — unless soon checked — could be even worse. At the end of the ~-.. - “individual-is-supreme” road lies ultimate social anarchy. me As 17th-century poet John Donne put it: “No man is an island, entire . of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” : Ld FROM TODAY through Saturday, Feb. 16, celebrate West Van He itage Week — Ferry Building art displays, lectures, concert and special restaurant offerings. 925- 7236 for event details ... And many happy Yen of. Tuesday, Feb. 18, to North Van Kiwanis birthday boy Wally WRIGHT OR WRONG: Nobody ever got cyestain fom ina on. the bright side. oo — The North Shore News believes strongly in frecion of ech and the * vight of all sides in a debate to be beard. The columnists published in the News. present differing points of view, but those views are not necessarily those of the newspaper itse! if : . pq ete To le, Ireramernetee ie" tail EET ALIN ERIE, RENE A POER ARENA DLAI UCU SHEE Emergencies cosi North Shore dispatcher working at a downtown ambulance dis- atch centre likely has the answer half-right. He said the problem emergency ser- vices face is that there are not enough ambulances to take the high volume of calls. Quite right. But he adds that sending the fire department to all those calls is not part of the problem. Well, it may be. It costs cash to hire, train and send firemen to all those calls. Thanks to smoke alarms and other safety features, the job of a fireman has changed. Fires aren’t such a big part of our lives anymore. Obviously, firemen are still necessary, But some of the resources going their way could be better spent on hiring more well-trained ambulance personnel and getting them into more vehicles. Because firefighters are municipally funded and ambulance paramedics get their cash from the province, getting the two organizations to sit down and think first of their taxpaying clients may not be easy. But a review of emergency program funding and how it is Bene sia be made. Educators, health workers and social service agencies are all being asked to do’ “ more with less. With a dwindling amount of money available to public-sector organizations, it’s tinie emergency services got a closer look, Instead of giving this much to fir mien and that much to ambulance ‘ser- vices, put it all in a pot and say it’s for emergency services. Turf wars don’t serve € anyone well.