ead & OH, HOW the idols are falling. In Canada, Ben Johnson is seen to be a liar for having stated that he never never never knowingly took anabolic steroids, this even though there are unlikely stories about sabotage in Seoul. In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is seen not to be the nice lady the world DouG CoLLINns © get this straight ¢ said she was. Who will be next to be stripped of their public finery? Archbishop Desmond Tutu? The Archbishop of Canterbury? The Pope? It's all very well to say that nobody’s perfect, but the recent news is a bit much for innocent chaps like me. It’s difficult to say which item provides the biggest laugh — the Johnson one or the Mandela one. But let’s start with ‘‘Ben,”’ as he was described before last week’s fall from grace. If his coach is right — and why would he be wrong? — Ben was tucking the old anabolics away years ago. Certainly as long ago as the early 1980s, which means he was practically weaned on them. And so, it seems, was practically everyone else at the top of the track and field game in Canada. It causes me no end of mirth, for instance, to read that 80 per cent of top athletes were using steroids as easly as the 1972 Olym- pics. And that Ben was on them in Rome, as well as Seoul. Couldn't help splitting my sides, either, when it was reported that the Soviets have gadgets to cover up the use of steroids. Real 007 stuff. Where does this leave interna- tional so-called sport? In the chemistry department, that’s where. Definitely not what the ancient ALL * DESCENTE DITRARI SUNICE SPRUNG SPYDER SCHNEIDER FERA SACKETS i PCE SUITS WARM UPS SWEATERS * EXCEPT SHELLS AND 89/90 INVENTORY — SOME ITEMS LIMITED IN QUANTITY — SALE ENDS MAR. 19/89. Greeks had in mind when they started the Olympic Games. They had to make do with olive oil. Moving right along, we come to Winnie Mandela. Good old Win- nie, one of the champion runners in the Anti-Apartheid Games. “‘Mother of the nation,’’ and all that. ‘‘Drat my timbers!’’ as Long John Silver would have said. There was Winnie, beloved of every dope in the West, if you will pardon the expression. But she didn't need steroids, having received them naturally from on high. Winnie was at the top of the pops. A saint, no less. We couldn't turn on a news program without seeing either her or the dotty Tutu going on about the wicked white South Africans. And then, bump! She’s down. She and the soccer team that played no soccer —- the Mandela United Football Club, composed of thugs described as her ‘‘body- guerds.”’ Next thing we know, there’s a skeleton in the cupboard — or in some ditch — that belonged to a 14-year-old kid called Stompie Mokhesi. Perhaps he was called Stompie because he stomped on other kids. In any event, he had been the leader of a children’s army in Soweto, the black township near i CITY OF NORTH VANCOUVER NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING A Public Meeting will be held on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1889 AT 7:30 P.M. in the COUNCIL CHAMBER, CITY HALL, 141 WEST 14TH STREET concerning the redevelopment of the ST. ALICE HOTEL SITE ‘OFF REGULAR PRICE We Persian & Oriental Carpets SS 2236 West 41st Avenue (Kerrisdale) Vancouver, B.C. (604) 261-355 Johannesburg. Two members of the jolly old football club have been charged with his murder, and the mother of the nation herself is under police investigation. It is also claimed that the kid was abducted, held in Winnie's house, and beaten up something awful by her boys. Not the kind of thing Mother Teresa would have done. No sir. In United Church booklets being peddled to Canadian tots, by the way, Winnie is portrayed as the greatest. Will they have to do some re-writing now that the anti-apart- heid movement has tossed her out on her neck? Talking of necks, it was Winnie who said that with their matches and their necklaces, her groupies would “‘liberate’’ South Africa — a reference to the way in which blacks who disobey orders from 10; Winnie's said groupies go up in das, Goatr smoke. rate veith:| vir firs l almost feel sorry for the herds o . of Winnie worshippers around here. One newspaper headline read: ‘‘Why, Winnie? Why?’ Because. That's why. sipping — 100% guaranteed. thick — $1.50 sq.ft. eve In a recent columa on the RCMP, ! quoted an RCMP source to the effect that there have been cases of Sikh members of the force refusing to investigate other Sikhs. But Const. H.S.B. Salh, himself a Sikh, has come along to say that there have been no documented in- stances of Sikhs refusing such assignments. Which statement is here duly recorded @ No :natter how bright your child or teenager is, his gracies will depend on how well his essays, reports and test papers are written. The Sylvan CLEAR Writing™ program can help. 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