sr acpi (aes ie s meer SECA © SKINNING Alternative forces ONCE AGAIN, tie alternative culture forces are set to assault the senses of the North Shore. . And once again, the establishment that gives grist to the “tyranny of the majority” sentiment behaved just as the alternative cul- ture would expect. : This Sunday’s Under the Volcano Festival at Cates Park in Deep Cove erupts with enough anarchy and angst to satiate any free- thinker’s appetite. ° Organizers of the day-long North Vancouver Arts Council spensored event had originally planned to wrap the show at 10:45 p.m., but were told earlier this week by Mayor Dykeman that the show would have to end at 9 p.m. - What followed at Tuesday night’s district executive committee meeting is just the kind of scene that led to the the rise of an alterna- tive culture. The mayor may have been acting in what he thought was a fair manner, but te event organizers, his actions spoke of conceit and disrespect — familiar territory for the dis- possessed. - This year marks the fifth annual celebra- tion. Four thousand people enjoyed last year’s without incident. The Under the Voicano festival, which includes this year a-visual arts performance entitled Golfing with the Queen, is a gather- ing of the alternative tribe. A day to put colo- nialism on trial (this year’s theme). Twenty-five years ago, half a million peo- ple gathered in up-state New York looking for an alternative. They found one. The alter- native was the commitment to free expres- sion. That commitment must not be broken. LETTER OF THE DAY _ Wright off-base on employment equity Dear Editor: I would like to comment on Noel Wright’s July 27 column, “ ‘Equity’ nuts insult their own employees,” from two perspectives. First, for - someone in the communications field, Mr. Wright’s language could use some updating. Terms such as “wheelchair case,” “vismin” and “colored folks” aren’t any more acceptable than calling a man a “‘bas- tard” or a woman a “bitch.” Second, Mr. Wright has misrep- resented the goals of employment eguity. EE is not about hiring unqualified people nor is it about lowering job standards. It is about Publisher Managing Editor . Associate Editor. taking a good hard look at one’s employment systems to see if there are any systemic barriers which are preventing certain groups from being hired or promoted. Some examples of systemic barri- ers are hiring only on the recommen- dations of friends, height and weight restrictions that have nothing to do with the job, or lack of physical access for a person with a disability. The aim of employment equity policies is to remove barriers, to ensure that job qualifications are bona fide, and to be inclusive in one’s hiring practices. The results, as discovered by pri- Display Advertising Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax Newsroom 980-0511 Distribution Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions 985-2131 Administration vate industry, can be more creativity, a growth in customer base, and a positive impact on the bottom fine. As a final comment, it saddens me to think that anyone would buy into the idea that women should not be hired as firefighters because they “couldn't handie the sexist and racist humor common in firehalls.” What are we saying about our societal val- ues here? That we regard sexism and racism as desirable qualities? That sexism and racism make better fire- fighters? Nancy Pow North Vancouver 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and aualified under Schedufe 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to avery door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Salns Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing ratas available on request. Submissions ara 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 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver B.C. SOA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1994 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Time has come for North Shore 1.OOK, FROM time to time I have a great idea that I don't divulge in the public prints; instead # let il mari- nate a while (sometimes at the bottom of a martini glass) until I shape it into the profound and definitive utterance my readers expect of me, So, occasionally, not surprising- ly, someone of more shallow intel- lect beats me into print with it. I accept that. It is a little galling, of course. However, I have so many great ideas that being pre- empted about one of them is no big thing. But Surrey? How humiliating. Yes, the large, booming but ter- ribly unfashionabie city of Surrey has glommed onto an idea that I’ve mulled for two or three years for our splendid, prosperous and chic North Shore. A baseball team. While the cement hasn’t been poured yet for this idea, Surrey, through its manager of special studies Dave Gomm and the entre- preneurship of a group led by for- mer Vancouver Canadians general manager Stu Kehoe, is angling for ... being snookered by 66 The North Shore... is politically divided up into three . smallish and rather jealous parts... 99 a franchise in the new Western Baseball League. . This league, scheduled to play ball next year, will exist outside of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues — as the association might say, a maverick. In more rough-and- teady days it would have been called an outlaw league. And except for Jim Coleman of the Province, who is so old that he witnessed God throwing out the first baseball on Opening Day, and this paper’s Jim Kearney, who isn’t quite so old but still recalls when the Twelve Disciples con- sisted of nine men on the diamond plus a relief pitcher and two utility infielders, 1 am among the few active journalists with a clear memory of the furor caused by the Mexican League. That outlaw league used big money to woo a number of major- leaguers ~ among them some stars like pitcher Max Lanier - south of the United States border, oh, about half a century ago. “Big money” is very much a relative term. Recently a baseball writer recalled the old story of a reporter asking Babe Ruth, when he reached the amazing salary of $80,000, whether he didn’t feel Trevo Lautens ie fe. GARDEN OF BIASES bad being paid more for a year’s labors than the president of the United States — at that time, Herbert Hoover. No, Ruth replied untumbly, “I had a better year than he did.” What would Ruth be paid today — when, by the way, the U.S. president is held to a measly $200,000 per, and the average major-league salary is almost US$1.2 million (assuming the players’ strike scheduled for teday doesn’t whittle it down)? But I digress. The above is a long way from Surrey, where no new Babe Ruth is likely to materi- alize and the salaries will have to be fairly modest for the 90-game schedule. The other teams in the WBL are Grays Harbor, Wenatchee and Tri- Cities, Washington, in the Northern Division, and Palm. Springs, Long Beach, Salinas and Santa Rosa, California,-in the Southern Division. Why not the North Shore? How about the North Shore Skyriders? With a population of around: 140,000, Vancouver's North Shore has more than a large errough pop- ulation to draw from, compared with Santa Rosa (113,000), Salinas (108,009) and. Wenatchee (21,800). So why is this — and so much more in the way of sports, the arts and so on ~ never gonna happen? Because the North Shore — although geographically sharply ° defined as a whole — is politically divided up into three smallish and rather jealous parts, each protect- ing its own turf. Because the North Shore there- fore lacks a collective identity and, . with it, collective consciousness and pride and will. And because the North Shore is in the shadow of Vancouver city. But none of the above has stopped Surrey. I think it’s long past time — especially with the rocketing ticket prices for professional sports in the big town — for the North Shore to build its own sensibly-sized (not grandiose) ice arena and baseball and football! stadium(s), and to cre- ate the teams to play in them in the appropriate leagues. Same with live theatre, an art museum, a convention centre, etc. But you won't see this until the North Shore gets off its compla- cent duff, starts thinking hard about its costly overlapping munic- ipal services that still leave us poor in facilities of this kind, and finds the leadership to unite for such goals to make things happen.