u A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 11, 2006 STANDARD | - ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ' ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. - V8G 5R2 _ TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 + FAX: (250) 638- 8432 “WEB: www.terracestandard.com EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard. com Mascot mania 7 TIME’ S TICKING away to have the northwest’s own Kermode bear take its rightful place as a symbol of the 2010 Winter Olympics. * ; | VANOC,. the Olympic organizing committee, ~muffed it badly by choosing IHanaaq;. the made- , of-stone meeting symbol of Canada’s Arctic, as. the emblem of the games. It might be something 7 Canadian,; but it has as much to do with B. C,,.as ~ the CN Tower in Toronto. 2 | So it leaves the mascot contest as the last chance | for a truly made-in-B.C. ‘representation for the world to see..And. having the world see B.C. is |. Supposed to be. the idea behind the 2010 Winter. Games in the first place. ; Actually, there ‘are two chances for the Ker- ° mode to attain mascot status — one for the main games and one for’ the paralympic. games which » a follow. And VANOC’s website: indicates there . FRONT. OFFICE: Darlene'Keeping, Carolyn Anderson could even be. more that two masocts depending upon circumstances. . To quote from VANOC’s website: “The mas- cots bring humour and-light-hearted fun to the’ Games. experience. They help provide a. warm “welcome to:athletes'and visitors from. around the world, and they ‘spark excitement, Jaughter and. . Cheers from children and fans.” In the past, mascots have taken the form of 2 a dog which was'a daschund called Waldi for the 1972: Munich games, a | platypus. called Syd for the 2000 Sydney games, a beaver called Amik for the. 1976 ‘Montreal games and the.twin. polat bears, : a Hidy and Howdy for the 1988 Calgary games. So it is entirely reasonable that a Kermode en- try be favourably considered for one of the mas- cot spots for either the 2010 Winter Olympics and the paralympic version. But here’s the problem. In very , polite language VANOC as much states it will only entertain mas- cot bids from individuals and companies with lots of previous experience in designing such items. | That could frighten away enthusiastic amateur designers, particularly those from the northwest or other parts of B.C. who believe, as they should, thatthe Kermode must be a part of the twin 2010 extravaganzas. _. And that would be a ‘shame. So we encourage all of those with an artistic bent to check out the VANOC website at vancouver2010.com and ab- sorb all the pertinent information leading up to . the Nov. 2 submission deadline. . - Given that the provincial taxpayer is on the in- creasingly expensive hook to pay for the 2010 _ Winter Olympics it is important that the Kermode be afforded every chance to be a mascot. — _. Sure, mascots tend to be a bit goofy and there’s | ~ danger the Kermode could-be turned into an un- dignified dancing caricature of itself. But that’s not to say we can’t try to do right by our bear. ' PUBLISHER/EDITOR: - Rod Link _ ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur _ NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman ‘COMMUNITY: Dustin Quezada NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs t CIRCULATION. SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS::. 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Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment of postage in cash, - _. Special thanks to all our contributors and _ Correspondents for their time and talents DANG, THIS — GLOBAL WARMING . 1S REALLY GETTING OUT OF HAND Your tax dollar | is hard at work — THIS IS a. ‘simple account about one person with a com- puter and an internet connec- . tion. Below is an actual exchange of correspondence . Thad with. » ‘the folks in Ottawa. . If it was a song, I'd call it - “Paying Down the Debt.” . It would have a decent beat and just be like sweating to the oldies. ; Dear Prime Minister Harp- : er.” Iwrite to you today becaitse 7 lam worried. There are many © things I worry about, whether -ornot it’s the environment, the state of Canadian democracy today or the chronic under funding of our education sys- _ tem, but none of these things are what I wish to mention to you today. lama young person, yet my concern is over debt and what seems to be a total misunder- standing of debt means to the people running my country. '. And as a sign of our cyni- cal times, I must state for the record I'am not the member of any political party or any private interest, and write this purely as one Canadian hop- ing to God that he can actually make a difference, The thing is that I have a deep . understanding | of debt ARON STRUMECKI and the effect that it has. I am a 33 with a bachelor’s degree,’ ‘and boatload of debt I don’t think I’ll be able to escape. Most people hope to win something so they can buy ‘a nice car or maybe go on vacation. I hope I can win something so I can pay off my debts. Yet the long and short of the math is that I'll probably nev- er be able to afford a house, * something which troubles me greatly. My . parents, God _ bless them, are so far in debt that they have a rather large mort- gage in their elder years, and I know that it won’t take much to push them off their financial balancing beam as well. . When I was younger, I was one of those students caught up in the changes in the post- “secondary system as more and more of the financial burden _ was placed on ‘the shoulders of the students. This bothered me. I did some research. ‘What I learned was that the ‘cost of my education was go- ing up because of massive debt _accumulated by past genera- ‘tions. More specifically, I believe more than 60 per cent of that debt was wracked up during '. the reign of Prime’ ‘Minister Trudeau during the sixties and — seventies. My conclusion then as now is this; I’m literally paying for the education of my parents as well as my own, just with the added burden or 20 or 30 years of interest tacked on to it. If debt was a sin, I’m liter- ally paying for the sins of my forebearers. Now politicians say we can- not either come up with the money for affordable educa- tion or health care. They have said that it is simply too expen- _ sive for the state. Tome this is_a lie, as the obvious truth | is that we cannot afford these _things because of the debt. - If we eliminated our debt, we could easily afford to pay for the health care and educa- debt as soon as you can." Task you not for me, as itis too ~ late for me, but for the lives of our’ children ‘and grandchil- Soon cannot come soon . tion that Canadians young ‘and old pay for and. deserve. ‘So please’ ’ Mister Minister, dren. enough. Can you believe what hap- | pened next? I got a response. ‘The first was from a Mr. Opal- ick, the Executive Correspon- dence Officer for the Prime | Minister’s Office. He said he , would ‘ “pass it on” Prime please pay off the . This ° Yet my game of ‘Citizen ~ Roulette’ was not over, as I _got another response, from'the _ man himself, James M. Fla- herty, the Minister of Finance. He thanked me for my con- cerns. After that came the kicker. It was a very nice form email from Rosaline Frith, Director General of the Canada Student Loans Program. She _ patiently how young people should be thankful that the government is raising the amount of debt that students can also sink themselves in. - Yes, friends, this is you tax « dollars at work. explained . . Makes you proud of that, . , don’t it? posure to sunlight can lead to skin cancer, particularly. the deadly. melanoma. As‘a farm kid, 1 often sunburned my ‘arms. So two years ago when a mole on my forearm devel- oped a red spot and threatened to bleed,I reviewed the ABC _ signs of melanoma: Asymmetry: — one half "does not match the other half (Mine had that). Border irreg- ularity — the edges are ragged, notched’ or blurred. Colour — the pigmentation “is not uniform. Shades of tan, brown, and black are present. Diameter — the mole is greater ~ across than a pencil eraser or is smaller than that but grow- ing. (Mine was so-so.) Other symptoms may in- clude a change in the surface of a mole — scaliness, oozing, bleeding or the appearance of — ‘a bump or nodule, spread of pigment from the border into surrounding skin, redness or a new swelling beyond the bor-_ _ der, change in sensation, itchi- ness, tenderness or pain. \ I had enough signs to scare me into a Saturday appoint- ment with the only family doc- tor on duty that morning. He examined my arm, de- THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI “clared the mole nothing t to worry about. “Just watch it,” he advised. I left his office feeling com- forted ... for the moment. . But from then on I scruti- nized that mole several times ~ a.day. In the back of my mind crouched the memory of a lo- cal nurse killed by a melano- - ma. If a nurse could be taken unawares, what chance do I | have to elude the disease? As. months crept by, the reddened area that hdd pan- icked me into a Saturday ap- pointment began to heap like river ice in a spring thaw. On a routine visit, I asked my doctor to check my mole. He. concluded it could ‘be harmless. Or it could’ be: a. squamous cell carcinoma, a basal cell ‘He suggested freezing it, - letting it heal, and waiting to see whether it regenerated as ‘smooth pink skin, or if some of the rougher top surface clung. If the rough surface hung on, . he would biopsy to rule out a melanoma. - From a lower cupboard in the treatment room, the nurse - wrestled a heavy thermos the size of a medium fire-extin- guisher. The doctor unscrewed the cap from the white thermos — letting escape a swirling ‘rock concert fog ~ poured half an inch of. clear liquid into a Paper cup, recapped the ther- -mos, and began twirling the tip of an extra long Q-tip in the cup’s liquid. 7 When the damp (Q-tip touched my mole, I felt noth- ing. But the skin turned gray as wood stove ashes, and un- derlying tissue shrunk down creating a depression. The doctor swabbed a dime- sized skin area to be sure he got it all. “Give it a week or ten days to heal, then we’ll see,” he carcinoma, even. the dreaded melanoma. Never mess around with this. topic ; WE ALL know prolonged ex- said, and with a showman’s — flourish, threw the cup’s re- maining contents arcing across the room. The liquid nitrogen evaporated before it touched ~ the floor. My mind flashed t to stories of 60 below’ weather in the Yukon where spit froze before it reached the ground. \ Next day the mole area was black. The doctor had told me exactly what to expect would happen or I would have pan- icked again. Ten days later the black- ened skin cracked into narrow Strips. I smeared on Chapstick to soften the papery crust. Af- . ter my next shower one strip . peeled off. Like a kid worry- ing a knee scab, I tugged at one strip after another. until I peeled all away. _New pink skin replaced the. entire sunspot. Now, seven. weeks since treatment, the area is still pink and smooth, with no hint of where the sunspot had been thickened and red. Because I’ve had no other reason to visit my doc-. tor, he hasn’t had a chance to see it. Meanwhile I’m watching it like a bank robber waiting for the getaway car.