Page 4, The Herald, Monday, November 5, 1979 ro TURRACKE/KITIMAT daily herald General Office - 635-6357 Circulation - 635-6357 GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR - Greg Middleton CIRCULATION - TERRACE - 635-4357 KITIMAT OFFICE - 632-2747 Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum Street, Terrace, 8,C. A member of Varlified Circulation. Avthorlzed as second class mail. Registration number 1201. Postage pald In cash, return postage guaranteed. Published by: Sterling Publishers NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retains full, complete and sole copyright In any advertisement produced and-or any editorial or photographic content published In the Herald. Reproduction is not permitted without the written permission of the Publisher. IN MY VIEW 4 Technology is the dominant component of our society, Everything we do is dependent on the proper function of that technology, from the preparation of our food to the way in which we communicate with each ather. Dispite the overwhelming importance of this facet of our lives, or perhaps because of it, very few pecple in modern North American society can claim any understanding of the processes that make our lives work the way they do, It is important to at least try tostay abreast of what is happening in the world, The problem is that the more advances technology makes, the more doors are opened for future advancement, the faster this ad- vancement proceeds, and the harder it is to keep up. We are caught in a Catch-22: the harder we struggle to keep up, the farther behind we fall. The frustration this separation from the fun- damental operations of our lives creates removes us further from the chance we might have to figure out what is going on. What many social critics and commentators believe must happen in order for our society to survive is that a method must be created that will allow the majority of people in the society, those who care, to understand at least the fundamentals of the technological ad- vances which shape our culture and our lives. James Burke’s series “Connections”, which airs Sunday nights on channel 9 cable, is an attempt to provide a simple background for understanding. The show doesn't try to feed a lot of information into the minds of the viewers. Rather, it shows the progression of the technological advancements which have led society to its present state. Burke shows how the invention of the clack led to the creation of the assembly line, and how the waterwheel led to the computer. The shows are simple. That's the whole idea. Any technocratic historian worth his salt can show how new knowledge is piled up. The problem with asking people like that is that no-one but other technocrats can understand what they are talking about. Burke's series is open to charges of over- simplification. It may have some basis. But it’s a start. The show is informative, entertaining, and-easy on the eyes, In the tradition of such programs as Kenneth Clark's ‘Civilization’? and Jacob Bronowski's ‘The Ascent of Man’:, it is marvellously produced with some incredible location shots from all aver the world, and good recreations of period scenes. For other attempts to tie the damnably confusing world of technology together, one can read books by men like Theodore Roszak or Zbigniew Brzezinski for opposite viewpoints. Carry a dictionary, though, they are tough to read. a Or, turn on the TV Sunday night a 8p.m., channel 9, for a considerably more accessible and entertaining vision of the technclogical maze nur world has ome. Dixie Lee Ray, the governor of Washington State, . said, ‘Fear of technology is based on ignorance, and once knowledge is obtained, fear disappears.” Sometimes, I think, the opposite is true. But although no-one will ever be able to keep up with the world again, we can at least try to understand how we got here. \ James Burke has provided a chance to begin. LETTERS TO. THE EDITOR Dear Sir: peace has found from past It is not Greenpeace's experience that publicity, actions that are to be however, will produce ac- deplored, but rather, the bureaucratic system that forces Lhem lo resort to such guerilla methods to get results. Polilical red tape and ‘buck passing’ in im- plementing any change in the system are painfully well known. Registering a formal complaint with those who make the laws and regulations dea not produce immediate resulls nor even immediate notice. Green- tion. They risk = im- peisonment, physical harm and even the annoyance of trophy hunters to publicize thelr proteat. : If Mr. Shelford could guarantee ag impressive a response as Greenpeace produces, these’ riske wouldn'l be necessary. But while they are, Greenpeace is to be applauded thelr courage and initiative. Sincerely, Hedy Brower E ; aN % yg r rey ry Sgueany “Trade you for this hill of beans — magic. you know.” Thousands of Cambodians ‘try to escape the war bet- ween the Vietnamese- backed government of Heng Samrin and the soldiers of former premier ‘Pol Pot. Many reach Thai border camps where international aid organizations try to help them but for some it is too late. Jeffrey Robbins, ‘Southeast Asia photo editor for The Associated Press, writes of one child, one day. By JEFFREY ROBBINS SA KAEW, Thailand (AP) — She was only five years old. It took her months to walk to this refugee camp, But it took her only 30 minutes to die, her twigthin «arms and legs spread out co ‘astraw mat as a doctor and two aides fought to find a vein for a blood transfusion, © "J can't find a vein, I can't "REFUGEE STORY Not all of them escape with acute malnutrition with dysentery, retching and finda vein,’ the doctor mut- tered as he probed her arms, her groin, her neck, shrunken from malnutrition. Her heart stopped once but with massaging a nurse brought it back to life. It stopped again and the nurse gave her mouthto-mouth resuscitation; the doctor pushed on her thin chest. This time she was dead. Her mother, who squatted timidly in the background, began to cry quietly but was too shy to come forward to hold her: motionless child. Medica] aidea carried the body away. For Dr. Andre Pieren of France, there was no time for reflection about the litle girl. By the time she waa carried away he was down on his knees again beside the next patient. The little girl, who had trekked for months with her family through the Cam: hodian jungle, trying to escape the starvation and wer of her country, found sanctuary in thie Thai camp Monday morning. She lay for three hours ata nursing station in this camp of 30,000 refugees before the doctors realized she was dying. “If this had been a normal hospital under normal conditions anywhere else in the world, we would have saved her,” said one medical aid. The little girl was one of 20 refugees who died Monday in this camp. The doctors, too few and without the equipment for proper diagnosis and care, pick their way among the | patients who lie jumbled together — those with malaria, with tuberculosis, defecating where they lie, “We do what we can,” said Jeffrey Chulay, a U.S. volunteer doctor, ‘but it's very frustrating because it is 80 difficult to know what is wrong, with the limited equipment we have. “We treat fever ds malaria, We treat people who look pale as anemia. If they don't get better we see what else we can do.” The hospital has adequate medicine and a dozen over- worked doctors and nurses, as well ag an out-patient department run by the Thai Red Cross, which treats about 1,300 pecple'a day. But there are too many seriously ill people for the care to. be ... adequate. : “]'ye never seen this many peaple this sick,’ Chulay said. —OTTAWA OFFBEAT VANCOUVER (CP) — A baptized: Sikh testifled Monday he faces an or- dained death au a leper if he is required to wear a hard hat over ‘his turban. Aviar Singh Toor, giving evidence at a British Columbia human the leper penalty was laid down by a revered guru in. the Sikh faith and is a religious belief that cannot be questioned. The instruction to baptized Sikhs is that nothing may be worn over the turban, It is one of the flve requirements that must be obeyed and it Includes the wearing of a special bracelet on the right wrist at all dimes, the hearing was told. Toor's strict com- pliance with religious law clashed with B.C. rights board inqulry,.said ~ MAKES HIM LEPER workers’ compensation board regulations. The issue waa brought to a human rights hearing after allegations of religious discrimination. Toor said he was suspended nearly a year ago from hia job as a bull edger operatar at the Finlay Foreat Industries lumber mill at Mackenzie, B.C., when he refused a company order to wear a hard hat over -his turban and an order to secure the religious bracelet he wears on his wrist with tape. The company was carrying out board regulations. He told the hearing, in the Punjabi tongue through an interpreter, that he refused the tape order because the tape could damage or remove hair and this, also is ‘Hard hat poses problem ohibited by his religious liefs, Toor said he came to Canada in 1970 from the Punjab region of India where he had served in the Indian army and had seen combat action. He decided to become a baptized Sikh three years ago at Mackenzle where ‘be was working at the mill, bapttega, he did not wear a turban_and wore a hard hat in compliance with company regulations. . After his baptism, he began to wear @ turban and refused the hard hat. Toor testified he was prepared to accept alternate work in the plant not requiring the safely hat bul none was offered, He sald he came to Vancouver, then went vy to the Fraser Valley where he now has a job at a lumber mill doing the same job he was doing at the Finlay mill, but does not have to wear a hard hat over his turban. His lawyer, Robert Bellows, stated that different safety In- spectors appear to en- force board safety regulations differently. The inquiry. board was told that the unlque case involyes a conflict bet- ween two provincial government depart- ments, the human rights ‘branch and the workers’ compensation hoard, with the notfhern B.C. lumber company: caught in the middle, “*s Robert Brun, counsel for the board, sald the only issue at stake is shafety. BY RICHARD JACKSON Ottawa - What a spectacle, former Privy Council i Clerk Michael Pitfield, all self-pity the other day at the | Toronto Canadian Club lamenting the hard and heartless times that politicians and bureaucrats have come upon. ; Don't buy a word of it. They never had it so good. ; And there was Mr, Pitfield, with a straight face, ing that what he himself called ‘‘the threat of anda and abuse by the public and news media was driving the nation's finest minds-the selfless . politicians and public servants-from the until-now mingly - battomless treasury trough. Not thet be claims they are above making mistakes- after all they are only human, aren't they? What hurts, he says, is the public crucifixion’ they suffer when they make these piddling litle bloopers that can cost the taxpayers millions. ; But did he name one? ; - Cite a single case of a public sacrifice? You guessed it. Not a one. . Fe neve Bi t b ny ‘or there haven't been any. . . Year after monotonous year the Auditor, General has reported scores of instances of waste, ex: travagance, sloth, even misappropriation and other forms of fiddling running into seven figures. And whatevery has happened? — ; Nothing, except that the Public mittee deplores and exhorts. ; Never any names, therefore no pack drill. The Auditor General can outline caretully Accounts Com-: _ documented case histories, and still nothing. , Meanwhile, moans Michael Pitfield, the poor per- secuted politicians and bureaucrats are being driven . to distraction by what he terms the “mindless” lash of criticism by the news media and the taxpayers who pay the shot. mo, Driven to distraction-but seldom if ever to ~ resignation. ; * Result has been, warned the former Liberal Cabinet _ secretary, that the “brightest and the best’ in the — country. have avoided public _—_service. So if he is correct about that, what are we getting, the “dullest and the worst?” ; Be they either or both or, more likely, a mix of the two, like the settlers of the 1800's crossing the plains, they have drawn a defensive circle-a modern day wagon train ring-- to fight off, not the Indians of course, but the ‘savages’ out there among thé outraged taxpayers who want some scalps, - Old “Fort Ottawa" has developed a siege mentality. , Behind the barricades the pols have built their own ; private privileged world. ; 4 They begin drawing their parliamentary pensions, ~ assuming they last in the Commons a minimum of six years, the very day they leave. You wait till you're 65. Not to name names, Out of nowhere they come. And if they make it into the power circle, they find the world at their feet. Visit Britain and a Rolls meets them at Heathrow. At the suite in the Savoy, the Carleton Towers, the ': Dorchester, or Claridge’s, a bower of flowers, wine -! but ponder © this. - and a royal welcome. A drive through London and out *' into the green and beautiful land and the biggest limo ~ in the government garages at Westminister, with uniformed chauffeur and attendant flunkies, slinks up to the door. Suddenly they're royalty, at home and even more so - abroad, a breed apart, : Is it any wonder it’s all so wonderful’? And that they experience instant omniscience? Lecturing the Argentines on their way of life when ‘#t's none of their business, except that Canada loses a - $1 billion or so. in a Candu reactor . deal. Or they preach on bigotry to a certain segment of” their staff with the big cities already so overrun by blacks, brawns and tans that “whitey” feels in the - minority, expeciaily in Toronto and parts of Van- couver. Of off the cuff they intrude in an ancient in- ternational feud, and whiz, out of the window zips a few hundred million dollars of export deals to thr Middle East. Letters welcome The Herald welcomes its readers comments, Allletters to the editor of general public interest - will be printed. We do, however, retain the right to refuse to print letters on grounds of possible libel or bad taste. We may also edit letters for style and length. All letters to be considered for’ Publication must be signed. — . ‘ B.C.'s reli 100 MILE HOUSE, 5.C. (CP) — A 70-year-old English lord who heads a religious sect is causing a stir in British newspapers because he |g rightful heir to a slately English home. Lord Martin Cecll has - lived on a cattle ranch tn B.C,'s Interior for 50 years, but it's his future inheritance that has goasip columnists in & flap. Lord Martin is the younger brother of the Marquis of Exeter, Sir David George Brownlow Cecil, 74, whose country seat is Burghley Hoyse, a 300-room Elizabethan mansion near Stamford, Lincolnshire. “People are afrald that a religious sect will move into historic Burghley,” said Lady Olga Maitland, a columnist for the London Sunday Express. HE'LL STAY “It’s a magnificent ple — a first class country home with a huge park all around it. The Queen stays at Burghley when the horse trials are held every sum- mer,'' Lord Exeter's only son, John, died in 1934. So when thecurrent ear] dies, the tile will pass to Lord Martin and his descendants. Lord Martin is head of the Emissaries of Divine Light a@ group with an estimated 2,000 members in Canada, the US., Europe, Africa and Asia. When he dies, the family title will pass to his gon Michael, also active in the sect, Lady Maitland says Lord Exeter has taken steps to ensure that the home remains on the English side of the family. He's set up a charitable trust fund and a discretionary fund to funnel ~ back income from the Bur- ghley estate into the house and to his descendants. Lord Exeter, denied in a telephone interview from his London flat Wednesday that the moves are aimed at preventing his brother from getting his hands on Burghley House, “I see my brother from time to tine — he’a got the ranch in B.C.,’* he sald. ''We sel up the trust funds as the only way to keep Burghley House open to the public.” Built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, the house “4a full of treasures, and 1 just live In a corner of it,"’ he said, ‘About 60,000 people visit every year but it’s very expensive to run.” Lord Exeter said his brother's religious beliefa do nat concern him, ious lord | "He runs his religious group — he's a grown man, entltled ta do as he likes.’’ Lord Martin says it isn't a religious group and mem- bera don’t join, they just live a certain Jifestyle. “While it has what would be thought of as religious avertones, there aré no articular questions off falth,"” he said. ‘We are concerned with practical living, including some. as- pects of spirituality.” Lord Martin says his family and a holding com- pany operate a 12,000-acre cattle ranch at 100 Mile House, 450 kilometres. northeast of Vancouver. “This whole thing is a lot of ridiculous nonsenge," he said. Gossip, goselp, goasip. 1 have been here about 50 years, and that speaks for itself. I might tot even outlive my brother,” HERMAN “Your green pills ara all gone. Do you wanna take a blue and a yellow?’