Page A4 -- Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 1, 1992 ERRACE STANDAR] [" ee Rod Link " ESTABUSHED APRIL 27, 1988 . Registration No. 7a20 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C., V¥8G 158 Phone (604) 638-7283 Fax (604) 638-8432 Serving the Terrace area, Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Press (1969) Lid, at 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, Brilish Coumbla. Stones, pr if Gesigns and typasty hustration repro services and advertising agencies. Reproduction In whola or in part, without written parmission, is specifically orovibited, Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Olfice Department, for payment of pastaga In cash, in (he Terrace Standard are the property of the copyright holders, inciuding Cariboo Prass (196) Ltd., its \l- aa Gon Publisher/Editor: Advertising Manager Marlee Paterson Productlon Manager: Edouard Credgeur Jett Nagel — News/Community, Malcolm Baxter — Naws/Sporls Rose Fisher — Front Offica Manager, Carolyn Anderson — Typesetter’ Arlene Watts —.Typesetter, Susan Credgeur — Composing/Darkraom, - Janet Vivelros — Advertising Consultant, Sam Collier — Advertising Consultant, _ -Charlerie Matthews -- Cirovlation Supervisor Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents. EDITORIAL, Awful Pete Weeber from Hazelton earned a bit of notoriety during the 1984 federal election campaign when, as the Pro- gressive Conservative candidate, he said a tree wasn’t worth anything until it was cut down. The same can be said for keeping that tree up and growing, at least as far as the tourism industry is concerned. Each year that industry is becoming more and more of a vital part of the provincial economy. But the provincial government has done a great disservice to tourism by kicking the stuffing out of the tourism ministry’s budget. The figure cut — $3.7 million — isn’t much in dollar terms compared to the entire provincial budget. Yet it represents almost 30 per cent of the tourist marketing budget. What’s ironic is that tourism would seem to be the kind of thing this govern- ment wants. Tourist traffic on the move highways not included, visitors are relatively non-intrusive and user friend- ly. They don’t pollute a lot, bring in money and bridge a multitude of economic sectors in their purchases of goods and services. And tourism is turning into a sophisticated industry, generating the kind of dollars and employment oppor- ‘tunities we’re losing in those other resource-based sectors of the economy. The world continues to get smaller each year as more and more people travel and that means the tourism potential in the province gets bigger. It seems the province should have been able to find that $3.7 million someplace else. After all the health, education and social services industries are getting off relatively lightly. A cut of $3.7 million to any one of those would hardly be miss- ed. Jack Kempf Politicians live for publicity — par- ticularly the kind that doesn’t cost any money. Jack Kempf was no different. “I don’t care what they say about me, as long as they spell my name right and put. it on the front page,’? he once said.) > Well, Mr. Kempf got his wish and a lot more over the last two weeks with first, his guilty plea to breach of trust and then his sentence to one year on pro- bation and a fine of $11,000. As is now known, Mr. Kempf leased a motor home using money he received from the provincial government and then used the vehicle as collateral for a personal loan, ‘ It’s quite ironic that Mr, Kempf’s con- viction relates to the motor home in years.as an MLA. It was easily the:most. « which he motored around his large riding. Dubbed a mobile constituency office, it became Mr. Kempf’s symbol of government and of himself during his recognizabie feature at any number of.“ fairs, rodeos and other social gatherings. Now retired and living off his pension earned during his years as an MLA, Mr. Kempf and his motorhome will live on as asymbol. And that is that politicians are people and that people screw up. But there is a high degree of responsibility given. to politicians and great deal of trust placed in them.. When one or both go astray, the consequences are serious and deserved. Old friend found | Each year dozens of new children's storybooks are - printed; each year dozens of old childrens storybooks go out of print. Yet many old titles war- tant buying for our grand- children, One such classic is “Miss Suzy’’, written by Miriam Young, copyrighted 1964 by Parents’ Magazine Press. As preschcolers, our two Through Bifocals by Claudette Sandeckl some scuffing of the cover’s books, cover to cover. daughters had a fondness for Miss Suzy, a tidy gray squirrel who lived in the tip, tip top of a tall oak tree, 1 admired Miss Suzy’s no frills, no fuss housekeeping. Inthe story, her house is van- dalized by a quarrelsome band of red squirrels; she is forced to seek refuge in an abandoned at- tic. There she finds a spacious dollhouse, She cleans it of its cobwebs, and settles in. Soon she finds a box of toy soldiers. She sets them free, invites them to share her twa-storey house, and looks after them like a mother. When she tells the soldiers how the red squirrels destroyed her house, the soldiers drive away the red squirrels, allowing Miss Suzy to regain her rightful home. When I tried to buy a copy of “Miss Suzy’’ for our grand- daughter, I learned it was out of print. It took a three month search of used book dealers by Duthie's Books in Vancouver to” located a used copy. This copy is in excellent con- dition. Except for James and Molly printed in wobbly felt tip market inside the cover, and corners, the book lacks signs of fond familiarity — smudges, fingerprints, or tears. The book’s nearly new condi- tion tells me James and Molly -weren’t read to at bedtime. They missed tucking up beside Mom or Dad to listen to astory they knew so well they’d pounce if Mom misread a word or embellished a sentence. They also missed a daily half hour of cozy sharing. Or they didn't like the story — which I doubt. But filling that half hour with enjoyable books means having a wide selection to pick from. Sad to see is a- pre-schooler whose Mom or Dad curtails his library takehome quota to one book. Suppose the child arrives home to find the illustrations unappealing, or the plot weaker than Canada's laws protecting wildlife? Before our daughters were two years old, we began the practice of weekly visits to the public library to borrow a bagful of picture books, The bag was sewn from heavy duty upholstery fabric that would carry as much as -Mom could. Each night before the girls went to bed, I had to read all the So, aside from colourful pic- tures that entranced the girls, and a well written story that kept me from yawning, my top criterion was. a short word count. ‘‘Miss Suzy’’ has about one thousand words, Twice the length of this column. ‘One. of the joys of grand- parenting is introducing my grandchild to the same pastimes that delighted her mother. Pet- ting the family dog, Splashing soapsuds in the sink. Bedtime reading, ; I’m tickled a five dollar search found a copy of ‘Miss Suzy.’’ ~ : THE NORTHERN TEST AIS BACK CHIEF! THERE MUST BE ABETTER WAY — UK. _TOMAKE ¥ vy, TWO BY FOURS. ‘ Ere w pa Msg Stopping family violence a must VICTORIA — If our society ever needed to marshal the forces of awareness, it is in the battle against abuse, any abuse, It took a Jong time to make ‘drinking driving socially unac- ceptable; the tide against smokers turned somewhat faster, but we continue to close ur eyes to the most horrifying, -destructive-streal thistor~ “any other society has condoned for far too long: abuse of women, abuse of children, both physical and sexual abuse. True, the topic is no longer taboo. We talk about abuse, We read about it in newspapers. But we are not closer to winn- ing the war against abuse than we were 10 years ago, Last week, a reader called mie to relate an abuse case that took place five years ago. She lived in an apartment building with her teenage son at the time. One night, there was a knock at her door. She opened the door and saw a little boy, no more than five years old. His dad, he said, wasn’t home and he was scared, She took the boy in and hours later, the father came home, drunk out of his skull, He and the boy lived in the apartment above, A little later, the woman heard the little boy scream, From the noise, it was clear, the boy was being savagely beaten. The woman went upstairs, knocked on the door and told the man to quit beating the boy. He did, for that night, but the scene repeated itself over and over again. The police were there repeatedly, but didn’t really want to get involved, even though the woman offered eviderice that the father also abused his boy sexually. Over the next few months, the boy was taken from his father several times, but always returned. And every time, the beatings started again. Eventually, the father and ' . i NORTHERN Test ? WE SEND ALL OUR PROTOTYPE ENGINES To THIS TYPICAL NORTHERNER NAMED FISHER UP IN FT. DOFGEREL HE STRIPS IT DowN AND REBUILDS IT So ITRUNS JUST FINE . oy From the Capital by Hubert Beyer the. boy. moved out of.the - building: The wotnaii' oftén ”'* wondered what happened to the boy. So do I. This is but one case, What of the thousands of other boys and girls who are physically and sexually abused? And what of society which fails to come to grips with the prablem? The story of abused women is equally terrifying, and socie- ty’s failure to provide solutions equally sad. Pat Marshall, who co-chairs an eight-woman, one- man panel which is holding hearings on abuse across the _ country, said recently she was Staggered by the proportions of the problem. ‘We're hearing about years of terrorism in relationships. The only parallel that J can think of is what I know about torture in a prisoner-of-war camp,’’ she said. Panel members have heard "stories of an aboriginal woman being met by a naked priest during confession, of a woman in a wheelchair being sexually assaulted four times in one year, and of a woman being forced to hang by her heels outside a second-storey win- dow, Marshall is under no illusion about the cost of dealing with the problem. A few more dollars thrown at half-way houses for battered women and children isn’t going to cut it, Changing public attitudes towards abuse and incest will be difficult, she says, ‘‘It’s an issue of control that has been socially accepted, so it’s going to take something that is very, very strong to eliminate it,’ Marshall says the changes needed are massive. Lawmakers, politicians and AND ALL THE UTILE PARTS PEpuEauTer) He HAS LEFT aveen. RTS: Fp. e@ud society'in’ feneral; she adds, *’ will probably be surprised by the size of the solutions, the size of the changes that will be necessary. Here are some statistics that under-score the size of the pro- blem: About 100 women are murdered by their male part- ners each year. Eighty per cent of native women om_reserves in Ontario have been abused or assaulted. And here’s another frighten- ing statistic: on average, women who are beaten don’t report the incidents to police until the 35th time, And when they do, their plight is often. handled by police officers un- trained in dealing with family violence. The system is even less able to address the problem of child abuse with any kind of sen- - sitivity, unless you consider uniformed police officers, — judges in black robes and in- timidating defence lawyers try- ing to get their clients off manifestations of sensitivity. Yes, we’ve managed to take abuse out of the closet where it had been festering for cen- turies, but it’s clearly time to work on solutions to the pro- blem. A separate, less intimidating court procedure dealing specifically with child abuse — cases would be one step in the right direction, More financial resources to deal with the vic- tims of family violence would be another. If the government is going. to hijack my wallet and help itself to a few more tax dollars, let it at least spend - that money on solutions to a problem of which we all should be ashamed. (+ WE TAKE OUT of THE FRODUCTION) MODEL !!