Ad - The Terrace Slandard, Wednesday, April 24, 2002 ‘TERRACE STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210) Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (25()) 638-7283 © FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEE: www.terracestandard.com EMAIL: standard@kermode.net Gas attack THERE’S BAD news for residential consumers in a deal that’s good news between Pacific North- ‘ern Gas (PNG) and its largest customer, Metha- nex in Kitimat. Methanex buys natural gas at the source for its plant in Kitimat which produces methanol and other products. It then pays PNG to ship the na- tural gas through the latter’s northwest pipeline. But Methanex for several years has been strug- gling financially and points to the transport cost as one expense item it wants to trim. The proposed solution is for PNG to cut that cost to Methanex and make up for it by charging others, such as homeowners, more to make up the difference. In effect, homeowners would be subsidizing Methanex’s operations. Right now, that cost for homeowners would be buffered somewhat by a reduction in the price of natural gas. But should the cost of gas rise, that buffering effect would quickly disappear. -_ Homeowners should note that this is taking place in a province where the word “subsidy” it applies to business operations is a nasty word. - Homeowners should also note they are already paying more on their bills because of another bu- siness manoeuvre. PNG majority owner, West- coast Energy, has been bought by American giant Duke Energy. Where does Duke Energy get the money? By the fixed return on investment as set by the utilities commission. Financial analysts have determined PNG is a tisky proposition and that means a higher fixed rate of return. That higher rate is reflected in na- tural gas bills. So what. we’re doing is subsidizing (there’s that nasty ‘word’ again): ‘Duke “Bnergy’s s* : purchase. The Methanex and Duke deals play well for the corporations involved. There’s even a provision for PNG to share in the profits of Methanex’s Ki- timat plant. But make northwestern homeowners to pay portion of the freight. So we’ll be forgiven if we turn our thermostats down a notch and reach for ihe antacid tablets to counter this kind of gas at- tack. Good medicine IT’S HARD to find much to laugh about in B.C. nowadays. But’s that what the Canadian Mental Health Association wants us to do as part of Mental Health Week, May 6-12. - The association says laughter can boost the im- mune system, improve circulation, lower blood pressure and provide a burst of aerobic exercise, _ Best of all, the association says, is to find someone with which to laugh — ald friends, new friends, family. Give it a try. It can’t hurt. Most importantly, laughing doesn’t cost any money and is tax-free. PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS: Jelf Nagel NEWS/SPORTS Sarah Zimmerman NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Terri Gordon ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: , Bert Husband & Stacy Gyger TELEMARKETER: Sticy Gyger COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stetanik SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $56,25(+$3.94 GST)=60.19 per year; Seniors $49.50 (+$3.47 + GST)=52.97; Out of Province $63.22 (+$4.43 GST)=67.65 Outside of Canada (6 months) $152,34 (+$10.66 GST)=163.00 2001 WINNER CCNABETTER NEWSPAPERS COMPETITION MEMBER OF ‘BC. AN YUKON rattan NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION AND Co CNA »:; ComMunery Tiewioarsns B.C. PRESS COUNCIL (www. bepresscouncil.org) “ana Eceaune wal Fats Serning the Terrace and Thornhill area. Publishad on Wednasday of each week at 3210 Clinton Streat, Terrace, Bilish Columbia, V6G §R2. Stotles, photographs, illustrations, designs and typestyles In (he Fervaca Stancard area tha property of the cbpyright Holders, including Carlboo Prass (1969) Lid., its illustration repro services and adverlising agencies. Reproduction in whole or in pan, without written permission, is spacilically prchibited, Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Olfica Department, for payment of postaga in cash. . Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents OliRseE oz Genetic VICTORIA — About 20 or so years ago, I wrote a satirical column about my coming “out of the closet” as a heterosex- ual. That piece was in response to a number of prominent homosexual people proclaim- ing with pride that they were homosexuals. That included our esteemed New Democratic Party MP, Svend Robinson. That would be the same Member of Parliament who has declared his allegiance to Yasser Arafat. And that would be the same guy who sends suicide bombers to Israel to blow up themselves and a bunch of people from what they love to refer to as the Zionist Entity or the Little satan, For my efforts I got a few death threats from people who said they knew where I lived and that I ought to be on high alert because 1. would never know what might happen to me or my family. The path to political cor- reciness was already clear at the time: Get with the program or be damned. At the time I thought the world couldn’t get any crazier. | was wrong. The inmates were still to take over the asylum. Last week, we learned that a lesbian couple, both of whom are deaf, managed SISTER - } SEEN SLUGS PAS SCUM SUCKING LOSERS! WAO TAUGHT You To SKATE? Yer BABY 2 Yer ALL A pIsGRACe $ BETTER... EDS Va PRACTISING | FOR IN CASE TT tithe owes) aims = Sain engineering gone mad FROM THE CAPITAL: HUBERT BEYER trough artificial insemination to have a deaf child. To have a deaf child was their aim. “I want to be the same as my child,” said Shar- on Duchessneau of Bethesda, Maryland in the United States. “I want the baby to enjoy what we enjoy. Deafness, she ‘said, was a “cultural identity.” ity. My penchant for German beer and pork sausages knows no bounds. Unfortunately, when our kids were born, I couldn’t genetically addict them to the same food. Tough luck. The couple’s lawyer lamely tried to compare his clients, quest with that of parents who have children with physicals defects. It’s no different, the lawyer said, than parents of a deaf child trying everything to give their child the gift of hearing. I must be missing some- thing here. Hearing is the norm. Some children are born without ever being able to hear a bird sing, listen to Beetho- ven’s Symphony Nr. 9 or hear someone say “I love you.” To deliberately engineer a child to be born deaf by selecting a deaf sperm donor an then cele- brating the result as a cultural identity victory is nothing short of obscene, We all know handicapped peaple who defied all odds to celebrate the human spirit. Rick Hansen, the Man in Mo- tion, stermed the globe in his wheelchair. Does the couple who con- demned their child to a life of silence really believe that What we are dealing with here {s a self-imposed victim cult. As a civilized, multi-cul- tural society, we celebrate our differences. The worth of no member of our scciety is dimi- nished because he or she is “different,” be that different in skin colour, religion, or in phy- sical and mental abilities, We believe, and thankfully sO, in accepting our fellow hu- mans as they are, But that does give anyone the right to deliberately design a child with defects, simply because the parents suffer from the same affliction and want their child to “share” that ex- perience. What these two women did is beyond my comprehension. As the saying goes, “there ought to be a law.” Unfortuna- tely, there doesn’t seem to be one that would prevent future Hansen would deliberately fa- QCCUTTENCES | of similar. obsceni- L know about cultifial idevit”. ther- aiwheelchaity ‘bourid child)’: AS one angry ‘I ‘reader in my daily newspaper pointed out in third-world countries it is not unknown for parents to blind their children or amputate per- fectly functional limbs of children to bestow upon them the career of a beggar. “The cult of professional victim has become a main- stream industry in our culture,” Robert Sciuk of Oshawa said. “await what's next: « fhes, 72. os wreest . We can ‘only anxiously breeding warriors, poets, accountants, plumbers, each with their in- bred predilection towards the wishes of parents who want ju- nior to be just like them, only more so? Beyer can be reached at: E-mail: hubert@coolcom.com; Tel (250) 387-6900; Web Attp:/fwww.hubertbeyer.com The church fails its parishioners PRIESTS DON’T become pe- dophiles. Pedaphiles become priests.” That’s the conclusion of a New Jersey man who accepted hush money from the Catholic church for sexual abuse he suffered from his priest from the ages of 9 to 17. But two years after the cash settle- ment, he discovered the priest who had abused him was still at work, only in another dio- cese, The young man went pub- lic, hush money or-no. Connie Chung interviewed him on CNN. He also appeared on Oprah. His story brought other abused men to public light, adding to an already growing scandal in the U.S. Certainly, judged by the numbers of alleged pedophiles in the Boston diocese alone, the New Jersey man’s conclu- sion has grounds. Unfortunately, the Catholic church deals with abusive priests the way school boards dealt with abusive teachers, quietly moving them from one area lo another where the abu- sers are then free to prey ona WARM SUNNY DAy! 7 ROTTEN FISH 10 CHEW! WHAT MORE CouLD WE WANT 7 THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI whole new unsuspecting crop of innocent children and trust- ing parents. The sexual abuse of New- foundland’s Mt. Cashel or- phans by the Christian Bro- thers was my first inkling that Catholic priests could pose a danger to children. Then last week the priest of Terrace’s Catholic church was whisked off to Cleveland to answer al- legations of sexual abuse le- velled years ago by U.S. par- ishioners, Two FISH! WE COULD HAVE Hearing news reports invol- ving children abused in a far flung province, or even on Vancouver Island, was disturb- ing but impersonal. That changed last week. The Ter- race priest had christened children and married a couple known to my family. News reports say the priest removed from Terrace had been on loan from Cleveland for more than ten years, mini- stering here in the North. If Cleveland was aware of abuse allegations against him before they loaned him to this region, they should have informed the Prince George diocese. Cleveland can argue that they had taken the allegations seriously and treated this per- son. But to state this after the fact is reprehensible and da- maging to the parishioners of the Prince George diocese. April 15 the Vatican sum- moned the 13 American cardi- nals to Rome for what one commentator labelled “a trip to the woodshed.” Based on past performance, I'd suspect Rome is looking for new, different ways to shuffle the problem, disperse it,not have it bunched in Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles and other major centres. So far the Catholic church has shown more concern for the - priests than for the parishio- ners, especially the abused children. However, alone, Boston charities lost $1 million. Maybe dwindling do- nalions are resounding in Rome. It’s been slow to react to the frustrations of Catholics that are driving them from the - faith, taking their dollars with. . them. The priesthood is the ideal . environment for a pedophile. Parents trust the priest impli- citly, feel their children are safe in his care, let the kids help the priest after school and on weekends. And everyone defers to a priest. I recall as a public school student a visit from the parish priest who dropped by mid- afternoon and preached to us for an hour while teacher stoad by, awe struck. in one week tt ett, f Bereta recent asacorrazec toe Pata ee al