A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 2, 1994 TERRACE STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C. © V8G 188 TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432 MODEM: 638-7247 _Tripped up IT’S HARD nat to be cynical these days about governments. They spend big bucks on big strategies designed to massage and manipulate . information for their own purposes. While some of this can be regarded as a game, there’s no ex- cuse when it comes to the province’s economic mainstay — the forest industry. Several weeks ago. citizens were treated to the sight of environment minister Moe Sihota and forests minister Andrew Petter smacking logging companies around, Shock and horror abounded in comments on the Tripp report. The crime was doing a lousy job in the bush, said the two minis- ters, and it must stop. Even the logging com- panies mentioned in the report symbolically placed their heads on the chopping block for a public execution. - All of this really had little to do with what hap- pened in the bush. Rather, it was another step in the provincial government’s public relations march toward its new forest practices code. Legislation for the code is on the top of the priority list when the legislature sits this spring. A carefully conceived laying of the groundwork is needed to tum this into one of the govern- ment’s shining lights as it prepares for the next election. But what the two ministers did not say and what was not readily apparent is that the report is old news. The essential details of the bad logging practices were known as long as @ year ago. In this district, the Tripp report’s findings were in the hands of the forest service and of the com- panies affected in February 1992. There’s even been enough time for the forest service and the companies to hold seminars designed to prevent the bad stuff from happening again. And that’s what’s wrong here. There’s a public : relations war going on between companies, the « government and environmental groups. Alliances shift according to the particular political agenda ofa particular issue. Caught in the middle of this is the public, an innocent victim to the machina- tions of spin doctors and purveyors of secret agendas. The overall impression is that the public is being left purposely uninformed until some slickster decides a few crumbs here and crust there fits some grand master plan. It’s not the kind of thing to inspire faith in our elected lead- ers. A puzzler SOMEBODY FROM Mars would be puzzled about two recent decisions affecting young people. The first is the new ban on selling tobac- co products to people under the age of 19. The other is conditional approval to spend $350,000 on a daycare centre for teenage mothers going to Caledonia. Our Martian is left with the overriding impres- sion that it is fine for young people to have sex — it’s just that they won’t be able to smoke afterward. There’s no question that steps to curb smoking among young people are welcome. Measures taken now will have benefits later on in the form of reduced health care costs, for instance. But the provision of a daycare centre at a high school is another matter. There’s a nagging feel- ing that it will somehow legitimize or make simpler the process of teenage pregnancies. Ge ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur "sales NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeff Nagel > NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher COMPOSING: Pam Odell * TYPESETTER: Ariane Viasblom DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charlene Matthews Serving tha Temace atea Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Presa (1960) Ud. a 4647 Lazele Ave., Tetrace, Brien Columbia, Stories, photographs, iftvilrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Siandard are the property of the copyright holders, Including Cariboo Press (1969) Ud, it's Mustralion repr services and advertising nies age . Raprdudion in whole of in part, without writen permission, le specticaly prohitited, Authorized an aerond-class mail pending tha Pout Office Department, fot payment of postage In. cast, Special thanke to all our contributors and correspondents - for thelr time and talents ccoNaA is) CIRCULATION PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ee ee WS > Sess | eanvnetl —s EREANUASA PEEP, EN ‘My congratulations a Vou ae now Canadian dittrens and each one's in a hole for $28000. like all therest ofUs... A pilgrimage back in time. DUSSELDORF — It was a sort of pilgrimage, I suppose, visiting the old, albeit not fa- miliar places where I grew up, and immersing myself in nostalgia. T had been back a few times, but never long enough to revisit the places where I spent my childhood years, became a teenager and then the young adult who wanted to spend a couple of years in Canada to improve his English and made the New World his home in- Stead. Thave only dim mentories of pre-war Dusseldorf, Oeeting images of ice cream and oranges, my. brother. on a-bike -- and my father in uniform. The Dusseldorf I remember well was nothing like that. It was sinister and chaotic. It reeked of death and destruction. We lived in the city centre, two blocks from the main rail- way stalion. Nothing I found Teminded me of the city I grew up in. The glitier and opulence of Dusseldorf today is nothing short of spectacular, I recall some scenes from 1945. Only about 35,000 people lived in what had once been a city of 600,000. Ac- cording to official estimates, 95 per cent of the city was destroyed by the cnd of the. Wal. FROM THE CAPITAL. HUBERT BEYER We lived like rats in cellars. There were no street lights. Electricity, where it was avail- able at all, was rationed to three hours a day.’ In the Streets, rubble from destroyed buildings made passage dif- ficult. Burn-out hulks of street cars rusted here and there. I come to Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse 10, the building in ‘which I grew up. I try to find the entrance to the cellar where we sought safety from the bombs during the first couple of years, but a jot has changed, and it’s no longer there, I recall onc horrible night, when the downtown area was subjected to carpet-bombing, Downtown Dusseldorf was being consumed by flames, Fire storms raged through the streets. The air in our cellar be- came filled with smoke and we had to break through several half-brick wails that connected each cellar with the one next- door. When we finally emerged, the air outside was so hot you could hardly breathe, The asphalt on the streets was bail- ing. Some unfortunate souls, who had panicked and tried to cross ihe street, were stuck in the asphalt, human torches, burning to death. I walk a few blocks and come to Kurfuersten Strasse 8, the place we lived afier the war. Where I remember noth- ing but the facades of buildings that ‘had been destroyed by ‘phosphor ‘bombs, there are new, beautiful structures, The wounds of the earth, churned up and turned over by bombs, have healed. From here, it’s a short walk to the Marien Kirche, the Church of St Mary’s, our parish church. Although its main wails and twin spires were left standing after. the war, the inside had been com- pletely destroyed. My thoughts go back to the day, I think it was sometime in 1947, when the bells were repatriated. Towards the end of the war, the church bells had been confiscated to be melted down for munitions. They 4 were found after the war, in some warehouse, and brought back. I visit my old school, one of the few that were still half in- tact after the war. Here is where I got my first decent meals, following a peried of post-war starvation. Thanks to the Marshal Plan, schools received enough food to feed kids one square meal a day, enough to keep them alive. I feel like I should stop passers-by and tell them of my thoughts, but I realize that most of them wouldn’t have a clue of what I'm talking about. I feel like telling them about the years of terror and destruc- tion, when people prayed for deliverance, saying they would Tather starve than live through one more air raid. And when the war was over and people were slarving, they longed for normal times when mothers wouldn’t have to cry because they couldn’t feed their children. But as I said, most people wouldn’t know what I’m talk- ing about, which is a pity, be- cause a dose of humility and gratitude can't hurt anyone. Next morning, I take my leave of Dusseldorf, taking with me a lot of good and bad memories. My pilgrimage is over. Mother to adult daughter, “I'm getting awfully chilly, don’t you think you should put a sweater on?” “Mothers and Daughters’’ by Liza Donnelly. Television reporters ar a tough bunch, Besides stamina, agility and balance, they must possess healthy arterics to ward off frostbitien ears. It’s common to see a TV reporter, bareheaded as a teenager, dodging snowflakes the size of bathroom tiles. Can’t they don a bonnet ... for my sake? I realize TV reporters work bareheaded even outdoors te accommodate an umbilical wire running up the back of their neck to an earpiece that keeps them in voice contact with the anchor desk. Both wire and earpiece must be kept hidden from viewers. But couldn’t they compromise by feeding the wire through a blanket stitched hole in their coat collar? Seems not. THROUGH BIFOCALS. CLAUDETTE SANDECKI THIS MUST BE MARTEN'S TRAIL) \TO MUSH ALONG During a record-breaking cald speil in Yellowknife when locals bundled up like bank robbers — only mouth and eyes showing — there was CEC’s Erle Sorensen, micro- phone frozen to his mitt, fur- irimmed parka hood non- chalantly shucked over his shoulders. In: Miami, David Halton brought us up-to-the-minute on Hurricane Andrew’s progress while he clung like Velcro to a t looped light standard, hair un- ruffled. And in Newfoundland, per- ching like a Toyota on a com- mercial crag, Brenda Craig told us of another Maritime disaster as growlers dotted the harbour below. Do reporters seek these haz- ardous assignments because of extra pay? Or — since the Charter of Rights and Free- doms — is this management’s ‘ only legal form of misery? El- ther way, I wish television would put a lid on it. On-site broadcasts are usual- ly staged before some land- mark representative of the story. So a . parliamentary reporter stands hip deep in an Ottawa River snowbank. For a General Motor layoff, the backdrop is a gritty wind- whipped parking lot. Or we heat a tale of timber piracy from a medal swimmer teeler- ing a boom log in the Fraser Tiver. Cerlainly on-the-spot report- ing adds credibility and fresh- SO HOW FAR To HitS CABIN! fess. So much freshness oftentimes wind roaring past the microphone drowns their voices and the creaking of my arm hairs standing to attention. These outdoor venues save budgets, no doubt. No desk. No studio space. No costly in- terior decorating, Just a camera crew, miles of electrical cord, and Margaret. Thatcher hair- spray bought in bulk. Television reporting should be an Olympic event. A decathlon. Except for anchors, whose greatest on-camera exertion is clicking a ballpoint, reporters have to be in top physical con- dition. How else could they sprint to meet deadlines, wrestle equipment away from unwilling interviewees, dive for cover in combat zones and political skirmishes, and climb lo the tops of cranes to report lighting competitions among construction crews? The Olympic uniform would of course, include protective headgear. SHOLULP GET THERE TOMMORROW! ae + 7 + . ae se wey . 5 4 : ay Se Mean “ ag ( Hepes eye . at . co y 4 *