The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page 4 TERRACE BAY/SCHREIBER NEWS Wednesday, November 15, 1989 Editorial Page The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0O Tel.: 807-825-3747. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Assn. and the Canadian Community Newspaper Assn. aaa General Manager....... Paul Marcon OOS bcs iiciind,: David Chmara Admin. Asst...........Gayle Fournier | Production Asst....Carmen Dinner Single copies 40 cents. Subscription rates: $15 per year / $25 two years (local) and $21 per year (out of town). Changes in communism The cartoon to the right says it all. The communist governments of eastern Europe are finally listening to their people - and the Canadian government is doing all it can to ignore the voice of Canadians. It's good to see the people of East Germany will finally, if things keep going as they are now, have the chance to experience freedom. Freedom. That quality of life that has been so elusive in the communist countries since the Second World War. The thing that so many people gave their lives for so that we might be able to live with political liberty. And now, people living under the sphere of Soviet political influence since the Second World War are now having a taste of that freedom. Democracy is taking a foot hold with respect to elections, the economy and travel. Although it may not be democracy as we know it, at least not yet, things are definitely headed in that direction. With the announcement that travel restrictions will be permanently lifted in East Germany, already over 4 million people there have applied for visas. No doubt, with the large number of people leaving, the East German government wanted to stem the flow to try to keep its Citizens at home. The move seems to be working. Over 3 million East Germans travelled to West Germany last weekend with most of those returning to East Germany. Many went across the Berlin Wall just to see what life on the other side is like. Others went shopping while some saw relatives they hadn't seen in decades. : With the move towards freedom and democracy, both in East Germany and the Soviet Union, people will be expecting change for the better. Tattered economies will have to be rebuilt. But the change won't come overnight, nor will it be easy. Just because a move towards freedom and democracy is taking place doesn't mean people's lives will automatically improve overnight. East Germans and those in the Soviet Union will have to exhibit a lot of patience because it will be many years before the economy starts to turn around. The political changes necessary for freedom and democracy are starting to take place. Let's hope change ' continues for the better and the last 40 years won't ever be repeated. The News welcomes your Letters to the Editor. Feel free to express comments, opinions or anything of public interest. There is no charge for this service. Write to: Editor Terrace Bay/Schreiber News" "| Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ont. POT 2W0 So we may verify authorship, please sign your letters. TVAngelist: Hard To Improve On Reality Dear Mr. Black: You like to write about fakirs and charlatans in your column, from rascals on Parliament Hill to Toronto's ongoing love affair with itself -- how is it that you have never tackled the amazing world of TV Evangelism? Why are you mum about those sanctimonious hucksters who take over my TV set every Sunday morning? Too hot to handle? Yours , Mary Jane Chapman, Ottawa No Mary Jane, I don't ignore the TVangelists because I fear the wrath of their faithful audience. It's not the prospect of spending eternity in a brimstone-filled Jacuzzi that keeps me off their case either. The reason I haven't gotten around to writing about the Blow Dry Brethren in their polyester three-pieces and diamond-encrusted Rolexes 4a How could I possibly improve on reality? Would you, Mary Jane Chapman -- would anyone -- have believed me if, ten years ago I'd spun a tale about a TV preacher and his mascara- heavy wife who praised God on Sundays and shopped for air conditioned dog houses and gold plated toilets the other six days of the week? Who ordered $100 worth of cinnamon buns just so they could smell them? Who tried to fire a cook who'd neglected to put | mustard on a hamburger? That's the saga of Jim and Tammy Bakker -- and only a morsel of it at that! And that's only one of the Evangelical Vaudeville shows we've been treated to over the past little while. Consider Jerry Falwell, whom Jimmy Bakker scoms as a marauding capitalist. Bakker swears that Falwell, ex-head of The Moral Majority, stole the PTL Club away from him in a corporate Pe ee eS Se sa Mee | Boone Pickens. Then there's Oral Roberts, who, two years ago hijacked himself and announced on international television that God was going to kill him unless his followers came up with $4 and a half million re Arthur Black U.S. Dupes to the end, they sent their money in. Since then, Robert's fan kingdom has thinned out considerably, but don't feel too badly for him -- he's still taking in about $3 million a Sa ee |S All in all, he's probably in better shape than Jimmy Swaggart, who was number one on the Bible Thumpers Hit Parade until photographic proof showed that he liked to indulge in low rent rendez- _ vous with equally low rent chippies. Now, I ask you, Mary Jane -- could Hans Christian Andersen or the Brothers Grimm invent anything as whacky as this? Could Life itself offer anything more preposterous? Well, actually...yes. I have before me (right beside Mary Jane Chapman's missive) a newspaper item about the latest religious phenomenon to surface in the Bible Belt. It is the Calvary Chapel Surfing Association of Fort Lauderdale. One of their prayers beseeches the Lord on High to send down "a good set of waves and protection from sharks". "We like to call ourselves surfers for Jesus" says James ---~ disciples, who even ventures to dip his big toe into the stormy sea of theosophical speculation: "I'm sure if Jesus were alive today he would be a surfer. Jesus would probably not even use a board" says Gould. "He would probably get out there and ride the waves on his bare feet." At least the Surfers For Jesus haven't set up a TV show or a toll-free number to milk millions out of their money -- yet. : I don't know what can be _ said about the surfers or the Bakkers or the rest of the plague of polyester shysters who worm their way through television sets and into the hearts of the gullible each week. I wonder what Christ would do if he could see what they've done with his teachings. I don't know, but I suspect one verse in the Bible would - probably cover it. It's the shortest one in the book -- John 11:35.