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Page 4, News, Tuesday, April 24, 1990 Tel.: 825-3747 . Editorial SNA The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, 13 Simcoe Plaza, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2W0 Tel.: (807)-825-3747 Fax (807)-825-9233. Second class mailing permit 2264. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Assn. and the Canadian Community Newspaper Assn. Tare ya copies " + Publisher............. A. 'Sandy' Harbinson + CNA ubscription rates: per - . 3 . year / seniors $10 (local) Office Managet.............Gayle Fournier | = $27 per year (out of 40 mile News Editor........... em. Angie Saunders rot radius); $36 in U.S. Advertising Rep.......... Sheryl A. Knighi led = Just say charge it! Who invented credit cards anyway? I'm not sure if I would go out of my way to thank him or curse at him. Credit cards have their good points. The average person walking through a mall can charge just about anything... clothes, food, furniture, or even a trip to Vegas. I've known my Dad to buy a used car with a quick cash advance from his trusty Visa. I also hate credit cards, or getting the bills anyway. Credit card companies must have a big laugh each month when they send out bills to suckers like me. The average person could go broke paying just the interest on those babies. They might as well ask for your first born male child because it would probably be cheaper. Credit cards are just a little too convenient for many people. A lot of people seem to be at or over their limit. They just go crazy and use them to buy everything. Many of my friends have taken the scissors to them to prevent further purchases. I've almost made it that far. What if my car breaks down on the way to Thunder Bay in the middle of the night? What if my apartment burns down and I have nothing to wear to work? What happens if I meet Elvis at the Imperial some lunch hour and I don't have enough money to buy him lunch? I could make up a million excuses not to cut them up. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. Those of you who are responsible, and never find your credit card bills high enough to equal the national deficit, should rejoice at their good fortune. When you see me crying as I walk back from the post office some dreary morning, you'll know I've just gotten another bill. Yes, I do hate the man who invented credit cards. Angie Saunders 5 ee wT A2ZF *) Giger sau ExT UN TH 1tioN DOLLAR AVERAGE --+ ¢ BATTING ORDER | yy Ne eae + Oe +4 WS. { ' FOS ONS ENG v . N LW ee NSMNG Ne PP sY AP WILE / one: .% WSY LS) u x "3 SSScae o \ \ Rssssnssg /<: y WW \\SS # ows Yo, L ' <A : 'K Co Ste, Y, SA Xe, GN Ly, SS WNitth Y (OU NY SG "Letters to the editor' are very important to the readership and to the community which the newspaper serves. The letters act as a forum for discussion, a means to inform the public or authorities of a concern, or sometimes they can provide a great topic of conversation over the fence or kitchen table. They also provide ideas and suggestions for and criticisms about local issues. They can be funny, angry, sad, or a little of everything. Write one today, sign your name, and help provide a service to all. Write: Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ont. POT 2W0 If poverty is the mother of crime, stupidity is its father. piece suit and sunglasses with an expensive-looking attache case dangling from his well- manicured mitt. He passed the teller an I-have-a-bomb- in-my-briefcase note, scooped several thousand dollars into his briefcase and left. In a chauffeur-driven, whit limousine. It was a rental from a nearby-town. The crook had told the driver he wanted to "look at some real estate" in the area. "He put up a big cash deposit for the rental," said the limo driver. Not as big as his cash withdrawal I bet. In the never-ending turf war between cops and robbers it's not always the bad guys who show idiocy above A French satirist by the name of Jean de La Bruyere penned those words more than 300 years ago, but they might have been lifted from yesterdays blotter at any police precinct in this country. A lot of things have changed in the past three centuries but not, I submit, the amount of grey matter between the ears of your average sneakthief, snatchpurse or cutthroat. They're still stupid after all these years. There are degrees of dumb, however. The heistmeister who hit the Bank of Commerce in Cambridge, Ontario recently broke a cardinal bank robbing and beyond the call. commandment -- he left his Consider the red-faced face hanging out for officers of Halton County in bystanders to see and southern Ontario who remember -- but at least he did it in style. The guy showed up at the teller's wicket decked out in a three- recently lost a dangerous prisoner. They were driving said prisoner between jails in a prison van. When they got to their destination, they went around to the back of the truck and found the door bent open and the prisoner long gone. "Didn't you hear anything?" the desk sergeant Well, wanted to know. Arthur Black actually, no. The two guards had this killer rock and roll tape on the van's four speaker stereo y'see, and... The Halton Board of Police has since voted to ban pleasure radios in prisoner Stupidity is the father of crime escort vans. Once in a very long while you encounter a crook who transcends the usual boundaries of mere stupidity and vaults into a whole new category of Clod-dom so breathtaking it doesn't even have a name yet. Let's call it Hyperstunned. Such a candidate is the chap currently staying at a Crowbar Hotel in North Carolina. It all started one sunny Saturday morning -- the kind of morning where you get up and say 'boy, what a great day to cut the lawn!'. No such luck for our anti- hero. First, he lost control of his vehicle and ploughed into a truck. Two other cars ran into each other trying to avoid the crash. Police arrived, handcuffed our man and popped him into the front seat of their police cruiser while they took statements from the other drivers. Next thing they saw was their patrol car disappearing down the highway. After abandoning the car our man (handcuffed, mind) led police on a half hour footrace before they finally brought him down, hauled him off to the slammer and threw the book at him. His charges are various: driving while impaired, driving while his licence was revoked, improper registration, larceny, hit and run causing personal injury, careless driving and reckless driving. Not a laughing matter, to be sure...until you find out that the vehicle our man was piloting was a lawnmower. Pretty dumb, but not all- time dumb. That honor goes to Willie J. Collins who stormed into an Atlanta police station last month and indignantly showed the desk sergeant the very bad quality cocaine some...thief! -- had sold him. Mister Collins is in jail, but not forgotten. He serves to remind us just why they call that stuff 'dope'.