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; Page 4, News, Tuesday, November 6, 1990 Editor 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. Second class mailing permit 2264. Member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. Single copies 40 cents. Subscription rates: $16 per year / seniors $10 (local); $27 per year (out of 40 mile radius); $36 in U.S. Publisher............... A. Sandy Harbinson Advertising Mgr......Linda R Harbinson Advertising Rep......... Halyna O. Worth News Editor.................... Robert Cotton Admin. Asst.................. Gayle Fournier Teh i-825-374 7 sermeencmeces (#cNA [> Ss "If you break faith with us who die..." Remembrance Day approaches and 1,700 Canadians, members of our armed forces, are in the Persian Gulf area. These men and women were sent there to help enforce an internationally sanctioned economic embargo designed to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Now they may be asked to join a military offensive that may not be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. Joe Clark, minister of external affairs, told parliament last Tuesday that Canada would not be restrained from joining a military offensive by lack of a United Nations consensus. Canadians have always placed a great amount of importance in the United Nations and have backed up that belief by sending Canadian armed forces to places like the Congo and Cyprus as peace-keepers. Mr. Clark's remarks have damaged the unprecedented united front of the U.N. Security Council as it seeks a non- violent solution to the problem. His remarks have also undermined Canadian's traditional belief in the United Nations and their reputation as peace- keepers. If Mr. Clark feels we should be prepared for the possibility of war with Iraq, and indeed we should be, he must ask his government to bring the matter before Parliament in a full debate. It is Parliament that should decide whether or not we will continue to work within the U.N. or not. It one thing for the government of the day to send armed: forces to take part in an economic embargo without consulting Parliament but quite another to-commit them to military action. ; The degree of support in Canada for such action, and for those Canadian men and women serving in the Gulf, must be determined before the risk to their lives is increased. Robert Cotton SS SSS WSS -_-- pee = Dear Editor What's going on? I have seen ads lately saying "Buy this now and beat the GST." Most of these ads are for big ticket items, cars, appli- ances, etc. These items are currently taxed at around 13 per cent. With the GST the tax will be only 7 per cent. Even allowing for inflation prices should be lower next year. Did the advertising execu- tives who convinced stores to use this slogan in their flyer? Is the supplier intending on pocketing the difference? Is store management doing its best to give us the lowest pos- sible price? Let's ask our salespeople. If they don't know ask their supervisors. If they don't know ask the next guy up the line. If this tax is going to gouge and screw, let's all do our best Shop carefully and beat the GST to make it as painless as possi- ble. If you weren't planning on buying something in the next six months you might hold off. Interest costs may offset any tax savings in this case. Let's not be fooled by the advertising. Shopping careful- ly will minimize the effect of the GST. Name withheld on request Schreiber Mister Watson, come here. I want you. Those seven fateful words were uttered 114 years ago. Anyone in the vicinity of the young inventor who said them would have concluded he was nuts. After all it was 1876 -- no cars, no electric lights, no radios -- and here was a man in broad 'daylight, all by himself, talking into some newfangled jumble of wires and machinery. He wasn't mad; he was Alexander Graham Bell. And he had just transmitted intelligible words by telephone for the first time. A momentous moment in the history of man. Still, I wonder what Bell would make of his invention if he could walk our planet today. I wonder how he'd react to the sight of phone booths on street corners? Or the fact that people routinely ring up Memphis, Moscow? What would he have to say about telephone answering machines? Could Melbourne or | he in his wildest dreams have imagined that one day an American president would talk by phone with an astronaut orbiting the moon? Personally, I'd surrender my Bell Credit Card for the chance to see Alex's face as he listened in on a radio phone-in show. The telephone has transformed all our lives just as surely -- and perhaps as profoundly -- as fire, the wheel, and Mister Edison's wee, incandescent glass bulb. But let's face it -- it hasn't been roses all the way. The miracle of the telephone also ushered in the curse of the obscene call, wrong numbers, _heart- shattering intrusions during lovemaking... And worse. Exhibit A: the cellular car phone. I resent government intrusion as much as the next civil libertarian, but if El Supremo Muldoon was to send in his jack-booted Van Doos tomorrow to confiscate and blast to smithereens every car phone from Come-By- Chance to the Queen Charlottes, he wouldn't hear a peep of disapproval from me. Have you had the experience yet? Driving down the highway, you suddenly face an Arth ur Black on-coming set of hi-beams weaving and strobing from one side of the road to the other, homing in on you like an Exocet missile? Your knuckles whiten on the wheel as you pump the brake and look for a good stretch of The evolution of the telephone shoulder to slew your car onto. All the while, your brain, on Red Alert, is riffling through the possibilities -- Drunk? Escaping bank robber? Kamikaze commuter? Driving School instructor gone berserk? The death ship clears your port side by millimetres and you see the driver for a moment. He is none of the above. Just some Yuppie driving one-handed while the other cradles his car phone. I'm not' the only curmudgeon who's disenchanted with the marvel -of Getting The Long Distance Feeling at 100 kilometers an hour -- or in a lot of other formerly private places for that matter. Movie patrons, restaurant customers and public transit passengers are rising up to protest these jangly little beggars that are popping up in places that used to be peaceful and quiet. One Florida movie chain has banned the use of portable phones in all its 18 movie houses. Bravo. Odeon and Cineplex please copy. I am no fan of the cellular phone phenomenon, but I have no illusions about stopping them. Car phones are so popular they've spawncd their own sub-industry. Commuter Products Corporation of Emeryville, California offers a whole line of car phone accessories including in-car 'electronic message boards, clipboards that attach to the steering wheels, and even, so help me, fax machines that fit right under the dashboard. What next? Well, Phonevision of course. The day is coming -- or sO we are threatened -- when you'll have to dress up to answer the phone, because whoever's calling will be able to see you as well as talk to you. Include me out. As a matter of fact there's only one telephone accessory I still lust after. You folks can buy up all the cordless phones if you want. I've got my name in for a Phoneless Cord.