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TERRACE BAY/SCHREIBER NEWS Wednesday, December 13, 1989 The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Wednesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2WO Tel.: 807-825-3747. Second class mailing permit 0867. Member of the. Ontario Community Newspaper Assn. and the Canadian Community Newspaper Assn. I happened to be flicking through the television channels last week and for some reason managed to hit the button that displayed the parliamentary channel. Call it coincidence if you will, but there was our gy representative in provincial parliament, Gilles Pouliot, on my fy television screen. As it turned out, he was directing a question to the Minister of Health, Elinor Caplan. In his hand he had requests from 13 town Editorial Page === : ¥ 2 ° Meee Sa "B 5 LZ ; Caplan avoiding responsibilities Za Zz ty ieee PLP NE ITI General Managev....... Paul Marcon Oi a issicienicnd. weiss... David Chmara Admin. Asst...........Gayle Fournier Production Asst....Carmen Dinner \\ \ AN \\ ~a\\\\ \ councils and hospital boards in our area asking the minister to ZY attend a meeting in Terrace Bay regarding the problems these towns are having recruiting and retaining doctors. He directly asked Caplan if she would be willing to meet with | those concerned sometime during January or February to discuss {" the matter. Being a politician, she did what is expected of one. She hemmed and hawed and patted her own back saying she has travelled "extensively" (and that's a direct quote) throughout the northern areas of this province. Gilles had a supplementary question to ask the minister. Actually, it was the exact same question because, as most politicians are so apt to do, Caplan had side-stepped the question and had not given a direct answer. This time, she repeated her claim of having travelled extensively across the north, and said she would be willing to send one of her subordinates, a director of one program or another, to meet with representatives of the areas in question to Single copies 40 cents. Subscription rates: $15 per year / $25 two years (local) and $21 per year (out of town). Mr. WILSON, LEAD US TO YOUR LOANS OFFICER / discuss their concems. First, I have to ask, "what is the minister's definition of 'extensively' ?" Sure, she has travelled to Thunder Bay, and possibly a couple of other communities in the north. But there are many dozens of such communities up here. In my mind, extensively would mean she had visited at least half of these areas. Maybe she figures one trip to Thunder Bay from Toronto, a trip of about 1,300 km, meets her definition of extensive because of the distance travelled. Or maybe she feels because she passed through some towns in the north that this makes for an extensive trip. I, and I'm sure many other people, don't agree. And by offering to send one of her dircctors what does she hope to accomplish? Maybe she feels she can avoid the issue, or pass the buck to one of her representatives. Then, if there are any future complaints or difficulties she can say she isn't personally responsible. She mentioned special programs are in place for the north, such as the Underserviced Areas Program. Well, it's painfully obvious to those of us in the north that these programs just aren't working as they were meant to be. Come on Elinor, the communities in this area are asking for assistance. We've got a crisis on our hands regarding doctors. Sure, maybe people 'aren't dying for lack of medical care, but is that what it takes to get some personal attention from you? As Minister of Health you have a responsibility to the entire province to ensure everyone receives adequate health care. Live up to your responsibilities, stop the grandstanding and get up - here to see that your ministry serves the entire province equally. 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 a" Terrace Bay, Ont. POT 2W0O So we may verify authorship, please sign your letters. Treading the waters of artistic controversy I see the Montreal Art world has worked itself up into a lather. The "to do" has to do with a huge gash in a painting that was on display in a special exhibition at Mon-treal's Museum of Contemp-orary Art. The painting is an abstract by the artist Sigmar Polke. It now looks as if it's been love- tapped by Freddie Kreuger. A ragged five-inch-by-three- inch rip runs right across the centre of the canvas. The owner of the painting was less upset about the damage than she was about the cavalier response of the curators. Wealthy collector Lonti Ebers has charged the museum with ""unprofes- sionalism and blatant con- tempt". She claims they "deliberately withheld infor- mation" about the rip "until a shocking 17 days after the .discovery of the damage". Well, I hesitate to dip my Philistine toe into the boiling waters of an Art controversy, but I think I know what the problem is here. I don't believe that the folks at the Museum of Con- temporary Art are guilty of unprofessionalism or con- tempt. I doubt that they were trying to cover up the damage or mislead the owner. My guess is, they didn't | know whether or not the gash was supposed to be part of the painting. It's no longer easy for serious and committed art lovers to understand the totality of an artistic state- ment. Used to be that painters could be relied on to slap down canvasses covered with cows or mountains or Naked Majas. An art connoisseur or a curator could hold it out at arm's length, squint and say "That's a damned fine cow!" or "Now, this Maja is much more Naked than his early Naked Majas." Chaps like Renoir, Goya, Rembrandt and Velasquez routinely delivered paintings of sunsets and nymphcts, battle scenes and dotty ' monarchs that even a child could recognize, if not entirely appreciate. Then the Dadaists and Cubists rode into town. Pretty soon Georges Braque Arthur Black was turning out paintings that looked like they'd been painted on glass, then shat- tered with a brick. Picasso introduced us to painted char- acters that appeared as cartoon mutants with extra breasts and both eyes on the same side of their faces, like Dover soles.And that was merely the beginning. Nowadays painters turn out works. with murky titles like "Study #398" or "Symbi- osis/Dodge Galaxy." It's difficult to sound intelligent when you're gazing at a canvas that looks like it fell off the truck face down in a muddy parking lot. And more than a few people have been fooled. Back in 1961, the Museum of Modern Art in New York reverentially unveiled a painting called Le Bateau by famous French expressionist Henri Matisse. It hung in the gallery for 46 days, drawing adoring crowds and ecstatic revicws until someone murmured ~ SErrr,** ign't that...up-side down?"It was. I imagine the museum staff > was almost as embarrassed as Edward Brzezinski was last month. Brzezinski, a New York artist himsclf, had wandered into a Soho gallery featuring an exhibition of work by sculptor Robert Gober. "Trite stuff" Brzezinski said to himself as he ambled through the exhibits. ""Work- ing class kitsch. Predictable. . Derivative. At least they laid on some hors d'oeuvres." And Brzezinski reached out to an open bag of doughnuts, snagged one and scarfed it down. Which is when the gallery owner descended upon him, shrieking and swearing. Brzezinski, hiccuped the owner, had just desecrated an original Robert Gober stulp- ture, price-tagged at $8,000. It's difficult¢ta.say which bothered Edward Brzezinski more -- the knowledge that as an art connoisseur, he'd blown it, or the fact that he was carrying a doughnut treated with an industrial plastic preservative in his belly.Whatever, eyewitnesses report that Brzezinski defi- nitcly had a glazed look about him.