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we 7: ' meywe ke ' <69 Os Page 4, News, Tuesday, May 29, 1990 Editoria Tel.: 825-3747. The Terrace Bay-Schreiber News is published every Tuesday by Laurentian Publishing Limited, Box 579, 13 Simcoe Plaza, Terrace Bay, Ont., POT-2WO 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. pe -- > tie Publisher............. A. 'Sandy' Harbinson ag ubdscription rates: per - : year feeriiors $10 (local Office Managev.............Gayle Fournier = $27 per year (out of 40 mile News Editor................. Angie Saunders ox & radius); $36 in U.S. Advertising Rep.......... Sheryl A. Knight eo Bea Where have all the doctors gone? It's nice to see that the Edmonton Oilers have won the Stanley Cup once again. This is their fifth victory in seven years. Gone are the Bruins, the Kings and the Canadians. Actually, after I finished jumping up and down, I felt kind of disappointed because there was no one around to see me gloat. Now, can Edmonton just stay with the players they have? Hopefully no one will consider an offer like Wayne Gretzky, and take off for the sunny States. But how could you pass up a deal like that? Maybe this is the problem with keeping doctors in small towns. Schreiber, at the moment, receives doctors through an underserviced area program run by the Ministry of Health. The Ministry encourages physicians to come by sweetening the deal with grants. Therefore, these temporary doctors are employees of the Ministry of Health. Schreiber has had three doctors in the past year, Dr. Amir Geranmayegan, Dr. Richard Scott, and presently Dr. Keith Rogers. They have all worked at Schreiber Medical Centre. Why do the doctor's leave after a short time of service here? Some want to return to school, or live in a bigger city. One problem is that the doctor is on call a lot. Besides regular office hours, being on call for the McCausland Hospital leaves little time to pursue personal leisure. The Township of Schreiber owns a house that they bought: for Schreiber doctors to live in and they subsidize the rent. They also own the medical centre which they rent to the doctor for a nominal sum. Town Clerk Aurel Gauthier mentioned, " The Township is working continually (to get a more permanent doctor)." What else can they do?... Suggestions anyone? Angie Saunders nig a Sex i. \ eee ir) a SANS Ley S¢ "Letters to the editor' are very important to the readership and to the community which th 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 conversatio 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. ong today, sign your name, and help provide a service to all. Write: Box 579 Terrace Bay, Ont. POT 2W0 Making rifles into ploughshares My favorite part of the Bible is The Song of Solomon, and my favorite part of the Song of Solomon is the verse that goes: They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither Shall they learn war any more. Twenty-eight simple words elegantly threaded into a statement first uttered in Biblical times. We've had 2,000 years to practice and we still can't get the hang of it. Of course, things are more complicated now. We don't use swords and spears much any more. Would a Kalashnikov rifle make a decent ploughshare? How many pruning hooks can you get out of a CF-18 combat jet? And who wants to risk beating a nuclear warhead into . anything? Tough decisions' -- especially when you're living on a planet that's been fueled and fired by hate, fear and suspicion. pretty well continuously since Cain disabled Abel. We've got a lot invested in swords and spears. There are 87,000 Canadians in the Armed Forces. A lot of businesses in Canada graze off military contracts, turning out everything from bayonets to napalm. What happens to all that if nations truly decide to "learn war no more"? And then there's the simple hardware problem. Assuming that the Cold War really is over, and praying that our leaders are deft enough never to. get us embroiled in something so asinine again -- what do we do with the tons of military junk we've accumulated? I doubt that SAC bombers would make useful traffic spotters and I can't see Leopard Tanks converting easily to school buses. Think we could persuade the PM: and his cabinet cronies to give up the limos in favor of jeep cavalcades to and from the airport? Perhaps we won't have to make all the decisions on hardware disposition. Perhaps Arthur Black nature will do it for us. As a matter of fact, it's already happening. Look up on the rooftops of many of the nations schools, fire stations and other public buildings: * You can still 'see a few of them up there -- gawky, ungainly looking globs of sheet metal that look like they were Slapped together by a third-rate performance artist on a very bad day. They're air raid sirens. There's 1700 of them distributed right across the country. It was John Diefenbaker's idea back in the 50's. he wanted a way to alert Canadians that the Russians were coming -- or their bombs were -- and to let us know it was time to head for the fallout shelters. Neither the Russians or their bombs ever showed up of course, and the air raid sirens remained on the roofs, freakish and silent. Last month a government report revealed that those air raid sirens couldn't do their job if they had to. Thirty years of frigid Canadian winters and torrid summers, of rain and hail and general neglect have left the nation's air raid sirens rusted, cobwebbed and virtually useless. Even if the sirens could wail it wouldn't do much good. They're the product of 1950's technology, not powerful enough to penetrate the soundproofed walls of today's apartment houses. And even if they did wail and 26 million Canadians did hear them and realized they had, say, twenty minutes to escape a nuclear attack -- what good would it do? Where would you run? How would you get there? Why would you bother? All those questions, thank God, have been rendered academic by the Gorbachev Revolution. Just as well, I guess. According to the government report, mice are now nesting in those old air raid sirens. Squirrels use them for storing nuts. Bees are even making honey in them. Mouse nests, nut banks and _ honeycombs, eh? Well, it's not quite Plena arce: but it's close enough for me.