—_

~The writting on the wall.

-of a dogwood tree, About the

* feet unaccountably

" Lettere tothe editor will be considered for publication only when signed.

|, expressed are not n

Bong

Heaven help us all, but the signs are everywhere —_ there will be a provincial election this summer. | Our house haruspex (look it up; that’s a very: specific type of fortuneteller that every newspaper | keeps around for government budget forecasting and hockey pools... ours bears a surprising resemblance to a pit bull terrier. We keep him in the attic and feed © him raw meat with a slingshot) recently examined a crow found-in the 4700 block Lazelle. Its intestines were tied in half-hitches, a sure bet that an election’s on the way. . a ; A staff member reported last week that during a walk through Frank’s Field the sun suddenly went dim at midday and a stellar’s jay fell dead at her feet out ) same time while on a “ramble across Ferry Island another staffer found his frozen to the ground and a Western Red cedar leaned over his head, whispering - “doom, doom, doom”. Or was that...? Never mind. ‘On the night of. March 22 a creature that bore a startling likeness to a deputy returning officer was . seen baying at the full moon from the top of the Tillicum Theatre building. : an

There are other signs of a more obscure nature. The

normally reticent Social Credit MLA for Skeena, Dave | -: Parker, has submitted two _ the past two weeks and last-week called a town hall

meeting on four days’ notice,

letters to this newspaper in

on} ce, where he expounded on the virtues of the provincial budget.

On Monday we received a press release from, of all people, Grace McCarthy. It was the text of a ,

"monolithic speech she delivered from the-back benches

in support of the March 30th’provincial budget, blam-— ing the NDP for everything from the breakdown of the nuclear family to the Canucks’ elimination from |

the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1977 (well, almost), It’s © 7

the first we’ve heard from her since the leadership race and one has to wonder... Grace are you...?

The indications are everywhere: dogs are beginning to bark at journalists, and strangers make warding-off

. signs at us when we meet them in the street, as if to

_prepare us for what’s to come.

But the most frightening sign of all came Saturday night at the town hall meeting, where our staff reporter overheard a Social Credit. association organizer attempting to book the Happy Gang Centre for June 3 — to hold a pre-election seminar.

mem Terrace Review NA PAID ; a Established May 1, 1985 - ‘Second-class mail The Terrace Review is published registration No. 6896. eac nesday Dy all tal ing in the T Rev! Close-Up Business Services Ltd. All mater iader Canadian Copyright Nopistrar . . Publisher: tlon No. 362775. and cannot legally be repro- Mark T wyfor d duosd (for any reeson without permlasion of the Editor: rors and omielone, acer 1 cepted e@ con io a ave or: bie Kelly typographical ero, that portion of the acer __.. Staff Reporter: ng aa oe etor b Ye betanc Be ociver- tain Regret eek . dvertising anager. ; ; ertisers must assume respons f ar- . . nh co al w .G,. Hum 8 Act, - Advertising Corey nant: nO advertisement will be publiehed which St nee f discriminates againat a person due to age, race, Typesetting: ° religion, color, sex, nallonallty, ancestry or place oS Carrie Olson of origin. “7 Production Manager: 4535 Grelg Avenue, co. Production: . . oo. Alvin Stewart, Phone: 635-7640 -. Gurbax oo Mercer _» Fax: 636-7268 ee re ce: a an Carle Olson "One year cubeeriptions: “hese on eas re jarj Twyfor ct Canada $50. a veer - Seniors In T d District $12.00 3)” “Harminder Dosanjh geniora out of Terrace and Distriat $18.00

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ecessarily those of the Terrace Review. :

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-|. END SOME FEATHERS...

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TSEC MN SON

by Bob Jackman

: Wednesday _ | oe _. Perspectives

1 don’t know if columnists — are supposed to scoop the legitimate reporter types or not, but I can’t resist this one. It’s been kicking around for a while, but no sélf-respecting

_ journalist can deal in conjec-- -

ture. They are of course free to pick up on rumors and, by ask- ing the right people the right questions, turn the rumor into a legitimate news story. So let’s try this one on for size.

_ Jim Fulton will resign his seat in the House of Commons to run against Dave Parker in the next provincial election.

" Helmut Giesbrecht will run in

the federal by-election. You may have heard it somewhere else, but you read it here first. “IT couldn’t resist. My heart won’t let me forecast the Stanley Cup winner, and my brain won’t let me suggest a Canucks upset of the Flames (by the time this is printed, the Canucks might even be out of it!), so I’m reduced to politics. Mr. Fulton has been com- menting more than usual lately about provincial issues, and - Mr. Giesbrecht has been keep- ing a high profile leading my teachers’ strikes. Neither of these gentlemen are political neophytes. By taking a swipe at

_ Fletcher Challenge, (and maybe

not expecting the tiger to strike back), Jim was also taking a sideways swipe at the Forests Minister, who just by coin- cidence is the MLA he'd be.

’ running against. Following the

political adage of ‘print © whatever you want, just, spell my name right’ Helmut lias’. -

‘seen more press lately than he ©

did as Mayor. - | oy . Mr. Fulton is probably get- ting tired of crossing the coun- -

try and flying into places like ”

Hartley. Bay: A nice little retire- ment.job-as- MLA: (a.Ja-Frank Howard) could supplement his federal pension, build a provin- cial pension, and ease his - return back to real life. Mr. Giesbrecht, who presided over several consecutive budget overruns.as Mayor, would be right at home in the rarefied

' deficit budget atmosphere of

Ottawa. Or so the scenario goes. . “I could be wrong. But for

- the life of me, I can’t see any

other credible NDP ‘candidate out there. Having become pret- ty non-political lately, I’m not trying to force anybody’s hand, but I'd rather be wrong in the political arena than the hockey arena. God, I'd love to see the Canucks take itin six!

@ One of the basic shifts I think you'll see in our economic structure over the next few years will be the demise of the medium-sized company. Buy-outs and ; mergers are slowly changing the relationship between nianufac- turers and customers. If you.

try.to buy a new car, your

choice is limited to GM, Ford, maybe Chrysler or a few Asian makes. You can take a chance on a more exotic type (remember the Yugo?) but you've got no guarantee that parts will be available in six

- ‘months, let alone service.

A TV? How about a Sony or a Sanyo? A computer? IBM or Macintosh, Computer soft-

-ware? Lotus or Microsoft. And

if you've ‘got a problem? Well,

‘you‘can call their 800 number,

and stay on hold till hell freezes over... Or, you can try

‘to fix.it yourself, ha, ha... or, .

you can-find some little guy ~~

— aun nel with some hands-on experience”. and a few smarts to fixitfor — you. ,

Because there aren’t any medium-size companies around

’ that you can reasonably expect. will be in business next year, you might as well go with the . industry standard, The industry standard is ‘the big guy’ and ‘the big guy sells to a whole lot of other big guys, like govern. _ ments and other big companies. The big.guy could care less whether you’re happy with your car, your TV, your com- -_ puter or anything else jn your life!

So who cares about you? I

“have a favorite mechanic, who cares enough about how I feel ~ about my car to try to keep it running for me. It’s almost worth giving up the warranty because I know Norm is going to fix my car, he’s not going to» charge me extra, and I’m not : going to have to get my muf- fler repaired a week after he fixes my heater. I found a small shop that fixes VCR's, — and they called the.day after I took mine in. It’s fixed! In this high-tech, industry-standard world, it’s nice to know that there are people around with» the skills and the caring at- titude to fill the void. It’s nice to know there’s room for the little guy! .

@ And it looks like they’ve . started excavating for the new : mall addition, Several large ex- ploratory holes have been dug

_in front of the Commercé = Bank, and the basement for at least one building has been dug where you would ordinarily have driven from Ottawa Street into the bank parking lot. wie

. Somebody tried to tell me they...

were potholes... ==