Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 13, 1994, Winnipeg, Manitoba Editor David 6977042 focus Winnipeg free press a 7 Stop trying to Label us Kurt Cobain suicide on april 8 was undeniably trag but the medias response was even More with the sweep ing generalities made about co Bains age group and his supposed leadership in i am a 19yearold member of the mythical generation x who has become rather tired of being Classi fied As a pessimistic unemployed loser who Doest have any direction in the commentary on Cobain death in Gordon Sinclair column on april 9 Only resulted in More an Ger at the incredible ignorance the Media has towards this particular comments such As Cobain was an icon for generation he very much stood for generation is whatever attitude and i compare this to when John Lennon left me wondering just who or even what had Cobain was never a spokesman for anyone or yet in he is made out to be some sort of god by people who obviously knew nothing about his it was also rather insulting when a 25yearold reporter claimed in sin Clairs column some kids will commit suicide because of Treyve been thinking about it and then the Lead Singer of nirvana does that would be not Only Are we but now were stupid following an entertainers life is one but follow ing him into death is another and it is absolutely ridiculous to believe that any disgruntled teenager would use Cobain death As an excuse to end their this reporter should As a member of the same that this something that she claims we All need is not god sorry but for the allow Island mighty Media to get off our Stop trying to Label us and our he roes by making them into something More than they really Kurt Cobain was but that was he was not nor did he have any deep Philosophi Cal message to i am not trying to speak for any one but myself when i say that co Bain was simply a Singer in a he was a human being who happened to have a lot of pain in his Cobain was Only speaking for him self when he pulled the his message was shocking but it want meant to say anything about every one else in his age he was an individual with inde pendent just As i am As i sign this not with the collective conscience of generation but with my own Melani Clubb Winnipeg letters to the editor the free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published but not All letters maybe edited for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg letters can be sent to our fax number letter maybe submitted through the internet at . Letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone Over the last few while the manpower to handle the workload has overlooked in the smoke and mirrors is the fact that the members of cupe local 110 custodial maintenance of Winnipeg took no wage increase in and in Exchange for Job of note is the fact that this freeze on wages was proposed by the and saves the division approximately in wages and benefits based on average salary increases to the rest of the we Are not martyrs but the membership Felt that we should do our part in these difficult As a caretaker of course my loyalties Are with the maintenance As a Trade Union and no Collar i would hate to see any Job it is so easy to forget that a Job is not a percentage Point to be rubbed out with the end of a rather it is bread and milk on the table at the human aspect of cuts is somehow lost on Winnipeg has most of the older schools in the City to be maintained and of course the Cost of keeping them clean and Safe May Well be higher than in newer facile the maintenance workers of the division take Pride in our and for providing a Safe learn ing environment for the children in the area we sadly we All seem to suffer from the Rodney Dangerfield syndrome no fancier a cupe Winnipeg let love Triumph Over hate it is said that the pen is mightier than the sword and i believe that to be the written and spoken word can move multitudes toward Good or i was very pleased with Pope John Pauls easter message of peace and understanding free april i believe it is Correct to say that millions of and even billions of agreed with him when he May love Triumph Over hate his burning when will people finally be Able to live As Brothers and Sisters in Harmony with one another needs to be an swered and especially so by those who at present Are hating and lulling each it of be noted that a vast number of people on this planet of ours Are not fighting and Are enjoying life because they Are allow ing love to Triumph Over to Gether with countless join the Pope in prayer for those who do Stan Penner landmark human aspect lost on paper i do not envy the position that trustees and administrators find themselves in As they plan the up coming the current governments regressive policies toward education have started a divisional civil pitting brother against it is easy to look in from a distance and think that maintenance can be targeted for the cleanliness and safety of our schools seems secondary somehow to other essential the Square feet of building space to be maintained in the Winnipeg school division 1 Era increased the Bible belongs there has been much talk in the Media recently about Quality of Edu there has also been mention made of the need to reexamine the role or place of the private school within the framework of our educational the Bible makes it quite Clear in order to have a Quality Edu we must have a a proper respect for who god this being the i find it difficult to see How we can suggest that we Are offering our students a qual Ity education when we Are remove or have the most important element from the educational namely the our country prides itself on the philosophy of Freedom of Are we suggesting by this the absence of religion Safe sex is being evolution is taught As a viable these Are two of Many beliefs of Man that could be classified As Reli these have become some of the main teachings of our when we note the increase in child immorality and we should be Able to see that we Are lacking something in the thinking of our i suggest that the increase in crime and immorality is related to the progressive removal of biblical instruction from the framework of our it would be Wise for to Stop and reevaluate what we consider to be and be sure that we Are actually focusing on those things that will have the most Short term and Lon term there is no magic in studying the it is up to the individual to de cide if they will believe what the Bible has to our duty is to give each person the Opportunity to make this removing the from the Core of education is certainly not meeting this Walter Bartel Austin people form a human Chain and dance on top of the Berlin Wall a 1989 to celebrate the end of the communism still lurks old communist ruling elites Hove not Given up by Eugen serf Zanescu Long before the 1917 russian revolution ushered in a dark Era for hundreds of millions of people in Central and Eastern Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels warned in a malign premonition a spectre is haunting it is the spectre of half a decade after the inner and outer communist soviet Empire formally was this warning strangely still although it has other it is True that communism disappeared As a monolithic ruling system in the Wake of Gorbachev and the fall of the Berlin Wall in but it would be a dangerous mistake to consider that old communist ruling elites have Given or relinquished their old tools and in som countries they simply Are operating trying to regain in they have or regained by repackaging their old ideology in the trappings of social and political circumstances Are helping after 50 years of brainwashing and lie infested communist propaganda that replaced truthful historical there is Little democratic tradition for average people to draw its almost As if entire nations were politically transition the ill managed transition toward a Market unwillingness to privatize or shut Down unprofitable state subsidized the bouts of the financial deepened the poverty of Peoples who inherited bankrupt centralized communist ignorance of the benefits one eventually can derive from the proper use of private property and personal initiative has resulted in a fear of while the old communist leaders Are dead Romanias exiled East Germany retired Poland or facing jail Bulgaria the second and third Echelon of the a communist elites still Are exploiting popular fear and ignorance and drawing on an immense Complex of erstwhile party activists and secret their repackaged democratic parties no longer speak in the old communist terms of the Means of production being held in but rather cynically Appeal to patriotism by talking of the necessity of protecting National primarily from the predatory in a retooled and renamed communist party won parliamentary elections last in most of the key positions Are held by people who come from the former part secret police the government is supported in parliament by the extremist in Vladimir Whir Inovskis political organization won a Quarter of the gaining significant momentum with an aggressive nationalistic backed by at least a Wing of the military Industrial Complex and by former and current intelligence in Croatia and the crypt communists also Are running the in one might suspect that the religious and cultural conflicts in the former were primed and brought to an explosive state by the repressive and homogenizing policies of the old communist while Many of the communist successor parties include democratic in their the spectre of communism still lurks behind their hidden wish is to have a kind of democracy in which the opposition is reduced to the most crucial test for All these newly formed democracies is whether the electorate concedes the importance that parties can alternate in Power on the basis of free and whether the once having regained will be willing to relinquish in order to Salve their guilty consciences at the same legitimize their future the Nouveau communists Are pretending now that the hell they put their countries through for half a Century was not they it was merely a kind of totalitarian deviation which had nothing to do with True they argue that Stalin like dictators such As Zsivkov in cow of of pm Toots i Gorbachev tried to Reform the system from and Albania Hoxha had perverted which in a generous system of much everything a society should dream but they cannot answer some Basic questions if not the profoundly repressive and totally antidemocratic nature of allowed and encouraged these monsters to Rule in a dictatorial fashion is communism with a human face possible Doest by its very trample on individual free free free practice of favor of an Al encompassing Dogma enforced by an Al powerful police party elite the last communist to try to Reform the system from within was he the system that the Mark of any totalitarian once you Start to Reform youll kill to paraphrase Malraux communism is either or it is nothing at there some voices from Western Europe and the United states praising the stability which characterized that part of the world in the communist fear chaos they fear the chaos and uncertainty of the new world that has risen up with the collapse of the soviet they or dont the former stability was constructed on none of them could have lived under those circumstances for a single let alone a and they should not be North America is far removed from the former communist countries of Eastern in some it is even More the full implementation of the principles that Here Are taken for government of separation of human Strong civic free Market still the subject of bitter fights fights Between the democratic forces and the ghosts of the nightmares of George Orwell was not but real life for Eastern and Central never haunt our lives Eugen a novelist and the political editor of Romania an Independent daily newspaper in is a Hubert Humphrey fellow at the University of doonesbury by Garry Trudeau m chair if mpoin6 7his ;