Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 1, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A6 Winnipeg free press August 1995 editorials Brian Cole 6977044 a Public affair the people running spirit of Manitoba have the same Knack for Public relations their predecessors had the current spirit Alan is furious with the free press for making Public a letter he would rather never saw the Light of Sweatman is the same Man when asked by a Csc radio reporter recently about who advanced the Down payment on the Purchase of the Winnipeg jets said in not going to Tell you that is private inform As it turns half that Money million came from the provincial government As a fully repayable there ought to be nothing private about each passing first the Manitoba entertain ment Complex led by John then a different group led by Mai Ander who came Forward As he put nobody else and after him a newly constructed Board led by Alan has failed to realize that saving the hockey team is hardly a private if Only it were a Deal Between Busi Ness All the angst of the last several months could have been More than million in Public investment is already on the including commitments from three Levels of government to build an Arena the gift and servicing of Cit owned land the lost tax Revenue through write offs of luxury boxes and special seating the publicly owned shares of the which were thrown in the pot for Good measure but will Only be redeemed if the team Sells for the right Price Down the Sweatman didst like the publication saturday of parts of a letter from nil commissioner Gary Bettman because it asks pointed questions about the financial capacity of the spirit group to buy the team and cover its losses for a period of if Bettman is unhappy with those so should Public and private investors who have More Cash at risk than spirits Cam Doest deny any of the Fig ures published but he says the material was presented in the most negative possible if Osier had been the one presenting the it would have been presented in any Light he chose to cast upon members of spirit Are now saying the publication of that letter is an attempt to scuttle the the Deal will be scuttled if spirit cant raise the Money it needs to buy the hockey team and cover its its efforts will succeed if private investors or donors As some More appropriately want to Call them think the investment or the donation is a Good thing for them or for their City and everyone involved in this endless Saga seems More interested in pinning the horns of failure on someone else than in making the thing As time moves fewer and fewer people which is the biggest prob Lem of inner City Hope the shooting at Mossbrook House Over the weekend should serve As another As if one was that the problem of Street gangs and youth crime will not go away by no one died in the a 15yearold boy was treated in Hospital and released after a youth armed with a Shotgun opened fire on a group of youths who were hanging out at the Centre sunday but the coming just one week after the fatal shooting of 13yearold Joseph Spence in a Gan related underlines the need to Deal with the problem before it becomes so Community groups and the Winnipeg police service have struggled to come up with ways of dealing with the a number of Community groups operate drop in or sports recreation centres which offer youths a place to hang but none of the groups Are funded and mandated to work directly on the problem of Street the police has established a squad of officers with a mandate to Monitor gang activities and collect names of new or potential but the police Are there to enforce the not to act As social some people Are doing something that touches on the Issue of Street but nobody has the responsibility of developing specific programs to eliminate that could soon within the next few weeks the three Levels of government Are expected to begin the process of discussing How to spend the million Winnipeg development under the at least million has been set aside for Urban safety and can be used to fund any number of including the establishment of a grassroots organization to offer pee counselling to gang members or potential one the salvation has already come up with a plan to designate one of their missions in the inner City As a Safe Haven for All it needs now is the Money to make the idea the agreement provides individuals and Community groups like the salvation army with an Opportunity to get the funding they they should make the Best of Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 m Winnipeg Tribune est 1090 Rudy Redekop publisher Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Calvin Verne Kalichuk human resources Stephan Majorki operations Perry Nixdorf advertising Glenn 1995 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson newspapers company limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council scribble t t Tilliam an 18th Century Duke of w appears not to have been much of a judge of Edward Gibbons decline and fall of the roman Empire is widely consid ered to be not Only one of the seminal works of Western history but also one of the great works of English literature Gibbon lived Long enough ago that he could was expected to not Only an historian but a stylist As a combination that today exists Only As a genetic his work is also As substantial in physical size As it is in upon receiving volume the who apparently had already weighed vol ume replied another damned Square Book always scribble he Gibbon whatever the Duke of Gloucester literary it is hard not to have a certain sympathy with his sentiments these there May never have been a time when damned Square books abounded As they do and these Arent even the works of history there after enough history going around to justify some pretty hefty nor Are they accounts of the sex lives of the British Royal family which again provide enough material to form vol Umes that would make Gibbon look like he had writers although ones attention does tend to wander during the transcripts of cellular Telephone not to Refo Cus until we get to the parts about lady so Andros sexual Predi lec Tom Oleson tons or Suchan suchs per Sonal these Are novels that we speak of Here simple mostly made for a few hours of a visit to any Book store these Days is an interesting the shelves and display tables groan under the weight of novels running even or the prices Are such that one might think that the stores Are Selling them by the Pound instead of by the but closer inspection reveals that this is not the prices Bear no relationship to a slim volume by today standards of 200 or 250 pages As much As a Page anywhere from to for a hardcover so Are there so Many damned Square books around the one lies in the it was Only about 20 years ago that the literary Industry in North America went through a major at that most novels sold for under slightly higher in of costs of production were and the Industry was faced with breaking the Price Barrier for the average in the publishing As in any optimistic pundits cant make any if things Are look ing Why would you waste Money on a consultant so experts Are usually of they get their pay cheques to the in this the experts predicted that the novel would not sur Vive breaking the Price Barrier North already inured to would Stop read ing anything but comic books and comic books have since also suffered a brutal and profitable Price but that another Story which at the time were believed by other experts to have died have continued to endure despite annual predictions of their imminent demise and the continued use of and oddly has the in printed fiction has been novels not Only continue to even As they Rise in Price publish ers appear now to be trying to keep them under the Barrier but they Are also getting quite plump and prosperous perhaps this is an unconscious attempt by both authors and pub Lishers to make readers think they Are getting value for Money for your you get 600 pages instead of i dont think that much of a most of these books Arent War and peace or David cop Perfield and most of them could probably profit from being half the length they most novels really Arent much More than to for the a few hours and i dont think that Reading the most recent bestselling thriller should have to become my summer project Ive had War and peace on that list for the last 25 i came across an example of How big int necessarily better in while recovering from an i read four volumes of the wheel of a bestselling fantasy series by Robert Jordan that runs to hundreds of pages for each of at least four vol it soon became Clear that the Only Way this series could be kept going at this length was the author to endow All its characters with such an incredible and incur Able stupidity that they could keep making the same often resulting in the same Over and Over again for Well Over one reaches the Point of hoping that the forces of darkness thus putting both heroes and Reader out of their mis when that failed to i gave up and closed volume in Halfway thus at least sparing in looking for a really Good under 200 easy to handle and a pleasure to hold and an inspiration to in the in Reading Dickens the old curiosity admittedly a Square but one written by someone who knew How to write Tom Oleson is a free press editor Ial his column appears tues Day and the least bad solution for Bosnia by Thomas Friedman new York times Washington lost in the commotion about the United states Senate vote to lift the arms embargo on and presi Dent Clinton threat to veto such a is a Small fact of some importance both the presidents policy and the congress1 policy Duck the real Issue in Bosnia and Are formulas for continued what Are the real and West Ern interests in Bosnia they Are four halt the prevent the conflict from prevent the conflict from turning into a Christ Ian Muslim holy War and insure that it does not end in a Way that permanently damages relationships among the Western nato and rus the Only Way to realize those objectives is for the United states and its allies to draw up a map that divides Bosnia roughly along the lines of the Nat Orussia Contact group proposal 50 per cent 50 per cent Muslim croat and then to use All necessary including bombing Belgrade if to impose those ceasefire lines on All the you might that would drag the United states into the its already in the the United states and nato last week commit Ted to using their air Power to defend a Muslim Safe Haven from further murderous serbian if the is ready to use what defence Secretary William Perry called massive air bombardments to defend an isolated Muslim Safe Why not use them to defend a ceasefire and a settlement map that could Stop the killing altogether Why not use them to defend a peace plan that would establish a bosnian Muslim state i centred around next to a bosnian serb entity that would be Federated with Serbia and a bosnian croatian entity that would be Feder ated with Croatia since it is better if the French and United nations keep their peacekeeping troops in and they Are Why not have them use their Power to Over see a partition plan and ceasefire instead of to just oversee fur ther carnage usually countries decide their War Aims first and commit their military Power the Clinton administration has done just the it decided to get involved militarily in but with no clearly defined plan for achieving americas Basic if the is going to enter this it should Only be to end this War and the Only Way to do that is through some form of of course it would be preferable to have a multiethnic bosnian society and where everyone lives but the parties had that it was called and the muslims and croats All helped to rip that state that is Why the Only Way to stabilize things now is to Divide Bosnia among but the administration and Congress Are the administration Doest want to lift the arms but it also Doest want to impose any because it bosnian refugee from overrun by does her laundry fears that would involve America too deeply and because it knows it would mean accepting the very partition plans it advised the muslims for years to the Clinton administration wants More of the status quo because its Only Clear goal is to get through 1996 without troops in the by just wants to get through the evening it wants to feel Good about lift ing the but does not want to recognize that this will Only trigger a heavier serbian onslaught against the which they will Only be Able to resist in the Short term with the help of direct Western military which is precisely the sort of deep involvement Congress is actually trying to with the administration plan the muslims lose with the con Gress plan the muslims lose neither the administration nor the Congress wants to recognize what the europeans already have that the Ideal democratic if it were Ever can not be achieved the Only Way to achieve it would be to Force the muslims and croats to live together under one which they demonstrably do not want to none of the parties right now Are fighting to live they Are each fighting for ethnic survival or we can lament the idea of a Multi pluralistic Bosnia but we can not build it from the raw material at the Only sane thing left is to Stop the killing and build the least bad peace around the Bosnia we which is one in which croats and muslims live apart until they can learn again to live Ogeth Thomas Friedman is a columnist with the new York ;