Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 6, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian focus Winnipeg free press a 7 August Al girls class Why not someone should speak out in support of Penni should i put her in a girls class free july such hysteria on the part of so Many nervous i thought Mitchells column was quite noncommittal in As much As she merely posed some of the problems that a Parent has when trying to decide what is Best for her the jury is still out on Many of the questions that were boys and girls May learn different sub at different at differ ent Ages and certainly within different we All know that children work in class families have greater difficulties reaching pos secondary Levels than the children of the mid dle and upper so Why would it not be More difficult for girls to succeed in a class taught by teachers who believe that girls will eventually quit school to become wives and the column did not suggest at All that girls were not Able to Cut it for some biological it merely Points out that the academic world reflects society and is somewhat than the fact that some women Are Able to reach greatness does not negate this i think Mitchell is absolutely right in questioning the advisability of a coed school within the framework of the existing in fact i wonder Why women have not demanded that separate educational facilities be made Avail Able right to a postgraduate Harry Paine Winnipeg refugee Issue cant be ignored the Canadian Council for refugees is concerned with the dramatic downturn in the numbers of refugees granted permanent resident status in for 1994 there were just Over representing per cent of the total Grants of permanent resident Sta the Federal government says the figure should be not the Canadian Council for refugees notes that the Fig ure comes from the Federal gov the figure includes people who were denied permanent resident status either because they could not afford the application fee of or because their documentation was not Satis factory to government even represents a dramatic decline both in absolute terms and percentage terms from the period 198992 when the average numbers for refugees granted permanent resident status was the Federal government should be trying to resolve this problem rather than trying to pretend it does not its failure to acknowledge that it is a problem gives the Council cause for concern that the numbers will continue to David Matas Winnipeg animal Kiu blamed on cuts i would like to comment on the recent free press reports cover ing the seemingly Wanton destruction of Manitoba wildlife the killing of bears for their Gall Blad Ders the Slaughter of Birds on Manitoba lakes and the interception of nearly six tons of Moose and Elk Antlers at the Canada Border for am not surprised by these shocking govern ment records show a dramatic drop in staffing Levels in the department of natural which has the responsibility for protecting wildlife Between March 1990 and March government employment records show this department had its staffing level reduced by 484 the environmental and Parks Field services wage budget in the department of natural resources has been slashed by almost million per year from 1990 budget one wonders How Many of the thousands of Moose and Elk Antlers intercepted at the Border came from live animals killed by poachers Peter Olfert Winnipeg what happened to common sense now the citizens of Manitoba really know where Premier Gary 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 May be edited for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg fi2x letters can be sent to our fax number letters May be submitted through the internet at . Letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone Hilmons priorities the Casino workers get a three per cent raise while the healthcare workers Are suffering with a per cent wage he thinks that health care is less important than every employee of the health sciences Centre and other Hospi tals is instrumental in saving lives and in the and Well being of not Only the patients but of the Community As a can the same be said of the casinos and Casino workers i think the casinos Are having the opposite effect in Many cases destroying lives and not saving and enhancing to All the sheep who had the Wool pulled Over their eyes and voted for i say shame on i Hope you Are in need of health care very soon it May not be there for you or you May have a very Long wait for it it is bad enough that our Money is going to support the jets this is just adding insult to Doest anyone in our government have any common sense Christine Ranick Winnipeg music for the Ages these old timers Lee Smith and the broadcast technicians from Robertson career College Are to be congratulated and sincerely thanked for bringing we War year Vintage Young folks the music we Haven been Able to get on any Winnipeg radio station for so Ckon has been playing almost continuously on our Home and car radios since the Start last month and we have been singing and whistling those old so familiar to my wife and tunes we danced to at grand Beach five cents for three dance numbers and the Cave on Donald Street during the War such great memories and such tuneful statistics suggest that the Over 65 population is growing in num Bers each but the City radio stations Haven recognized this fact As perhaps the popularity of the hopefully not Short lived will catch someones As it has caught our and that someone will continue these mar Velous nostalgia broadcasts Over Roberts Winnipeg in defence of Succes sories i am writing in response to Christopher Dafoe editorial inspiration and a Sharp axe free press july while i dont disagree with Dafoe View that the society in which we live is becoming increasingly Dogma dog with a focus on material accumulation Over the formation of a positive attitude and i dont think that pos Sessing awareness of this fact is synonymous with saying that Suc Ces sories and other such inspirational items have no value in the modern perhaps an expect to win brass Lapel pin will not guarantee you a successful Job but it might just give enough of a boost to your self con Tidence to feel worthy enough to go on a or sixth i agree that Succes sories Are not a solution to the worlds problems i dont think they pretend to be they will give peo ple enough inspiration to find some and to is Worth Jennifer Tukaylo Winnipeg a army photo taken not Long after the Hiroshima bombing illustrates the devastation caused by the atomic 50 years bomb use still debated Hiroshima legacy still stirs emotions by Allan Levine special to the free press it was a Bright and sunny morning in Hiroshima on at ten minutes past Shige Hiratsuka and her husband had sat Down to eat her two Young children were playing then came a Brilliant Flash of Light followed by a Thun Derous explosion and Shige Hiratsuka life was changed in a moment our House col and we found ourselves buried in she recalled Many years when we did finally pull ourselves we saw the City of Hiroshima in ruins around nowhere was a building left and in Sev eral places tongues of fire had begun to lick As the flames engulfed Hiratsuka was unable to free her children who were trapped in the fallen plaster and at the last she had no Choice but to abandon dragging her injured husband away from the for the rest of her she never forgot her six Earold daughters cries for her husband died the next Day and she suffered from radiation sickness in the months and years nicknamed Little the uranium bomb that was dropped from the american b 29 the Enola and exploded 580 metres Over the Centre of Hiroshima was equiv Alent to 15 Kilotons of a b 29 normally carried five tonnes of according to Naomi a professor at Hiroshima jog Akuin this meant that b29s would have been necessary to carry the amount of int equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on a More powerful plutonium bomb equal to 21 Kilotons of int was used on Nagasaki on that would have required in an people died in Hiroshima and thou Sands More later on from Terri ble Burns and fifty years the haunting and horrific images of the hib Kusha survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with their skin peeling off and their bodies writhing in pain remain powerful and etched in historical the first american film footage of the two cities shot in the fall of 1945 was confiscated by the Mil itary and censored for forty and this past Amer ican with the Assis Tance of vocal Republican successfully pressured the smithsonian ins Titu Tonto remove photos of the japanese victims from a museum display commemorating the yet because in every respect the Japan of 1995 is such a Dif Ferent country from the Mili tary dictatorship of As Well As the fact that the racism of another Era that branded japanese everywhere As the yellow peril to be feared loathed has finally it is difficult not to be sympathetic for the survivors and out raged at the americans for Many the direct targeting of civilians will always be regarded As a monstrous War crime and morally Unac says Arthur a professor of philosophy and director of the University of Manitoba ethics from the begin american officials justified the use of the two bombs by claim ing that they had saved the lives of in an article that appeared in harpers Magazine in february Henry Stim the former Secretary of War in the Cabinet of president Harry argued that had the military been forced to invade Japan instead of ending the War with the the result would have been the loss of about one million american but says american Histo Rian Bruce Daniels of the University of was a Gross the bombs were Unne Ces Japan was starving and close to it was gratuitous despite what president Truman most of the casualties were women and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military he adds that Many military including general Dwight Eisenhower later were opposed to using the bombs and that it was a Shock ing repudiation of former pres ident Franklin Roosevelt who had died in april 1945 policy of not bombing Frank president of the Manitoba Branch of the Hong Kong veterans Assoc a then in his Early spent four Long and difficult years As a prisoner of the japanese in he was with 500 other Canadian pos in a work Camp in he recalls that on the civilian overseers guarding him were very fearful since the rumours had been circulating about the massive destruction of Hiroshima by a powerful american when an air raid Siren went the Over seers scattered and Harding and his fellow prisoners were left standing by he has no doubts that the bombs were necessary and essential for ending the War a week my he is that had the bombs not been the earlier fight ing at iwo Jima and Okinawa which the won earlier in 1945 after fierce Battles would have seemed like a Tea compared to the struggle to invade both the Japan Ese sol Diers and civilians would have fought to the they were fanatics and to die for the emperor was considered a big though Harding has been Back to Japan Many times since his release on he still bemoans the fact that there Are 137 canadians buried near his former its As if they Are still in prison after All these he Winnipeg businessman Philip Weiss also has a unique Outlook on the events of five decades in August he had just been freed from a nazi concentration he says that then he wished the americans had also dropped a bomb on Ger Many to end the brutality of the but today he realizes that the atomic bomb is a weapon that should never be used because it could Lead to the destruction of As for the americans use of the bomb in while recognizing the terrible Conse he feels that the bomb did in fact Stop the War and that this ended All the savagery and suffering it had wreaked on the the members of Winnipeg japanese Many of whom Are third or fourth generation born take a More global for the militarism of the for Mer japanese Empire and the War evoke memories of intern ment and although until recently this was not something that was often spoken Alan president of the Manitoba japanese citizens association was born in a relocation Camp in Northern in he says that for most of his his parents refused to speak about or their experiences in the but he peo ple remember the War and the fact that it was unfortunate that it had to end the Way it Terumi the Mocas chair of human rights echoes this the legacy of Hiroshima and she is just to affirm world peace and commemorate loved ones who perished in at dusk on the anniversary of the Nagasaki the Mica and project peacemakers from the West Minster United Church will hold a lantern ceremony at the tache docks by the red hundreds of paper lanterns will be launched on the River As a sym Bolic Way of lighting the path for departed spirits to return to the spiritual from an historical perspex the use of the atomic bombs has a mixed his Torian Bruce Daniels argues that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be recognized As being both the end of the second world War and the Start of the cold there is no doubt that it was an example to the russians of the bombs acted As a powerful the bombs were so horrible beyond anyone expect including the Ameri cans who dropped that it was never used he few people would have bet in 1946 that 50 years later such a possibility would have been i suppose there is some thing Good in for that As Schafer Points since the demise of the soviet Union a few years ago and with it the end of the cold for the first time since the spectre of uni Versal annihilation seems to have the world is very different place than it was 50 years it has taken a Long time but this was the ultimate Hope expressed by the free press editors in an editorial written a few Days after the bombing of there will be general Satis faction in the discovery of a secret weapon which will hasten the end of the the newspapers editors but there can be no ultimate gain to humanity from the Forg ing of this terrible except this it May Shock the civilized world into banishing forever the insanity of if the germans had been As successful As we were this War with atomic bombs might have obliterated our Fate has Given us a this reprieve must be used by the nations of the world to so Orga Nize their affairs that the world will never again be plunged into Allan Levine is a Winnipeg historian and ;