Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 12, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 saturday free Winn idec Cole july editorials off title Libeg of Elgion the ties that bind there Are few forces stronger than the ties that bind Mother and even when those ties Are physically As they Are when a birth Mother gives up her child for the Cho logical connection remains the Mother Longs to know what happened to her the child is driven by the need to learn More about his or her it was this human need that family services ister Bonnie Mitchelson attempted to address when she overhauled Manitoba antiquated adoption the changes passed in the legis lature last month while certainly a positive step fall Short of what is required to restore the rights taken away from birth mothers and their Dren years under the claimed future Tion files will remain unless a specific veto on Access to identify ing including full is filed by the birth Mother and the adoptive in other future birth Moth ers and their adopted children will have the option of using govern ment records to look up each other in later the records were meaning the child and Mother did not have Access to identifying the Only Way a child and birth Mother could find each other was through registering with a provincial which would then conduct a a process which often takes six to eight opening the files Means Mother and child will have Access to identifying information and a much better Chance of locating each the is the new Law covers Only future adopt meaning the thousands of birth mothers and the children they gave up for adoption Over past decades Are out of the province says it wont retroactively open adoption files because it wants to maintain the birth mothers concern for confidentiality is but the experience in other provinces suggests it is for has always maintained open adoption files without any apparent Dif the British Columbia government opened its adoption records retroactively in 1992 and has not experienced any of the problems feared by the under the a birth an adopted child or a sibling can request including full from the this allows individuals doing the searches the option of making Contact through a government through a no government Agency or on their advocates for open files say this Means searches on the West coast can be done in months rather than in changing the the Filmon government is ensuring the state Doest hinder future birth Moth ers and the children they gave up for adoption from locating each the same principle should be applied to those trying to find each other family Trees tracing the family tree is not a decision to be undertaken we Are All fairly certain that we must come from pretty Good Stock How could it be otherwise when we have turned out so Well but there Are Many things besides old War medals that Are hidden in family the genealogist May be Able to find nothing link ing you to Richard Lionheart and discover instead that it is the blood of ethelred the Unready that thinly courses through your veins your family May not Spring from Thomas the Noble minded at but rather find its roots in the brutish life of Brian the palaeontologists Are just genealogists on a grander scientists attempting to Trace the great family tree of All this they had some unsettling news for it had been believed that modern human beings were directly descended from Cro Magnon handsome people who looked a bit like might also have in them a touch of the a primitive race of humans who at their Best looked like Alley Dan tests now show that this is highly unlikely and that we All come from the same Blue blooded source no neanderthals in our this is not yet and it May yet be proved certainly it flies in the face of a huge body of anecdotal evidence and conventional the common behaviour of the human for is often described by women As Nean and How can we explain the hulking lout who is our Neighbour across the or our thick ill mannered except As genetic throwbacks to the apparent neanderthals Are everywhere among so either the palaeontologists Are or we will All have to Loo More closely at what really is lurking in our genetic Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press Cost 1879 Winnipeg Tribune est 1990 Rudy email Nicholas editor Brian editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Laurie Verne Kalichuk human resources Glenn Williams finance and administration 1997 Winnipeg free a division of Oivi Jsn pit Simian Canada Urot tid up wishes Days week at 155 leu Nugin 4 member 9 the the Nioba hut Veunes vol 125 n0186 a writer turns the Page David Carr was born with eyes so weak he would pass his kids on the Street without recognizing my father never drove a but he did read the news with nose nudging Ever so slightly against the the telltale Black smudge left no doubt about what he had been up we grew up with the free press in our the sports and editorial pages taking Pride of my dad would Rush to read Hal Sigurd sons column the Day after every Blue bomber he loved to compare his own analysis with was Kenny Ploen abandoned by the front line want Steve Patrick tormenting that Bernie Faloney again the editorial Page was the soul of the that was where considered opinion was delivered from on opinions that would help us form our own views or generate heated discussions around the dinner table or on the porch with Neighbours in front of the it was the reputation of the editorial Page that drove my Deci Sion to leave the Manitoba legislature in january 1992 and join the editorial Board of the Winnipeg free the Deal was sealed for me by the person who offered John a Man of great integrity and i could not pass up the Chance to work beside the free press continues to enjoy a solid National As it has done for More than a Hundred it is that reputation that attracts readers of every the editorial Board of which i was a member met prime minis Cabinet Bank special interest lobbyists and others who May have just wanted to let off some steam we would question listen to their Exchange ours with often establishing relationships that proved to be of Mutual Benefit As time passed the encounters were nearly always stimulating and the free press has been Gen Erous with me from the Day i walked through the too Gen Erous publishers and editors have indulged a passion for Middle East politics by Send ing me to the Region three including an historic journey in january 1996 to cover the first palestinian they offered me a paid leave to join 11 other mid career professionals in As part of a Commonwealth fellow ship they dispatched me to the Philippines and Thailand to Coyer the team Canada Trade Mission last these foreign sojourns were Rich experiences that few Are Lucky to encounter in a the camaraderie with col leagues was the main treat of my tenure at the free first led by John Dafoe and for the past two years by his Brian i had the pleasure of working with an immensely talented team of Tom Oleson and Gerald who took my place on the editorial and the Many columnists whom you read on this for sheer breadth of knowledge and depth of under i would put free press editorial writers up against any others and Dale for my is the finest editorial cartoonist in since in a new role As features editor of the i developed an appreciation of How order can be made out of the chaps that is the newsroom of a major metropolitan City editor John Douglas leads a group of editors and reporters who thrive under the daily pres sures of time and it is truly a daily Miracle that we get the newspaper to you every i am leaving the free press to collaborate with Duff Roblin in the preparation of his it promises to be a fascinating i will also try to earn a living by taking the experiences of the last 45 years and converting them into advice i Hope potential clients will think Worth my Friend Brian Cole says that while in at i am Welcome to offer a few thoughts on the Opin Ion pages of the paper when the spirit moves i look Forward to a continued association with the the free led by pub Lisher Rudy Redekop and editor Nicholas is enjoying Well deserved Praise for its flood and election the future is now i take my place in the most important seat of them All the Jim Arr is a Winnipeg Public affairs consultant an writes an occasional column for the free Mars fascinates infinitely9 space the final the words of the opening of the space series Star trek carry the same magic today that they did when they were first Broad cast 30 years they speak to Pur to the Hope and imagination that somewhere out there is something yet to be Dis beings to be lands to space travel is the Odyssey of 20th Century with elements of both myth and the myth is of Superior beings and civilizations stretched across the reached Only with Warp drive beyond the Speed of the reality is of landings on the Moon More than a generation ago and today journey to Mars and its surface exploration by an unmanned Dune buggy or Mars As the sending of an unmanned space probe to the red planet seems to me to be about As unromantic As you can and yet i find myself As fascinated As my 12yearold i pore Over the newspaper at our Story meetings that they get Good ask what graphics Are in the pro found belief that most of our readers Are As interested As i am i cannot really understand i have but As anyone will Tell and will get you a cup of designer space exploration has Given us the Apollo program was responsible for Dri ving the miniaturisation of com Puter parts that helped create the Modem personal Vel Cro was developed As part of the space but the tangible benefits remain if i take myself Back 3d years to the Promise of the Moon land Ings and remember Stanley Kuriks remember j believed then that by now up travel would fee Nicholas Hirst vacations to the anyone it has not turned out that the imaginings of science fic Tion largely remain just of what imagine it May seem unromantic to have an unmanned Rover Chas ing across but within the tiny Dune buggy is the stirrings of what if there really was life on or at least the possibility that there could have and we would not be alone and for what its is my main theory about Why space fascinates us so it is not just the human yearning for or for or even for it is the quest for other without that element of the reports from Rover would be Dull i read Over the Friday report in this newspaper before writing and could not believe the sheer banality of what i was Rover had with a it was a Martian a whole about virtually but because it All happened out there in a place where there have been other forms of it within the tiny Rover we the stirrings of takes on a new the science fiction of Holly Wood has beings throughout the the reality is so we on Earth have been unable to make Contact with any intelligent life beyond our planet and the evidence of the existence of lower life including the recent possible discovery of life in a fragment believed to have come from is tenuous at but it seems that Given the we would like to discover other beings at other forms of the discovery of intelligent life would be both reassuring and reassuring because it would demonstrate that we Are not a terrifying because it would open up the possibility of conflict of a Type very imagine but totally but i believe it is neither the reassuring or terrifying aspect of discovering of e elsewhere that fascinates it is the Meta physical aspects of such a Dis covery that fire our what would life on other ets mean to our religious tenets if there is intelligent does the intelligent life believe in a god if they is the god our god and if what does that mean what would it mean if we Are alone if god ated the heavens and the Why did he just create us the fascination of space travel whether manned or unmanned is a fascination with the mystery of creation we May understand the Eon position of rocks on but so far it seems that White space May be the final that fron tier is infinite in reality and in our by mate Hirst is of the free i ;