Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 20, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Sun i y by sunday free press Winnipeg. July 20. 1997forum editorial editor. Brian Cole / 697-7044 a waiting for the trickle Down every Day in every Way its getting better and better. You be never had it so Good. Thank whatever gods there be that you Are a Canadian because its a wonderful world at least in this Little Corner of it where life a bowl of cherries is getting bigger and bigger with each passing Day. We Are getting this kind of message a lot these Days. The Economy is booming and the forecast is that it will continue to Boom. Even the most pessimistic forecast for economic growth from the Lemon sucking conference Board of Canada is pretty Rosy a 3.1 per cent in 1997 and 2.8 per cent in 1996. Most predictions Range around 3.5 per cent while the Pollyanna go even higher. We Are no longer stalked by the Demon of the deficit. That monster has been exorcised and we Are confronted with the More pleasant problem of what to with the dividend that our frugality is starting to pay. Should we Cut taxes put the Cash into improved social programs pay Down the debt or try for a bit of All three As the Economy booms the unemployment rate which has been stuck at Well Over nine per cent May be beginning to drop. In june it went Down to 9.1 per cent from 9.5 per cent in May hopefully the beginning of a trend. The factories Are humming exports Are up fortunes Are being made on the Stock markets and confident Consumers As economists like to think of the Ordinary Folk Are preparing to spend Money like Drunken sailors. In Short almost All the indicators Are Good and to confirm them we have the United nations telling us that Canada is the Best country in the world to live the fourth year in a Row that the in has put us at the top of the Heap. Some economists argue that this Good Fortune is not just a Blip in the line not just a Bubble that will burst dropping us Back into a penurious normality but a Harbinger of things to come. So the system certainly appears to be working and that is Good news. But if it is working Why does life in general for most canadians seem to be getting meaner if the world is so wonderful Why Arentt things getting any better Why do people feel like they Are outside the Bubble look ing in nor is it just a matter of there Are indicators Here too. If the consumer is confident it is not because he has More Money. The profits of work have not kept Pace with the profits that the work generates for employers. The average family income in 1995 was $44,286, or five per cent less than it was in 1989. Nor can the consumer As worker have much Confidence in the future of his employment. Job Security the reasonable Assurance that a Job today might be a Job for life is a rare thing now. Large companies Lay off thousands of workers a Bell Canada announced last week plans to Lay off 2,200 employees in addition to the 10,000 it has already let go a to Cut costs and improve profit. The Gap Between the richest and the poorest widens every year and even the income Divide Between employee and employer grows deeper. The annual increase in most workers wages is imperceptible but corporate profits Are leaping ahead. The leaders of Large corporations Are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and sometimes bonuses so Large that they could provide a decent living for the families of four or five or even More of the workers their companies have Laid off. The work week is getting longer rather than Shorter with overtime a often unpaid overtime a becoming the Norm. People work two or three jobs because they cannot find one that will give them a living. Health care deteriorates and higher education becomes increasingly unaffordable for the children of working families. Life is Good at the top of the Heap but at the Bottom of Canadas pile is a growing hopelessness. The unemployed and the unemployable have their benefits Cut the lines at the soup kitchens grow longer still a Winnipeg Harvest feeds 16,000 households a month. For these people even the currency of dreams has been debased. According to these indicators if the system is working it is Good news for Only a few. Life should not get meaner for most people when everything is working As it should but there is a kind of economic darwinism at work Here the belief that the fit will Prosper As they deserve to and the rest will fall off into the Drudgery that they were destined for. That is not a society that is a Jungle. In a society everyone is a stakeholder even the unemployable and should Benefit to some degree in the Good times As they suffer in the bad. That is How canadians like to think their society works. Apparently it is not right now but it is in everyone a interest to see that it does. Life can to remain very Good for Long at the top of the Heap a or even in the Middle a when it rests on a wide foundation of hopelessness and despair. Last hominid left standing 1 i the More we look at human i evolution the More it consists a of species that got isolated and then died out a said or. Rob Foley of Cambridge University a department of biological anthropology Only two months ago. But he could not have foreseen How soon that remark would be proved right. Recently in London a team from Munich University led by finnish born anthropologist Svante Paabo revealed a remarkable piece of research showing that modern human beings a Homo Sapiens a Are almost certainly a new species that first appeared in Africa within the past 200,000 years and began migrating out of Africa no More than 100,000 years ago. For the past decade geneticists have assumed that Homo Sapiens originated in Africa but Only spread into the rest of the world quite recently. The evidence scots japanese and tamils live 10,000 Kilometres apart but they Are closer genetically than some african groups who live Only a few Hundred Kilometres apart. Linguists trying to reconstruct the a Mother tongues of living languages also suspected an african origin. Like the geneticists they have a kind of historical clock spoken language in pre literate groups mutates at a predictable rate so they know How Long it takes for two isolated groups speak Gwynne Dyer ing the same language to develop mutually incomprehensible dialects. Its about 1,500 years. The boldest linguists now tentatively believe that the a Mother Tongue of All human languages was spoken Between 90,000 and 110,000 years ago. Moreover they suspect that it was closer to present Day african languages than to the new language families of the great out migration. It lines up with the genetic evidence a but linguists Are not anthropologists either. What tied the anthropologists in knots was the fact that various species of hominids a creatures clearly closer to human beings than to apes a were already living outside Africa Long before Homo Sapiens emerged. Nobody disputes an african origin for our most Distant ancestors but Homo rectus a tool using big brained hominid who walked upright was All Over Europe and Asia by a Little less than one million years ago. The neanderthals of Europe for example were heavier than most modern humans with bigger though not necessarily cleverer brains. Recent archaeological work at Schoninger in Germany has unearthed 400,000-year-old throwing Spears longer than a Man is tall Clear evidence of big game Hunting. And neanderthal children have been found buried with toys and trinkets. Nothing As old and sophisticated has been found in Africa yet and Many anthropologists concluded that modern Homo Sapiens evolved in Europe and Asia from various branches of Homo rectus. So what has finally killed this theory off Dan testing. Early this year a team from Munich University managed to extract some genetic material from the Bones of the original neanderthal Man discovered in 1856 in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf. It turned out that the neanderthals could not be the ancestors of modern humans while the maximum genetic variation for the entire human race along one length of Dan was eight mutations the same strand of neanderthal Dan had 27 differences. In other words they were Clever they were often kind to one another but they were not us. We probably even inter Breed. We human beings All come from Africa from a new species that diverged from african Homo rectus ancestors Only a couple of Hundred thousand years ago. After we left Africa we lived Side by Side with the neanderthal heirs of Homo rectus in Europe for up to ten millennia Between 40,000 and 30,000 by. The same thing probably happened in Asia Given last years evidence that Java Man the South East asian equivalent to the neanderthals was still alive 30,000 years ago. But wherever we showed up they eventually became extinct a and knowing human beings one suspects that they had some help. In evolutionary terms As kenyan anthropologist Maeve Leakey puts it Homo Sapiens is Only a one Twig on a Bushy but 100,000 years after we came out of Africa we Are the Only hominids left standing. Gwynne Dyer is a London based Independent journalist and historian. His column appears sundays. What was said the following editorial appeared in los Angeles times july 18,1997 the assassination of mexican journalist Benjamin Flores Gonzalez a crusader against the drug Trade and the horrors it has brought to Mexico ranks at the Pinnacle of cowardice in these troubled times. The mexican government should Muster All available resources to bring the killer of the 29-year-old editor to Justice. Flores Gonzalez owned and ran la Prensa a Small newspaper in the town of san Luis Rio Colorado across the Border from Yuma Ariz. He had a deserved reputation for aggressive coverage of the Cross Border drug Trade and was the target of frequent threats. Last May he published a major expose on the disappearance of half a ton of confiscated cocaine that was stored at the Federal judicial police Headquarters in san Luis an act of courageous dangerous journalism. Last tuesday Flores Gonzalez parked his pickup truck outside the newspaper office and a car pulled up behind him. A gunman carrying an automatic Rifle jumped out and fired an entire clip of bullets into the editor then returned to his car for a. 22 calibre pistol and fired three More shots into Flores Gonzalez a head. The killing came at a hard time for mexican journalists. The country is going through a transformation in customs economics and politics. Newspapers Are taking forthright stands they might not have adopted a few years ago. Reporters fear rightfully that they might become targets for assassins. Media reports on the drug Trade and its connections with some in government have heightened the tension. Journalists know the risks and increasingly in a changing Mexico they Are accepting them. The mexican government is responsible for the safety of Al its citizens including journalists. It should spare nothing in the Pursuit of the killer of Benjamin Flores Gonzalez. Eaton s bailout is poor policy whenever i write about folks on welfare my phone begins to ring. A Why done to they get off their Butts and find a Job a the first caller Bellows. A Why should my tax dollars pay for them to sit at Home and have kids a the next Reader asks. There a Little sympathy in taxpayer land for the tangled web of misfortune that forces some individuals onto welfare Rolls. But open the Public purse to bail out a failing business and there a hardly a Peep of protest. The latest example of corporate welfare is our City councils questionable Deal to save the downtown Eaton a Ruth Teichroeb store. The executive policy committee decided last week to approve a plan that would see Winnipeg Era a giving Eaton a a handout to the tune of $775,000 annually a and possible More a for the next three years. The province is supposed to kick in the same amount although that part of the Deal Hasni to been finalized. Provincial dollars Means digging into the wallets of Many of the same taxpayers. The owners of Eaton place would cough up $1.5 million annually. I can get As sentimental As the next person about the nine Storey red Brick landmark. Eaton a has always been there. Meeting at the Timothy Eaton statue on the stores main floor is As much a part of most Winni Eggers history As Erogies for supper. But do i shop there any More hardly Ever. Like most Consumers i end up at a shopping mall where there a free parking. Eaton a is a major Anchor in a downtown that has been in decline for years. Losing it would be a blow to Eaton place and who knows what the Impact would be on the rest of Portage Avenue. Some City councillors have hastily concluded that we therefore have no Choice in the matter pour millions into saving one department store or watch the downtown die. That sounds More like blackmail than Good sense to me. City councillor John Angus claims that rescuing Eaton a is the first step in revitalizing the downtown. A this will be seen As a turning Point a Angus said last week. It May also be seen As desperation. And what entrepreneur in his or her right mind climbs on a sinking ship the hard truth is that the same arguments were made a decade ago when Portage place was built. It was touted As the Saviour of the downtown shopping District. We poured millions of tax dollars into it. But saunter from Portage place to Portage Avenue and main Street today and you la pass at least As Many boarded up buildings and vacancy signs As there were Back then. Blowing More Money into resuscitating Eaton a Isnit going to fix the deteriorating downtown. We should have Learned that by now. The Only solution is to turn the downtown into a place people actually want to shop meet their friends and live. What a needed is creativity not knee Jerk panic. Winni Eggers already pay the highest property taxes in the country while enduring pothole Ridden streets and backups from an ancient sewer system. We can to afford to keep All of our kiddie wading pools open or offer children one free Day a week at the Assiniboine Park zoo. We be slashed the Book budget at the Public Library and reduced Library hours. And our taxes still go up. What is wrong with this picture then there was the jets fiasco last year when the City spent millions trying to convince a hockey team not to abandon us. Jets boosters predicted our battered self image would never recover from this calamity. For some reason when faced with a crisis civic politicians have developed an unhealthy habit of throwing Money at the problem before we be asked prudent questions. Anyone who does no to fall in line is painted As a naysayer at Best and a civic traitor at worst. There a nothing wrong with investing Public dollars in carefully considered economically viable projects that will bring tangible benefits to Winni Eggers. But resuscitating a financially troubled department store because we done to have the imagination to come up with a better idea does no to fit that profile. Instead it leaves the uncomfortable feeling that our pockets have been picked again. Ruth Teichroeb covers social affairs for the free press ;