Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 1, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Frek june 2000 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights delusional dealings the delusional behaviour sometimes Dis played by City councillors could be dismissed As pathetic were it not so potentially destructive of Public the Treasury and the reputation of the an audit of the cites real estate function obtained by the free press is a Case in the launched As a result of issues arising from certain real estate makes Clear that some councillors on the property and development committee in the past two years apparently decided they were no longer elected policy were Mas ters of one of the largest real estate conglomerates in Manitoba the City of Winnipeg and its properties Worth at least Bil it is sad to contemplate what human frailty might induce City councillors to believe they Are some How better qualified to perform hands on management of such an Empire than the professionals they pay for such but the result is the result is the audit makes Clear that in one transaction As much As million might have been foolishly spent to at a Cost of a 15 year lease on a building with an assessed value of in it was Learned after the fact that City furniture did not fit the building and was replaced at a Cost of the cannot firmly conclude that the Money was foolishly spent because there were no criteria developed by councillors by which to make such a it was simply and it was done Over the objections of the cites professional prop erty is not the end of the City Council amateurs made numerous ethical and professional breaches in concluding third party confidentiality was not always Hon the tendering system was the Pur pose of sales and acquisitions was unclear As were the reports were ordered up to fulfil Politi Cal rather than financial and decisions were taken on the basis of incomplete in All the meanings of the the audit found that political mismanagement of real estate issues was so profound that in some instances Industry took its business three years in the Wake of the million assessment Boondoggle and the cuff report on City Council declared its intention to keep management and policy issues it even went so far As to rename its committee As policy committees to emphasize its resolve to keep its hands off management and to keep them City Council cannot be trusted to show the self discipline that and must Institute professional and ethical guidelines to pre serve the integrity of the civil service and the City mayor Glen Murray has complained in the past that councillors Are too involved in prop erty dealing directly with developers rather than allowing civil servants to provide the Buffer that protects the interests and reputations of All the mayor has now he must do something about or seek help from perhaps Premier Gary who puzzling vendetta the department of National As though determined to make a Martyr of Mike has revived its prosecution of the airman who refused anthrax defence minister Art Eggle ton would have done better to let the matter National defence Headquarters feared wide spread Mutiny in the ranks after it Learned that then a serving had refused vaccination during 1998 service in the persian while the armed forces treated such refusals As minor breaches of discipline entailing minor the Canadian forces saw in killings refusal a dangerous Challenge to the principle of a court martial was evidence at his court martial showed that the Batch of vaccine was dangerous to patients and perhaps the judge stopped the prose ruling that the forces could not justify com Pelling Kipling to accept vaccination in those this ruling preserved the principle that Legal orders must be obeyed and it also provided a Way of ending the awkward prosecution the forces had the director of military prosecutions this week announced an Appeal of that at the the prosecution will have to argue that the trial judge was that the forces should compel an airman to accept vaccination with a dangerous sub stance of no clinical value a difficult Case to the Case will be doubly hard to make in the Wake of the Matt Stopford ramp investigators have identified the soldiers who poisoned the for Mer warrant officer during service in Croatia because they did not like his leadership the perpetrators will be the forces will not prosecute prisoners but will throw everything Treyve got against the Man who refused now that the prosecutors have raised the stakes in the Kipling a loss on Appeal might Start to do real damage to the Structure of obedience in the armed that would be a heavy to pay for this puzzling vendetta against catapult to Fame books editor Morley Walker used to leave bad women books on my desk frequently when our desks were closer together in the i was never sure whether titles like 101 lies men Tell women and Why women believe them were meant to be or just but perhaps Stella Young could have done with one of those Shes the 44yearold English woman persuaded by her allowed her self on monday to be hurled 120 feet through the air from a medieval style human catapult to land in a safety Boyfriend Richard and David a thrill seeking pal and business built the contraption As a Commer Cial venture and have already successfully hurled themselves through the its great fun one might imagine Wicks in an Effort to encourage his who was described As shaking and petrified before the youll love the at a Speed of about 50 Miles per went smoothly the problem was that is Young bounced out of the safety and landed painfully on the she shattered her Pelvis and has spent the last couple of Days in As the times of London said in a Story the pain of being chucked by your Boyfriend few women can have risked so much to share their boyfriends Stella Young paid a heavy Shes expected to make a full but Wicks told the times that she has made it quite Clear she wont be doing it jokes aside about being its unfair to suggest that is the first woman to try the was coerced into this unfortunate she is said to be a determined Type who met Wicks seven years ago while bungee since the two have shared a Pas Sion for Rock surfing and Motorc by All it seems she knew the kind of risks she was taking when she donned her helmet and protective body although the outcome was certainly regret is Young and no strangers to daring Are members of a club devoted to these kinds of Many people who Are involved in Whitewater Mountain climbing or other thrilling pursuits have taken to calling their adventures which can also be both organized and competitive extreme but there Are no euphemisms forms Youngs and Wickss which straightforwardly Calls itself the dangerous sports this is the organization said to have popularized bungee jumping some years it might be said that you know what you could be in for when filling out the member ship card for a club with dangerous in its that it exists at All is consid ering that we live in a society preoccupied with and increasingly More not Long kids never wore helmets while Bike but now there de at one cars did not come with we Are required by Law to fasten for our own consumer products Are to be tested rigorously and removed from the Market if there found to be potentially we expect Public utilities and health Protection officials to test and keep our water Supply and food researchers and healthcare practitioners make investments in preventative children Are taught to be to keep themselves Safe from despite All the care and attention that is paid to there Are inescapable risks to daily there is always an Accident Lurk ing around the an undiagnosed prob a mistake to be As the Community of Walkerton has so tragically not even Public safety measures Are for adrenaline junkies and these risks of Day today modern life Are not enough to keep the heart in the dark danger was a person took on great risk by merely leaving the confines of the Village Walls to travel to another one needs powered Para stunt epochal Lenges and Rock or a human once in the is a hard thing to despite the terror and guilt he says he Felt at watching is Young Wicks has not said he will abandon his which Cost British pounds to build and is intended to be a commercial pro open to paying he and aitkenhead told the British press they Are convinced their creation is absolutely but there is room for a key improvement what we need is a bigger Wicks Linda Rosborough is a free press editorial her column appears on Perus fake election the following editorial appeared in yester Days los Angeles times peruvian president Alberto with the help of the states Security staged an electoral farce sunday that gave him an unprecedented third term and his country the Promise of continued Alejandro a Stanford trained economist who forced a Runoff with Fujimori in withdrew from the second he was convinced that sundays Runoff would not be and he was his fears were shared by including Eduardo head of the organization of american states monitoring who left Peru Friday Declar ing himself deceived and disappointed with the Way the voting was Fujimori office moved ahead with the elec Tion without participation of Independent Domestic and International even the president got Only slightly More than half the votes the rest of the and those who face a Fine because they did not will present Fujimori with a shaky platform from which to the United Costa Rica and Argentina already have condemned his election Washington should go further and review its policies toward Peru in International lending organizations and bilateral military the state department declared the election not no president emerging from such a flawed process can claim but Fujimori knows that the current political instability throughout the andean republics makes it hard for the United states to Cut Back on regional including military assistance to while the United states and Perus neigh Bours had no direct stake in the they have a significant role to play in continuing to press for political Reform in democracy does not require a regular turnover in but it does demand a fair that was not the Case last sunday in mergers will make flight even worse by Walter Boyne there is something oddly disconcerting that a company whose customers Are generally pleased with its is facing breakup at the same time that United airlines and companies generally hated by their May be allowed to even this merger almost inevitably will trigger a series of similar deals that will leave chaos in their for the last few will be desperation marriages companies looking for a critical mass rather than for a the discomfort level increases when one real izes that left could in its worst monopolistic frenzy inflict no More harm on its customers than screens that freeze or files that in a Gigantic having in another decade stomped out its could further reduce not Only the already minimal space Between the seats but the time mechanics get to spend on safety the Stark image of the stripped Stabilizer Jack screw and the poignant last words 31 of the Alaska airlines Crew underline the hazards of Over working airline which is now merely pure would descend to a level of trailways us depravity never seen West of there Are some present lower limits that May not be having recently been served a breakfast by United that consisted of a moulding but nuked Tortilla and what surely must have been powdered eggs from the second world War it is difficult to imagine that even a Meg airline of the future will be Able to serve worse food than is now the Hub which Stamps out airline ser vice to Many smaller is an unavoidable torture that forces passengers to walk extra Miles and spend Many More hours in just so that All the aircraft seats can be filled on every the ticket pricing system seems capricious but is actually just opportunistically extortion allowing the airline to Force up the Price according to its passenger and beyond the travellers frustration with getting a Middle losing his Luggage or being bumped is the palpable con Cern about airline the frequent flier knows that airline safety depends upon Ade quate and rigorous and maintenance people Are among the first to go when the inevitable staff cutbacks take the difficulty is that it is As easy for an airline Leader who travels Only first class to whittle away at passenger Comfort As it is to reduce employee if he looks Only at the Bottom at the interest of the shareholders Over All he is rewarded with millions for the evil he airways chairman Stephen Wolf will see his personal Fortune of an estimated million increased by another Mil lion if the proposed merger goes is this a Call for deregulation but Only to the degree that regulations on the standards of Comfort and safety be imposed across the Board of All if every airline were required to guarantee a reasonably Comfort Able with sufficient room and and a palatable Competition would not suffer a for they would All have to do More if every airline were required to raise its standards of and to Bear the expense of the necessary inspection Competition would not prices might go up a bit but not in the an airline trip would be transformed from its present medieval torture once an exhilarating Walter Boyne is a retired air Force colonel and a former director of the National air and space from Washington Post news Winnipeg free press press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 121 to 1w 2000 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain frito a r2x pm 6977000 a nun Tor Sta my Lotta pit Cwill Rudy email Patrick Flynn Deputy editor ;