Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 18, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A15 Winn pfc sep Timber 2000 take Back control Over what movies show kids by Jane Eisner the Federal report issued last week showing How the entertainment Industry deliberately targets Young children when marketing violent music and video games should come As no just spend half an hour if you can stand it watching to aimed at Chil and youll see All manner of Fly ing body extraterrestrial horrors and other nightmarish if these frightening images Arent part of the there in promotions for movies and videos splattered throughout what once was quaintly called the family viewing the Industry leaders didst have the guts to show up at a Senate hearing on the perhaps the Prospect of defending the indefensible has left them repeated images of gratuitous sex and valueless behaviour beamed onto screens big and adversely affect children and further coarsen the that just com Mon its Why we intuitively try to shield children from gruesome scenes because their ability to process that kind of information is not As seasoned As an frightening thirty second promotions of particularly violent scenes May even be More harmful than the full length because they Lack context and resold and yet it is frightening to discover today what Doest frighten our they have become inured to so much visual and psychological violence that their thresholds Are dangerously As this latest report by the Federal Trade commission the Industry is not to be slap an r rating on a then deliberately Market it to designate a video game for mature then characterize the primary audience As males the most irresponsible practice of the Industry is in marketing and Adver Peggy the advocate for Quality television for told that Industry is aided and abetted by Many parents who Are unwilling or unable to exercise sensible controls on what their children example several recent studies have shown that about 65 per cent of american kids have a television in their the data indicate that children who can watch television from the Comfort of their own Beds tend to watch programs without parental As a Fivey Earold might say warning labels and to ratings Are worthless if parents dont use them to regulate what their children hear and what Normal adolescent is going to turn off Dawson Creek voluntary so while theres momentary satisfaction in railing at bad Holly Wood for sneaking violence into the the fact is that Many parents Are once Treyve bought the meal and allowed it to be its a Little late to complain about the Disney announcement that it would ban rated movie ads before 9 on the Abc network is a baby step in the right the other networks Are equiv Cating Over whether the demo graphics of their programming War rant such a they seem to forget that their right to Rake in Cash from lucrative movie ads is not unfettered after the Public owns the respect and the Public ought to demand that rated material be removed from g rated shows arid that respect for family viewing times be the Public also ought to demand that the ratings systems now used by the Industry be recalibrate to match real world have you seen what passes for grated to shows lately standards of taste and decency should be not loosened beyond for that the to ratings sys tem should be taken away from that it has lost All credibility to police the Federal communications commission probe of the amount of sex and violence on television ought to Lead to movie ratings Are administered by a panel of Anonymous surely they could exercise More taste and Dis they hold the Power to shape the cultural messages and images that bombard our children much More is at stake Here than dollars and Jane Eisner is a columnist for the Philadelphia throwing Money at medicare wont end Long waiting lists throwing Money at medicare has no Impact on waiting research by Martin director of health policy research at the Fraser an Vancouver based Public policy research has by Martin Zelder these everybody seems to know How to fix the Canad an health system just increase government health assent to this proposition comes from 83 per cent of the Public according to poll Ster Angus from the premiers and from the Federal Federal enthusiasm for enhanced spending is Only tempered by an accompanying insistence on this apparent uni Versal truth that medicare is under funded is not supported by the new study this evidence comes from a new Fraser Institute study in which i examined whether increased govern ment health spending reduces waiting the study examines the period linking together Fraser Institute waiting time data with Cana Dian Institute for health information health spending measures for each the Central finding of this statistical analysis is that provinces that spend More per person adjusted for health Cost inflation have no Shorter waiting times than those that spend at the same spending More does not lengthen waiting times either spending and waiting Sim this analysis accounted for other factors that differed among such As the percentage of elderly in the per capita disposable the political party in and the fre Quency of health sector other important results can be summarized in the following six Points i among the various types of health Only spending on drugs reduces waiting i increased per capita spending Actu ally increases waiting times for med ical radiation and cardiovascular while having no effect on orthopaedic surgery wait ing i holding Overall spending shifting spending away from All other areas and into drugs would reduce waiting i higher per capita spending has no Impact on the broadest measure of health specialists total ser As Well As no effect on total consultations and visits with spending on drugs reduces waiting analysis i provinces with higher spending have lower rates of total procedures and major As Well As lower rates of cardiovascular surgeries and radiology i drugs spending which reduces Overall waiting time Only receives one cent of each additional Dollar of while capital spending which increases the rate of total procedures Only receives two cents of each new spending Dollar the bulk of new spending goes to hospitals 29 per other 25 per and other institutions 23 per areas which do not reduce waiting or increase the frequency of the implication of these statistical taken As a is a grim one the current system is grossly in that increased for the most neither reduces waiting time nor increases the number of procedures fur the two areas in which spending does seem to drugs and Are largely neglected by the this disconnection Between spend ing and desirable outcomes clearly refutes the claim that the woes of the Canadian medical system would be repaired if Only spending were the hypothesis that the data does support is that the system should be the absence of desirable effects from spending increases implies that incentives within the current system Are distorted Money does not go where it is valuable to and providers and users Are not financially rewarded for making socially beneficial in the absence of meaningful reforms such As user medical savings the separation of the purchaser from the allowing contracts with and the More general operation of for profit Hospi and the end of governmental collective bargaining with doctors affecting the manner in which spend ing decisions Are the study reveals that the expectations of Cana Dian patients and taxpayers should be these of Are not those advocated by prime minister Jean Chretien and Federal health minister Allan who favour enlarging the scope of medicare by adding coverage for Home care and failed legacy Given the current one should not expect that increased spending will shorten waiting times or even expand the number of proce dures it is difficult to imagine that the current system is one worthy of Pride or Only a renunciation of the failed legacy of medicare will make it the Complete study is available at hts Cefi Ilni the free press welcomes letters from they must include the authors address and Telephone Iii ii 1c Ell Iii letters May be letters to the 1355 Mountain r2x fax email . Petrol protest Over misspent taxes i am a former resident of i read the free press on the internet everyday during my lunch break at work As i enjoy keeping in touch with i was Reading the Story on the fuel crisis in Europe today and cannot help but comment on the i think that you failed to mention a very pertinent Point about How we the British Are feeling about the there is no petrol for Sale at most stations throughout England most people Are in Complete support of the i would gladly walk or Cycle to work for months in support of the if need the facts Are it int open that is the cause of the Price increase of fuel in it is the labour government and Tony a litre of petrol costs at an Exchange rate of approximately you do the i am sure you can identify with the outrage at pay ing almost a litre for petrol the government claims that the Money is needed for Road develop ment and we pay a year in Road taxes for that same the government claims billion annually off the British Public for fuel tax alone and last year Only million was used for the intended we Are questioning where the Money has gone Elizabeth Holland England dont oversimplify history i read with interest Gerald floods discussion of Paul Johnsons intellectuals such valuable while i would agree that we divorce the ideas of a philosopher from their experiences and the con text in which they we should also not oversimplify history by describing causal links Between per ideas and events that Are tenuous at to As flood the entire history of social engineering to Rousseau ego or to blame Marx As somehow being the brains behind the legacy of soviet and chinese communism ignores Why their ideas took hold and How those ideas were manipulated Over time to serve certain its often said that history is doomed to repeat itself lets not have to relive its most brutal lessons by glossing Over How they came to Richard Lennon let computer spell for you Day after As i read the free i have a recurring urge to write to complain about the dismal Quality of the writing therein and the editing i had to write to you after Reading Gerald floods recent column such valuable 13 about the Book that he recently read i his vacation rather than his i have never seen so Many words misspelled or misused in such a Brief the evils of particularly ironic was the following passage his scholarship was if your writers cannot could they not at least make use of their computer spellchecking programs Ted Clarke Winnipeg let terminally ill choose dignified death i have just read the article regarding the study of terminally ill cancer patients and their feelings towards the results interested me greatly because i lost both parents to my father died when i was Only 19 and my Mother passed away Only four years i watched my a ath Large Man waste away to a Mere Shadow of the last months of his life were torturous on him and if assisted suicide would have been option All those years he would never have he wanted no no tubes or just the Comfort of his own it was ironic when Many years later my Mother also became Termi Nally after watching my she made the Choice for no treatments and also decided she didst want the Hospital tubes or i cared for her at my Home until her i cant help but think that we treat our pets better than our loved when a family pet is suffering and there is no Hope for survival we do the humane thing and have the pet Eutha Why do we expect our Termi Nally ill loved ones to endure pain and suffering that is needless Many would argue that the medical staff can provide pain medications Strong enough to allow nature to run its but Why can anyone say for certain that a drug induced coma is pain free i say let the family and friends have their let it be the patients decision to die with dig not in a drug induced coma until their i would Hope that the results of this study convince the Powers that be to examine the options of assisted Sui cide in terminally ill Linda Rock Winnipeg doonesbury by Garr Trudeau what pm i think you have Wun Lepto Serour out to pieces a major ;