Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 76, Ed. 1 Monday, March 30, 1992 Page: 2 of 32
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A
X
A-2—THE NEWS-TELEGRAM, Sulphur Springs, Tsxas, Monday, March 30,1992
The final stages
are the most expensive
Just how clean can we make America in today’s society?
It was not the major theme of his talk Wednesday night in
Commerce, but former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm raised
a question that must be faced eventually by all of this nation
if we are to avoid a crushing economic weight and discord
among the populace: How clean can we afford to make the
environment?
The question has wide-ranging applications in other
venues, as well. For example, just how healthy can we
afford to make our citizens?
Gov. Lamm, speaking at the Memorial Dinner of the annu-
al Sam Rayburn Public Affairs Symposium on the East
Texas State University campus, urged discovery of a middle
ground between hysteria and apathy in approaching the state
of our environment. To paraphrase his point, the world can
be let go to where it is safe for none of the people none of
the time; theoretically it might be made safe for all of the
people all of the time; or more realistically it can be made
safe for most of the people most of the time.
There is great pressure from some environmentalists andc
scientists to opt for the “all-all” sequence. But Gov. Lamm
described “zero risk” as a fiscal blade hole, i.e., it might take
thousands of dollars to remove 80 percent of the risks, mil-
lions of dollars to remove the next 19 percent, and perhaps
billions of dollars to eliminate the final one percent. And
with each passing day the ability is improved to detect ever-
smaller insults to the environment.
Much the same has happened in the field of medicine ...
it’s one of the reasons medical care delivery becomes so
expensive. New treatments and medicines are identified
almost daily and — given enough funds — the lives of mil-
lions of people can be extended. The cost for saving the last
dozen or so, though, can be astronomical.
Every life is valuable, to be sure. But is it to society’s ben-
efit to spend millions on the most difficult case, or could
those millions be better spent helping thousands of people
survive the basics?
How clean can we afford to make the earth? How well can
we afford to make its people? These are difficult questions
that likely will prove troublesome in the years to come.
The Public Speaks.
-fp'- A
Our local hospital policy leaves
much to be desired.....the collection
problem in going to kill the goose
that laid the golden egg. The taxpay-
ers can’t stand any more of these bad
debts. Something needs to be done
about this immediately.
J.C. Sulphur Springs.
I’m calling in regard to Hwy. 19
and Main Street... the changing of
the stop signs. I'm afraid that there
has been a grave error in somebody’s
thinking. There is just too much open
traffic and too many people thinking
that the stop signs still need to be
there. I saw two near accidents one
morning and I was in one of them. I
think somebody should do some
changing on that
No Initials
Why does the Sheriff have to go
before the Judge and Commissioner’s
court every time there is a slight
change in has personnel? We the peo-
ple elected the Sheriff to that office
for four years. He has the budget to
run the jail on and he is bead over the
jail and whom he hires, fires, pro-
motes or demotes. He is elected to
that position. Can anyone tell me
now why he needs to go before the
Commissioners Court everytime
there is the slightest change (time
expired).
Yes, on the box the county has
bought to count the voles. Seems that
the dollars spent on that was wasted
money. All it did was confuse and
goof up the whole election. I wish
that somehow or other they would
figure out a way to return that thing,
take the $30,000 dollars and put it to
good use. There is plenty of things
here in the county that the money
could he used far. We're not so uppi-
ty-up that we can’t hand count those
voles. I for one would be glad to help
count them and a lot of others would
too.
P4.
Does anyone else feel the way I do
about food stamps? I buy the less
expensive items, but in the checkout
line the largest baskets and the more
expensive foods are being bought
with food stamps Now according the
the Dallas Morning News our
government officials are raving about
a new plan to give Credit Cards to
welfare recipients to remove the
stigma. How ridiculous. The new
plan might save money, but why not
do away with stamps and vouchers
entirely and open a large warehouse
where the poor or the lazy could be
issued the staple foods necessary for
survival. I’m tired of saving to be
able to support them If our elected
officials don’t listen to us. let's vote
them out of offict
More Public Speaks
coming Tuesday
If you have a
comment or idea
call
885-8578
The Opinion Page
Ours, Yours, Theirs
Demogogues need a ticket
I would like to make a quick com-
ment in regard to the person who
called in wanting to know why the
ambulances have to blow their horns
or sirens in the middle of the night
when there is not a car on the road.
In case they are wondering, there are
state laws that EMS personnel, fire
personnel and law enforcement have
to abide by and this is one that is a
State Law.
B.H.
Dear Editor, you’ve named every
reason why voters do not vote except
the real reason. The reason: why
vote, they are all crooks, so why vote
for a crook? Vote one out, vote
another one in. This is voter apathy,
especially state and federal.
B.T., Sulphur Springs.
I just read the Sulphur Springs
newspaper where land commissioner
Gary Morrow had been using tax-
payers' offices, phones and airplanes
to promote Gov. Clinton's bid for the
presidency. I’m wondering if (his
isn't against the law. It seems to me
that if state employees were going
around, going for President Bush it
would probably be against the law.
I’m wondering why if it is for Bill
Clinton, it’s not against the law?
Could someone please explain this?
R.M., Sulphur Springs
I drive the service road every day
and for several years I’ve often won-
dered why people have the right-of-
way to turn left onto the interstate.
That is the most ridiculous thing; I've
never been able to understand why
that was implemented. It makes no
sense to be in a fifty mile hour zone
and have to yield to a person turning
left that wants to enter the interstate.
I've asked several people and I’ve
never really gotten a sensible answer
for the purpose of this. It hinders the
traffic flow instead of improving it
There’s so many disadvantages to it I
can't even begin to list them now and
I've yet to been able to come up with
one advantage for it and this isn’t
uniform throughout the interstate sys-
tem. I just don't know why we have
ft. This is... (Time expired)
(Conflict between entering and
exiting interstate traffic and oncom-
ing service road traffic in Sulphur
Springs is primarily the result of two-
way traffic on the service roads here.
Typically. Interstate service roads are
one-way and, in fact, the highway
department would like service roads
through Sulphur Springs to be one-
way. Ed.)
■ Here alt two clear fron-
trunners capable of form-
ing a third-party approach:
Jerry Brown and Newt
Gingrich.
The smart money is spreading the
word and it’s got the activists all
a’twitter — never has the time been
so ripe for a third-party candidate for
president. Why, even the
Demagogues may field their own
slate. They’ve already got two clear
frontrunners:
Jerry Brown and Newt Gingrich.
Brown and Gingrich — in their
own special ways, they have demon-
strated irrefutable qualification and
unabashed inclination to demagogue
with their every twirl in the television
spotlight.
Gingrich and Brown — they are
very bright, very creative, very ambi-
tious, and very similar in method and
madness in their perpetual, panicky
pursuit of political gain, real or per-
ceived. No principle seems too dear,
no accusation too irresponsible, when
Brown and Gingrich are in attack
mode, which is to say, when they are
awake.
Consider Jerry Brown. This is one
of the most frustrating people in pol-
itics, because he has indeed shown
flashes of caring, commitment, inno-
vation and leadership that could have
made him just what we desperately
need today. But he can’t bring him-
self to sit still for that kind of poli-
ticking. He prefers instead the poli-
tics of self-promotion, sans principle.
Most recently, we saw Brown —
who always claimed to be big on
feminist issues and the rights of
working women — launch an unfair
attack on Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton
because his wife, Hillary, a nationally
renowned lawyer, is a member of
Arkansas’ leading firm, which for
decades did business with the state.
In a debate, Brown accused Clinton
of “corruption” and “funneling mon-
ey to his wife’s law firm,” saying his
info came from Ralph Nader, who
called and read him a Washington
Post article. But the Post story didn’t
cite one instance where Clinton
directed business to the firm; it said
Martin
Schram
the issue of Clinton’s job and his
wife's career were aired in past cam-
paigns; also, Hillary Clinton has long
declined her share of fees her firm
earned from the state.
To understand Brown’s dema-
goguery, follow the bouncing ball of
his career: (1) as California governor,
he benefited grandly from special-
interest campaign moftey; (2) in his
first presidential campaign, in 1976,
Brown was funded by the labor
union/special interest effort to stop
Jimmy Carter; (3) in his latest post,
California Democratic Party chair-
man, Brown was a champion raiser
of special-interest money; but (4)
nowadays, Brown accuses his
Democratic opponents of being tools
of a “corrupt” system because they
get special-interest money.
Now consider the video-age dem-
agoguery of Newt Gingrich.
We saw Gingrich pitch his partisan
tantrum about the House Bank scan-
dal on ABC News’ “This Week With
David Brinkley”: “I just want to be
blunt.... This is a Democratic
machine political scandal.... There is
an institutional problem of corruption
of power involving the Democratic
leadership.” But he, too, wrote bad
checks — months ago, he said it was
two or three, then he conceded it was
20, now it’s grown to 30. (Three
Bush Cabinet members also wrote
bad checks.)
Meanwhile, the conservative
Gingrich liberally babbled accusa-
tions of “corruption,” claiming
House Speaker Thomas Foley’s
office “sat on” a cocaine-selling
scandal in the House post office “for
10 months and told no one” — but
Foley, who has his faults, quickly put
the lie to that. Foley said his office
had contacted the U.S. Attorney's
office after being told someone sold
cocaine in the post office and sug-
gested postal inspectors probe the
matter, which was publicly disclosed
last fall.
So demagoguery may be our one
growth industry in this campaign
year. We await only the formation of
the party: Demagogues United for
National Government. Under that
banner, Brown and Gingrich can
unite and even borrow the idea that
Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford
almost made a Republican reality at
the 1980 convention — a co-presi-
dency ticket
After all, what was considered
good enough for Reagan/Ford to
spread their GOP gospel will surely
be good enough for Brown/Gingrich
to spread the politics of DUNG.
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Stop outgoing guns, incoming drugs
By Jack Anderson and Michael Binstein
The Second Amendment is preserving the right of Colombian drug lords
to keep and bear arms. When it comes to buying weapons for their deadly
business, drug lords rely on errand boys in the United States who simply walk
into gun shops and buy retail.
At the recent San Antonio drug summit the aim of the U.S. delegates was
to cut the pipeline of drugs into the country. But the Colombian government
is equally concerned about the pipeline of weapons flowing the other way. In
their minds, the problem is clear: If the United States really wanted Columbia
to beat the drug lords, it would stop arming them.
Jack Killorin, chief spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, says the bureau believes “the predominant source of weapons for
the narcotics organizations in South America is the U.S. retail market.”
Last year, more than 8,000 U.S.-made weapons were seized abroad - 7,453
of them in drug-producing countries. The U.S. Customs Service also seized
1,571 weapons headed for Latin America last year. The majority of the guns
that end up in the hands of drug lords are assault weapons bought from U.S.
stores.
Colombia has frequently raised the issue in response to U.S. demands that
Columbia be tougher on its own drug cartels. In 1989, during the heat of the
bloody war between Colombian law enforcement and the Medellin drug car-
tel, then-Colombian President Virgilio Barco pleaded with the United States
to halt the flow of deadly weapons to his country.
Senate Democrats, led by Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., responded with a
bill to ban 14 kinds of assault weapons with little or no sporting value. The
senators cited the mayhem on U.S. streets, plus the arming of foreign drug
cartels. A Gallup Poll showed that 72 percent of Americans were behind the
ban. But the National Rifle Association wasn’t, and neither was the Bush
administration. The bill failed to pass the House last year.
Drag violence is down in Colombia, hut the weapons traffic remains “con-
stant," according to Killorin. Customs and BATF officials say the guns are
bought in small lots from gun shops across the country by well-established
middle-men for the drag lords. They are often exported through the same
channels that bring drags into the United States.
The BATF has established a new office in Colombia, which has increased
the case load for both countries. But, Colombia is still not satisfied the United
States is doing all it can, according to Gabriel Silva, international attairs
adviser to Colombian President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo. Silva told our associ-
ate Dean Boyd, “The United States has to do a better (job) at controlling these
weapons, because, though they are produced for domestic purposes, many
are ending up in our country.” Silva also said some U.S. weapons are being
routed to Colombia through third countries.
Colombia made its point at the San Antonio summit and won a pledge from
the United States to tighten export controls. But that’s the same pledge the
Bush administration made in 1989 while ruling out a ban on assault weapons.
And nothing has changed. Silva diplomatically told us he had “no opinion”
on whether a ban on assault weapons in the United States would help to solve
his country’s problems. “This is a domestic issue for the United States to
decide.”
Harassment Primer - After the Clarence Thomas fiasco, it has come to
this - federal agencies publishing primers for their employees on what con-
stitutes sexual harassment. Apparently common sense doesn't cut ft any more,
nor does the Supreme Court standard of “I’ll know it when I see it”
Employees of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently received a com-
munique from their Equal Employment Office. It reminds them that “actual
or attempted rape or sexual assault” is a no-no along with cat-calls, wolf
whistles, pinching, stalking and “elevator eyes.”
The FDIC advice is to not refer to an adult co-worker as “girl, hunk, doll,
babe, or even honey.” Don’t give a neck massage or stare at someone in an
“amorous” manner on the job.
And never, never, never engage in a variety of suggestive facial contortions,
among them kissing sounds, howling, smacking lips, winking, throwing kiss-
es or sensuously licking one’s lips.
e 1992 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Remedial finance classes for D.C.?
■ Check bouncers
deserve “a semester of
remedial finance classes
between each congres-
sional session for as long
as the offenders remain in
office.
Angry taxpayers all over the
country are ready to call home
members of the U.S. House of
Representatives who can’t keep
their checkbooks. I personally
would favor a year’s indentured
servitude as busboys and bus girls at
any of the 11 House restaurants
where members racked up $70(1,000
of unpaid tabs.
The exception is Rep. Robert
Do man. R-Calif, who told con-
stituents that he bounced one of his
checks to construct a shrine to the
Blessed Virgin Mary in his yard.
Him I would sentence to a year
pouring concrete into molds at the
yard-statue factory.
But they tell me indentured servi-
tude isn’t legal and it is not likely to
become to, at least not while this
particular House is in session.
My next choice would be a
Sarah
Overstreet
semester of remedial finance classes
between each congressional session
for as long as the offenders remain
in office. Attendance shall be
mandatory, with daily pop quizzes,
essay exams each Wednesday and
research papers due each Friday.
The first required class would be
basic fourth-grade addition and sub-
traction, taught by an 80-year-old
Catholic teaching sister who cut her
teeth in the era when nuns wore
habits and smote little knuckles
with rulers. Those receiving a pass-
ing grade would advance to
Accounting I, and those failing
would be sent to remedial math,
taught by The Masked Assassin and
Jake “The Snake” Roberts.
In Accounting I. students would
learn the terms “debit” and “credit”
and practice entering them on the
proper side (ft their Big Chief
Tablets with their crayons. Those
earning passing marks would be
issued smocks and allowed to fin-
•" gerpaint in the rotunda on Friday
afternoons.
After successfully completing
both Basic Ciphering I and
Accounting I, students would then
serve internships in the houses of
straggling middle-class families
under a program called “Real Life
101.” Pupils would attend work
every day in the place of one of the
wage earners, who would take the
Congress member’s place on
Capitol Hill.
The intern would pick up the host
family’s paycheck and sit at the
kitchen table with the stack of
monthly bills on one side and the
Big Chief tablet on the other until
he or she has figured out how to pay
them.
When the intern succumbed to
the temptation to take a chance on
sending out a few checks there isn’t
enough money for and hoping that
at least one of them got to the bank
late, he or she would go to the host
family’s mailbox and find the pink
slip glaring through the envelope
window. The intern would observe
the time-honored middle-class tra-
dition of walking back into the
house to open it heart pounding,
hope-against-hope that it was just a
recruitment ad for the bank's new
NOW! account
After discovering the $20 bank
charge and $ 15 store charge for the
bounced check, the student would
then call his or her academic super-
visor. That person who would give
instructions on options to try when
the overdraft charges drag the
account below its ability to clear
any of the outstanding checks.
The final grade would be deter-
mined by how the student reacts to
the pink slips that would soon begin
to outnumber the junk mail in the
mailbox.
If he or she headed for a lawyer
to start bankruptcy proceedings, it
would be an automatic “F.” If the
student headed for the Consumer
Credit Counseling Service to work
out a payment plan, he or she would
pass.
The only hitch I see in my pro-
v gram would be in getting the wage
' earner to leave Capitol Hill once the
semester was over. When you’ve
faced the possibility of having your
house and car repossessed for long
enough, it would be hard to give up
an expense and travel allowance in
the hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars.
(•>1992 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN
V
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 76, Ed. 1 Monday, March 30, 1992, newspaper, March 30, 1992; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth816632/m1/2/: accessed March 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.