w •^1^1^ ••:*. iHOMENEWSI ENDERSON Mr4tM« «M«nMi. cfurn YieuipeiAl MIKE O'CALLAOHAN Publbhw CAROLYN O'CALLAOHAN Co-PubUslMr Thursday, May 14, 1987 Page 4 Henderson Home Newt, Henderson, Nevada uvs Sign bashing a disturbing signal Recently, at least two candidates have told us of serious vandalism and destruction of their political signs. Two things are usually indicated by such crimes: much of the campaign is being conducted outside the pubUc scrutiny of both opponents and supporters and evidently, campaign helpers are becoming very nasty in their advocacy. Such actions, however, are not rare in American electoral history, and although very illegal, fines are the only thing usually imposed upon the convicted. Unfortunately, in the course of competitive campaigning, sign bashing has become all too frequent. What is troubling about such behavior is that it shows how fragile democracy is. If those in power were unfettered, they would merely have to put the sign bashers in their full-time employ, and thus discourage much opposition and severely repress the efforts of those that dared to challenge them. Apparently, Henderson has its fair share of would-be buUies that aspire to lead a fascist America. Those who want to hold government office would qualify not on their abilities to administer and deal fairly with constituents but they skill in mob motivation and brute bolstering. In an atmosphere of instability, such nasty folks often come to the front. Adolf Hitler mptivated the unemployed of the Weimar Republic to vandalize, assault, imprison and eventually kill political opposition. Juan Peron used trade unionists. Recruits for the poUtical battles that go beyond the law seem readily available when tempers are heated, even in the United States. What's confusing is that candidates themselves in no way conscience or approve of these illegal activities. They know democracy works best when challenged to prove its current servants are doing a good job. However, those zealous few who will do anything to assure their friend a position of power often do not hold the ideals of democracy in such high reverance, or if they do, they have been poorly educated on what is and what is not permissable in campaigning. Truthfully though, sign bashing points to our darker side, and to the type of government that would be instituted had not men of conscience said "no" a long time ago to such actions. Freedom of speech and expression are two of the most hallowed constitutional rights Americans have. We tolerate grave abuses of these freedoms in order to provide freedom to all. But some who take advantage of this freedom are unwilling to extend the courtesy and right to others. Here Ues the seeds of fascism and totalitarian government. To those small few who are vandalizing and destroying political signs, think about what you're doing. If you believe you are retaliating for some great outrage by your political enemy, realize there are legal ways to respond to any allegation or action. No one, at no time, should preempt the democratic process with criminal behavior. There are other legal, more effective ways to retaliate. For those who destroy signs unthinkingly, get out of our political process until you've done some reading and thinking about what democracy and freedom are all about. Barring the way to outdoors With considerable flourish, President Reagan appointed a Commission on Americans Outdoors more than two years ago to study national recreation needs. At the end of 1986 Commission Chairman Lamar Alexander, the former RepubUcan governor of Tennessee, presented a generally excellent report. The report thereupon disappeared into a black hole. '. The report was accepted by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel last Dec. 30 with a three-page statement that superficially applauded the conunission but totally ignored its major recommendation. That proposal was to create a new national outdoor trust fund of $1 biUion annually, administered by a nonprofit corporation and supported by federal receipts from the sale of non-renewable resources such as oil. The money would be issued as matching grants to state and local agencies. The fund is not a new idea. It would replace the existing Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was proposed by a previous outdoor-recreation commission and which will expire in 1989. The existing fund collects about $900 million i year, and is supposed to be used for the purchase of federal parklands and to assist state and local governments in buying ^ks and recreation areas. : But the Administration has done its best not to spend any •idney from the fund, although Congress has managed to iqueeze out some appropriations for urgently needed federal l^klands. ^= ' Even before the Alexander conmiission report was released, &e White House insisted that some elements of the draft be toned down because they were too government-oriented. In fact, ^ final summary, which is all that has been made puUic so tu, is quite in tune with the spirit of free enterprise. It is heavy OD individual initiative, volunteerism, work by nonprofit groups and incentives for the private sector. The handsome and costly 30-page summary was published and printed free of charge by the Natiooal Geographic Society, whose president, Gilbert M. ^mmm years ago, for instance, he was a virtual Paul Revere of homophobia, riding hither and yon warning Americans of the nearly mythical gay school teacher who seduces little boys. The evidence for such charges is lacking: Sexual molestation of school children is rare to begin with and homosexual molestation even rarer. But Falwell, in need of funds, had no patience for facts. He pressed the button of homophobia to get his cash. The press holds politicians accountable for what they say via mail. Falwell should be no exception to the rule. In the first place, his actions and political pronouncements have^giiade him something of a politician. And in the second place, what he says in mailings is just as important as what he says in the public arena. A letter has a kind of between-you-and-me mtimacy to it. To the recipient, it seems to say: This is what I really think. On "Nightline" and other television shows, Falwell might appear to be a paragon of reason and tolerance. His mailings say otherwise. Public-opinion polls attest to the general low regard in which Falwell is held. But to those who believe in him, he remains a potent force. People who think beating up gays is sport can look to Falwell for succor. Homosexual groups report an increase in just such activities. Last year, 5,000 incidents of harassment or violence directed against gays were reported. Falwell's letter all but provides justification for such incidents. He is the chaplain of American homophobia. The mere mention of Nazi concentration camps colors any discussion. The image is too horrible, the experience too awful, for usual discourse to continue. Surely the United States is not Nazi Germany and the homosexual conununity is in no peril. And yet we know from this experience the infinite possibilities of hate and bigotry. We know, too, what can happen when public leaders, including ministers, either offer no rebuke to hate or mine it for their own purposes, and worse, are saluted by respected politicians. AIDS is a frightening prospect. The number of potential victims chills us. Reasonable people will disagree on what should be done. I, for one, differ with the organized homosexual community on limited mandatory testing. I'm for it. But there is an older and, even, more pernicious disease than AIDS and that is hate, hate of a minority that is different through no fault of its own. That disease has already claimed more victims than AIDS is likely to. Falwell fights one by encouraging the other. How to help airports After waiting 13 hours for his poodle to arrive from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Rep. Denny Smith (R., Ore.) drafted "An Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights." Among other things, the measure would require airlines to publish delay and lost-baggage statistics on ticket jackets, and provide air travelers with complaint forms pre-addressed to the secretary of transportation. A lengthy flight delay at Washington National Airport prompted Sen. John Danforth (R., Mo.) to introduce legislation that would require airUnes to post their on-time performance. Such legislation will do little to improve air travel, but that Grosvenor, served as commission vice chairman. One excellent recommendation was for the creation of a series of greenways. "We can tie this country together with threads of green that everywhere grant us access to the natural world," the summary said. Various groups already are working on such a greenway along the bed of the Santa Ana River from San Bernardino to the ocean, said Pahn Springs Mayor Frank Bogert, a member of the Alexander conunission. In submitting the report to the Administration, Alexander said to Reagan:" As you asked, we have suggested a framework for national action and a blueprint for a crusade. Now we urge you to lead that crusade. Ask each American Community to do for itself what you asked us to do for the nation." The response so far has been silence, except for pious platitudes from the secretaj^ of Interior. One excuse is that a group called the Center for Defense of Free Enterprise has challenged the report in court on the grounds that the commission held secret meetings. That is a sham. In fact, the commission met throughout the country and conducted a vigorous pubUc campaign to get as much input as possible. In any event the lawsuit does not prevent the Administration from endorsing the ideals of the report. The problem, of course, is that nasty $l-billion trust fund. Mayor Bogert said that the commission was adamant that the proposal not be dropped, as the White House had insisted. He added, "We said no. That was the Number One thing the people wanted." The opinion surveys that the commission conducted showed that the public overwhebningly favored more recreation areas and was more than willing to pay for them. The Alexander conunission has done a national public service, as requested by the President. The suppression of its report is an outrage. Loa Aageitt Timet Thursday, May 14. 1987 Henderson Home News, Henderson, Nevada Pagf j|p^ About the questionnaire A stiabby way to treat government executives J Beating up gays ^ by Richard Cohen In the Nazi concentration camps, prisoners were identified by the color of their cloth badges. Jews wore yellow, communists red and homosexuals pink. Along with the others, homosexuals were marked for extermination. They died, like Jews, gypsies and the disabled, for the "crime" of being what they could not help but be. In the history of the Holocaust, the persecution of homosexuals is a mere asterisk. Books have been written on the subject, but the account has been overshadowed by the greater numerical crime perpetrated against others, six million Jews, say, as against possibly 15,000 homosexuals. Maybe for that reason, it is no longer possible for a civilized political figure, especially in the United States, to be even vaguely anti-Semitic. It remains possible, however, to be a demogogue when it comes to homosexuals. Jerry Falwell, possibly ignorant of his historical antecedents, is the example that comes to mind. In his most recent fundraising letter, Falwell writes about AIDS as if homosexuals invented it to foist on the heterosexual community when, in fact, they suffer most from it. He says homosexuals "have expressed the attitude that 'they know they are going to die, and they are going to take as many people with them as they can.'" Falwell calls this "sexual terrorism, and even more deadly than a gun or a bomb." Falwell is in a high dudgeon in his letter. He says that "mihtant homosexuals, carriers of the deadly disease, have gained civil-rights advantages" that endanger most Americans. Falwell does not say what these "advantages" are, unless by advantages he means equality. He says homosexuals have compelled "local communities to force morally upstanding citizens to work alongside homosexual AIDS carriers." He neglects to say that no one has gotten ADDS from merely working alongside someone. The contact has to be a bit more intimate than that. For Falwell, lies and innuendoes about homosexuals are nothing new. Homosexual bashing is his hobby horse. Several Your Yieui isn't the point. What Rep. Smith and Sen. Danforth are saying is that they and their frequent-flying colleagues in Congress are no less frustrated with air-travel delays than other Americans. But, then, while most air travelers can do little more to vent their frustration than dash off terse notes to the airlines. Congress can actually address air-traffic problems. The present air-traffic system is badly overtaxed. Airports are congested and much in need of expanded capacity. The air-traffic-control system is outdated. Many airport control towers are equipped with computers no more sophisticated than the average home computer, with limited traffic-handling capacity. . ^ The shortcomings of the air-traffic system would be understandable if attributable to a funding shortage. But the trust fund set up by Congress for developing airports and airtraffic control, which is derived frotti passenger user fees, has run a surplus each year since 1982. By the end of this fiscal year, the surplus will be up to $5.6 billion. Some of this may simply reflect normal delays between contracting and dispersals, but the airline industry says Congress is holding up funds to make the federal deficit look smaller. Rather than accept some blame, the industry claims, Congress has found it more convenient to make whipping boys out of the commercial airlines and, to a slightly lesser extent, private and corporate aviation. Implicit in the legislation of Rep. Smith and Sen. Danforth is the threat that airlines may be partially re-regulated if flight delays continue. In other words, air travelers would be penalized for the slowness of government. When the airline industry was decontrolled in 1978, the airline industry quickly adjusted. To meet the 60 percent increase in demand over the nine-year period since then, the airlines added hundreds of new designations and thousands of flights. Last year, the industry accommodated nearly 400 million passengers. Government agencies are only now beginning to respond to this tremendous surge in demand. It is expanding capacity of some airports by adding runways, upgrading the computer ssrstem of the air-traffic-control network, and developing new routing plans to accommodate more planes in busy corridors and speed the traffic flow. This is a good start but the system is still way behind. At the present rate, it could be a decade before the air-traffic system catches up. For this reason. Congress cannot afford to play games with the aviation trust fund surplus. That's something for the members to think about the next time they wait impatiently for their flights to take off. WaU Sth0t Jonrual Editor This article (Home News questionnaire story of Tuesday, May 12) is typical of the type of joumahsm that has emanated from the Home News in the past four years. When a special interest group or person goes after someone or something, the reporting is all one sided. Note that John Dailey stated there were a few positive comments about Yakubik, however he failed to state any of them. Why, because it wouldn't coincide with the negative picture he has portrayed in the past. He makes no qualms about printing a couple negative comments. Its good to see at least 11.7 percent of the voting public can read between the Unes and not vote from what others have said. Our pohcy has been always to be available to anyone interested in knowing the truth, by researching both sides of the issue. We don't believe in favoritism or special privileges because of ppsition however we also disagree with selective enforcement or harassment, which has been the case. Anyone who has belief to the contrary are welcomed to review and research the facts. We don't ask you to beUeve us but with the same respect we don't expect you to jump to conclusions. Check the facts before making a decision. We can sit and rebuttal all the negatives here and comment on the pros^ind cons but feel this poem sums it up: Anyway' People are unreasonable, illogical and self centered. Love them anyway! If you do good, people will accuse you of selflsh ulterior motives. Do good anyway! If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway! , The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. v j Do good anyway! Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway! The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down~ by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway! People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdogs anyway! What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway! People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway! Give the world the best you have and youll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway! Paul £. Yakubik by Judith Havemann Imagine a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate that is recognizing its top executives for feats ranging from saving $2 biUion to winning a Nobel Prize to fathering the modem air force. The 44 honorees are invited to a black-tie dinner in Washington. But the highest-ranking official who shows up is the company lawyer. The dinner has to be paid for by scrounging contributions, and a featured attraction is a speech l^ the company personnel director. This conglomerate, of course, is the federal government. Few corporations treat their top executives quite as shabbily. Former government executives who have moved to private business are often stunned at how much better they are treated. The problem is most start at the top: the 0.5 percent of the Senior Executive Service who have been singled out as the best of the best. When James Colvard, now deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, was invited to the Rose Garden by President Carter to receive his first Presidential Rank Award, he had to choose between inviting his wife or his daughter, he got a single ticket. When Margery Waxman, now an attorney in private practice got her award, the rules had been liberalized. She got two tickets. But she had a husband and two children. So she invited her son and had her husband carry her two-year-old daughter. In 1982 President Regan canceled the cermony. In 1983, he attended and gave a speech. In 1984, he skipped the formal speech, in 1985 he reinstated it. Last year he both attended and gave a speech, and punch and cookies were served afterwards in the Old Executive Office Building. But the formal dinner honoring last year's award winners, which was held two weeks ago, had to be organized by the Senior Executive Association, a private group representing the Senior Executive Service The $13,000 that it cost was raised primarily from corporate donora Association officials didn't even bother to invite the president, so convinced are they that he doesn't care about civil servants. All the Cabinet members were invited, but only Attorney General Edwin Meese m showed up. All this would slip by unnoticed if the quality of the civil service were not in some jeopardy. Two successive presidents have been elected by rimning againt Washington. The government is spending itself deeper in the hole each year, and the mission of much of the federal bureaucracy has devolved into the inglorious task of planning an orderly retreat. Government recruiters have to beat the bushes to recruit college students with good gradea Even state and local governments are regarded as more attractive than working for the federal government. Future opinions forever syspect Dear Editor: I cannot help but want to respond to your editorial about a month ago, in which you espoused the concept that it was "wrong" to vote for someone "just to get someone out of office." For obvious reasons, I had to wait imtil the primary election was over before responding. In my wildest imagination I cannot conceive of a concept of democratic process which is so dead wrong as the one you expressed. I have had the privilege of living in several other countries in my lifetime and there is no aspect of American politics that im- presses foriegners more than our ability to peacefully remove people in power. There are hundreds of places in the world that hold "elections" but the process of "diselection" of existing officials remains a total sham. There is nothing more honorable or useful in our elec- tion system than the removal of uiuesponsive or power-hungry officials. Your ideas about this are only incredible and to use the power of the press to even push this point of view, makes everything else you write highly suspect. Robert Swadell The Presidential Rank Awards, the highest honor to which a civil servant can aspire, are a chance to showcase the besto to set an example, to build the morale and self-esteem of federn? workers: to 'bheerlead," in the words of former Office of Personnel Management director Alan K. Campbell. "CEOs all say their most valuable resoiurces is their people,, and most of them beUeve it and act that way," said Campbell, ' who is now vice chairman pf ARA Services In& There is a limitation on presidential time, and as far as the employee is concerned it is equally important that the head of their agency recognize them. But the head of the agency is likely to take his cues from the president, and if the presi: , dent never tries to motivate people, they won't either," Camp-, bell said. Frank Carlucci, former CEO of Sears World Trade who recenir ly became the president's national security adviser, said in a speech last December: "If I as a CEO were to say that I have loafers, laggards and petty thieves working for me, one could hardly expect my people to perform. Nor would such talk inspire customers confidence; indeed they would wonder about us as a company and about me as a CEO. Yet that is exactly what two government CEOs—two presidents—have said." A few more years of bureaucrat-bashing and the accusations will be true. Washington Poet An idea worth noting Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) wants to borrow an idea from Michigan that might help famihes stop worrying about where the money will come from when their children are ready for college. The idea comes from Gov. James J. Blanchard of Michigan, where about $3,000 paid into a state trust fund will cover tuition at the University of Michigan or any other pubUc college 18 years from now, when tuition is expected to cost more than $20,000 for four yefurs. The state, which would invest the money, promises to pay no mattter how much college costs when the due date arrives. Michigan believes that its program will make college more accessible, and that it sends a positive message to youngsters: Stick with the books because you are going to college, come what may. Parents, grandparents or f^nds can make the down payment on a youngster's future. Families that don't have the cash on hand can borrow and repay the loan over time. Community groups, churches, schools, alumni or any other organization can buy into the plan and assign the money to a lucky student years later. Michigan's state education trust fund will be managed like a pension fund. The state's $14-biUion pension fund heavily invested in stocks, earned a 23 percent retium on investment last year, no surprise, considering the market, it has averaged 10 percent annually over 10 years. If college costs continue to escalate, the average child bom today may well have a smaller chance of getting a college education than his parents did 25 years ago. A prepaid tuition plan that would, at a minimum, guarantee California youngsters an education at one of the state's fine public universities deserves a hard look by the Legislature. LOB Angeles Times Other views Don't insulate judges State Senator Dean Rhoads of Elko County earned praise last week with his vote in Carson City against a proposal to insulate this state's judges from the will of the people. Sad to say, Rhoads was in a minority in the state senate, where the plan to allow Nevada's district court judges and supreme court judges to escape the drudgery of election campaigns. In fact, Rhoads was joined by only one other solon (Nick Horn of Las Vegas) when the senate endorsed, by a vote of 18-2, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ensconce judges in an ivory tower called "the Missouri plan." Under this plan (scheme would be a more accurately descriptive term), state judges would ascend to office by appointment, rather than by popular election. Incumbent judges then would be mentioned periodically on election ballots under contrived circumstances (no direct challengers would be allowed on these ballots) that would invite voters to indicate whether or not a particular incumbent judge should continue on the bench. Proponents of the "Missouri scheme" say this complicated procedure would provide voters an opportunity to express dissatisfaction with a particular judge, and even to remove him from office if more electors should vote to reject than to retain. In the event of rejection, the indicated judge's term would end and a successor would be appointed. These same proponents cite the recent exercise in California, where notorious California Supreme Cowrt Chief Justice Rose Bird (and a couple of her colleagues) were rejected by voters, and replacements were appointed. They say the experrience in our neighboring state demonstrates how well their proposal can work. But a different analysis of the situation among the prunepickars is possible. A ease can be made that if it weren't for the "Missouri scheme," the likes of Rose Bird never would have been named to that state's supreme court. She is not the sort of person voters, even in California, would be likely to choose for service on any court, much less the highest court in the bailiwick. She was appointed as chief justice by an irresponsible governor; and it took many long, agonized years for the voters of California to correct a glaring mistake that probably never would have been made under a straight election system for state judges. Another strong argument against the notion that judges should be chosen by any means other than unadorned popular vote of the people is couched in the performance of some of the arrogant knotheads who occupy federal judicial benches. One of the few obvious mistakes made by those who wrote the Constitution of the United States was the provision for the Ufe tenure, by appointment, of federal judges. As our nation matures into a more complex society (made significantly more complex by federal court rulings that frequently introduce snarled complications), the error of appointing judges for Ufe becomes ever more apparent. There have been many examples of decisions handed down by judges insulated from the will of the people that are glaringly wrong. But there isn't much the citizens of the United States can do about it, except to watch in frustration as the course of the nation drifts steadily away from what the (Constitution says toward what judges sheltered from public accountability pretend it says. They contend they are following "precedent," but they really are pursuing their own political whims; and they are able to brazenly disregard what we know the Constitution says, and what they know the Constitution says, because they are appointed for life. A federal judge answers only to his own conscience when he interprets the Constitu- tion, or a particular law. Because judges are trained as lawyers,. their consciences don't seem to speak very loudly in too many instances. The most recent example of what we are talking about came in the recent U.S. Supreme (Court outrage that reversed key. provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Forthright language, in this act forbids job discrimination because of race, religion , or sex; but the Supreme Court now has turned that language exactly backwards by declaring it was legal and proper for', a man in California to be denied a work promotion for th(^^: admitted reason that he is a man (the promotion went to a„ less-qualified woman). We are convinced mistakes such as Justice Brennan's a? rogant blunder and Rose Bird's unfortunate fling in Calif or:' nia can be avoided by keeping our state judges directly respon-, sible to the will of the people. Insulating our judges from the people, as the proposed 'T^ssouri scheme" would do, invitefi^ disregard for tixe public interest and is a step in the directioi\^ opposite from the style of government imdsed by Abrahai^ Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address: . . "government of the. people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from • i the earth." The scheme to insulate Nevada's judges from the people is proposed as a constitutional amendment, and must be sub- ^.. mitted to the people at a general election to be accomplished. T ; If our legislators (with the commendable exceptions of I « Senators Rhoads and Horn) won't protect the interests of thf' ! people by rejecting this bit of political chicanery, the peopk. will have to protect their own interests by rejecting the schame themselves (as th«y already have done as recently as 1972). . EUa Daily Ft—Pnm