The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 10

Wednesday, September 30, 1987 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER CommentsA-1 Party for Constitution given for wrong reason the beautiful music that is the English language. JOE CLOONEY 352 Hampshire Drive Hamilton. Mann's mayor In his letter of Sept. 15, Councilman David Mann recounted many reasons why he considers the idea of having the mayor selected by members of city council as better than the idea of accepting as mayor the councilmanic candidate who garners the most votes in the election Awaits Council If Mayoral Vote The letter is too long to rebut point by point; however, if the selection of mayor by council is such a fair and beneficial process, why did Mann sulk and snivel when council members selected Charles Luken as mayor after the most recent councilmanic election? GEORGE J. ALBERT 4319 Hamilton Ave.

For people who get off work late, we are open for a quick bite to eat; for people with a craving, we offer a sufficient selection to satisfy. We offer low-price cigarettes, and no long lines or the inconvenience of a large superstore. They give night people like me a job where no other could be found. This to name just a few benefits. All of this is not to say that it doesn't sadden, or scare me, to hear about Amy Diesman's death.

But if, in fact, the killing was domestic, as suspected, then it was not Stop-N-Go at fault for Ms. Dies-man's outside problems. It occurs to me that someone who has never been to an all-night convenience store is no authority to tell us workers and customers what the company is after. I also resent my late-night customers being indirectly labeled "insane" simply because they don't wake up at 6 a.m., like C. J.

Reinhardt. They are quite sane, and most are pleasant, respectable people. SCOTT A. RUST 1819 Sutton Ave. confidence with the flying public, upon which all aviation depends.

On the subject of fuel consumption: General aviation can never hope to come close to the passenger miles per gallon rate (the true measure of efficiency) that the major air carriers provide. It's wishful thinking to believe that the air-transportation system in this country depends on general aviation. It is more proper to think of it as an integral part. Only in 1986, for the first time, did general aviation provide more than 50 of the new pilot hires to the commercial air carriers, due largely to the pilot-retention efforts of the armed services and lower starting pay than was previously the case. The general public continues to hear about the negative aspects of general aviation from the news media because its safety record continues to be atrocious.

Hopefully, the business climate in this country will continue to create a need for on-demand aviation that only general aviation can provide. What is needed is not a spreading of misinformation but more diligence on the part of the participants. MARK HANLON 3736 Dogwood Lane. Liberal hypocrisy Permit me to congratulate the Rev. Celsus Griese for his letter "KennedyMann" (Sept.

24), because he told it like it is. He said it all when he concluded his letter: "Such hypocrisy." If ever this country needs a conservative judge on the Supreme Court, we really need it now. The liberals had their day too long, since the beginning of the Earl Warren era. The change is a must! JAMES E. SUTTER 3899 Mack Road.

TO THE EDITOR: The editorial "The Constitution" carried the caption "America's Second Bicentennial Reminds Us All of Our Legacy" (Sept. 16). Like the flag, the Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address meant different things to different people. This is also true of the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution begins with the words "We the people," the Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal," and honest Abe Lincoln said that this nation was conceived in "liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." To my best recollection, all of these noble statements were made in the time of slavery.

Nevertheless, all were true. It should be remembered that the word "democracy" is not found in the Preamble, the Bill of Rights or any of the amendments. We still pledge allegiance to the Republic for which the flag stands. In other words, in 1787, the beautiful framework and organizational structure of the Constitution was built on a foundation of sand. Is this the date to commemorate? It has been said that if one does not know the difference between the Jews and the children of Israel, he will never understand the Bible.

In like manner, if one cannot see the difference between the words "men" and "males," he will not understand the Constitution. The words "people" and "men" in the above quotes did not include the Indians who were "savages," blacks who were slaves, Readers' views or poor whites who were "poor white trash." These three groups greatly outnumbered the "men." Is this the legacy that is to be remembered? Is 1787 the date to celebrate? It takes more than concrete and steel to build a city; there must be an element of humanity. This is also true of a set of laws. It took 83 years for the human element to become a part of the Constitution with the enactment of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The 15th Amendment came into being on March 30, 1870.

March 30 is not only the greatest day in the Constitution, but in the whole of American history. This is the day that all Americans can celebrate; it has a special meaning for all Americans. The "captives" can celebrate their freedom, and the "captors" will realize that the greatest wealth any man can possibly achieve is a clear conscience. And what is true of an individual is true of a nation. CD.

SIMPSON 3830 Congreve Ave. Night people In response to CJ. Reinhardt's letter "All-Night Stores" (Sept. 20), I don't think he was being fair to Stop-N-Go or its employees. As a third-shift Stop-N-Go worker myself, I can name other reasons for 24-hour stores than greed.

Beauty of English World of aviation William H. Preuss' letter (Sept. 11) did little to advance the cause of general aviation. He was correct that general aviation plays a significant role in our economy, but from there on he does more of a disservice with his slanted facts. First, the "only 705" of 16,300 airports mentioned as being serviced by air carriers allow 91 of the population of this country to be within a two-hour drive of scheduled commercial air service.

Saying that "all pilots and aircraft must abide by the sam set of rules" implies that the airliner and its crew meet the same standards as a new 40-hour pilot in a small plane. This is no way to instill I was distressed to read Miami University English teacher Marian Sciachi-tano's letter "Art of Teaching" (Sept. 13). Marian wonders if grammar should be taught at all, saying she'd rather help a student learn to think critically than to teach him phrases and clauses. That's an admirable sentiment, but it loses something of its charm when I see poorly spoken English becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Shouldn't a fledgling musician shelve some of his loftier attempts at expression until he first learns the rudiments of his instrument? I'll grant you, studying grammar is not thrilling. But to ignore it is to do a tragic disserve to the student, and to The roots of Mideast trouble PARIS: The war in the Persian Gulf has now become an American war, however marginally. There is not a great deal to be added, at this point, to the argument over whether this is an intelligent thing for the United States. There is something to say, however, about the underlying nature and source of the Iranian revolution and of this war, which followed, and Now Gateway Federal offers 24-month certificates with a guaranteed rate: Europe, where another multinational, multicommunal empire existed, that of Austro-Hungary. The first World War destroyed both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman systems.

The victorious allies then sat about conference tables and drafted frontiers and invented governments for all the new "nations" which they created out of the old empires. Thus were Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf Emirates all created. The states created in the Middle East had feeble claims to be considered nations at all. The insecure and contested borders, internal rivalries and national conflicts thus created made a crucial contribution to the coming of World War II, and they are what lie behind the turmoil of the Middle East today. The point I wish to make is that the United States and the Soviet Union as well have been drawn into struggles in the Middle East and gulf which neither understands very well.

Moscow, attempting to apply a Marxist-Leninist theory of economic classes to such societies, is worse equipped in this respect than even the United States. The result of action taken when one does not understand the policy environment is usually irrelevance or failure. Yet the super-powers act. They are programmed by their rivalry to act. Action has consequences.

The consequences, in these circumstances, are nearly always for the worst. William Pfaff same thing is in store for Egypt, where the United States now plays a westernizing role nearly as large and intrusive as it did in Iran in the 1970s. Unlike Iran, however, Egypt has not been an isolated nation, and since Napoleon invaded the country in 1798, Egyptian society has had continued and close relations with Europe, and has included a sophisticated and westernized elite and cosmopoliti-cal minorities with important roles in government and the economy. This makes a difference. The political organization of the rest of the Near and Middle East was until 1918 on a system fundamentally different from that of the West.

The Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region, practiced a form of political overlordship which acknowledged more or less autonomous communities based on territory and nationality, but also on tribe, traditional authority, religion, social function. It was a relatively loose and flexible system, often harsh but also prepared to leave its subjects to their communal leaders and particular values. The Ottoman authorities demanded obedience, taxes, good order, but their system bore scarcely any resemblance to the highly centralized governments and economies that emerged in Western Europe and which are the model for the modern industrial nation-state. The Ottomans also ruled the Balkans and a part of Eastern MINIMUM deposit Rate Yield $1,000 7.956 8.40 $20,000 8.047 8.50 about the unrest that has afflicted the Near and Middle East as a whole in recent years. What exist in these regions are nearly all incomplete nations, unachieved nations societies trying to become nations.

They possess governments, the apparatus of state, armies, more than enough police; they control territories with internationally recognized frontiers. But they are not "nations" in a real sense. This is a basic cause of the disorder, both internal and international, that has wracked the area since the 1940s. There are only two real, historical nations in the Middle East and the gulf region, Egypt and Persia, both of them dominated, directly or indirectly, by foreign powers for more than a century. The Iranian revolution in 1979 was in essential respects an uprising against foreign influence.

The United States was its victim because the United States had taken over the dominating role in Iran previously held by Great Britain. Since 1979 there has been in Iran a convulsive attempt to re-establish an autonomous national identity and to respond to westernizing forces, representing values profoundly hostile to the traditional values and assumptions of the Iranian people. This has been a grim and bloody business. That is the nature of revolutions. It is not impossible that the William Pfaff is a Paris-based columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

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Journalism's single standard William Raspberry "Bank with the people you know." Simon Sotelo Manager I Fnnrth Ctroot nH'ma appointed staff were capable of comparable grace. The fact is that both journalists and politicians are from time to time guilty of professional fraud. Biden is hardly the first politician to borrow another speaker's joke, apt phrase, idea or rhetorical device. Few newspaper readers would be surprised that a reporter either made up or at least synthesized a quote attributed to the ubiquitous "one observer." My own weakness is for the insight that seems so correct that I immediately adopt it as part of my own thinking. When I repeat it without attribution, it is with no intent to deceive.

I simply can't remember where I got it may not even remember that it was not a product of my own thinking. I do imagine that it is forgivable. In journalism as in politics, there are lines that are not to be crossed, and most practitioners know where they are. Biden, who has given new meaning to the expression "You took the words right out of my mouth," crossed the line. WASHINGTON: It was, says an angry Iowa staffer, a "double standard by the media" that drove her man Joe Biden out of the presidential race.

"You've got a president who has been deliberately deceiving the American public for seven years, but nobody takes him to task," Paulee Lipsman said the other day. "Maybe (jurnaasts) are trying to prove they're not wimps by going after Biden." Biden's press secretary, Eric Woolson, picked up the bitter theme. The former reporter acknowledged that Biden had "made some mistakes" but accused the media he lately served of overreacting to those mistakes. "Are you permitted to be a human being and still run for president?" he demanded. They should come off it.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for people whose heroes let them down, but very little for people who refuse to face reality. And the reality of the failed Biden candidacy is that 4t was done in, not by some reportorial "double standard" but by Joe Biden. Double standard? Lipsman may be frustrated (as lots of us are) that President Reagan gets away with deceptions, misstatements and plain falsehoods that would destroy other politicians. But the reason he gets away with them isn't because they aren't reported in the media. It is because the public chooses to overlook them.

Besides, Mr. Reagan is the wrong parallel. Try Janet Cooke. Cooke, the former Washington Post reporter whose Pulitzer Prize-winning story on an 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy, turned out to be a fraud. The discovery of Cooke's fraud led to the uncovering of a disturbing history of fraud (including lies about her academic background) just as the discovery of Biden's rhetorical thefts led to disclosures of earlier deceptions.

Reporters who make up stories or who steal other people's words aren't always fired, as Janet Cooke was. But they are viewed as demonstrably unfit for elevation to the top of their profession. So is Biden. It's worth pointing out that Biden himself has not claimed unfair treatment at the hands of the press. I wish members of his dis Gateway Federal Downtown 621-9600 Blue Ash 984-3854 Cherry Grove 528-5100 Clifton 221-1122 Winton Road 931-5700 Northgate 741-8330 Pleasant Ridge 631-1515 Western Hills 574-2400 Suburban offices are open Saturdays till 2:00 p.m.

JE FSLI William Raspberry is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. I QUA huusmc LINOM.