The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 11

I Friday, February 22, 1991 1 111; CINCINNATI I-NQUIRI CommentA-1 1 School administration remains a sorry mess TO THE EDITOR: How do we vot public education back on track in Cincinnati? Definitely not the way the Cincinnati Board of Education and Dr. Lee Etta Powell are managing the system. As concerned users of the schools we attended the Feb. 11 school board meeting. What we witnessed was a sorry reaction to the problems created by an out-of-control school system.

For several vears. constant fWlinp has occurred in the area of the schools' mission: to provide excellence in education. Yet constant increases are takini? place in disturbing areas: dropout rate, in the apartheid problems of South Africa, not the Arab countries. Would she object to our spilling blood and money in Africa? She questions how she would feel had she joined the army and been faced with service in the gulf. I wonder if she would have questioned service in Africa.

Anika should catch up on her reading. F.W. de Klerk, president of South Africa, is moving rapidly to "dismantle his country's prison of apartheid." (Many of the blood spillings there were caused by blacks killing blacks.) Africans have been fighting for the rights of citizenship that Anika was born with. But she has little regard for or loyalty to the country that provides these rights to her. There are no fences around our country.

Anika can leave and find a country she can be loyal to any time she wants. There are people from all over the world waiting years to get in. God bless her in her travels. MOLLY HILL 357 Thomas Boulevard. Hamilton.

War news I think it is disgraceful the way TV and the other media report the war. If J. Edgar Hoover were alive today, he would arrest those reporters for "consorting with the enemy." They could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of GIs. Remember: "Loose lips sink ships." Some reporters are fond of saying, "We don't make the news. We only report it." Baloney! I'll wait until the war's over to hear the news.

WM. A. KUNKEL 929 Winsray Court. broadcast without independent confirmation; yet the allied military briefings are peppered wilh accusational, confrontational and sophomorie questions. I am of the generation that wasn't to trust anyone over 30 years of age.

The media, I thought, were on my side. Are you corrupted by the rush to ratings and awards? Why is this Middle East conflict no less worthy of legitimate, tactful and judicial reporting? Clean up your act, or you and the First Amendment may be the ultimate victims of this war. CLARK P. HOWLANI) 308 Marietta Ave. Terrace Park.

Free to leave I read the guest column by Anika Francis Appalling, Frightening War," Feb. 8). Being 16 and full of herself, her concerns are many. They don't seem to be for the good of this country, but obviously for her own comfort and safety, the quality of her life and obviously also for preference in job opportunities in the future. Anika's dislike of President Bush seems based on the fact that he believes all Americans should compete equally in the job market.

Why should they not? When blacks felt they were being kept from getting jobs by preference given white people, they fought against it and won. Rightly so. Now there are those among them who want to prolong the preference they were given (justly or unjustly) and they are just as wrong. You can't have it both ways. That's what our president insists on.

He's right. Anika doubts her loyalty to the United States and feels we should be interested Ramsey Clark It is a major embarrassment to the United States to have Ramsey Clark in Iraq apologizing for the bombing4 of civilian areas. Clark's tunnel vision is really amazing as is his stupidity in criticizing us while completely overlooking the fact that Saddam Hussein's Scuds are being focused at civilian population centers in Israel, which has been a non-participant to this point. Mr. Clark has not exhibited any patriotic behavior whatsoever, both in the present situation as well as his well-known pro-Hanoi sympathies and actions during the Vietnam conflict.

It is time that he be publicly censured and, if at all possible, his passport revoked or altered to limit his contacts with foreign antagonists. It is one thing to legitimately and honestly criticize the actions of our government; however, Mr. Clark's actions have bordered on treason. SEYMOUR BROAD 1744 Forester Drive. Media manipulation I can't believe what I see and hear from America's media.

Have you heard yourselves lately? "And Baghdad radio reports Like a voracious vacuum, the American media consume whatever trivia is made available and feed like gluttonous flies on stories that would not be valid were it not for the report itself. (A real self-fulfilling prophecy.) The media are losing their "balanced reporting" credentials. It is my perception that a censored Baghdad report is saieiy concerns, and a constant discipline Droblem. The demise in ev- cellence occurred at a time when funding Readers' views ministralors. As if this wasn't bad enough, it became evident that no one present could agree on the exact number of system administrators (numbers offered ranged from 165 to 265).

Those of us attending this sorry event witnessed a caricature of what a policy-setting board should be about. What is needed is a restoration of public trust and confidence. The school board and the administration have done nothing to restore any trust or confidence. The constant preoccupation with issues unrelated'to a focus of "educational excellence" will only decline the school system more. Editorials, public hearings, letters to the editor have voiced dismay with the state of public education in Cincinnati.

The board members must deal with the problem as they face the ballot box. Dr. Powell's situation is different. As superintendent, she must acknowledge that there is a major problem. She must accept the ultimate responsibility.

As superintendent she must initiate the rebuilding of trust and confidence, achieved most successfully by her offer to resign. DICK PASTOOR MARCIA PASTOOR 3959 Red Bud Ave. increased steadily. We are now told that the return to excellence is dependent on increased funding. To which we say, rot! We charge that our present school board and school administrators have failed our students miserably.

They have failed to curb the continuous decrease in the quality of education in a proactive and visionary fashion. Instead, the emphasis consistently has been to maintain the status quo. Possibly, in Smale Commis sion tashion, the mayor recently established education task force can be tapped for guidance and some clear goal-setting. "Shooting from the hip," the school board voted on additional last-minute position cuts. The cuts were achieved hv applying an arbitrary percentage factor against the total number ot system ad- Restoring An Old House? Or Furnishing A New One? Funding the 1992 campaign Chandeliers, Wall Lamps, Post Lamps Desk Lamps.

WASHINGTON: Few voters Having difficulty locating good authentically correct hardware? We provide some of the finest Germond Witcover seem to be shedding tears over the fact that no Democrat has yet started running for his party's 1992 presidential available reproductions, suitable for restoring antique homes from our Colonial period. 1 Sill id brass hardware for door, windows It cabinets. Kick ulates in 3 25 sizes. Balh accessories. Brass rail (i Polls indicate they think campaigns are too long anyway.

So they will probably be delighted to learn that the absence of any presidential candidate in either major party so far may well wind up saving them money to boot. fur stairs bars, solid brass registers. Gas Logs Come in 4 see Ihe glim of the feel ill warmth. The reason is simply that the SSromuielfs 1 1 7 West 4th Street 62 1 -0620 uwt Vri Q'in in R-nn longer any White House hopeful 1 ertooonnpco Custom screens our specialty. What do you picture on your fireplace? Thur.

9:30 to 8:00, Snt. 9:30 to 5:00 waits to launch his candidacy, the less time he will have to raise money that is matchable, dollar for dollar, by Uncle Sam under the federal campaign-finance laws. The law stipulates that a candi date who raises $5,000 in each of from funds already collected by the year's start, but to do so on projected revenues for the later months of April through June, when tax collections are at their peak. Otherwise competing Democrats may either have to put all their resources into the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary or save for the later tests and risk elimination before they ever reach them. Anything that shortens the presidential race might be considered an unvarnished blessing if the impact proved to be nonpartisan.

But in 1992 a shortage of money in the federal pool will make it harder for Democratic aspirants to compete in the primaries, while Bush has a free ride to his rcnomination. One FEC proposal is for the Treasury to provide qualifying primary candidates only 95t for every dollar raised. Others propose that the $1 checkoff be doubled not likely in this period of disenchanted voters. Democratic Rep. Al Swift of Washington, chairman of a House elections subcommittee, has suggested a "negative checkoff" if you don't say no, $1 goes into the subsidy fund.

Right now, though, a bigger problem for the Democrats than getting federal money for their candidates is getting candidates. And as long as the war goes on, all pretenders to the Oval Office are keeping their heads down. 20 states in amounts of $250 or less, in the calendar year preceding the presidential election year, is eligible for the federal match. In -FEBRUARY FURNITURE SALE past election cycles, candidates have begun putting the squeeze on contributors as soon as the preelection year has started. By this presidential campaign's expenses.

The FEC, with only $115.4 million in the till for 1992, projects that shrinking checkoff participation will raise that figure to only $127.6 million by the start of the 1992 election year a shortfall of more than $30 million in what it expects demands on the subsidy fund will be, assuming a fair crop of Democratic challengers. The Democrats' slow start, though relieving the FEC crunch, can inflict a double whammy on candidates seeking their party's nomination, because of the priorities on dispensing of funds observed by the Treasury. The first bites out of the subsidy pool must go to the parties for their conventions and then to the presidential nominees for their fall campaigns (a projected $133.4 million for both categories for 1992). Only then do candidates get matching money for their primary campaigns out of what's left. With President Bush expected to run unopposed on the Republican side but still eligible for matching funds and having an extensive fund-raising apparatus in place as the incumbent, the pool will be further shrunk for the Democratic candidates as the primary season begins.

The FEC is proposing that the Treasury in 1992 not restrict itself to paying out the subsdidy THE COPLEY SQUARE COLLECTION FROM time four years ago, Democrat Bruce Babbitt had already notified the FEC he was raising money for the 1988 match and Republicans George Bush and Bob Dole and 11. i I Democrat Dick Gephardt were on the verge. Potential candidates, by holding 3 off fund-raising this year, may be inadvertently helping the Federal III I. 1 I Election Commission (rLC), which dispenses the subsidy, to survive a severe money crunch for 4': the 1992 election. The subsidy is financed by the $1 federal income-tax checkoff, and the money pool is drying up because fewer Jack Germond and Jules Wit-cover are Washington-based, nationally syndicated columnists.

and fewer voters elect to have that buck assigned to the next 'Collateral damage' takes toll WASHINGTON: From the start, the war in the gulf was a William Raspberry 3 I i race against casualties: an eiiort to homh Saddam Hussein into sub mission before TV pictures of the war human carnage killed president Bush's popular support for the war. Rut it wns American casualties A the specter of thousands of body bags containing dead GIs that the administration was wor age" could bring popular pressure for a quick end to the fighting, even if some of the war's objectives remain unachieved. As Associated Press correspondent Mike Feinsilber put it, "The country wants a clean war." Indeed you could plot public support of war, even before the bombing started, by asking Americans to predict the number of American casualties. Those who thought the number would be fewer than 3,000 favored the war; those who thought the number would be higher tended to oppose it. But there are no clean wars, not when the public gets its ports not days after the fact, as in World War II, but daily often hourly.

And with TV pictures, not sanitized newsreels. rv 5 ried about. Few suspected that it would be dead Iraqis and mere scores rather than thousands --hum iMIU.ll j'liitA, that would trigger the first massive revulsion over the war. But that was before that Stealth fighter-bomber destroyed a Baghdad air raid snener on rtu. 13, killing (perhaps) hundreds of women and children and introduc ing the danger that the allied forces, not the ruthless saou.ini, would be cast in the role of the connaissance photographs of the buildings supposedly in military use.

They told us of intercepted communications proving their claim that the Iraqis were directing their war from the building, but they produced none of the communications ostensibly because it would let the enemy know what frequencies we are tapping, and what codes we have broken. They have provided few answers to some of the more obvious questions: for instance, how were they able to observe the communications equipment being brought into the building, or the military brass arriving in their limousines, and still be completely unaware that the building was being used routinely as an air-raid shelter for civilians? Even so, few Americans (though apparently a good many Iraqis and Iraqi sympathizers) doubt that the allies have been at great pains to avoid killing civilians even at the cost of passing up some military targets. But many more pictures of dead children, of destroyed homes and schools of "collateral dam butcher of Baghdad. What is interesting is now nine it tnnk tr th.nkp nur confidence in Americans have no taste for dead babies with their breakfast bran. Even if a cynical Saddam Hussein bears moral responsibility for the dead babies, it will be American and allied bombs that kill them.

The generals know that as well as you, and the safest bet our ability to avoid large-scale NOW AT ITS LOWEST PRICE EVER. 40 OFF! This group is one of traditional furniture's finest quality values. These Georgian-Hepplewhite pieces boast Honduran mahogany veneers accented with yewwood, ebony and satinwood resulting in a timeless classic statement for living, dining room, bedroom or library. Over 30 pieces available. Pictured above from left to right: Entertainment center $2249, Chairside table S389, Silver chest $629, Tea table wpull out slides for candlesticks, etc.

$539, Desk $1649, Pembroke table $645, Butler Coffee table $569, Lamp table $465, Sofa table $675, Console $539, Mirror $299. (16 additional pieces not shown). Complete Interior Design Service Competitive Budget Plan. Monday thru Saturday 10am 6pm, Thursdays til 8pm 401 Race Street 7866 Montgomery Road 762-5538 891-5531 is that they'll return to their rela tively sanitary attacks on mdisput ably military targets and start looking finally for a way out of the war. collateral damage.

What has been called into question is not the accuracy of our munitions but the reliability of our vaunted military intelligence. Our military people claim to have called the strike only after they had amassed irrefutable evidence that the building was a communications center and that it, at least from time to time, housed high-ranking Iraqi brass. But what they showed us were sketches, not re- William Raspberry is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post..