The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 14

14A Thk Dks Mo inks Rkcistkk TwiisDAY, October 19. lDlr IMON El)c Des Jllmncs Register Cartooxist'sView A GANNETT NEWSPAPER 1 DIANE GLASS, Vice President, Marketing HENRY C. PHILLIPS, Vice President, Advertising J. AUSTIN RYAN, Vice President, Production SUSAN A. SMITH, Vice President, Finance SUE A.

TEMPERO, Vice President, Human Resources TERRY THOMPSON, Vice President, Circulation CHARLES C. EDWARDS Publisher and President DENNIS R. RYERSON, Editor and Vice President RICHARD DOAK, Editor of the Editorial Paes LINDA LANTOR FANDEL, Deputy Editor of the Editorial Pages DIANE RAHA.M Managing Editor DAVE RHEIN. Deputy Managing Editor MICHAEL L. PAULY, Senior Assistant Managing Editor LYLE BOONE, Assistant Managing EditorGraphics RANDY EVANS, Assistant Managing Editor oration out to The Register's Editorials A quiet kind of heroism It's a story of how one man probably saved millions.

our centuries ago, Portuguese traders carried cassava plants from South America to Africa, where in troops: an army of tiny South American wasps that lay their eggs in mealybugs, which are then eaten by the hatching larvae. Herren carried the wasps across the Atlantic and found a former British military pilot to carry him and his wasps over Africa, where he released them. Soon they had reduced the mealybug population to a controllable size. The story of how one man probably saved millions has deeply impressed listeners ranging from students at Des Moines Callanan Middle School, to whom he spoke JOE SHARPNACK time the edible root became the most important source of food on the continent. A quarter century ago, the cassava's principal enemy, a mealybug about the size of a ladybug, also arrived in Africa, at Zaire.

It was carried in the suitcase of an unwitting traveler. For 25 years the mealybugs feasted on the cassava crops of the continent, where hunger and the threat of famine wait always in the wings. The bugs spread like the European bark beetles that carried Dutch elm disease to the trees of America. In time, the bugs wrecked the cassava crop in some areas as they advanced on others. Loss of the cassava could mean starvation to millions; some 200 million Africans The Register's Readers Say What farmers want in a new farm bill Averting a disaster never rates the headlines that the disaster itself would otherwise merit, meaning Herren's accomplishment is unlikely to stir the world's imagination.

Because their business relies on Mother Nature, there will always be some section of the country where farmers suffer weather-related losses. Farmers need increased planting flexibility. Soil- and water-conservation incentives need to be continued. Export-and market-development programs need adequate funding, as does agriculture research. Most important, the next farm bill needs to include some type of risk-management tool.

One idea is to develop a new product that would be offered as an alternative to crop insurance. This concept is modeled after interruption insurance businesses can purchase to protect against loss of revenue, and is an idea that is long overdue for farmers. Mainstream agriculture supports a move from the current restrictive, supply-management program to a program that is more market-oriented. The majority of farmers want to get their income from the not taxpayers. Ginter and Atkinson want the public to believe this effort to reduce govern-j ment interference in family farms is a horrible thing.

But the majority of' farmers don't fear the future. Rather, they look forward to gaining greater control over their businesses. Gene Maahs, executive director, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, 5400 University, West Des Moines. Fhe Sept. 26 letter on the 1995 farm bill from Larry Ginter and Sue Atkinson might lead people who are unfamiliar with farm programs to believe there is an international conspiracy against U.S.

farmers. But ask farmers what they want from federal farm programs and the majority will say they want to get government out of farming. They want to produce crops of their choice and sell to the marketplace. They want the federal budget to be balanced. They understand it's inevitable that cuts in farm programs are a part of the balancing act.

They are tired of the paperwork and regulations associated with current farm programs. At the same time, they want and need some type of income safety net. Welcome, Mary Sue Coleman THE WORLD FOOD PRIZE Tuesday, to judges for the World Food Prize, whose $200,000 award he was presented Wednesday. Herren is the 10th winner of the prize, established by General Foods but sponsored for the past six years by Des Moines business leader John Ruan. His award was presented by Iowa's Norman Borlaug, leader of the Green Revolution in world food production and winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.

News of Herren's award and the story of his accomplishment offered a stark contrast to news coming out of Texas, concerning a failed effort to control a different pest. With boll weevils regularly wrecking the cotton crop in southern Texas, growers moved in with malathion. The insecticide worked far too well. The chemical spray killed the weevils, but also the creatures that attack boll weevils and beet army worms. With their natural enemies gassed, the army worms marched on the cotton crop and wasted it far more thoroughly than the boll weevils had.

Losses to the weevils usually ran at less than half the crop; loss to the worms was near total. Farmers lost millions, taxpayers lost more millions in crop insurance payments. The Zaire government was promoting use of chemical warfare against the mealybugs before Herren unleashed his airborne assault squads and proved once again that human interests are more often served by working with rather than against nature. Averting a disaster never rates the headlines that the disaster itself would otherwise merit, meaning Herren's accomplishment in probably heading off a famine is unlikely to stir the world's imagination. But his quiet heroism, like that of Borlaug, more than makes up in significance what it may lack in drama.

They put a face on AIDS crisis The Rev. Mark Beach (Oct. 2), speaking of the Names Project quilt, wonders why "AIDS seems to be a disease that warrants this kind of attention and not other diseases, especially in light of the fact that AIDS is preventable for most people?" The answer is that too many people want persons with AIDS to be invisible, unloved and forgotten. Too many see AIDS as us and them. The quilt is a powerful reminder that they are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, priests, police officers, accountants, piano teachers and next-door neighbors.

The real tragedy is that Beach cannot seem to muster compassion even for those safely dead. No wonder there is so little compassion for those still living with this disease who would actually benefit from compassion, concern and love. It is the living who must fight with HIVAIDS every day who truly put the human face on this crisis. The Rev. Steven P.

Sabin, 913 Carroll Ames. Acts of defiance; voices upraised; steps of anger; risks assessed; a million (at least) words written and spoken; friendships made and lost; insults deflected; resistance planned; and, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, rallies, grievances, letters, lawsuits, poems, petitions, explanations, secret tears; complicity smiles. For 30 years, this web of struggle spun and created by wave upon wave of, well, feminists and other social-justice warriors who consciously and unconsciously, but never inevitably, changed the weather in Iowa City and the state, creating: a climate that transformed expectations and made it possible for a woman to be seen, by enough, as "qualified" to be president of the University of Iowa. This struggle by Alice and Barbara and Carol and Diane and Ellen and Flossie and Gertrude and Helen and Irene and Kristy and Linda and Mildred and Nettie and Polly and Rosylyn and Sue and Terry and Vida and Wendy and many who never left a name and too many who were afraid to speak, created a sisterhood which built a social reality most would exclaim had "nothing" to do with being a woman. After all, it is our turn.

We never dreamt it would take so long and then we realized that it would never stop. Ever unfinished, a feminist vision yearns to make a difference. And if a ceiling is smashed, the floor of economic discrimination, rape, prejudice, layoff, harassment, insult remains and needs a continued courageous struggle. For most social-justice workers, there are greater milestones than the arrival of a female boss. Identity politics, of whatever stripe, thus has its limitations, and its rewards can be few, but as "one of ours" rises, to greet Iowa's 150th birthday from a place no woman has stood before, ever, in all those years, for more than a century, our raised consciousness feels pride.

This tale of struggle, ebbing into a simple greeting to Mary Sue Coleman; spoken with a particular warmth and moral credibility: We brought you here; welcome. Clara Oleson, 1888 Fox Springdale. depend on the cassava for half of their caloric consumption. Enter a modern hero Hans Rudolf Herren, a Swiss biologist trained in Switzerland and California. As director general of the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, he went to work recruiting an army among the mealybug's natural enemies.

Since cassava and the mealybugs both thrived in their adopted land, Herren reasoned, the bug's foes should be able to do the same. (Before they were divided millions of years ago by the continental drift, Africa and South America were one land mass and today, they share some rare plant and animal species that are found nowhere else on the globe.) Herren eventually found his airborne Keep the idea alive Residential development downtown should remain a D.M. priority. Socialist goals are different he Hillside project plans to build a neighborhood of apartments has collapsed, but the city should Deficit history One would think the vice president of the United States, who was also a long-time member of Congress, would have the history of the federal budget straight. At Tom Harkin's steak fry last month, Al Gore said President Clinton has reduced the federal budget deficit to the lowest point since Harry Truman was president (1945-1952).

Fact: The current budget deficit is projected to be $200 billion, while in each of the fiscal years 1956, 1957 and 1960 the budget was balanced with a small sur-; plus under Eisenhower and again in 1969 under Nixon. Howard Marsh, Box 455, Stuart. Rekha Basu, in her Oct. 6 column, "Selling Socialism at the Ballot Box," attempts to create a segue between socialism and the Christian Coalition, and to encourage diluting the dominance of our two-party system. Basu suggests the socialist goal of building a party that can win elections along with the overall goal, "to make a fundamental change in society," is nothing different than that of the Christian Coalition.

If one adheres to this logic, then the same may also be said about the goals of those espousing communism and those of the leftists and liberal factions of the Democratic Party. Basu's multi-party ideals for encompassing minority viewpoints may support the political framework of a Third World nation such as India, but the founding fathers of America built our political system with Christian philosophies, and majority rules. Douglas P. Freeman, 4517 98th Vrbandale. phase.

Principal, Equitable, EMC and Meredith have or are about to have major building construction projects going. These buildings will bring more workers into the city and, theoretically, boost the demand for downtown housing that beats the suburbs in commuting time. Private developers and public officials should try to maintain Hillside's goal of providing architecturally distinctive apartments. Hillside set out to do this by offering lofts in its mix of units. But new construction isn't a necessity.

Des Moines has plenty of existing buildings with features like oversized windows and hardwood floors. Many could be converted into compelling residential lofts or duplexes. Offering roomy, stylistically distinct housing is another way for the city to distinguish itself from the suburbs. A eulogy for Hillside would ring with cliches about keeping the dream alive. As weary as such sentiments sound, they are precisely accurate.

Hillside was- a great idea and great ideas cannot be abandoned. Poultry part of healthful diet climb right back into the saddle of downtown residential development. Hillside was a visionary project done in by economics. Once the contractors' bids arrived, the developers saw that their plans cost more than they had expected. Finishing would have meant charging rents that were too high to be competitive.

Des Moines could have ended up with buildings full of beautiful, high-quality, but empty apartments. Hillside's board of directors voted unanimously to end the project, but creative downtown housing should remain a Des Moines priority. The excitement that Hillside generated shows that people want more heart-of-the-city living options. And in Hillside's death are the seeds of future plans. Years of development work have provided valuable experience and insights into both the process and the possibilities of residential growth.

What's more, downtown is in a growth Better odds I have finally figured out what has greater odds against me than winning the lottery: the extinction of the box elder bug in my lifetime. Mary Jo Gamble, 4225 S.W. 28th Des Moines. A Sept. 13 letter questions the safety of eating poultry and egregious-ly misrepresents the surgeon general's statements concerning the nutritive value of poultry products.

Contrary to the writer's assertions, the surgeon general advocates poultry as part of a balanced and healthy diet. The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health (1988) emphasizes "consumption of vegetables, fruits and whole-grain products foods that are rich in complex carbohydrates and fiber and relatively low in calories and of fish, poultry prepared without skin, lean meats and low-fat dairy products selected to minimize consumption of total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol." In the case of poultry, most of the fat can be removed simply by discarding the skin before consumption, as the surgeon general advocates. Poultry and meat products are safe, wholesome and delicious components of a healthy, balanced diet. They provide all of the essential amino acids and in the correct proportions. They provide iron in the form most readily absorbed by the body.

Kathryn L. Kotula, scientific adtriser, The National Broiler Council, Hie Madison Building, Suite 614, 1155 Fifteenth St. N.W., Washington, D.C. WE'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU Mail your letter to Letters, The Des Moines Register, Box 957, Des Moines, Iowa, 50304. By fax: 515-286-2511.

By Internet: Lellersdesmoine.gannett.com. Please include your complete name, address and daytime telephone number. Because of space limitations, letters may be shortened. WHO WRITES THE EDITORIALS? Vie essays iti litis mill in a iv irrilli'tt by the etlilnriul-jmgr staff, which in-duties Richard Dunk, Lindti iiiiilur Fantlel, Nancy Clark, Alissa llaiwoode, Rax Hill Leonard and Suzanne Nelson. The editorials are not opinions of any individual writer, bill rather a consensus the views of the editorial-page staff and itf Publisher diaries C.

Edwards Jr. and Editor Dennis R. Rijerson, all collaborating within the framework of The Register's heritage as a voice for the betterment of Iowa and its people..