The Daily Herald from Chicago, Illinois • Page 103

Super Clip ties up market Inventor hopes product will be as famous as father's Slinky BUSINESS Sections 50 Gerijs izL Dallas coach Barry Switzer celebrates a Cowboys touchdown. It's Cowboys, Steelers The Dallas Cowboys rallied to defeat the Green Bay Packers 38-27, and the Pittsburgh Steelers held off the Indianapolis Colts 20-16 to advance to Super Bowl XXX on Jan. 28 Section 2. Winter's back Today will be partly sunny and colder with temperatures only in the 30s during the day and in the 20s at night. Controversial episode "NYPD Blue" has never shied from controversy, but Tuesday night the show marks the Martin Luther King Jr.

holiday with a detective using what is commonly called "the N-word" Section 4, Page 4. At a loss for words Like Barbara Walters, Jack Mabley asks, "What about good taste?" in response to the rising level of profanity used by children, and adults, in everyday conversation Back Page. Meeting'd out? You're not alone. Meetings are on the rise in corporate America. And unfortunately, they're not all productive.

A Pittsburgh executive may have said it best: A meeting is "a place where you keep the minutes and lose the hours" Section 3. Snowmobiling dangers Common sense, caution can keep sport safe BY CAROLYN ARNOLD Daily Herald Staff Writer Snowmobilers Casey Vuorenmaa and Jamie Kramer make their way along a rural Elgin road after a recent snowfall. Daily Herald Tonga GOP lawmaker: Another shutdown not in the works Reuters WASHINGTON Republicans have abandoned their strategy of shutting down the government to put pressure on President Clinton in their battle over a balanced-budget plan, House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich said Sunday. Kasich, one of the most influential Republicans in the debate over a seven-year balanced-budget plan, also said Congress would raise the $4.9 trillion federal debt ceiling, easing the way for the government to increase its borrowings and pay off holders of maturing government securities. "We're going'to debt ceiling; in my opinion, we should" the Ohio Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

"My sense is you don't want to mess around with defaulting here in the United States." Although the government has been barred from increasing the amount of debt it takes on since last fallj Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has been using a little- known legal maneuver to continue borrowing and avoid a default. Republicans, who control Congress, have twice forced the government to shut down in whole or in part by refusing to provide the funding needed to pay federal employees except as part of a balanced-budget plan, which Clinton vetoed. Under a current stopgap spending measure, federal workers are being paid, but some programs remain unfunded, leaving workers in those agencies with little to do. If there is no further funding agreement, there could be another partial shutdown Jan. 26, when temporary funding expires.

The shutdown strategy apparently backfired for Republicans. A Time poll issued Saturday showed that Americans think President Clinton has handled himself responsibly than Republican leaders during recent budget negotiations. It's the type of accident that paints snowmobiling as a dangerous sport: the drowning of a snow- mobiler whose machine breaks through ice on a lake. It happened a year ago in Powers Lake, Wis. Two brothers out for a snowmobile ride across the icy lake found they were hitting patches of water.

According to Jim Spiegel, Vernon Hills' Countryside Fire Protection District deputy chief, a snowmobile can glide over water if it's going fast enough and the driver has a steady hand. One of the brothers made it to the edge of the lake and out of the water. The other didn't. "It's quite a talent (to control the snowmobile)," said Spiegel, whose department spent several days in Powers Lake helping to find the body. "Unfortunately the consequences can be very deadly." But even though snowmobile accidents are highly publicized, they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.

"It's like any sport," Spiegel said. "People have the tendency to push it over the edge." So enthusiasts, experts, and police and fire officials say common sense is the rule for riding. "It's just like any type of vehicle that can go at great speeds," said Wauconda Fire Department Assistant Chief BUI Glade. "People have to be aware of the conditions they're riding in." In the past month, three accidents two of which were fatal were added to the list of snowmobiling statistics. Kelly Popelka, 18, of St.

Charles, was killed after she was thrown from a snowmobile on New Year's Eve in Kane County. Kane County Sheriffs Police Sgt. Mike Anderson said Popelka was a passenger on a snowmobile when it hit a driveway apron in Campton Township. The driver, William Honoring a hero Nation celebrates holiday While thousands of community leaders and residents are gathering today to pay tribute to Martin Luther King including 5- year-old Paul Miles Jr. in California, the Daily Herald asked black residents who live in the suburbs to share their views about the African-American experience since King's death in 1968.

In honor of King's birthday, post offices, banks, courts and most schools will be closed across the country. Associated Press Photo An open field is one of the many attractions for snowmobilers in northern Illinois. The abundance of undeveloped land allows snowmobile enthusiasts, like Casey Vuorenmaa and Jaime Kramer, room to enjoy their vehicles. Daily Herald Tonga Wyatt, 19, of Elburn, was injured in the accident. Wonder Lake residents Jeffrey Spencer, 31 and Eric Hoffman, 24, were killed three weeks ago on Wonder Lake.

McHenry County Sheriffs Police believe Hoffman was driving the snowmobile and collided with Spencer, who was recording its speed with a radar gun while standing in the dark. And on Jan. 4, an Algonquin Township father and daughter escaped serious injury when their snowmobile fell through ice on the Fox River, near Fox River Grove. "I really believe it's a safe sport," said Randy Majewski, owner of Midwest Snowmobile Collision Specialists in Chicago. "Most people who are in it have been snowmobiling for a long See SPORT on Page 4 Bush says leaving Hussein in power hurt hope for Iraq Reuters WASHINGTON On the fifth anniversary of the Persian Gulf War against Iraq, former President George Bush said he should have sought Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's personal surrender at the end of the war.

In an interview with David Frost to be aired Tuesday on the Public Broadcasting Service, Bush said he erred in thinking Hussein would fall from power. "And I miscalculated," he said in a transcript released today. "I thought he'd be gone." Bush, in what was called his most extensive interview, said in retrospect he should have insisted on "a Battleship Missouri surrender," a reference to the U.S. ship on which Japan formally surrendered to end World War II. The 100-hour war against Iraq started Jan.

16, 1991, in retaliation against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. "But the ending wasn't quite as clean as it might have been if Saddam Hussein had come to the (surrender) tent, laid down his thing (his sword) and maybe left office," Bush said. "I mean, that would have been the cleanest possible ending because then we could everybody could have started over wjth Iraq." Bush did not in retrospect say the U.S.-led forces should have sought to kill Hussein, arguing that was not the mission. "We didn't know where he was" in Baghdad, Bush said, "where he is the most secure despot in the entire world" Nevertheless, Bush said although he still opposed political assassinations, he would not have felt bad if Hussein had been killed in the war. "Saddam Hussein was the corn- George Bush Saddam Hussein mander in chief of the Iraqi forces, and if his life had been snuffed put in a bombing attack or something too bad," Bush said.

"That's one of the prices of war." He called him "wacko" "I mean you have to be mad to personally kill people" and make "crazy decisions." On related themes, Bush said he would have risked an impeachment vote and gone ahead with retaliation against Iraq even if Congress had not approved his move. "I know I would have" gone ahead against Hussein, he said. "I expect that impeachment pagers would have been filed immediately if we'd gone into battle without sanction by the Congress." He also said the United States "had to lean on" Israel very hard so they would not retaliate because Iraq fired Scud missiles against it. When Israel proposed air retaliation, coalition forces refused to give them the secret codes so the planes would not be hit by allied forces, Bush said. "And we said," Bush told Frost, "we're not going to give you the codes, and thus your aircraft are going to be flying and exposed to the threat of friendly fire.

And they did not like that." But he said it was in Israel's best interest of coalition solidarity. Claiming China's unwanted kids Suburban parents build families with overseas adoptions BY BOB McKEE Daily Herald Staff Writer Sharon Noel of Rolling Meadows holds 5V 2 month-old Lian, her newly adopted daughter from China. Daily Herald Trafalet One thing united Sharon Noel and her daughter, Lian. They needed each other. The sya-month-old Lian lived most of her life in a Chinese orphanage and foster home, where she was taken after being found abandoned on a city street when she was 10 days old.

Noel, 44, of Rolling Meadows, and her husband, Walt Noffsinger, wanted to add to their family, which includes two sons, but couldn't have more children. So the couple joined a growing number of Americans who make the sojourn to China to adopt children. "Obviously we needed her and she needed us. It's a two-way street," Noel said, looking at the smiling child who was sitting on her lap. "These children need homes, and we have homes that need children." i Noel and Noffsinger were among seven families from the Chicago area that last week made the nearly trip to Hefei, China, to bring their newly adopted children home.

Such adoptions are becoming more popular as relations improve between the United States and China. For instance, about 125 Chinese orphans in 1995 were adopted by Chicago-area families through local child welfare agencies. That number is expected to increase to 375 this year. "We have a unique moment in history," said Richard Pearlman, executive director of the Family Resource Center in Chicago. "While the doors are open we are going to pursue it." The non-profit organization assisted hi arranging Lian's adoption and expects to help as many as 80 others this year.

People are pursuing Chinese adoptions because they want to be parents and the process involves fewer hurdles than the domestic system, Pearlman says. For instance, it is often difficult for single people older than 35 to adopt a child. "It fits me, it fits my age, they don't mind that I'm divorced," said Alice McCaslin, 41, who brought her adopted daughter, Joy, home to Buffalo Grove this week. "They just want someone to have financial means to provide for these and to have a good home." Aside from the fact that it can be easier than going through the domestic system, adopting a Chinese baby also helps children mostly girls in need. The Chinese restrict most families to one child.

Because boys someday will' probably be counted on to provide for their elderly parents, girls are abandoned in frightening numbers. "These people were excited that these children were going to a better home," said McCaslin, a financial analyst. "It's not that they don't like girls. They do. It's economic." But a storm of controversy has risen around China's state-run orphanages in the past week.

Human Rights recently released a report, written in collaboration with Zhang Shuyun, a doctor who worked for five years at a Chinese orphanage, that alleges the use of "dying rooms," where unwanted children die in great numbers, See CHINA on Page4.