The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise from Seguin, Texas • Page 4

Page 4 Wednesday, December 30, 1998 The Seguln Gazette-Enterprise Seguin, Texas OPINIONS I With little extra expense, parents can help children For a few rents, it is nnssible tn make a HH hooks as an essential element in the no- and it nnnenrn. in mv household nnvu Bob Thamon Staff Wrttap Many drivers are just nuts Television news coverage of last week's cold front that brought icy highways to Central Texas featured a San Antonio man saying, "People down here don't know how to drive on ice." It's a comment heard during similar situations in years past, and it probably evoked nods of agreement from thousands of TV viewers in the area. The TV reporter followed her interviews with some tips on driving under such conditions, but her coverage didn't, in my opinion, place sufficient emphasis on the most important factor to keep in mind when driving on icy roads. There shouldn't be any mystery about it, and there shouldn't be any difficulty in remembering it from year to year. The first and foremost rule of driving on icy roads is to slow down.

When there's ice on overpasses and bridges, zipping along at 70 or 75 mph is like playing Russian roulette. And the consequences can be just as deadly. Between 10 p.m. Dec. 22 and 8 a.m.

Dec. 24, Seguin police investigated 30 traffic accidents, virtually all of them attributed to icy conditions and the majority of them occurring on Interstate 10. Outside the city, state trooperg were kept busy with a similar assortment of spin- outs and rollovers, and one of those took the life of a seven-month-old baby. Most, if not all, of those accidents could have been avoided. It would have taken nothing more than slowing down to an appropriate speed, particularly when approaching bridges and overpasses.

Slowing down doesn't ab-, solutely guarantee that your vehicle won't spin out on an icy overpass. But spinning out at slow speed invariably produces less damage and fewer injuries. In Austin, ice on the upper level of Interstate 35 was blamed for two pileups early Wednesday involving almost 60 vehicles, two deaths and scores of injuries. Although ice might have been the primary factor, excessive speed and tailgating other vehicles undoubtedly were contributing factors in the pileups. Austin drivers, generally speaking, appear to be among the most reckless in Texas speeding, following too closely, darting from lane to lane, running stop lights, ignoring yield signs.

It seems as though about two-thirds of the city's vehicles are being operated by people who drive like teen-age boys. Since members of the Texas Legislature spend five or six months in Austin every other year, it wouldn't be surprising if some senator or representative introduced a bill proposing to raise the minimum age for issuance of a driver's license to 18 with completion of a driver's education course and 21 without it. To many of the older generation, this might sound like a nifty way to keep some of the young and reckless off the roadways. But passing laws and effectively enforcing them are two different things. Raising the minimum age for a driver's license probably would do little more than increase the number of unlicensed drivers running around loose.

Before enacting new laws, we ought to insist on more vigorous enforcement of existing statutes. Writing more tickets won't eliminate speeders, but it might encourage some of rtiem to slow down. For a few cents, it is possible to make a difference in a child's life. Here are some examples I discovered while raising two children, who are now in college, of spending just a little more money to help children to feel more secure, to learn and to gain confidence. The first example is a simple one that had an impact on my son and daughter.

Light signifies warmth and happiness. Turn a light on in your child's room before they return home from school each day. The cost is minimal pennies per hour. And the benefit is real, especially during the winter months when the sun sets early. Also, I hope this example shows that no action that helps children is too small to be overlooked.

Capitol Comment U.8. ConflrassntM Smith We live in an age when children are bombarded with electronic stimuli. The television is ever-present in most homes, computer games vie successfully for attention and our culture surrounds children with recorded music. None of these is necessarily negative, but it can be difficult, given the competition, to teach children both the habit and the skills of reading. No technological advance, no matter how captivating 1 can take the place of books as an essential element in the upbringing of children.

There is nothing that compares with reading for inspiring imagination and thought. I resorted to a low-tech response to our electronic culture that helped motivate my children to read, I have to confess that it amounts to bribery. I once heard about a family of achievers where the parents offered $1 for each book read by their children as an incentive to develop reading as a habit. But a dollar does not go as far today as it did for previous generations. Through experience, I arrived at 5 cents per p'age as a good compensation level.

That means a child receives $5 for reading 100 pages. It's enough to encourage children to read without breaking the budget and it appears, in my household anyway, to have accomplished the goal. Athletics can pose a dilemma. Sports have the clear benefits of teaching children to play fair, to work as a team and how to win or lose with grace. But the equipment can be expensive.

Even so, to the degree that parents are able to afford sports equipment that helps teach healthy competition, spending a little extra for good equipment has an additional benefit. It helps to inspire confidence. Every parent discovers their own unique ways to encourage and teach their children. What I've been discussing are some things parents can do for a few cents more that can make a difference in a child's life. I hope they are helpful to you.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Even with our flood, memories find roses Charge the Clinton haters with treason To the Editor: Your Letters to the Editor of late have been: The Clinton Haters 10, the great majority of Americans (the or Americans who approve of the Clinton Presidency, thank It is obvious to the great majority of us that this impeachment nonsense is about partisan politics, period, and about the sore losers who now want to undo an election which was won fair and square by Bill twice. The right-wing Republicans claim to be relying on the Constitution for their justification to waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers money knowing there are not enough votes, or idiots, in the Senate to confirm this nonsense. The Republicans are not saving the Constitution, but rather setting it on fire, making it meaningless. The phony baloney charges so piously chanted by the hypocrites in Washington, and me lunatic right, do not rise to the level of impeachment, thank God, and let's hope they, never do. It is a sad day in our history, indeed, that this once great nation has been reduced to the mentality of a Peeping Tom, thanks to Ken Starr and the Republicans in the House.

And, it is reprehensible that the Republicans in Congress have yielded to a handful of nuts, the Clinton wasted so much of our national resources on this nonsense. It is absolutely un-American to support this divisive impeachment lunacy. Here is the solution: Take all the taxpayers' money the Republicans have wasted on these endless and nonsensical investigations from the day, President Clinton took office, and send the bill for this wasted tax moriey to the Republican coffers fdr payment. Why should the American taxpayers pay for Republican Partisan Politics? And, take the millions we will waste on an impeachment trial and send the money to the poor and homeless. If we wish to censure President Clinton, then let's' do so and move on and quit Wasting the time and money of this great country! Finally, let's charge The Clinton haters with treason and kick their un-American butts out of our country! Sincerely, Jim Green Seguin New DWI laws don't reduce accidents, are costly Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking his listeners, "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does he have?" Someone would always answer: "Five." "Not so," Lincoln would admonish them.

"Just because you call a tail a leg doesn't mean it's a leg. It's a tail just the same." So it is with politicians who seek to be seen as "tough on drunk driving" by changing the legal definition of drunkenness. By using a carrot-and-stick strategy against states that do not do their bidding, these people would force state governments to do what the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to do: Write and enforce drunk-driving laws. In his weekly radio address on Dec. 26, President Bill Clinton called for federal legislation that would deny.highway funds to states that ad riot reduce their legal intoxication limits.

Advocates of such laws claim that at least 500 alcohol-related deaths couid be avoided yearly if all 50 states adopted a 0.08 percent limit on the amount of alcohol in a driver's blood. Most states currently have a blood alcohol content (BAC) limit of 0.10 percent; 16 states and the District of Columbia have lower limits. This misguided approach will have no discernible effect on traffic accidents but instead will waste precious law enforcement resources and give politicians a warm feeling that they have "done something." Definitions have little to do Be Our Guest Richard Sincere, Jp. with actual impairment. According to Dr, William Hotchkiss, former president of the American Medical Association, 83 percent to 97 percent of people tested were considered physically impaired at BAC levels of 0.10 to 0.15.

In the same study, up to 86 percent of persons at a BAC of 0.05 to 0.10 are not physically impaired. This is why a 0.10 BAC has become an accepted standard. An unexpected opponent of the 0.08 BAC is Candy Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). She says: "Half of drinking drivers involved in fatal crastas have a BAC of 0.17 or greater. Even among young people aged 16 to 24, the great majority of deaths involve drinkers with a BAC of at least 0,15 cent.

Lowering the blood alcohol content won't make a difference to these offenders." The fact is, by changing the definition of drunkenness, we enable the police to arrest more people. That may seem tough, but the effect is clogging the courts with people who are not really the problem, creating conditions whereby truly dangerous people are let off without punishment so that we can mala; room for the minor offender, The author of "Confronting Drunk Driving," Professor H. Laurence Ross, estimates a potential increase of 60 percent of DWI arrests under the new definition with the possibility of no decrease in fatalities." Adoption of 0.08 percent BAC has not to date been accompanied by any comparable new investments in police resources," Dr. Ross reports, "thus diluting an already inadequate cpntrol system. The effect may well be to reduce the chances of any impaired drivers being arrested." This proposal will raise costs to taxpayers, waste resources and en- ergy and cause a bureaucratic and legal morass that will not be balanced by better highway safety.

Our focus should continue to be on education the fact that alcohol-related highway deaths are down from nearly 25,000 in 1982 to 23,000 in 1988 to 16,189 in 1997 is evidence that social disapproval and education are working and on tough enforcement of existing laws. Congress and the states should, therefore, resist any effort to change the definition of drunkenness nationwide from a BAC of 0.10 to a BAC of 0.08. All that will do is illegitimately extend the federal web into.the proper domain of state lawmakers. Richard Sincere, is a member of the national committee of the Republican Liberty Caucus, the organized movement of libertarians within the COP. To the Editor: (Editor's Note: This is a letter received by Monlezun ofDu- son, La.

from his cousin Charles Monlezun reprinted with permission, which deals with their family's memories of life on the Guadalupe River that might help give strength to those who find themselves rebuilding after the recent floods.) Dear C. J. and Karen, Once, I read that God gives us memories so that we might have roses in the snow. Since your parents' deaths, I have often plucked roses of their memories, mere being so many from which to choose. When the flood came in 1972, Sharon and I were privileged to help them both to continue their lives on their beloved (Guadalupe) river.

Then the flood came again to their emptied home in 1998 and we could not help you. We all felt helpless and somehow lessened by the utter loss of our paradise. We have all tried to imagine ourselves not going there again. Now we are asked to imagine this beautiful place in tragic destruction swept away by the river which contributed so much to its character. I am writing you to tell you how I have been saved from such a hard task.

On Dec. 2, while in San Marcos on business, I drove to 350 River Lane to see for myself. I drove down the hill at high noon. Nobody was home. Nobody was at the Dwyers nor the Chauvins.

Utter silence. Only me to walk in shock amidst it all all gone, all out of place, all turned into mud, all the wrong smells. Utter quiet except for the sounds of the roses. So many roses. I walked all around everywhere and everything.

I could not touch anything for I knew it would hurt too much. Finally, after as long as I could, I went into the house. By then I was numb. I could not feel anything. I thought, "Shouldn't I be feeling something?" I could not, I was too busy remembering.

I walked into every room I could reach. My boots were sinking into the suctioning muck. Then I saw it. A portion of something white protruding from the mud. "Should May Can I reached, down and gently rugged up from the river bottom which had somehow swallowed the kitchen floor and there came a ceramic camel from the nativity scene.

Utter destruction all around and this fragile camel lay completely intact, unbroken not a fleck. I think we stared at each other. We rescued each other! He from the mud. Me from myself. Here in the Advent to Christmas the beast of burden which bore the Kings to Bethr lehem was carrying me out -of this house I much." I carried my treasure down to sit on the wharf.

There I washed it in the river which could not destroy it. Then I hung my boots in the river to let the current carry away the mud back to itself. I carried it home through the airports like a trophy, like a holocaust survivor standing at the fence during liberation as though to say to the world, "They could not kill me." That single piece of ceramic tells us all that neither time nor flood can kill the spirits of survivorship which dwelled in your parents. Neither can time nor flood uproot those rose bushes which continue to live in and nourish those of us who were privileged tp know them and their special place which gave all of us so much. So in a strange paradoxical way perhaps the river gave so much more than it took away.

It took away the structures that we know as the home, but it does not take away the memories which fill our minds and nourish our souls. For these I am grateful to your parents and to you and to this special place we simply call Seguin. Your most fortunate cousin, Charles Monlezun Our Representatives President Bill Clinton The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500 U.S.

Sen. Kay Hutchison 283 Russell Building Washington, D.C. 20510 U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm United States Senate Washington, D.C.

20510 Governor George W. Bush State Capitol, Room 2S.1 Austin, Texas 78701 U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith 2231 Rayburn Building Washington, D.C, 20515 U.S. Rep.

Clro Rodriguez 323 Cannon Building Washington, D.C. 20515 State Sen. Jeff Wentworth Capitol Station-Box 12068 Austin, Texas 78711-2068 State Rep, Edmund Kuempel P.O. Box 2910 Austin, Texas 78768-2010 Letters to the Editor Policy The Seguln Qazette-Enterprise welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of broad Interest to our readers. Letters that contain personal attacks against private Individuals or businesses will not be published.

Generally, letters that contribute to a community dialog about local public Issues will receive publication priority. Utters of 300 words or less are most likely to be chosen for publication, but the use of any material Is at the discretion of the editor and managing editor. The editors ask that readers limit their letters to two a month. All letters and columns must bear the handwritten signature of the writer and Include the address and phone number(s) for verification purposes. Letters and columns published do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies or beliefs of this newspaper.

Material too long to be considered as a letter to the' editor may be published as a guest column under the title "Be Our Quest.".