Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 25

BAY SENIORS Lansing State Journal Tuesday, February 1, 1994 Kathleen Lavey, Features Editor 377-1251 Page 1D Program helps wanderina Alzheimer's patients get Back home where they belong. Most of us are sick, but not of working Your daily guide to what everyone's talking about and what's happening around town. ZZ3 I'm 'IMWWI I tf li ones. Men approaching retirement age take more sick days in a row than most others, as do people preparing to quit Children play a role in grown-up sick days. Women with children have the highest rate of sick days of almost any group, according to the BLS, followed closely by single men with children under 6.

The men take half again as many sick days as most people. "Those who call in sick are not necessarily sicker than the ones who go to work," said Jeffrey Klein, a Bethesda, psychiatrist. "There are different perceptions of how sick is sick. A lot of it has to do with whether the parents kept a child at home or sent him or her to school." Fewer than half of American companies allow paid sick days to care for ailing children or elderly parents, according to the most recent survey con-ducted by the Small Business Administration. Ailing workers who have their spouses call in sick for them, or prefer giving the message to voice mail instead of the boss, should not be condemned.

"Actually, those are the good employees, the ones with the Puritan work ethic. They're feeling guilty," said Marvin Lipsett, a psychiatrist who specializes in mental illnesses of the workplace. "A malingerer would not feel any trepidation about calling in sick. They feel they're entitled. "Among male workers, guilt issues also come from feeling macho.

They think, how could a little bitty bug lay low somebody as big and strong as they are?" Computers are changing the definition of a sick day, since employees can stay home, work on their laptops and keep in touch with the office via electronic mail. absenteeism," said John Schappi, an expert on job attendance. "It could be they have greater job satisfaction. But it's also greater peer pressure. If you know your absence really affects the group, you may think twice about calling in sick." The flu is the largest single reason for calling in sick.

In a 100-worker office, people will call in sick with the flu 76 days per year, on average. Strains and sprains account for 30 sick days, while fractures and dislocations add up to 23 absent days. The common cold accounts for only 21 sick days. "Female problems" are among the lowest reasons for absenteeism, accounting for only five sick days a year. The average number of "work-loss" days, the National Center for Health Statistics reported, is slightly less than four per person per year.

Southerners and Westerners call in sick most often. Poor people call in sick more than rich Associated Press Americans call in sick more than 2.1 million times per month, with the flu the biggest culprit and federal employees racking up the highest rate of absenteeism. That's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports Good Housekeeping magazine. The worst offender in terms of total number of sick days is the U.S. Postal Service, which suffers more time outs than the Army and Navy combined.

Its 5,752,180 sick days cost taxpayers $702,921,000. In fact, federal employees take more sick days than miners or people in construction. They take almost twice as many sick days as people in retail trades, where you sometimes don't get paid if you don't work. "Studies indicate that employees in smaller work groups tend to have less Hess jumps to Channel 10 Eric Hess is jumping from one local TV station to another. Hess was hired Monday as No.

2 sportscaster at WILX (Channel 10). That means he'll anchor on weekends and at 11 p.m. Fridays; Rob Landesey continues in the No. 3 spot, part-time. Currently, Hess has the No.

3 spot at WLNS (Channel 6). "He's a very soft-spoken, easygoing guy," said Tim Staudt, WILX's sports and news chief. "He smiles a lot You can put him on something like horseshoes and people will like it; he's not just scores and statistics." The opening came when Matt Morrison landed the No. 2 job in Jacksonville, Fla. Morrison's last day at WILX is Feb.

13. Turtles in trouble need help Turtle alert! Troubled turtles need your help. All you need is a crayon to draw some attention to their troubles. So don't be a turtle. Enter this poster si'ssi sr 77.

I Bishop sees 1 church, many views By SHEILA SCHIMPF Lansing State Journal Almost six years after its creation, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has stable membership, increased giving, a willingness to work with Roman Catholics, a strong voice against moral decline, and a commitment to women and minorities. It also has members with conflicting views on all of the above. contest quick! In a drawing, il-" lustrate why fresh water or land tur-" ties are in trouble. 0 Or picture how people can help the 100 species of turtles that are in danger of being wiped out. There's only one rule: You can't draw any pizza- loving turtles.

said the Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, bishop. "We have five million members and five million 'i. opinions," Chil strom said Monday.

Chilstrom. Mail your poster to: Poster Contest, New York Turtle Tortoise Society, 163 Amsterdam Suite 365, New York. N.Y. 10023. Entries must be postmarked by May 15.

Winning posters will be shown in New York City in June. 'Time Trax' treks to new time Local science-fiction fans can thank Chevy Chase. His failure means shows like "Time Trax" have better time slots. "Time Trax" is an amiable-enough series, with Dale Midkiff as a cop from the future, thrust back to our era. Last season, it struggled in awful time slots.

The break came when Chase's late-night show failed at II p.m. weekdays. The Fox network plugged the hole with reruns for a while, then gave up. So now we can catch a new adventure show at 1 1 p.m. daily.

That includes "The Untouchables" on Mondays, "Time Trax" on Tuesdays, "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues" on Wednesdays, "Acapulco H.E.A.T." on Thursdays and "Bay Watch" on Fridays. The station also has started airing "Babylon 5" at 6 p.m. Saturdays, right before "Deep Space Nine." Then there's "Star Trek: The Next Generation," with reruns (7 p.m. weekdays on Channel 10) and new episodes (7 p.m. Saturdays and 11:30 p.m.

Sundays on Channel 6). Fantasy may be taking over. Figure skaters rule show-biz world Figure-skaters seem to be taking over the world. Consider: As soon as the Palace of Auburn Hills finished one show, headlined by Scott Hamilton and Kristi i "Simple Justice" chronicles two decades of legal strug- Houston and Thurgood Marshall to end segregation of gle by African-American lawyers Charles Hamilton public schools in America. 17 Yamaguchi, it announced another gold-medal winner.

This one is Dorothy Hamill; her "Cinderella: Frozen in Time" runs March 16-20. Tickets $12, $10, $8 are at Ticketmas-ter locations, including Hudson's, Where House Records, Harmony House and 484-5656. Meanwhile, that Hamilton-Yamaguchi show is coming to East Lansing. It will be at i 1, I Yamaguchi Marcn 23; $19.50 and $27.50 are at the box office (336-1440) or at Ticketmaster. And the Winter Olympics (Feb.

12-27 on CBS) will be dominated by figure-skaters. Go figure. Black History Month TV events Wednesday: "Simple Justice" reruns. Here is a docudrama, tracing the cases that led up to the court decision to desegregate schools. James Avery and Peter Francis James play crusading lawyers Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.

8:30 p.m., Channel 23. Wednesday: "The State of Black Michigan." 1 1 p.m., Channel 23; reruns at 3 p.m. Sunday. Sunday: "Impromptu" begins a four-week study of black history. 6:30 a.m., Channel 47.

Sunday: "Portrait of a Teacher" has four profiles, with the strongest one last. In the Mississippi Delta, it follows a teacher who gives students a taste for the era of civil-rights protests. 10 p.m., cable's Lifetime. Monday: "I'll Fly Away" continues weekly, with double episodes coming on Feb. 14 and 21.

8 p.m., Channel 23. Feb. 1 5: "A Question of Color" is a brilliantly crafted film. Kathe Sandler cuts between dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks, ranging from northern cities to the rural South. She offers fresh view of age-old subtleties.

10 p.m., Channel 23. Feb. 19: "Roots," reruns, 2-8 p.m., cable's Family Channel. Feb. 1 9: "Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad" is a portrait of young slaves' trek to Canada.

8 p.m. on two cable channels, the Family Channel and BET; Family Channel repeats it at 6 p.m. Feb. 20 and 4 p.m. Feb.

27. Feb. 21: "Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance" is a well-meaning look at a time, in the '20s and '30s, when art thrived. The research is painstaking, but this still seems like one of those dreary documentaries of PBS' olden days. 10 p.m., Channel 23.

Feb. 22-23: Here's a TV shot that's not on TV. "The Jeffersons Family Reunion" will have the original cast re-enacting three of the show's stories, plus musical interludes. 8 p.m., MSU Auditorium Building; tickets $25, $20 and $15 ($2.50 less for students) are at 484-5656. Feb.

25: "Great Performances" reruns its "Jammin': Jelly Roll Morton on Broadway." Midnight, Channel 23. Feb. 27: "Assault at West Point" dramatizes the startling story of West Point's first black cadet, more than a century ago. The story is stunning, but this film is surprisingly stiff and bland. who oversees Chilstrom the church in America from his Chicago office, was in Lansing for the annual conference of clergy and spouses in the North West Lower Michigan Synod.

He gets letters from people on both sides of the homosexuality issue, he says, especially since the church issued a draft of a statement last year urging congregations to welcome gays. "Many people thought that was like an encyclical from Rome," Chilstrom said. "It wasn't anything like it." It will be revised three times before a convention in 1995 votes on it, Chilstrom said. Officially, he said, the church is deciding between two stands: whether gays and lesbians who want to be ordained should be required to promise celibacy or to commit to a single partner. "It's a very volatile issue," Chilstrom said.

His letters include those from people who condemn homosexuality entirely. "There's a feeling of many people that it is not an appropriate example for family life." Chilstrom's guess is the church will continue to ordain gays and lesbians who promise celibacy. This month he joined 50 clergy supporting President Clinton's pledge to break the cycle of violence. The church has an important role in fighting crime, Chilstrom said. Chilstrom is concerned that the new three-times-and-out campaign to lock up criminals after the third conviction may be the extent of the new campaign against crime.

"You don't solve crime by locking people up," he said. "You have to get at the causes of crime. The role of the church is to build community, help children who grow up in poverty, and strengthen education." Many church projects can be done in ecumenical teams, Chilstrom said. Almost 30 years of dialogue with Roman Catholics has led to better understanding of the things they have in common, Chilstrom said. Lutheran relief work in Somalia and many other countries is done in cooperation with Catholics, Chilstrom said.

"There's no point in duplicating efforts," he said. The church, created by the merger of three smaller churches in 1988, had 5.2 million members in 1 992, down less than 1 percent at a time when other denominations have shown much bigger decreases. Giving increased 3.7 percent. "There is more direct giving to a cause," Chilstrom said. For example, one congregation raised $5,000 for earthquake relief and sent it directly to a congregation in Los Angeles.

It never went through the national office. "People like to follow their gift," Chilstrom said. The dark side of that, he said, is that less visible causes, such as health benefits for retired pastors, sometimes struggle for funding. Art-and-eat time If you're feeling prompt and perky, you can race off to this morning's start of the "Art A La Carte" series. I That involves talks at 9 a.m.

on three Tuesdays, in the East Room of Jacobson's. Today, Eldon Van Liere, a Michigan State University prof, discusses his print collection. Tickets are $6.50, including con-Z tinental breakfast; latecomers can pay at the door. Airwaves a longtime haven for persistent black stereotypes By MIKE HUGHES Lansing State Journal As Black History Month begins, television is pondering its own black history. It has, at best, a shaky record.

On one side are some stunning shows. Many of them "Roots," "I'll Fly Away," "Simple Justice" will be rerun this month. And on the other side are well, a lot of other shows. "The big problem that existed in the '70s, for me, was the imbalance," actor John Amos says. "There were no Thurgood Marshall-type characters." That kind of image the strong, educated black male once seemed invisible on TV.

"The stereotype was that it was a matriarchal family," Amos think that goes back to the Aunt Jemima syndrome." His old "Good Times" series started with a strong dad and mom. The dad (Amos) was killed, the mom (Esther Rolle) was ignored, and the jive-talking kids took over. That image black life, through the eyes of street-talking teens has persisted. "A low common-denominator is always the one that is served," said Suzanne de Passe, once a Motown executive and now a TV producer. "It's the cheap shot, or the most exaggerated stereotypes." And, of course, it's a comedy.

"The successful shows with African-American stars always seem to be comedies," said Tyrone Bynum, a local talk-show host. "People like Martin Lawrence or Sinbad are always welcome, but that doesn't happen in drama." When black actors want to make a strong point, Bynum says, they sneak it into a comedy. 'Roc is laced with humor, but it has been able to bring in some real drama." Often enough, those images have been crafted by white producers and writers. That started decades ago, when Norman Lear produced "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons." Bynum is so high on the latter that he's bringing the original "Jeffersons" cast to the Michigan State University auditorium, Feb. 22-23.

And it often continues today. Last year, two of the three "In Living Color" producers were white. On this day in 1861, Texas voted to secede from the union; in 1893, inventor i nomas taison compietea work on the world's first motion picture studio, in West Orange, N.J.; in 1898, the Travelers In-' surance Co. of Hartford, issued the first auto insurance policy; in I 1920, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence as the Royal Northwest Mounted Police merged with the Dominion Po- lice; in 1943, one of recurring characters in NBC movies. Bill Cosby's first premiered Monday; Lou Gossett has one on the way.

And Amos' upcoming series? Lear is producing "704 Hauser," but Amos says most of the writers are black. "I was gratified to see that Norman had two African-American female writers." The commercial networks avoid a "Black History Month" category. So does the cable channel BET. "It can be a good thing, if it helps people focus on these issues," said BET founder Robert Johnson. "But for us, every month is black history month." Others, however, are eager.

Bynum's "Impromptu" (6:30 a.m. Sundays on Channel 47) will turn all its February half-hours into a look at black history. Others listed here will cover a rich range. "One answer is to have more people like Suzanne de Passe and other blacks in the creative production side," said actor Tim Reid. That's happening, gradually: De Passe has already made "The Jacksons" and has turned "Lonesome Dove" into two miniseries and an upcoming syndicated series.

Next comes "Sister, Sister," a comedy about teen twins. Reid produced the upcoming "Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad," for cable's Family Channel. "We rarely see blacks in roles that involve courage and wit" Diana Ross is producing and starring in three ABC movies. The Blackside production team has triumphed on PBS, with "Eyes on the Prize," "The Great Depression" and last week's Malcolm documentary. Black detectives are showing up as America's most highly I decorated military units nf WnrM War II the 442d Regimental Com- Edison bat Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese-! Americans, was authorized; in 1960, four black col-Liege students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they'd been re- fused service; in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomei-' ni received a tumultuous welcome as he stepped off a jetliner in Tehran, ending nearly 15 years of exile.

Compiled from staff and wire reports..