Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 11

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24. 1990 11 Relief smgerg incoln Journal "Dedicated to the People of Nebraska, and to the Development the Resources of the State" sept. 7.1867. Editorials: Opinions of the Journal Nebikans among those who have achieved the breakthroughs, some have proved to be incapable of dealing with the pressures of the job or the opportunities for plunder. 4 Mayor James Michael Curley of Boston was a hero at first to the' Irish of his city and later an embarrassment.

Mayor Hugh Addoni-zio of Newark was the same to his fellow Italian-Americans, as he too went from city hall to jail But Cur-ley's downfall didn't stop John Ken-, nedy from becoming president and Addonizio's shame didnl bar Jim Florio from becoming governor of New Jersey. 1 gle for equality and recognition lias I been harder than any other group's. But the fall of Marion Barry is not going to halt or even signifi- cantly slow other blacks' movement" into positions of power and the poLl- ical mainstream. Only five days before Barry wan-' dered haplessly into the hotel room the FBI had turned Into a film studio, Virginia inaugurated -Douglas Wilder as the nation's first black governor. The pride and joy that united blacks and whites In Richmond that day will echo in history than the anger and cha- grin felt In Washington last week.

elaborate stage-managing of his arrest was fully justified whether he was black or white, Republican or Democratic But Barry's arresf left "many black city residents reeling with hurt and anger, embarrassment and confusion," as the Washington Post reported. In a Post survey, three times as many blacks as whites said they thought law-enforcement officials would not have tried as hard to make an arrest had the mayor been white. Blacks are not alone in what they are feeling. Historically, city hall has been a prize sought and claimed by successive waves of ethnic and racial minorities. And inevitably, favor waitiriff nprJnfl nn mi tig on guns 1 -r Politicians are able to read a sijam Blacks alone came to the United States slave ships, and their strug- dress, wilder said: "We mark today T.

percent election victory as a mandate. It will be interesting to see how members of the Legislature interpret a survey of Nebraska's residents on how they feel about legislation that would require a seven-day waiting period before the purchase of a r-. outcome was ho cliff-hanger. Of 450 Nebraskans polled last week by National Research Corp. for the Lincoln Journal, 87 percent said they favored such a bill This Barry case overblown 'V'1' By Jim Fain WASHINGTON The Washington Post gave It eight full pages Saturday and almost as many Sunday and Monday.

TV stations preempted network programming for hours of II A Yugoslavian reporter analyzed It on Channel 4. The Post found headline-worthy the By David S. Broder WASHINGTON So many famines have had personal experience with addiction, in one form or another, that most of us could recognize the symptoms in District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry long before last week's arrest ended his years of denial His acknowledgment of his dev. pendency problem and his decision to seek treatment are good news for him, his family and the city that has. -been demoralized by his increasingly reckless behavior and ever- more-desperate efforts at deception.

Washington has prospered and progressed in his 12 years as mayor. The drug scourge that is at the root of its crime problem is shared by many other communities, large and small. But the drug threat to the' city's youth made it increasingly intolerable to have a mayor so fla- grantly self-indulgent and dangerously out of control That is why many of us greeted Barry's arrest with a sigh of relief. But nothing is ever simple when race is part of the equation, as it certainly is in the "sting" operation that a white prosecutor and FBI men set up to catch one of the most prominent black mayors in the country. The day after his arrest, crude jokes with a clearly racist subtext were being told in white Washington while black Washingto-nians'agonized over the exposure of Barry's hypocrisy.

It is impossible for me to believe that U.S. Attorney Jay B. Stephens went to such extraordinary lengths in setting op the "sting" because Barry is black or, as some white liberals say, because the mayor is a Democrat When the mayor of the nation's capital is having repeated private dealings with drug dealers and drag abusers, as prosecutors had strong evidence Barry was doing, he is a menace, not just to himself, but to his city. So long as the Constitution and laws were faithfully observed, the Democrats and 73 percent of independents. Omaha Sea Brad Ashford's LB642, carried over from the last session of the Legislature, would provide the waiting period that this survey shows an overwhelming proportion of Nebraskans want As LB642 now stands, it has attached to it an amendment that would place the so- called right-to-bear arms amendment to the state's constitution before Nebraska voters again.

The reasoning: The constitutional amendment prevents reasonable restrictions on sale or possession or use of firearms. But the amendment to the bill may be dropped, says an aide to Sen. Ashford. In light of a Nebraska Supreme Court decision late last year, it might as well be scrapped. Constitutional amendment or no constitutional amendment, the court said, the state has the power to enact reasonable restrictions on firearms.

Is LB642's seven-day waiting period on handgun purchases reasonable? Almost-nine out of 10 Nebraskans think so, according to that survey; The next move is up to the senators. iaci maae rage 1 in bogota, "It" was the arrest here of a 53-year-old man for buying and smoking crack What capitalized the was the fact he was mayor of a city that houses 10,000 reporters and has become a bizarre citadel of imagery and hype. Marion Barry's little tragedy was no sadder than thousands here or almost anywhere these days. That he's mayor and had toured local schools preaching against drugs gave it some news value.1 not a victory of party or the accom- plishments of an individual but the triumph of an idea an idea as old as America the idea that 'all men are created equal that they are en-' dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: the right to liberty, and the pursuit of happi- Speaking as "a proud Virginian," this grandson of slaves then said some words which ought to be re-: peated In classrooms of the District and all across America where the, news of Marion Barry's downfall has caused pain and cyncism. Addressing "young people of the Commonwealth," Wilder said: "I want them to know that op- pression can be lifted; that discriml- nation can be eliminated; that erty need not be binding; that disa- bility can be overcome; and that the offer of opportunity In a free society carries with it the requirement of I hard work, the rejection of drugs and other false highs, and a willing-1 ness to work with others whatever their color or national origin." 1 Marion Barry was there in Rich-: mond that day.

He heard those words but could not heed them. Let I us hope that others recognize their truth 1990 Washington Post Barry sentiment was reflected all across the state, ranging in the 3rd Congressional District to 90 percent in the 1st and 91 percent in the 2nd. It also crossed party lines: 88 percent of Republicans liked the idea of a waiting period, 87 percent of But the orey it produced releeatinfi to the truss ads anv men. Court will not flinch' tion of Eastern Europe is a phenomenon that could not happen anywhere else, That's because our media herd is juxtaposed onto an exaggerated civic illusion of self-importance. Things are news not so much for what they are as where they happen.

What we have is a hall of rnirrors lined with magnifying glass. Anything that pops up within its range is promptly inflated with the self-reinforcement of nuclear fusion. The resultant perception totally blots. but reality. It's a good idea to take Washington's media firestorms with a large dose of.

skepticism. Most just go to show, in the title words of a recent book on the Reagan era, that the clothes have no emperor. 1990 Cox News Service TP ALSO UKB TO THANK UEICOMB TO THE SHOW, ELMOUT! UBLL.I iOONT MORNING, CAMPERS. MARVELOUS MARK H5RB WITH AN EMERGENCY EDITION OF "URBAN HOME COMPANION? FEATURING OUR OIP Ml, ElMONT THANKS. rPiGRMTTO f.

IN A FULLY HmeV8UtWIN6 WU FOR ALLOWING ME TO MUSCieASIPEVOUR PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULE? GUEST, FORGET IT. AT LEAST NOT TDLW, MAYBE NO PROBLEM. HE CAN COM BACK ANY 1 PAY. VU QUAYLc. One of the responsibilities the judiciary must bear deals with deciding if or when parental rights should be ended.

Because human failure always is at the root of such cases, the subject by definition is messy, emotional, distasteful "Parental termination cases make for wrenching judicial experiences. So often the adults involved, wanting to keep their children, are themselves people permanently handicapped by poverty or victim- ized by a host of very early life strikes. The kids may be all they have. One can only sympathize with judges having to review some perfectly loathsome instances Of child neglect If more Nebraskans would be required to read details of these cases, their appreciation would rise of the judicial task of deciding-whether or not mothers mostly or fathers should be shorn of their child or children! The Supreme Court last week had another in the long line of parental rights termination cases. The only upbeat element in it was that a family which had provided foster care to two small children since mid-1984, waiting for the natural mother to straighten out her life, wants to permanently adopt the youngsters.

The courfconcluded with a recital worthy of a wider audience than lawyer desk books: "The law is not unmindful of a mother's love, of the crippling effects of a history of child abuse and alcoholic parents, and of the grinding effects of an inferior education and habitual poverty, but the law is also not so cruel that punishment for these apparently unchangeable conditions should be imposed on the children. If the only way to break the chain is termination, the la and this court willjiot flinch." NEXT WEEK A 0 Public Mind: From Burnham Yates Sterling, Ewing tury, Yates still was fully involved in one of his last passions, downtown redevelopment There was nothing off-putting or patrician about Yates, with all of his blue-chip background and education. He was irrevocably committed to his home town, its advancement and to sound judgment He invested all three of the prime ingredients in the service of Lincoln time, talent and treasure. Burnham Yates fit a model of personal leadership critical for the growth of this nation for much of the 20th century. Of his special kind, sadly, we are seeing fewer all the time.

Which makes his death particularly difficult to accept even as we celebrate his life. If anyone could qualify for the description of Capital City shaker and mover, that' soul was Burnham Yates. To the extentcontemporary Lincoln residents think thiir community something extra special and there's sound reason for that they also owe a substantial debt to Yates, dead Tuesday at the age of 78. We say that because "Bernie" Yates had a major hand in positively shaping the civic environment of Lincoln for close to 45 consecutive years. Just days ago, as serious illness clearly was sapping the vitality and health 'of the irian who had successfully guided Lincoln's largest bank for more than a quarter-cen In a paragraph Backs tax cut The time has come for an for-ward-thiriking Americans to speak out in favor of Sen.

Daniel Moyni- nan's proposed Social Security tax cut. Contrary to what a number of Republican members of Congress are saying, a cut in Social Security taxes will likely have little long-term effect on the government's ability to pay benefits to the "baby boomers" in the next century. The tremendous surpluses in the Social Security system now being accumulated are not going into some government savings account they are being spent as fast as they are received for the daily operations of the present federal budget The government is replacing this hard cash with the promise to pay the money back when it is needed. Given the current state of political cowardice in this country, it is unlikely that money will ever be available. Income taxes will need to be raised tremendously to pay back the Social Security system when the bills start to come due.

Moyhihan's proposed tax cut would lower the taxes paid by every working American whereas President Bush would prefer to reduce the capital gains tax instead, affecting only those Americans wealthy enough to be able to take advantage of it Timothy Kirschner Starling Not for schools A Lincoln Journal editorial paragraph (Jan. 17) challenged me to produce evidence that school health-programs dealing with family planning inevitably cause an increase in teen-age pregnancies. My actual statement differed greatly from the Journal's version. I stated that "where they programs have existed there has been an increase in teen pregnancy rates." I did not state that the programs were the cause, nor did I state that such result is inevitable. I make no apology for what I have suggested.

Studies indeed show that sex education and family planning programs have corresponded with increases not only in teen pregnancy, but in sexual activity and sexually -transmitted disease. A very comprehensive collection of such statistics was included in "Report on School-Based Health Clinics," published by the Archdiocese of Boston. Also finding an increase in the number of total pregnancies and the number of abortions with the presence of family-planning clinics were 1980 studies by Stan Weed of the Institute for Research and Evaluation in Salt Lake City. I invite the Journal to examine these Establishing a clear cause-and-ef-fect relationship to either a reduced or increased pregnancy rate probably is not possible, but that is my point. Why should I support a very unproveri concept about which I have serious moral and philosophical objections? I certainly do not trivialize the issue of teen pregnancy or view it as less than tragic, but I question the wisdom and the track record of involving the public schools in a very private matter.

Sen. M.L Dierks Ewing Why the hurry? I commend the Lincoln Journal and Councilwoman Jo Gutgsell for exposing the truth about the dealings of some of our public officials concerning the recent approval of the Gateway expansion and the "Dillard's DeaL" I feel Nebraska's open meetings law has been violated because the public and some council were not allowed to participate in these dealings. The shadiest areas which, the county attorney should look into are Gates Minnick and Bill Harris. was Minnick in such a hurry to ramrod the approval of the expansion? Why wouldn't he wait until the study that the taxpayers have already paid (90,000 for is completed? Why didn't Harris put his 2 cents in until after the approval was already a done deal? Are there any conflicts of interest in this deal? The prudent step now is to put everything on hold until more infor-maUon is made pubic. Lincoln doesn't need to be in such a hurry to make a mistake that it will have to live with for years to come.

Brad Carper Lincoln Doesn't make sense Allowing JVJ to pay Dillard's to keep a department store downtown doesnt make sense. If there is that kind of money to be had for improving our living conditions in Lincoln, why not encourage JVJ, and others, to contrib ute to better education, more pay for good teachers? Why riot help our faltering school lunch program, which, until recently, has been working beautifully on "its own' since the idea of schdol lunch programs' was conceived? In many cases, the hot lunch at school is the only nutritious meal some children receive. I can't think of a better way to attract more families (more customers) than to have the best schools in the country turning out well educated, motivated young adults. It's not the lack of big department stores that has caused downtown shopping to decrease. It's the lack of enough free parking, something malls have the space to provide, abundantly.

Anyway, what's wrong with a downtown composed of office buildings, banks, specialty stores near the campus and a few restaurants and hotels? I usually vote Democratic and, if our mayor runs for he would have received my vote. Now I'm not so sure. DorrisM. Botts 1 Lincoln Exercise privilege Seems to me that whenever it gets close to election time there is a lot of criticism toward the candidates and issues. This is everyone's right, to think.ithe way they wish, a "right to express opinions.

I am wondering just how many of these people ever vote. We are very fortunate to live in a country where we can vote for our choice. It is a -privilege. Non-voters should know it takes a very short time to register. Virginia Woodrum Lincoln Drivers, be alert! On the morning of Jaa 16, 1 was driving east on Superior Street on my way to work when I met a careless driver nearly head-on.

This person was driving in my lane in my direction when we met Quick thinking and good reflexes fortunately avoided a tragedy. I ended up nevertheless in a ditch full of mud and had I gone another six or so feet I would have plummeted down a drop-off with little chance of survival What really bothers me more than the incident itself is the fact that this driver didnl even stop to check on my welfare. It really makes one wonder what some pebv pie must be thinking about behind 2 thewheeL i. I'm married with two small chil-dren, and feel very fortunate to even be able to write this. I just hope this person who was driving the Jeep that morning learned something, from this incident about slowing down and paying more attention to what's going on.

Also, I hope he got to his destina- tion on time, dry and unshook. I did' manage to get to work on time. As for being dry and unshook Ann Robinson Lincoln Consume less meat As we approach the 21st technology is bringing forth facts' that can no longer be ignored. Tradi-' tion and misinformation are no rea- sons to continue poor environmental practices. On a planet being strained to feed an unchecked population of humans, it becomes necessary to re-view basic priorities.

As the facts add up it becomes clear that meat is a poor utilization of Earth's limited resources to feed people. Consider these facts: Human beings in. America: 243 millioa Number of people who could be fed with the grain and soybeans now eaten by livestock: 1.S billion. Percentage of protein wasted by cy-- cling through livestock: 95 percent "2 Pounds of beef produced per acre: 165. Pounds of grain and soy- beans needed to produce one pound of feedlot beef: 16, Number of acres of U.S.

forest cleared for cropland to 2 produce meat-centered diet: 260 millioa Gallons of water required to pro- duce one pound of wheat: 25. Gal- i Ions of water required to produce one pound of meat: 2,500. Meat, is completely unnecessary for human health or survival The issue becomes one of responsibility for one's awareness. Education is 2 the key here. As citizens of the rich- est nation in the world, our personal consumption, including what we choose to eat every day, shapes the entire planet Larry Claassen Lincoln The Journal welcomes readers' com- ments, but cautions that letters sub- mitted tor publication must be signed and capable of verification.

This requires both a mailing address and a telephone number. The editors reserve the right to condense letters, retaining the writers points. Except in very unusual circum-v' stances, pen names or initials are not permitted. ttyoifre keeping score, the 1990 Legislature will be 25 percent history after Thursday. Time flies when you're having The readable feature about blushing on Tuesday's Lifestyle page sparked memories of Mark Twain's great insight about this physiological effect: "Man is the only animal that blushes.

Or needs to." (Twain also observed "There are several good protections against, temptations, but the surest is cowardice. That's another subject of course.) What the senior member of the Legislature, Jerome Warner of Waverly, delivered to Sen. David Bernard-Stevens of North Platte Tuesday was a gentle but sure piece of guidance The dividing line between being sly (minimally honorable) and slick (of discrediting repute) is narrow. But it does exist Bernard-Stevens appar ently plowed new parliamentary ground fighting an anti-abortion bill, resulting in his being called sly. Bernard-Stevens offered a 19-part substitute amendment and then asked for a division of the question, breaking it into 19 debatable parts.

Before there's a tide of criticism, citizens should recognize that delay and obfuscation are perfectly acceptable tools of the legislative trade. A move by some environmentalists to outlaw livestock grazing from the nation's public lands in western states wins no endorsement here. But criticisms of federal oversight or lack of same, of the grazing programs have validity. Also, the give-away prices permitted ranchers running animals on taxpayer real estate rental rates chronically below market have been an outrage fdr years. It's on the rental charge and management fronts that reforms should be pushed..