Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 12

star Opinion A1 2 Star-Tribune Casper, Wyo. Sunday. Oct. 21,1984 gmtaq, ftwOritaw PoMcaI PPnents many 11111 Thomat W. Howard 170 Star Lane, Casper, Wyoming 82601 307-266-0500 The Casper Daily Tribune Est.

Oct. 9, 1916 by J. E. Hanway The Casper Star Est. in 1949 USPS 092 660 Published daily.

Second Class Paid at Casper, Wyo. 82601 by Howard Publications, Inc. Prosser and everyone else aban doned it. "I got flak from people who opposed instream flow," she said. Lummis said she and Wiederspahn also disagree on abortion.

"I think we're both personally against it but I'm for everyone having a choice and I think Al supports an amendment to prohibit an abortion except in certain cases," she said. But they don't get into shouting matches over this volatile issue, Consultants indicate size of gas overcharge Good regulation alone might save Casjier $5.2 million a year The couple has wisely eschewed discussion of their votes on each other's bills. CHEYENNE If two Laramie County candidates, Al Wiederspahn and Cynthia Lummis, are elected Nov. 6, they may be the first legislators who are husband and wife. 1 use the qualifier "may" because I haven't researched this although no one around here can remember a precedent.

Wiederspahn, a Cheyenne lawyer, is trying to move from the House to the Senate. Lummis, a former two-term state representative and now a University of Wyoming law school student, is running again for the House after a respite. J.apit What intrigues is that Wiederspahn, 35, is a Democrat and Lummis, 30, is a Republican. They met in 1978 when both were running with success for the House. Although they were on opposite sides of the aisle during the next four years, they got along well enough to get married 18 months ago.

So how do they resolve their al Ik-at Barron Publisher Robin Hurletf General Manager Richard G. High Editor major structural changes in the system only good regulatory decision-making and city activism. Stanley suggested the city might save that much each year simply through negotiation with Northern Utilities. The savings might come through negotiations because the same level of savings should come automatically if the city takes its case to the Wyoming Public Service Commission. In such a case the city would argue that the PSC should require Northern to use the average cost of gas in the entire system of KN Energy, the company that owns Northern, and pass the savings on to local customers.

In addition, reasonable regulatory decisions on investment and profit for Northern should raise the potential city savings up to the $5.2 million level. There are several immediate implications of the $5.2 million number. First, the city is on the right track. Second, we have been paying much too much to Northern. Third, the regulatory system has failed to protect and promote the interests of local consumers mostly through failure to act.

Fourth, the biggest part of the potential payoffs will come through good regulation alone. Smaller additional payoffs come from restructuring the system, including replacement of Northern. Fifth, Northern should make an offer of immediate price reductions. $5.2 million is about right. And finally, if Northern continues to think that it cannot operate without overcharging the public, then the city should look elsewhere.

either. Lummis, the daughter of State Board of Equalization member Doran Lummis, said the question is whether abortion should be addressed by legislation. She said they also are on opposite sides on severance taxes. The couple has wisely eschewed discussion of their votes on each other's bills. "I have voted against bills Al sponsored and he has voted against mine," she said.

"Those bills we tween a blunder and a foul-up, but figure foul-ups are those mistakes which are made honestly and accidentally rather than as a result of -poor judgment or incredibly bad taste. I'd credit the editor who announced in a headline that America reasses child rearing practices with a foul-up instead of a blunder, for instance. Sometimes foul-ups happen because our computers mix two stories together, and the editor doesn't catch it. Thai's what happened when the Star-Tribune never do discuss. At that stage it is really important to separate your personal from your legislative life.

We never ask each other. Lummis, however, said she never has made the heavy emotional investment in some bills as have other legislators, and, although disappointed when a colleague has not supported her, never has asked why. She must have paid attention to the orientation sessions for new legislators conducted by House Speaker Pro Tern Jack Sidi, R- Natrona. "Never get married to a bill," is Sidi's biennial admonition to the new lawmakers. Of course, both Lummis and Wiederspahn must first get elected before they can make legislative mini-history.

If both are, it would be much more interesting and lively if they were in the same chamber. Nevertheless, they both seem to have the detached attitude necessary to avoid political thunder in the kitchen at home. blunders newsroom. Around here, only the most imaginative bleeping is seen as a mark of distinction. Columnist Dave Simpson is a pretty creative novice bleeper, particularly when confronted with anything that smacks of political liberalism.

"I can't bleeping believe that bleeping bleep bleep bleeding heart Mondale," he'll say. "If he gets bleeping elected, every bleeping bleep bleep taxpayer in America had belter watch his bleeping bleep." Bui he can't match Tim Wall, who may be the champion bleeper of all. Tim, you see, knows more about our computer system than almost anyone, and therefore, he hates it with an undying passion. He's named his own terminal "Electro Pig" to show his affection, and when the pig breaks down, people for miles around start ducking the barrage of bleeps emanating from Tim's corner. "Why you blue-bellied bleep bleep bleeping bleep-of-a-bleep, I can't bleeping believe you ate that bleeping bleep bleep story for the third bleep bleep time," he'll shout.

"If you ever bleeping do that to me again, I'll kick your bleeping, no-good bleeping bleep into next bleeping week!" Now that's some world-class bleeping. I just wonder how it'll play in Philly. political differences at home? "It's not really a great problem," said Wiederspahn. "1 guess we respect each other's views and try to hear both sides of a story." "I think both of us are pretty independenf-minded," he continued. "We look at things on the merits, what seems to make the most sense, what position has some logic going for it.

We agree on a lot of things." He said Lummis, with her background in agriculture, probably was slower to come around on the instream flow issue, but now believes a bill can be structured that will not impinge on irrigators. But, he added, his wife is "not keen" on the wildlife trust fund. Lummis said she and her husband discuss issues a lot but don't get into arguments. "On quite a few things, we have totally opposite views," she said. "Al knows how 1 feel and I know how he feels.

You can't change people's minds. We don't dwell on them." She said she and Wiederspahn have always disagreed on the wildlife trust fund, adding that she was opposed to using severance tax money. As for instream flow, Lummis said she did support a bill sponsored by former Rep. Dean Prosser, R-Laramie, even after Blunders programs on the networks. But after thought about it for a while, I decided he might have a good idea.

If the networks can rake in the money by making the most of their mistakes, we ought to be able to do it too. Therefore, I've decided to recount some of my favorite Star-Tribune Foul-ups, Blunders and Bleeps. If you like it, we'll see what we can do about a regular series. One of my favorite blunders happened shortly after I started working here. On Saturdays in those days, we had an intern who helped out with basic news stories, obituaries and the like.

But after writing a few of them, he made a mistake common to novices and tried to be a little creative to break the monotony. We figure that's why he wrote that Mrs. Smith, who passed away at a nursing home, died after a short bout with old age. Although the Smith family was not impressed, you just can't do better than that as far as blunders are concerned. Unless you count the police reporter who wrote (hat Mr.

Jones was picked up by Casper police and cited for drinking while intoxicated- Or the headline writer who looked at a story about a woman who had filed a lawsuit against her doctor because of a faulty tubal ligation and referred to the case in the headline as tubal litigation dispute. Or the editor who offended animal lovers across the country when he captioned a photo of a man with an unusual method of cleaning lobsters: He Bites Their Eyes Out. I've never seen anything like that on television. Have you? It's hard to draw the line be $5.2 million is the number to remember. It is the first solid estimate of how much money Northern Utilities might be overcharging its Casper customers.

The figure was suggested this week by Casper's natural gas consultants. Such an overcharge would work out to an average of nearly Si 00 a year for every man, woman and child in the city. It implies our gas prices are as much as one-third too high. It also suggests how much we can seek in price cuts by working within the existing system without removing Northern Utilities. Of course, additional savings might come if the city bypassed Northern's expensive gas supplies and distribution system.

As such, $5.2 million suggests the cost to one city of weak and ineffective utility regulation at the state level. And, for people seeking to push for "economic development," the $5.2 million number is the amount of extra money which might be pumped back into the local economy if it is not drained away in excessive gas prices. It is the equivalent of a new firm coming to the city with a $5.2 million payroll. There were a lot of numbers bounced around in Stanley Consultants gas study. Potential savings from city action ranged all the way up to $6.5 million a year, depending on the action taken.

The art is to find the right number within the numbers. Then we might see where we stand and how much we may gain with only reasonable breaks. We focus on the $5.2 million figure because it is the potential payoff from the two alternatives that do not require "BY GOLLY; 66U)MIZ, V. Get rid of those bleep bleep Mrs. Smith, who passed away at a nursing home, died after a short bout with old age.

I he guy al the bar was going on and on uboiu how newspapers never print anything that's fun to read, anything that's unusual, anything that's offbeat and blah, blah, blah, blah, I considered stuffing my cocktail napkin in his mouth to shut him up. but thought better of it at the last minute because he was a big fellow, a little wider in the chest than Gorgeous George. A cigar the sie of a Louisville Slugger was jammed in the corner of his pursy lace, but buried in his corpulent jowls like that, it looked no binder Around Wyoming Greg Bean than a matcliMick. "You ought to be like television." he growled, "at least they don't lake themselves so seriously. At least they can laugh at their own mistakes." I asked him to explain what he was talking about because it was hard for me to imagine Dan Rather, for example, admitting he'd made a mistake, let alone laughing about it.

"You know, those foul-up shows, Bleeps, Blunders and Boo-Boos or whatever," he said in a tone of voice that reminded me of Miss Bendix, my third grade teacher, when she used to get frustrated during our Spirit of Math class. "You ought to do like that, so people will know you newsies are regular human beings." I told him it would be a cold day in you-know-where when newspapers started any regular feature as ridiculous as the Bleeps and reponed that Coin is a form of arthritis, caused by the bodies of many Republicans on the inance Committee and even some Republican leaders. Sometimes, however, you can't blame the computer as in the instance when a reporter described the speaker at a local NOW meeting as an unmarried mother instead of a divorced mother of two. Unlike blunders and foul-ups, which happen infrequently, bleeps are as common around a newsroom as deacons at a church picnic. If the Moral Majority dropped in to wash our mouths out with soap every time one of us let fly a blue-stream of profanity, our place ot employment would look more like the set for the Lawrence Welk Show than a us gooqto sewe-ruti resident.