Tyler Morning Telegraph from Tyler, Texas • 20

Tj ler Morning Telegraph MONDAY, JUNE 20, 1994 8t Sec. 3 Mtteiwy Woi'M EBinlwdpSledl Inn Spy HD5punte WHAT A GUY man novelist Heinrich BoelF for the Nobel Prize for liter- ature Boell won in 1972. He said his current recommendation from Germany would be Guenter Grass, even though he panned the author's latest novel. "I reproach Grass for not leaping as high as he could, Reich-Ranicki said of his former ally in the Group of 47. Grass had a character called "Ranicki" in his 1972 novel, "From the Diary of a Snail." The spying allegation was broadcast in late May on ARD, the leading public television network.

Two men identified as former Polish intelligence officers said on the program that Reich-Ranicki had worked for Polish security. One said he did not know details. The JbmT Tti I KKg'4 MY I rXV jrr II I GARFIELD EXERCISE I I THANKS FOR -n -rtrvll yooLmore I the warning other, Krzysztof Starzynskiv said thatrasa Polislrconsul BERLIN (AP) Germany's star literary critic has become embroiled in a bitter dispute about his richly complicated past A national television report accused Marcel "Reich-Ranicki, who criticized some East German intellectuals -for not coming clean about alleged ties' to the secret 't police, of spying for the former Communist regime in his native Poland. Reich-Ranicki, 74, has never hidden his former membership in the Polish Communist Party, but denied spying on fellow Poles. When his record was published in Poland after the TV report, however, he had to acknowledge working with Polish intelligence in the early postwar years.

His defenders at Germany's-leading conservative' denounce TV report as "character assassination." They speculate that it resulted from the debate about Reich-Ranicki's condemnation of some intellectuals in former East Germany. German intellectuals play hardball, generally citing opponents by name in newspaper columns or on television. Reich-Ranicki, a Jew who survived the Holocaust, has been in this tough game for decades. Born in Poland, he came to Berlin with hisTamily in 1929 and attended German schools. The Nazis deported the family in 1938 and his parents were killed in the Holocaust.

He returned to West Germany from Poland in 1958 with no money and built himself into its most influential literary critic, making enemies among authors who felt his lash. Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine, depicted Reich-Ranicki on an October cover as a bulldog ripping up a book. The caption was "Der Verreisser" a person who tears things to pieces. Once part of the left-leaning Group of 47 literary circle, Reich-Ranicki wrote for the liberal weekly Die Zeit, then moved to the conservative Frankfurt paper in 1973. He is a flamboyant speaker and has become a German rarity: a respected critic with a large public following.

Reich-Ranicki (the last part of his name is pronounced the Polish way, Rah-NIT-ski) has his own TV program and appears often on talk shows. "He's our most influential critic and his television show is surprisingly said Hans-Joerg von Jena, deputy head of the Association of German Critics. In an interview with Der Spiegel; Reich-Ranicki described the critic's role as a lonely existence at the center of the literary world. "This differentiates (the critic) from the writer" he said. "The writer is interested in his own work, not sarily in literature.

Most writers understand no more of literature than a bird understands of ornithology." It was he, Reich-Ranicki said, who recommended Ger MUANN in London in the late 1940s, Retch-Kanicki sent reports on the Polish government-in-exile to Communist authorities in Warsaw. On the ZDF network the next day, Reich-Ranicki denied any contact with the government-in-exile. He conceded that, as a diplomatic official, he had dealt with the Polish intelligence service, but added that he was expelled from the Polish Communist Party after his recall to Warsaw "correctly, because I was in ideologi- cal opposition." Frank Schirrmacher, co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, told The Associated Press the ARD program was "a kind of criminal attempt at character assassination." He said the ARD claim appeared to stem from battles among German critics since the collapse of East Germany in 1989. Reich-Ranicki argues that most East German tuals did little to help the'democratic revolution against the. Communist opposing camp among west-; era German antics is more willing to welcome the east-' erners into the club.

Files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, have exposed several East German writers as informants. While Reich-Ranicki has demanded that novelist Christa Wolf and others reveal their pasts, the ARD'' program commented, "He hasn't been able to do so him-selfafter 40 years. It causes rage, but at the same time, sympathy." The report also said Reich-Ranicki helped entice Polish emigres back to their homeland, where some were arrested. He denies that, but was forced to give out more information when German reporters dug out his Polish record. He said in a statement published June 14 that he had worked with the Polish secret service after the war, in- eluding a posting of a few months in Berlin in 1946 and while he was consul in London in 1948-49.

"I regret nothing that I did then, and I see not the slightest reason to justify myself," he said. 'CALVIN AND HOBBS II I AND HOW OH EARTH DiDTUEl WHAT'S GOING OH, I WHY ARE Ml THOSE CARS SIDWING SO IN STRAIGHT BACKMRD? GOSH, DID SOMEONE HME AN ACCIDENT? LOOKS LIKE THERE'S A CAR. IN TOE 01TQ.BUT DONT TO DO THAT, THE CAR. WOOLP'VE HAD TO DOWN AS THEf SEE AWONE B( IT. Tfirtickers DDnwiimg HDi'wy 'Same'-A JUtowSmg DDrank' penter.

"There are federal regulations that require him to be rested." 1 Although Hornbarger, a veteran of 20 years on the roads, had not yet driven the maximum 10 hours allowed, investigators say he had not slept enough and was fatigued. In December, the teen-agers' parents were shocked a second time when a grand jury failed to indict Horn-: barger for manslaughter in their children's deaths. Hornbarger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying his logbook and will be-sentenced this summer. He faces a minimum penalty of $340 and a maximum of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. 1 Federal law requires tractor-trailer drivers be rested when they start driving and that they take an eight-hour break for every 10 hours they spend on the road.

There are good reasons for this law, said Dr. William Dement of the Sleep Disorders Center at Stanford University and chairman of the National Commission on -Sleep Disorders Research. "Driving drowsy is no different from driving drunk. It is just more poorly understood," he said. nce people are better educated about sleep deprivation, they 11 view it with the same seriousness as drunk driving." The problem is not isolated to any region.

On a Florida highway, Donna Berger of Fairfield, saw her husband and three young children burn to tieath after a truck plowed into their parked car. In Missouri, Jerry Ferguson lost his wife and two daughters when a drowsy trucker drove into their car. In each case, the tracker was charged with a misdemeanor. P.A.T.T. isn't out to penalize individual truckers doing their jobs, Morgan saia, but does protest conditions with- in some companies that encourage or force truckers to drive sleepy and falsify their log books.

About 93 percent of long-haul truck drivers are paid either by the mile or the Toad, a system critics say encourages truckers to drive as many miles possible in the shortest time possible so they can pick up another load. LISBON, Maine (AP) Not much has changed in Jeff. Izer's room. Football trophies glisten. Glow-in-the-dark stars cover the ceiling.

Scribbled on notebooks' are teenage drawings of hearts with "Angie" written inside. Neatly stacked in the corner are piles of condolence letters. "Jeff was saving up to buy a ring for Angie," said Steve Izer, as he walks quietly through his son's room. "I wish we had known her better." Jeff and his girlfriend, Angela Dubuc, both 16, and two of their friends were killed last October. A trucker apparently dozed at the wheel and his rig smashed into Jeffs disabled Ford Escort, parked in the breakdown lane on the Maine The trucker neither swerved nor braked.

A fifth teen-ager escaped with injuries, as did the trucker, who yanked her free of the wreck. Photos of the dead teens cover walls and the coffee table at the Izer where parents and friends of the victims gathered recently with lawmakers for one of the first meetings of P.A.T.T. Parents Against Tired Truckers. P.A.T.T, is determined to get the message out that professional truckers must be held responsible for accidents caused when they nod off behind the wheel because they failed to take required breaks. "Truckers who drive drowsy should be held to the same standards that drunk drivers are when they kill someone on the road," said Donna Morgan, chairwoman of P.A.T.T.

"This is a way to honor our kids, if we can make some changes here," said Jeffs mother, Daphne Izer. Trucker Robert Hornbarger, 48, Clearville, had shopped all day with his wife before he climbed into his rig to haul a Wal-Mart load from Pennsylvania to Maine. It appears that when he came to his truck that day, even though he did not feel tired, he had a very busy, active day," said Maine Attorney General Michael Car 1 ij.cn l()T jrc COULD APT OUT AtiP TUfcffi UJOULP, BE lfflL I MORGAN, M.D. HOME WTH OFFICER WILSON, 4N0 THIS LITTteV VOU? COOKING HEfMDSA AMONG OTHER SOfffEE IS TOJ CUSS h5s iBHMNCED jPONALD DUCK FT I wisu usia-e Fp' iwisuvdu --Tl I wowf-iuffl SCROOGB VVOULP MAPNT SAIP TWCT 1 WAS EASV 'CSfi well Sm --SS 'BLONDIE ii MBS. BUMSTEAD, WHAT DO I WELL, WE HAD SO MANY I I AND YET, SH I'M A i I A A I I YOU'RE AMAZING YOU LITTLE THINSS 60 WRONS YOU STAVED PROFESSIONAL AALlGHr MEAN? I AT uJy IPpe Insists TradMonal JFaaiiSlly HJmfivea'sal 6Eigflati9 proposal by the European Parliament that would allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children.

The pontiff has increasingly issued forceful statements intended to erase any ambiguity about church teachings, 1 especially concerning birth control and abortion. In February, he released a 100-page letter on family values that made clear the church forbids Same-sex marriages. Last week, the pope announced he is writing an encyclical emphasizing the church's opposition to abortion. An encyclical is reserved for the most important papal proclamations. The pope, meanwhile, is waging a personal crusade against a U.N.

population control conference planned for September in Cairo, Egypt. He has especially criticized Clinton administration efforts to include more liberal wording concerning abortion rights in the conference, document. VATICAN CITY (AP) Traditional family structure is not just a Christian ideal, but the "natural right" of all religions and cultures, Pope John Paul II said Sunday in his latest stroke in drawing sharp moral lines. His statement expanded on a papal encyclical in October that asserted morality is not a matter of opinion and insisted that confusion about "moral certainties" threatens the human race. "The marriage, which is a stable union between a man and a woman that they open to the future generations, not is only a Christian value, but is an original value," said the pope in his weekly address to the crowd in St.

Peter's Square. "To lose this truth is not just a problem for only the (Christian) faithful, but a danger for all humanity. The pope called the traditional family a "natural right that unites all people and all cultures. He denounced "relativism" that raises "doubts on the existence of an objective truth," and lashed out at a GASOLINE ALLEY Boy! Ingoing to be a' The farm's a good 'WallCtl 1 Get in here! Always grumpy nuier trip to worn and bach evet I've a Qood mind to quit.but a better one to. stay put 1 Wolf? Tp Week's Films The weekend's ticket receipts are based on estimates by industry sources.

Final figures will be released Mon-f. jUDGE PARKER SPECinCALLV ASKED 1 1 HE THINKS JUST BECAUSeI I VMELL WSli. etpp THE KITCHEN rwf5V 1 WITH MARIE'S Vw.mi I 1 DINNER DISHES I ffl ZU- PrTi I '1 WHEN SHE SPOTS yflfi 1 A 1 1 1 'Xj HEADLIGHTS VX IE Jt f1 CNWAyHe AWJ 1 Ii 1 LOS ANGELES (AP) "Wolf," with Jack Nicholson's werewolf menacing and romancing Michelle Pfeiffer, led the pack at the box office this weekend with a debut take of $18.2 million, industry sources estimated Sunday. However, "The Lion King" was sure to prey on the opening success of "Wolf." The Disney film was shown in only two theaters in New York City and Los Angeles, but drew sellouts for an extraordinary $1.6 million to tie for ninth place. The film expands to general release on Friday.

"Wolf bumped "Speed" down to No. 2 with $12.8 million. The Keanu Reeves action film debuted in first place last weekend with $14.8 million. "The Flintstones" came in third with $8 million, reach-, ing $94.8 million since its release four weeks ago. It's already the most successful film of the year and still going extremely strong," said Universal Pictures' spokesman Alan Sutton.

aay. The "Wolf opening weekend was second in 1994 only to the rock-solid debut of "The Flintstones" with $37.2 million. i In fourth place was "City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold" with $7.2 million in its second weekend followed by the debut of "Getting Even With Dad" with $5.4 million. "Maverick" was sixth with $4.6 million in its fifth week, followed by "Renaissance Man" in seventh with $2.8 million for three weeks and "The Cowboy Way" with $1.7 Tied for ninth were "The Lion King," "When a Man'i Loves a Woman" and "Beverly Hills Cop III" each with $1.6 million..