The Rock Island Argus from Moline, Illinois • 4

THURSDAY "I disapprove qf what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it Voltaire Rock Island Illinois April 9 1981 Page 4 i i on AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER Founded in the year 1851 Official Paper City of Rock Island Member Audit Bureau of Circulations The POTTER Co Publisher AMD 1 TELL YOU I RELIEVE MY EYES? Gucci for only $8950? WELL OF COURSE I SNATCHED Them up that instant? why i saved enough For Tree pairs of Calvin Klein ueanS? but have you priced Ralph LAUREN WESTERN WEAR? GAWD Enough To hake a cowpoke Jill GET A CITY JO A Defining city proper roles Ninety feet between bases is perfection A couple of weeks ago Morley Safer pf interviewed Red Smith veteran sports columnist of the New York Times Safer asked Smith his capsule views on several sports and when he brought up baseball eyes twinkled always been my he said the possible exception of Notre Dame (Smith is a Notre Dame alumnus) And then he really got dotyn to business Mike Kielkonf Editorial Pago Editor who it is who makes policy for the City of Rock Island While it may be difficult for all sorts of reasons for a city manager and his staff to maintain a neutral stance on issues which come before the elected officials of the city that is what is professionally expected of them The city manager and his staff are charged with providing information and advice to the elected officials the mayor and the council not with determining final resolutions of issues It appears that perhaps as a result of the lack of continuity in the office for the past several years and the resulting gaps into which the city 'manager has been thrust his role and that of his staff has inadvertently seeped across its appropriate boundaries However with Mayor James Davis having been overwhelmingly reelected Tuesday and with three outstanding new members of the council soon to be seated we expect the decision-making power in Rock Island city government to return to the mayor and council while the city manager and his staff restrict themselves to speedily objectively and professionally carrying out their advisory roles Several Rock Island City Council members finally asked the question at Monday meeting which we have been wondering about too: Why has it taken City Manager Neil Nielsen and his staff so long to develop their informational report on the proposed Illinois Quad-Cities area paramedic program? The City of Moline approved the paramedic plan more than a year ago yet Rock Island still has not come to a final decision on the matter It was the late Hubert Humphrey who never hesitated to point out that while it is always important to gather as much information on a subject as possible before arriving at a decision the information-gathering process cannot be allowed to continue ad infinitum It is almost never possible to exhaust the research potential of any subject although in the time it has taken Nielsen and his staff to round-up paramedic information for the council they could have come mighty close Whether it is the case or not the staff approach to the paramedic issue has appeared to be an attempt to bias the council on the side of rejecting the plan But the problem goes beyond the immediate paramedic debate and goes to the fundamental question of cHejn Rocky mtn -HEA Unlocking wisdom of the High Court WASHINGTON Reading Supreme Court opinions is one of the delights of life udder our Constitution But in some cases in which a divided Court upholds a challenged law the majority opinion is not a pleasant picture by A George Will will not soon ebb And costs are soaring right along with the prison population It cost Illinois taxpayers an average of $10033 for each adult incarcerated in the state in 1980 and a huge $22820 for each juvenile inmate bad news but more Although state revenues have risen 74 percent from the first eight months of fiscal 1980 state spending has outstripped that gain with an 111 percent leap So far this year Illinois has spent about $131 million more than it has taken in And Burris says that based on the economic data available to him he can forecast no signs of a significant industrial rebound anytime soon It seems obvious that one of the great tasks of this General Assembly the governor and other key Illinois officials will be to maintain a reasonable level of services to state residents without increasing the tax burden on those individuals and industries which comprise the shrinking tax base As is the case in Washington some difficult but necessary decisions must be forthcoming from Springfield Chaos is the Unemployment in the Illinois Quad-Cities where 295 percent of the jobs are industrial rose 25 percent in 1980 over 1979 That was a part of the almost totally negative monthly economic report recently released by Illinois Comptroller Roland Burris In addition to the unemployment rise in the Hlinois Quad-Cities the economic report recorded a 4 percent unemployment jump in Rockford (43 percent industrial work force) 39 percent in Decatur (35 percent industrial) 28 percent in Peoria (327 percent industrial) 25 percent in Chicago (261 percent industrial) and a 3 percent rise in unemployment during 1980 in Kankakee (253 percent industrial) Not only is unemployment on a steady rise around Illinois but state spending continues to increase One of the most potentially serious situations concerns the state's rapidly increasing prison population Burris reported that although appropriations for the state Department of Corrections have more than quadrupled since 1970 the prison system is still filled to capacity with most predictions indicating that the tide ninety feet between bases is as close as man has ever come to Smith said He was right So it was that yesterday in Cincinnati major league baseball opened another season The rules at least in the National League have remained almost untouched for over a century Perhaps the only other document in American history to have survived the ages with so few revisions as the baseball rulebook has been the Constitution itself Whether the game is played on bluegrass plastic grass no grass at all under a dome by the sea or in a stadium carved out from the heart of a city three strikes and out IT MATTER if being paid $30000 or $3 million or whether playing without pay still batter against pitcher infielder against ground ball outfielder against the elements and first base is always 90 feet away Despite the perversion of many of owners and players with regard to the financial side of professional baseball the game itself has maintained its integrity Just stop by and watch the Rocks or the Maroons or the Panthers or later on the Falcons or the Blue Devils Just stop by the parks and playgrounds all over the Quad-Cities area this summer And for those who have access to the ESPN cable sports network notice the enthusiastic and talented play of college baseball teams from Florida and Florida State Arizona and Arizona State USC St Connecticut and many more Baseball EVERY YEAR about this time I remember all those summer days from the time I was a rookie Little Leaguer in Ottumwa in 1958 to the time I was the second baseman on a team which wore emblazoned across its jerseys and which played its games on a diamond laid out on the southern tip of Africa in 1976 Every year about this time I get that desire to pull on the short pants the white hose the stirrup socks the jersey with the No 21 on its back and pull the baseball cap down on my head How many hours did I spend in that garb every summer for nearly 20 years? How many ground balls did I try to field? How many pitches' did I try to hit? How many times did I look in vain for a hole to crawl into after I had struck out in a critical situation or after I had booted the same ground ball that I had fielded flawlessly hundreds of times before? How many times did I rip my knee open after sliding hard into second base to break-up the doubleplay? How many times did I collide with an outfielder who forgot to call for a pop fly? How matfy cities didl visit how many states did I see how many countries did I tour because I played baseball? WHETHER AS SMALL as Freddie Patek or as gigantic as Frank Howard or Willie Stargell if willing to sweat and work and compete then you can play baseball If you stand 7 feet tall you are a basketball player If you weigh 250 pounds you are a football player But if a baseball player you are an athlete If never stood out there around second base scratching in this dirt as you wait for the next pitch if you've never dug in at the plate apd wondered if you really can hit that curveball if never argued with the umpire if never had to pack yourself in ice to make it through a July doubleheader in Moline 111 or North Platte Neb or Kirksville Mo or Cedar Rapids la or Tucson Ariz or Cape Town South Africa then you can never really know the feelings which come this time of year to those of us who have The Mideast is in turmoil crime is on a rampage inflation persists unemployment grows but so long as it's still 90 feet between bases so long as there is still baseball get by ter of pregnancy when health risks multiply Or they may seek illegal abortions Therefore the notification requirement is a to the excerise of the constitutionally protected freedom of choice Marshall notes that Utah imposes no notification requirement when a doctor performs other pregnancy-related medical care including cesarean section on a minor Marshall seems to locate an offense in the fact that the abortion triggers the parental notification The offense seems to be that the state does not appear neutral regarding the decision about whether or not to abort By enhancing the possibility of parental consultation the state is enlarging the possibility that the minor may be inhibited from choosing an abortion or may even change her mind Therefore the state seems to imply that childbirth is preferable to abortion The logic of argument is comparable to this: Because there is a constitutionally protected right to read pornography the state may not that right by refusing to stock pornography in libraries That would imply a state judgment about the unfair worth of pornography and the state should not have opinions about how protected rights are exercised MARSHALL SEEMS TO BELIEVE that once a right of free choice has been established the state cannot constitutionally act in a way that seems to express a preference fpr one sort of decision This therefore is the crucial passage in majority opinion (in which he quotes from last decision upholding right to refuse to fund most abortions under Medicaid): the requirement of notice to parents may inhibit some minors from seeking abortions is not a valid basis to void the law The Constitution does not compel a state to fine-tune its statutues so as to encourage or facilitate abortions To the contrary state action childbirth except in the most urgent is related to the legitimate government objective of protecting potential The three dissenters may not concede that that is a legitimate government objective But the state cannot be neutral If its laws communicate the message that abortion is a matter of indifference it necessarily communicates the judgment that abortion is a triviality The laws inevitably communicate some judgment Thus when the subject is abortion dissent in court and in society is irrepressible (Copyright 1981 the Washington Post Company) the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of this newspaper something one reads impatiently the interesting question being: What possible rationale was there for dissent? Consider a recent case concerning a Utah law requiring doctors to notify parents before performing an abortion on a minor A 15-year-old consulted a doctor who agreed that an abortion would be in her interest but said he could not perform it until he notified her parents with whom she lived For reasons she refused to reveal to lower courts she said notification would not be in her interest So she launched a legal struggle that wound up in the Supreme Court a' struggle her parents may have noticed She did this because she says notification requirement unconstitutionally burdens her right THE COURT HAS previously struck down requiring that a parent (or spouse) consent to an abortion But the majority has now refused to find that requiring mere notification of parents is comparable to requiring parental consent Speaking for the majority Chief Justice Warren Burger noted that the Court has previously held that in rearing children included counseling them on important And statute is reasonably related to the legitimate state purpose of the potential for parental consultation concerning a decision that has potentially traumatic and permanent Utah has conceded that its notification requirement does not pertain to (for example married) minors and opinion says the statute pertains only to minors living amicably with their parents and dependent on them How then did three justices find this objectionable? JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL joined by Justice William Brennan and Harry Blackmun said the requirement means that many minors will encounter such as parental and This may cause some minors to delay having their abortions until beyond the first trimes The official opinions of The Argus appear only in the columns above Other viewpoints ex pressed on this page are those of yj other editors say punish economic messenger yjloKingKacir Berry's World joined the assault He attacked not only the message but also the messenger them practicing what been preaching for the last 30 he said figures are Only when Republicans in Congress told him more about the agency did the president draw back from his unfair charge He said he meant to say that Mrs group worked from Lacking the votes to fire Mrs Rivlin her detractors now hope they can create enough controversy to force her to resign We hope she holds firm For despite her liberal background she is much less of an idea-logue than her main critics She thinks the economic problems hard and there often obvious for solving them Her office's numerous studies underline this open-mindedness They have supported the arguments of both Republicans and Democrats without noticeable favoritism Mrs Rivlin often angered Democrats by critically examining President Carter's presentations to Congress Independent judgment is precisely what Congress wahted when it created its own Budget Office That is why the director was given a four-year term More than Mrs Rivlin it is that goal of objective analysis and Congressioal independence that would be hurt if she were hounded out of office now (The New York Times April 7) In a 200-year-old nation the roots of a 7-year-old Federal agency run very deep That is why the Congressional Budget Office one of abler institutions needs some timely defense against a nasty conservative assault The office was created by Congress as part of a 1974 budget reform to provide fiscal analysis independent of that offered by any president Its staff of 200 professionals has ably analyzed dozens of Federal programs at the request of Congress It has produced economic forecasts of decent quality monitored observance of Congressional budget goals and injected hard economic fact into policy debates The assault on the agency began shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan and was aimed at the removal of its director Alice Rivlin whose four-year term expires in 1983 The leaders of the attack Senators Hatch of Utah and Armstrong of Colorado and Representative Kemp of New York apparently do not question Mrs credentials she has a Harvard Ph in economics and years of experience in Government and at the respected Brookings Institution They suspect her of liberal bias and hostility to the supply-side economic doctrine When the agency predicted last month that Mr Reagan's program would not balance the budget by 1984 as promised the president himself ring at the same time over the weekend which resulted in an estimated $14500 damage and involved 42 of the 48 available firemen The two-and-a-half story residence of Mrs Sallie A Lueb-bens 1022 21st St was ruined and a huge lumber pile adjacent to the Rock Island Millwork Co burned and flames spread under the fire door to the third floor of the factory Ten years ago The speakers for the Quad-City Athletic Sports Night were Kansas City Chiefs players Ed Podolak and Jack Rudnay Iowa football coach Frank Lauterbur and Illinois assistant grid aide Caroline who acquitted themselves well although none were quite a match for the Rev Charles Willey of Moline the One hundred years ago Weeds ducks were numerous along the river and in 'sloughs and ice was reported moving at Port Byron and Cordova Seventy-five years ago The Tri-City Press Club is to sponsor the production of at the Burtin Theater Davenport on April 17 Fifty years ago The first step toward the construction of the Rock Island Locks were taken today by officials of the Merritt-Chap-man Whitney Corp contractors-ap-parent for the $1326000 works in the Mississippi which will be -part of the nine-foot channel development in the upper river Twenty-five years ago Investigation was launched today by the Rock Island Fire Department to ilin onurr- rrmv 1(81 by NEA Inc.