Kingsport News from Kingsport, Tennessee • Page 13

hiiws current affairs China picture The picture of China which the American people have received of life there under Red rule during (he week which, according to President Nixon has changed the world, is that of a very smoothly operating machine. The people seem to be very happy. Those people have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the ideas of Communism, the idea that discipline and obedience to authority is necessary. Authority is exercised by a small group which does the thinking for the people and the people do as they are told. This all for the "good of the people "the people" being a euphemism for "the state" and the "state," being a euphemism for "those in authority." Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have brought efficiency to a high point of perfection in many areas of life.

They have done that by a successful sort of brainwashing which has made a robot of society. They have brought discipline and obedience to the point where a virtue has become a vice. In the course of the week we heard it said that under the communist system every individual is a soldier of the state to be called on to do whatever the authorities feel is necessary. This recalls the fact that Adolf Hitler hypnotized the German people with the same doctrine of blind obedience. Hitler had in mind putting a gun in the hands of that robot he had created.

His purpose was to dominate the world by military strength. We may assume that Mao and Chou have no such thought in mind. They are motivated by the desire to make China a tremendous economic and social power in the world. It is possible that their idea of a peaceful world is a world in which the authority and discipline imposed on the Chinese people would be imposed on the whole world. But supposing this robot should someday be controlled by others, with the Hitler and Mussolini complex.

Suppose these millions on gcvhi gmao says were just as ready to do what some Chinese Hitler might say? Some one has said the danger of the democratic system is that with everybody encouraged to do his own thinking and express his own ideas, and preach his own ideas, authority can be weakened to the point where there is disorder and anarchy. But how much greater a danger when people do not do their own thinking but accept as right what someone in authority says is right. Taiwan's future President Nixon continues to insist that in spite of his new deal for Red China he is not going to abandon Chiang Kai-shek. But this is a dangerous promise to make. Because Chiang and his friends in this country may insist that he explain how he plans to keep this promise.

If the situation in Taiwan becomes a tug of war between Chiang and the Peking government it is simply going to be impossible for the United States to stand by Chiang without ruining all that has been started in building friendship with Red China. Naturally the President hopes that the confrontation can be avoided. He hopes, no doubt, that some plan can be worked out so that both sides will be willing to make some compromise. It is not unreasonable to think that Mr. Nixon received some assurance from Chou En-lai that the Peking government would be in no hurry about putting the heat on Chiang Kai-shek.

The President's present air of optimism seems to indicate that this problem has been brushed under the rug for a while. It is quite possible that it was in the minds of both men that Father Time may solve the problem for them without drastic action. After all Chiang Kai- shek is quite an old man. The United States owes a debt to Chiang Kai- shek, not to the Nationalist government. If we had a commitment not to recognize the Communist government that commitment was broken in spirit by the visit and the offer of friendship to Peking.

But our commitment to Chiang is a personal thing that the death of that Nationalist leader will end. In view of all the circumstances there is no reason for anyone to talk of "pulling the rug from under Chiang Kai-shek," and those who take this view might be asked whether they think we should have continued to pretend that Chiang was someday going to reconquer the mainland? And if we were committed to help him? "We all know that is sheer nonsense. Anyone who still thinks we should live up to this idea is certainly not in the mainstream of thinking. The present day view of the American people is not that we hate Communism less, but peace more. A plan to train more doctors WASHINGTON An tnnovattvo program to train doctors for service In medically neglected urban ghettos deservesa great deal more attention than It is likely to get from the people In charge of health affairs for the Nixon administration.

The program was worked out by the Central YMCA Community College and the Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago specifically to ease the doctor shortage in that city's slums, where physician-population ratios run as low as 1 to 9,000. Butitwouldapplyaswelltothcsituationin any town where there is (1) a large low income population, (2) a health crisis, (3) a community college offering a two-year premed curriculum and (4) a medical school; in short, just about any big or middle-sized city. The YMCA-NU "Urban Doctors Project" (UDP) is by no means the first effort to tackle the problem of health care for slum dwellers. Other plans have been tried with poor-to- middllng success, and maybe UDP if tried would fizzle, too. This is no reason to scuttle it without a trial, however, especially when a pilot program could be conducted over a six-year period for a total of only about 1900,000.

Rep. Sidney R. Yates who has one of Chicago's most underdoctored slums right in his own congressional district, made a pitch for UDP a few days ago before a House Appropriations Subcommittee, asking for $150,000 as a first-year contribution to the cause of advancing ghetto medicine in the nation's second biggest concentration of black population. The UDP idea is absurdly simple. Earlier black-medicine programs for the slums, based on subsidizing promising youngsters as this one does, foundered on the fact that often when you take the boy out of the ghetto you take the ghetto out of the boy.

UDP would approach the problem differently. A ghetto high school graduate would take his pre-med education at the community college and then go to Northwestern's nearby medical school, where he would learn skills especially relevant to poverty-area practice. He would intern In a Chicago hospital. In all these years he would live at home -as Yates said, "never more than half an hour's subway ride from class." Never really out of the ghetto, he would have no occasion to lose his ties to It. If he could see at the end that there was meaningful work for him with a decent income attached, what would be more natural for him than to set up practice where he had grown up and where his own people now had such obvious need for his service? The rest of the story is still untold but will probably be spun out like one of those "good.

news-bad news" jokes. First the good news: UDP estimates that ghetto physicians could be produced for about $35,000 each, or roughly one-third what it costs today to turn a high-school graduate into a doctor of medicine. And now the bad news: UDP very likely won't get the money, even if Congress votes it. The administration's record in backing projects aimed at improving health care for the poor gives no ground for hope that this eminently rational and modest plan will fare any better than earlier ones have done at the hands of Nixon budgeteers. 'YOU COULD SAY "IF ELECTED I WILL GO TO TAIWAN brucc biossat viewpoint Mills' plan is expensive WASHINGTON If Congress should adopt House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills' proposal for a 20 per cent boost this year in basic retirement benefits, the "first year" federal cost of all pending major Social Security revisions would be $9.9 billion not $8 billion as widely reported at the outset.

The revisions, contained in the House-passed bill called H.R. 1, call for a first year added outlay of $3.6 billion plus, without the new Mills proposal. In their present form, as the Senate Finance Committee considers them, they include only a five per cent boost in basic retirement benefits. Thus the cost of the Mills' suggestions would be $6.3 billion in the initial year of the revised program. Social Security experts confirm that this sizable hike in benefits is "actuarially sound," meaning that anticipated revenues will more than cover the cost of the higher outlays.

H.R. 1 presently provides for a schedule of tax rate Increases in the years ahead. It would also widen the tax base, that proportion oJ the individual's annual income from which the taxes are drawn. Mills suggests the base be raised to $10,200 this year and to $12,000 in 1973. He would delay higher rates.

What Is now being proposed, then, fits well within the guidelines on tax contributions recommended last spring by a blue-ribbon advisory council which reported to Congress through HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson. As a matter of fact, that council said flatly that, so long as U.S. citizens' earning continued to rise in future years as expected, higher and higher retirement benefits for entirely from a periodic more and more Social Security widening of the tax base. It recipients could be financed insisted that no new tax rate Quick Quiz Q--Were Tyre and Sldon Jewish cities? A--No, these Biblical cities were in Phoenicia, on the seacoast to the northwest. Q--How many strands of hair does the average person have? A--Blondes have the most with 120,000 strands; brunettes have 100,000 and redheads 80,000.

Q--What American short-story writer used the pen name of "0. A--William Sydney Porter. Q--Which was the world's first national park? A--Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. governement in 1872, Q--Who was the first man to bear the title A--St. Hippolytus in A.D.

217. Q--In what modern African nation was the ancient city of Carthage located? A--Tunisia. Q--On what mountain was King Solomon's temple built? A--On Ml. Moriah, in Jerusalem. Q--What theater has the world's longest permanent chorus line? A--Radio City Music Hall, New York City.

The Rockettes, consisting of 36 girls, dance precision routines across the 144- foot-wide stage. Q--What is considered the noisiest of all Insects? A--The cicada. It Is said the note of the European cricket can be heard a mile away. Q--Are the barnacles which attach themselves to the botton of ships plants or animals? A--Barnacles are saltwater shellfish. increases should be needed before the next century.

The council argued that to embark on a rising schedule of increases in both the tax rate and the tax base would be to build Social Security fund reserves to absurdly astronomical levels. The council's judgment was that it is safe enough for the federal government to have on hand, at the outset of a given year, only those reserves required to cover the Social Security outlays for the year ahead. Obviously, that would not exhaust the fund, since new taxes would be collected steadily throughout the unfolding 12 months. For a long time, Mills and others in Congress have resisted this approach and have clung to the "big reserve" philosophy as the only sound one. The suggested 20 per cent benefit boost as of this coming July 1 represents a departure from this concept.

There Is no assurance, of course, that the new Mills' proposal will be accepted either by the Senate Finance Committee under Chairman Russell Long, or by the full Senate. But its chances of approval may be enhanced by the fact it is a presidential election year, and by the rumor that President Nixon himself may propose something similar. As a sidelight, it Is interesting to note what the Mills' plan would do to estimated federal outlays in fiscal 1973 (starting July 1) for so-called "income security," including Social Security. They would soar to around $76 billion, not much below total proposed defense spending and nearly three times what "Income security" cost us in fiscal 1965. boh.

Hometowns should never change COLUMBUS, Ohio I was eating dinner with Torn Williamson, a friend I hadn't seen since high school, and he said, "I guess you heard that Chet Long died." No, I hadn't heard. Chet Long died. I had never met him, and neither had Tom, but it didn'lmake any difference, it was still hard to believe. He was just a face and a voice to us, but somehow he was a part of our growing up. And like everything else that has changed, hearing that Chet Long is dead was another reminder of how fast the time is going by.

Chet Long was a newscaster on Ch. 10 in Columbus. He had been reading the news since the first days of TV. It was before the smooth sophistication that has come to network news and to local news shows in the big cities. His show was called "Looking with Long," and I remember that it was sponsored by the gas company.

For those of us who grew up with television, Chet Long represented the first touch we had with the news of the outside world. Before we were old enough to read the Dispatch or the Citizen or the Journal, we were watching him on television. Not that we ever thought about him; We didn't. But we never thought about the Excelsior Club either, where we used to go In the summerand play that's gone; they've torn it down and built some apartments. And we never thought about the Feed Bag, where we'd go for a hamburger; that place had a fire, and they never built it up again.

So I'm giving some thought to Chet now, because it's only when you concentrate on the little details that the larger picture comes back to you. Chet Long never tried to be a Walter Cronkite. He dressed rather plainly and liked to give "the good news" whenever he could. He closed each show with a little aphorism, and it never seemed corny until a few years ago. He used to go out to the Ohio State Fair in August, and when we would see him on the midway, it wasn't like we were seeing a celebrity, It was Just Chet Long.

Al Getchell, I the editorial cartoonistfor the Citizen, used to be on the midway, too; his paper would assign him to sit there all day and draw caricatures of the children at the fair. This was before the late '60s, when we were trained to react in a certain way toward something called "the news media." They were Just guys we recognized. I turned on the news in Columbus after I heard about Chet Long. It looks as if the stations are heading toward that "happy talk" format, where the announcers all talk and kid with each other. Chet could never have done that; he seemed to be a formal man.

I don't know why it is, but even when you see change coming everywhere, you don't expect to find it in the place where you grew up. I felt uncomfortable seeing a weatherman make a bad joke with the newscaster; Chet Long was supposed to be there, facing straight into the camera. But that's Just the beginning of It, of course, on.ly the surface. Now there are head shops where there used to be five-and-tens. The barber shops are in trouble because none of the young kids will come in.

People don't talk about going downtown to see a movie at night any more; they automatically look In the paper for the suburban theater listings, and If there's nothing they want to see in the outlying areas, they don't go. Roger's Drug Store, where we used to hang around until the streetlights came on, got robbed the other night, the first time that has happened. The cabs still don't have protective glass between the driver and the passenger, but there have been some cab robberies around 18th and Main recently, and the glass will probaWy go in. There are a lot of dope arrests around the campus area. Like I said, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

It's the story of every city these days. But you don't grow up In every city, you just grow up in one, and you're kind of sad to see it change. You drive along Main Street and see all the franchise quick-food stands that didn't used to be there, and you think about Chet Iong being dead. W.J. McAULIFFE Mac's Window Wigs can change the appearance of a man and give him a new personality says a fellow in the wig business.

That is 50 per cent correct. It takes more than a wig to change a man's personality. are trying to pull the wool over their own eyes. A man's personality depends on what is inside his skull, not on what is on the outside of his skull. The Old Philosopher says that since men fall in love with girls on the girl's personal appearance, which is called beauty, it is no wonder that many girls try to improve on nature as much as possible.

A man can have a lot of fine gray hair on the outside but very little gray matter inside. And be as bald as a bowling ball and still have plenty on the ball. Men who are trying to hide their age can use cosmetics to get rid of tattle tale gray. And politicians eager to appeal to the younger voters are taking up this practice more and more. The sensible man, says the Old Philosopher will tell the girl she is very beautiful even if lie has to stretch the truth in saying so.

He will not tell her he fell for her because she had a brain and a character and personality that got to him. Tell a girl who is brainy that she is beautiful and she will love it. Tell a beautiful girl that she is brainy and she will not know whether it is a compliment or an insult. Once upon a time to speak of a man as "greybeard" was to use a term of respect. Nowadays such a man is just called an old fogy.

If young people are as smart as we hope they are, they are not going to take it for granted that older men are dodos. Young people who regard the older generation with pity or contempt, must face the future with despondence. For they cannot escape the fact that they are headed for the same fate. Speaking of hair, it does seem that some boys wearing the very lowbrow hair styles Her eyes looked so large and bright Cosmetics saw to that), Her hair was artiflcally gold Under her perky hat. Her mouth was a perfect cupid's bow Her teeth were pearly too, (It is surprising what cosmetics And dental science can do.) Her Figure with the aid of various things Came up to the Venus rule Altogether she was a thing of beauty To mnke the boys all drool.

What a pity that In one essential Science failed to make any gain Kor this lively bird of paradise Had a bird of paradise brain. So They Say I do not question the patriotism or the sincerity of those who disagree with my polices to bring peace. --President Nixon. Employes know more about a company than anyone else, so why aren't the people on the job asked about what's wrong that should be corrected and what's right that should be expanded? --Howard C. Bowles, Washington management consultant firm president.

If we're to save America we'll have to save those people whose feet are Implanted in the soil. --Agriculture Secretary Earl L. Butz to Fargo, N. farmer audience. One of the troubles with women is that they have too low an opinion of themselves.

Women accept a lesser fate because they choose to do so. --Mrs. Barbara Castle, former British cabinet member. I think that people are a little bit like ivy. They ought to be repotted every once in awhile.

--Sen. Lloyd lienlsen, on why he left a successful career to enter politics. The child who has'never been controlled can never control himself. --Donald Barr, Ballon School headmaster. mm WORLD ly NU, I "Even if it dcan't appeal to you eithctically, think of it this AM recycling solid.