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Show Comments Free Press - Wednesday, April 9, 1997 - Page Editorial I Utah County Olympic venue actual competitions would be held in Utah Valley. athletes, although no But in examining the proposed sites for the various events, the SLOC found the Mountain Dell and Little Dell site for the Nordic Venue was unacceptable. The search for a new site again enters Utah Valley into competition for an Olympic venue here at home. The proposed Provo Canyon site is one of five proposed to host the venue. Three are in Ogden Canyon and a fourth is located at Midway. But none of these locations has all the advantages of the Provo Canyon site recently toured by SLOC members. In an era of environmental concern, the Provo site would mean minimal say was, The best-lai- d plans of mice and men do often go awry." I certainly got a taste of that this weekend as I tried to cope with a bout of the flu, or a nasty cold, or something. We had fully intended to get our taxes done over the weekend, but our best-laiplans gave way to my trying to sleep it off. So much for my good intentions of getting the taxes done with a whole week to spare instead of just a couple of days. But then, I guess we wouldn't have our traditional annual outing at 10:30 p.m. to deliver the envelopes to one of the post environmental impact. It is easily accessible and already has the power and water lines in place for any needed utilities and snowmaking equipment. And the terrain would provide the kind of challenging course that would bring out the best in the Olympic competitors. Once the games are completed, Utah Valley would be left with a permanent an International Nordic Sports Park Olympic legacy that would help Utah Valley become a premier U.S. training site for Nordic skiing athletes for many years to come. Provo City has stated its commitment to maintaining and operating the facility after the 2002 games. There is another reason to select the Provo Canyon site the 320,000 residents of Utah County who gave strong support in the election to spend tax dollars to help pay for the Olympics. Bringing the Olympics to Utah Valley will mean exposure for the valley as well as the same commercial benefits that will be enjoyed along the Wasatch Front when people from throughout the world come to visit. It seems ludicrous for Utah to invite the world to our doorstep in 2002 and then to shut the door at the Point of the Mountain, especially when the valley can offer a superior venue site like the one proposed in Provo Canyon. Utah Valley residents and businesses should join in urging the SLOC to select Provo Canyon as the site for the Cross Country and Biathlon events in the late-nig- offices. Detours come up frequently in our lives, and I guess the secret is in learning how to accept them. Having lived through construction in Lehi during the installation of the pressurized irrigation system and the Center Street sewer project we learned to take a different route to our destination. Occasionally we would forget, however, and if you are like me, you probably cussed to some degree or another, not blaming yourself for the directional mistake, but the government for creating the havoc in the first place. Eventually, the construction was finished and driving around town, for the story of Kristy, my stepdaughter, and her English fiance, Ian, g continues. summarize, Kristy and Ian missed their March 22 wedding because the US government wouldn't let Ian into the country until the FBI checked him out to make certain he had not committed crimes or terrorist acts when he visited the United States previously. His fiance visa was finally granted on March 20. We have moved the wedding date to May 1. On March 24, Kristy boarded an air-- ' a trip that was origiplane for England nally planned for a honeymoon and wedding reception in Nottingham. The flight couldn't be changed or refunded, and had the added advantage of reuniting the couple. They returned together last Friday night, happy to be together and on track again. But they were solemn, too. Shortly before Kristy went back to get her fiance, Ian's grandmother became ill. Two days before they boarded the airplane for that final flight to the U.S., they gathered with other family members and kept vigil as she passed away. Her funeral is today, but Ian has been forced by circumstance and distance to forego the service. To Editor: An open letter to the Lehi City Mayor and City Council members: The announcement in the Lehi Free Press on April 2 regarding your decision to pull your legal advertising was very appalling. For government officials to think that they can control the press in this manner undermines the integrity of their positions. Any council member or government I can't imagine a more effective illus- tration of the tremendous commitment these two are about to enter into. Usually the leaving of one family for another when a couple is married is symbolic more than anything else. Often Mom and Dad are just around the corner or only an hour or two away. But in this case, our future has forsaken his home, his country and all the things with which he is familiar for, well, for love. He'll miss this funeral, but how many other family events will pass him by? It's similar to the journey many of our forefathers took when they left their homeland in pursuit of one dream or another. Ironically my took a similar journey in the 1860's from his home in Manchester, not too many miles from Nottingham itself. While it is much easier nowadays to son-in-la- Editor's l make that trip "across the presents a pretty formidable young man from a foreign finds himself jobless while pond," it still obstacle for a country wtio he waits for that green card that will allow him to start earning an income to support his bride and himself. The whole thing sounds pretty daunting, and I don't know too many people who would undertake the challenge But Ian is holding up pretty well. His sense of humor is intact, his optimism is unflagging and his determination remains rock solid. It is a awesome combination. After witnessing the fight he put up to get here, I'd hate to be the person who stood in his way when he has made up his mind to accomplish something. While the going has been tough, the last few months have helped forge a bond between the bride-to-b- e and her bridegroom that rivals anything I've ever seen. As they have shared the battle, they have grown together in laughter and tears. It's been a short courtship, but one filled with enough adversity for a good couple of decades, at least. Anyway, this story is almost over. Ian's mother and father are returning for the wedding, along with Ian's cousin, Jonathan, who will act as best man. We plan on starting a competition with the inlaws to see who gets out of debt most quickly here. Ian and Kristy will make their first home in a bedroom apartment in American Fork with the bride's family just around the corner. And the groom? Mom and Dad will still be in Nottingham, but his family will be right there in his home. For Kristy and Ian, they figure that's about as happy as it can get. Dick Boland 1997 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Bugs Bunny with his shotgun. I often wonder what personality traits I possess as a result of watching all of those Three Stooges movies that were shown after the Roy Rogers episode, where Roy shot the gun out of the bad guys hand. In those days this wasn't considered violence, it was considered marksmanship. There are groups who are advocating that levels of violence, nudity and offensive language be displayed at the beginning of the show. I can't imagine what might happen if this nonsense comes to fruition. Will we see things like bloody, gory, dismemberment and total annihila process. Growth has created a problem for anyone who drives on Main Street, which should be just about everybody. No one could disagree that 850 East and Main Street is an inconvenient, if not dangerous place, to be at certain times of the day. City officials have lobbied long and hard to get traffic lights installed there, and with the city's offer to help, the Department of Transportation has agreed to put some in. A few years ago, when UDOT upgraded the freeway interchange, some forward-thinkinindividuals planned for the eventual signalization of that area; I think they put in place at that time the means to simply that installation. Kudos to those that planned ahead and to those that kept fighting to get those g i , people or businesses who disagree with the council will be retaliated against personally? This is what you have done to the Lelii Free Press. The Free Press is our local paper. We depend on it for information on local issues, especially city government concerns. We do not take the Daily Herald nor do we plan to. Please reconsider this hasty decision. Dane and Nadine Dixon official should understand that they should and will receive criticism as part of their job. Criticism is a sign that government is working and citizens' viewpoints are represented. For the council to take upon themselves the decision to pull the advertising for other than business reasons is petty and inconsistent with your fiduciary duty to the citizens of Lehi. Does this action mean that deserve better representation Editor: included the city's legal notices. By removing the legal notices, it will require us to get both papers if we are to know what is going on in Lehi. We can thank our Mayor and City Council for the extra expense. Maybe we can deduct the cost of the other paper from our city utility bill. Just a thought. , I am ,.glad that we have the First Amendment to guarantee freedom 6f the press. I would hate to live in a country where we are only allowed to read what the government wants us to read. I am glad we have the press to be a watchdog for us and keep us informed as to the goings on of government. If our Mayor and city Council can't stand the little bit of criticism that has resident of the City of Lehi, I read with great interest the front page story in the Lehi Free Press of April 2 that dealt with the decision of our elected officials, i.e., Mayor and City Council, to take the legal notices of the city from the Free Press and put them in another paper. I am very upset about their decision. I feel it is the right of the residents of Lehi to know what is being planned and discussed and this information needs to be made available to as many residents as possible. I understand that the subscription coverage of the other newspapers in Lehi is about that of the Free Press. I like the coverage of Lehi news that we get from the Free Press and up until now it one-thir- d been printed about them, maybe they are not the people for the job. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, is a quote that I think fits here. This action by the Mayor and City Council in my opinion is childish and petty and I for one will remember it when November elections are held and I encourage; all residents of Lehi whq feel as I do to remember them as well. The power of government is given to them by us, the people. Let us not ever forget that. If we allow tins action to go unchallenged, what other rights are we willing to give up? I think we the residents of Lehi Citv deserve better. Millard Andrus ! Legislature sets up programs to replace parents Editor: The 1997 Utah Legislature established the foundation of Hillary Clinton's village when they passed a number of bills that set up government programs to replace parental responsibility with regulations, agencies and institutions. Two of the most obvious bills were H.B. 184, Community and Youth Prevention Programs, sponsored by Lloyd Frandsen and H.B. 67, Children's Reading Skills, sponsored by Rep. Brent Haymond. H.B. 184 was originally titled "After School Child Care Amendments." This bill sets up child care programs in the schools for after school and summer care. Rep. Frandsen tried several times to get his bill through the Health and Human Services Committee, but it failed. After realizing that babysitting in the schools was not a popular thing, he changed the name of the legislation. It went from "Child Care" to "Youth Prevention," leading the legislators to believe that this bill was to help stop gangs and other youth related problems. It also contains language that includes churches and community youth programs. A close examination shows that 50 TV ratings help cut down on channel surfing Thanks to the new TV rating system, children no longer have to channel-sur- f to find a juicy program to titillate their little imaginations. The ratings tell them where to find "the good stuff" What's amazing is this fact seems to have caught those who monitor what's good for us by surprise. The rating system is about as effective as the There is only one monitoring device that will work, and it is called an interested parent. There will never be a system that will take the place of parental guidance. Apparently, the number of shows containing violence has jumped from 47 percent to 54 percent over the last year. I suppose the networks figured that now that we have a rating system, they couldn't be blamed, since advanced warning was given. Researchers who study television programming and publish reports on their findings would leave you to believe that the decline in family values is a direct result of watching too much television. If what they say is true, imagine what kind of family life the researchers must have. These studies single out cartoons as one of the high risk areas contributing to violence. I suppose they see nothing humorous about Elmer Fudd trying to off most part, returned to normal. Some roads may have even been improved in the Lehi residents As a By MARC HADDOCK i By RUSS DALY Council should reconsider decision The Column Daly Planet Letters to the editor Maybe there are some happy endings endings. And the lights put in. We all need to write appropriate notes of gratitude the very first time we cross Main Street with the light. The impending project is likely to have the same effect on a great number of people. Fortunately, I don't think I will be one of them. The parts of the Salt Lake valley that I frequent won't be affected by the construction, other than from vehicles using my preferred roads as alternates for their preferred road. For the most part, though, I think the majority of Utah Valley citizens will simply avoid Salt Lake City entirely for the next few years. Another one of my mother's strange little sayings involved dancing. If we invited her to participate in some sort of activity, she would often say, "I might as well, I can't dance." I used to think that was quite odd, at least until I adopted it for my own use. And, actually, as I've explored its meaning even farther, I now realize that it can be a message of optimism. For while we may not be able to do one activity, we might be perfectly capable of doing something else, which may prove to be even more enjoyable than the first thing that we could not do. My cold has made it impossible for me tb dance, or to do any other enjoyable activity. But I have plans for when I recover, and I don't intend for them to go awry. The d 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Maybe there are still some happy endings out there. But often it seems like there are some rough times between the beginnings and couldn't have danced all weekend Do you remember odd things your parents said to you when you were a child? One of the things my mother used to A Second chances don't come around often. But Utah has a second chance to repair the oversight committed by the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee when it decided to exclude Utah County as a site for any of the venues of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. This time the right choice would be for the SLOC to accept the Provo Canyon site for the Nordic skiing events of Cross Country Skiing and the Biathlon competition. Utah County residents were disappointed when, after giving strong support to the state's Olympic effort, it was bypassed for any venue for the games. The only county participation in the Olympics would then have been an ice sheet to be used for practice by Olympic 2 tion? Nudity may be described as topless, topless and bottomless or buns only. This is the kind of thing that happens when the censors really get going. I am afraid the Puritans are upon us. One thing in our favor is the current rating systems have done nothing to the content of the shows we are seeing. It simply warns us of what we are about to see. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be enough for the pure of heart. Strangely enough, none of their studies included sports or news broadcasts. News alone could leave many indelible imprints on a young child's mind. The way the rating system is set up now, a child should not watch the news until he is 14 years old. Book publishers must be extremely happy with all of the attention that is being paid to our television programming. There is no rating system for books and very little for magazines, other than the ones in a plain brown wrapper. If the people who are trying to censor tubes get their, however, our cathode-ra- y it will only be a matter of time before they return to monitoring what we read. It hasn't been all that long since many libraries refused to put copies of Forever Amber on their shelves. percent or more of the money must go to private child care businesses and programs. The end result of the "After School Child Care Amendments" bill and the "Community and Youth Prevention Programs" bill is the same: child car in the schools! The sponsor of this bill was so determined to get these centers set up in the schools he did everything possible to get the legislation passed. On the afternoon of Feb. 27, the bill was defeated in the house. An hour later, the bill was brought back to the floor for another vote and this time it passed. On Feb. 28, only 24 hours later the senate sponsor, Sen. Hillyard, moved to bring the bill to the top of the second reading calendar, and under suspension of the rules asked that the bill be passed on the second and third reading r. As closely as Eagle Forum was following H.B. 184, we were not even aware that it had passed until the following Tuesday when we found it on the tracking sheet. I guess the sponsor's plan worked, since those who were there did not get the opportunity to see it on the board; there is no way that the average citizen could ever find out in time to do anything about it. Are we being well represented by those who would be so devious? On pages 221 and 238, of "It Takes a Village," Hillary Clinton states, "Imagine a country that conceives of child care as a program to welcome children into the larger community... As a nation we must make child care a priori ty..."What about making families a priority? H.B. 67, Child Reading Skills, started off to be one of the best bills of this legislative session. It was designed to help children have "well developed reading skills" through decoding and blending words that are phonetically pure," and then testing the children to see if they could actually read before they were pushed through 12 years of school. The house Education Committee rejected the original bill. They told Rep. Haymond that they would reconsider his legislation if he would meet with the education establishment for a rewrite. At the State Board of Education meeting on Feb. 14, a representative from the State Office of Education, said that they had originally opposed H.B. 67, but that they had rewritten it with their own language, and now it was acceptable. If a comparison is made of substitute H.B. 67 with the original bill, it is clear that the only resemblance is the title. Not only did the State Office of Education change the reading language but they added language that will set up preschool programs in Utah schools at taxpayers expense. Under the law children would be tested during the first two weeks of kindergarten to determine their reading skills. If the testing shows that the children are not coming to kindergarten ready to learn, then under Title I, the federal education law, preschools would be established in Utah public schools. Superintendent Scott Bean has publicly stated that it is his belief that early intervention at the preschool level is the best way to solve the academic problems in the schools. The answer is not in preschools, but in Do teaching real academics in grades we really want to spend our education dollars on preschool programs that will amount to babysitting little three- - and children, or do we want to put the money where it can really make a difference? Goal number one of The National Education Goals states, "By the year 2000 all children will start school ready to learn." Objective number one under this goal says all children will have access to preschool programs. Utah has been one of the biggest promoters of Goals 2000, accepting the first federal dollars available with all the strings attached. On page 221 of "It Takes a Village," Hillary states, "Imagine a country in which nearly all children between the ages of three and five attend preschool in sparkling classrooms with teachers ... trained as child-car- e further states, "It may sound too good to be true, but it is not." I say, 'Imagine a country in which nearly all children between the ages of three and five are allowed to stay home with their mommies, being loved, hugged and trained by those who love them the most. It may sound too good to be true, but it is not." We just need wise lawmakers who, instead of raising taxes and creating program after program with tax dollars, will give back some of that money to the families so parents can rear their own children. Let families prepare their children for school by teaching them their values and setting up their own family programs to care for their children. No one cares more for the children than their own parents certainly not the government! Gayle Ruzicka President Utah Eagle Forum e j We welcome letters to the editor. All letters should be typewritten and double spaced. Letters must also be signed, and must include the writer's name and telephone number. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Fork, Utah, 84003 or through email at Newtahaol.com. |