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Show According to a recent survey conducted by The Ll drug problem at Park City High School. Do you agree with the survey s until ig . How much of a problem is there? . Dave Packard J . . . ... t nn MX'J I think the survey was valid in some areas, but nerom, emu drugs like that don't go on. I think that marijuana, alcohol andg cocaine are the most common. Page A2 Thursday, March 17, 1983 lEdlittoDirisall i i Schiller vs. District Candor is best solution to blizzard of charges Here at the Park City Newspaper, we've been begging for an end to the news drought. Well, we got an end to the drought, all right. In fact, when it comes to the Park City School District vs. Dr. Brian Schiller, we have a veritable blizzard in our laps! It's a stormy situation that involves charges and countercharges, counter-charges, actions and reactions, anger, defensiveness, bewilderment, and petition signatures floating around the scene like confetti. The dispute began when the Park City School Board, advised ad-vised by Superintendent Richard Goodworth, declined to renew the contract of Principal Brian Schiller. The school board would not publicly identify the reasons why Schiller's performance was considered faulty. Some of the information has seeped out, however. (See the Park City Newspaper story on front page.) In this documentation, Schiller stands accused of insubordination, encouraging divisiveness, a lack of punctuality, and an inability to get along with superiors. On the other hand, another source of information (talking . to KPCW reporter Blair Feulner) asserts that Schiller's disputes with the school board have been picayune, and the real trouble is that the principal isn't sycophantic enough for the district's administration. To add to the confusion, the Schiller episode has stirred up memories of past disputes between the school district and its principals or teachers. (Old controversies may not serve justice to the district in this case, but their aroma lingers.) In its reportage of the argument, The Park City Newspaper has had to skim the top from the information piling up around us. And even then, we don't know if we have all the facts. Good editorial writers are supposed to deliver an Olympian Olym-pian verdict on controversies. But we can't. We have too many questions. The answers will have to come from the school board and administration when it holds a special session next Tuesday night. School board members may have kept silent for the best of motives. But it's too late for them to say, "I'd rather not comment" to questions about Schiller's dismissal. There are too many rumors and too many indignant parents. We don't pretend that candor is an easy road. The evidence evi-dence already indicates that the controversy has painfully probed into personal lives. Not just public administration. But to the best of their ability, school officials should be honest, comprehensive and above board in their discussion with the public next Tuesday. If they try to stonewall this political blizzard, the leaders of the Park City School District will likely get frostbit. RB 6K.lt A THREE BEDROOM HOUSE FOR ONLY TWO HUNPRED BUCKS, WH ATS THE CATCH f Tin 7 TIT1 C1 - ft by Jack Anderson Religion becomes a weapon in strife-torn Guatemala Washington Pope John Paul's recent re-cent Central American tour focused attention on a seldom-mentioned aspect of the strife in that area of the world: Religion has become a subtle but significant factor in the fighting. This is especially true in Guatemala, where Protestant evangelism is pitted against the still-dominant Catholic Church. Efrain Rios Montt, the army general who seized power in Guatemala Guate-mala last year, is a born-again Protestant fundamentalist. His goal is nothing less than the conversion of his countrymen from Catholicism to evangelism. This partly explains Rios Montt's deliberate insult to the Vatican just two days before the pope arrived in Guatemala. Six leftist guerrillas were executed despite the Vatican's pleas to stay the executions out of respect for the pontiff. How does Rios Montt expect to wean his devoutly Catholic people away from their church? For one thing, the Catholic Church is deeply divided. The pope and his conservative supporters have forbidden priests to take part in political activism. But many parish priests and nuns believe in what they call "liberation theology" church activ.sm to help the poor and the oppressed. Since that's what the leftist guerrillas say they're fighting for, too, the Marxists and the priests are often allies against the right-wing forces. In fact, Rios Montt has publicly blamed Catholic priests for instigating acts of terrorism. Rios Montt apparently the link between the priests and the Marxists as a golden opportunity. He is believed to feel he can kill two birds with one stone wiping out the leftists and destroying the church's grip on his countrymen at the same time. To accomplish this twin goal, Rios Montt has adopted the unsuccessful American policy in Vietnam "win ning the hearts and minds" of the native population. Here's how it works: The peasants are rounded up and put in camps guarded by the army. That cuts the guerrillas off from their peasant support. The army then mops up the guerrillas. Meanwhile, the peasants are being re-educated from Catholicism to Protestant Pro-testant evangelism. They are told that Rios Montt will save them from the "Marxist priests." Rios Montt's ambitious plan is already under way. And he is receiving supplies for the refugee camps from his fundamentalist friends in the United States. Rios Montt numbers evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Thomas among his friends and supporters. An evangelist group called "Youth with a Mission" has been raising funds in this country and has already shipped supplies to Rios Montt for his so-called "pacification and development" program. Taking names: There have been whispers inside the Environmental Protection Agency about an ominous "green book," which supposedly contains the secret notes that the agency's chief legal officer has been keeping on key employees. According to the rumors, chief counsel Robert M. Perry has been rating employees on political matters. His subordinates have seen him watching people and making notes in a private notebook. It became known as the "green book." The rumors about secret political ratings reached Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who is investigating the Environmental Protection Agency. He asked Perry about the "green book." Perry flatly denied keeping any such list. We've seen portions of the so-called "green book" and can report that Perry was not lying. The notebook was kept, not by Perry alone, but by three EPA officials. Their notes are listed under the heading, "Personal Rating Deductions" and cover about 15 employees. It could be referred to as a demerit system. Here's a sampling: The EPA's in-house expert on conflict-of-interest was docked 25 points for neglecting to set up a briefing on his subject. One employee got 50 demerits for failing to tell Perry about a briefing with the Olin Corporation. Another employee was socked with 25 demerits for being late with a memo to Perry. And yet another employee earned 50 demerits by failing to respond promptly to a request for information. The notes had nothing to do with political matters, and they weren't compiled in a single book green or any other color. Headlines and footnotes: Chancellor Helmut Kohl's conservative government govern-ment won a resounding victory in the West German elections and that's good news for the U.S. intelligence community. com-munity. Our sources say that Kohl is working behind the scenes for closer ties between American and West German intelligence agencies. The newly appointed chief of West Germany's Ger-many's secret service, Eberhard Blum, was his nation's top spy in the United States for the past 12 years. The Joint Economic Committee of Congress has issued a report confirming confirm-ing that the Defense Department has been using deceptive budget figures to make is appear that the Pentagon is saving money. A committee analyst also circulated a confidential document docu-ment in which the Pentagon's budget manipulations were described as "an incredible deception ... (and) an acknowledged major exception to normal practice." 1983 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. 7 x . I . i.t . S ti" -' , . ' " ' ... A ' .TV Amanda Smith . rl , jlrt No, I don't. There is no problem with any sort of hard drugs. Steve Lindskov I thought it was a lot of b.s. There might be a problem with beer and cocaine, but not serious drugs like LSD. r WJ-V.W.V.W.VAV.V.V.W.V.W.V.W.V Amy Fleming I don't think the survey is accurate, but I don't think there is a problem. Michelle McReynoIds j I don't agree. I think the survey was inaccurate. There is a small problem with drugs here, but not as large as the survey jg said. iciipifpfii Spencer Childs No, it was a joke. During school on campus there is no problem. On weekends there is recreational use, but I have not seen it used in the school. Dogs and cats die more humanely than we do The last time I visited my friend who lay dying of cancer, he made a bitter little joke. "I wish I were a dog or cat," he whispered, "then you could call the vet and have me put to sleep." We who loved him understood. His pain and despair were communicable. We too suffered, simply looking at this once vigorous, laughing man. Now he was little more than a vegetable, his vital signs irrevocably linked to tubes, wires and needles. Looking, we had to wonder: Was this a preview of our own last days on Earth? We saw earlier a relative of this man had talked of taking him a copy of the Suicide Manual. Published in England, this little pamphlet gives easy instructions with a philosophical rationale for ending life when the agony becomes unbearable. In at least 14 states the gift of such a book had its instructions been acted upon would have been grounds for prosecution. Church and state have long been in agreement that both suicide and "mercy killing" are wrong, morally and legally. The joint suicide in London last week of Arthur Koestler and his wife has set off fresh debate on this touchy matter. Surprisingly, most people seem sympathetic to the ailing 77-year-old novelist's decision. A few observers, including a psychiatrist, find it unfortunate that Koestler's wife Cynthia, Cyn-thia, a healthy woman in her 50s, chose to die with her husband. Clearly, it was a lovers' suicide pact. "Their marriage was almost impossibly im-possibly close," a friend told the press. The choice of that word "impossibly" also set off some arguments. It cast some light on the joint suicide, but not enough. We have all known widows indeed, I am one of them who, despite deep love and an ache that never goes away, have surmounted loss and gone on living. Koestler, hopelessly ill with leukemia leuke-mia and Parkinson's disease, was a member of a British society called Exit. He had written movingly of every man's right to die with dignity, condemning "the degrading prolongation prolonga-tion of life." As the medical profession well knows (but is loath to admit), helping a patient to an easy death is not a new or daring concept. There are times far more common than we know, a retired nurse tells me when a compassionate physician does put an end to his patient's suffering. Sometimes he turns off the respirator. Sometimes he makes the evening shot of morphine strong enough to summon the angel of death. In some hospitals, seriously defective newborns are allowed to die a merciful death. A poll taken a few years ago by the Association of Professors of Medicine revealed that 80 percent of the membership had, at some time, stopped treating a terminal patient at the patient's request. In his book, "The Right to Die," a neurosurgeon, Dr. Milton Heifetz, says that it is "right and humane" to end the agony of the hopelessly ill. He wishes there were a law authorizing the physician to assist the patient in suicide "under highly controlled circumstances." cir-cumstances." The catch is; how are we to define those circumstances? Anyone who has watched a loved one die in slow, terrible torture with morphine shots around the clock-knows clock-knows that dogs and cats die more humanely on the veterinarian's table. If enlightened groups such as Exit can ease us gently over the last threshold, why not? 1983 Distributed by Special Features Syndication Sales Subscription Rates, $8 a year in Summit County. $15 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 3787-3000 , Publisher Jan Wilking Editor David Hampshire Advertising Sales jan Wilking, Bill Dickson, Jim Finegan Business Manager , Marion Cooney Gr,Phict Becky Widenhouse, Ui Heimos Staff Writers RickBrough Contributing Writers Bettina Moench, Jay Meehan, Nan Chalal, John Kinch, Gary Heins Typesetting Sharon Pain, Dixie Bishop Subscriptions & Classifieds , , Karen Fahey Darkroom ft Photography jH, Snyder Distribution Dusty Rhoades Entered as second-class matter May 25, 1977, at the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under tbe Act of March 3, 1897. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park City, Utah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication. However, the Park City Newspaper will assume no responsibility for the return of such material. All news, advertising and photos must be received prior to the Tuesday noon deadline at our office, 419 Main Street in Park City, by mail P.O. Box 3688, Park City, Ui. 84060, or by calling our office (801) 649-9014. Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Park City Newspaper, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, Utah 84060. |