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Show Mrox&y ' ABDnuntt Hit? McEWTTDODnntitl; A long list of stars is expected when the U.S. Ski Team holds its annual Celebrity Classic in Park City this week. If you had the chance to meet one ot them, who would it be and what would you like to say to himher? Page A2 Thursday, February 10, 1983 Mike Angelos Charlene Tilton. "Sorry I can't go out tonight. Something sud- denlycameup." f .. A-, : 4 ": m " - " - ft . M. - .:. : ... . . ; " ;. ijT. Thisrgucotild show us something. Honest There's somebody special to remember this Saturday. Honest Abe it's his birthday. It may sound hopelessly corny, but there are nonetheless important lessons we can learn from the great leaders this land has produced. That fact is especially true in times such as those we live in today. We live in the age of Watergate and Richard Nixon. In other words, contemporary political leaders often don't even come close to measuring up to the ideals and principles on which this country was founded and underneath under-neath which our first generations of leaders dutifully functioned. Anymore, you've got to squint real hard and do a lot of imagining to convince yourself that there are still figures as imposing as Honest Abe walking the land. With alarming frequency, we have come to accept and even condone obvious lack of integrty and principle among our leaders. Honest Abe knew all too well that principles and ethics are the last thing to throw overboard when the ship is going down. In fact, principles and ethics were just about all that old Honest Abe had left during those perilous months in the early 1860s when he was the pivotal figure in holding together a union which was on the verge of splitting asunder forever. Today, it sometimes seems that maybe our country hasn't actually seen old Abe's type of commitment to principle prin-ciple and human dignity since, say, the night in 1865 when John Wilkes Booth made an unexpected visit to the presidential box at Ford's Theatre. Perhaps American ethics and ideals the pure and un-compromised un-compromised sort were just as mortally wounded by that assasin's gunshot as was old Abe. Maybe. Or maybe not. It seems clear that such an uncompromising, persevering type as Honest Abe would not want to hear anv such talk. If Abe was alive today, no doubt he would be battling for his ethics and ideals in whatever capacity fate had in store. Of course, somebody as honest as ol' Abe wouldn't stand a chance in politics these days. Or, for that matter, law. Maybe if Abe were alive today, he'd spend his time chopping chop-ping logs back in the Midwestern forests he loved. Wherever Abe wound up, he'd be treating his neighbors right. Honest Abe was that kind of guy. Idealistic. Pioneering. Industrious. Faithful. i Objective. ! Compassionate. American. Maybe if we think about Honest Abe enough on his birthday birth-day Saturday, when we all go back to our own routines on Monday we can return as little imitators of ol' Abe. He would love it. -JH WeeMy pgnsaH crso" Nelson Hunt lends support to NCPAC's membership drive Washington Many conservatives are unhappy with Ronald Reagan. They feel their onetime idol has feet of clay. Not all conservatives have lost faith in the president, however. One who still thinks Reagan is fine is Nelson Bunker Hunt, the freewheeling Texas oil millionaire. Hunt recently lent his name to a six-page fundraising letter being sent out by the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). It's a long letter, in which Hunt gives lavish praise to President Reagan and, of course, to NCPAC. The letter is an invitation to become a member of NCPAC's official advisory committee. A seat on the advisory board costs $5,000. Membership will be limited to 300. That's exclusive enough, but Hunt's letter promises even more. Board members will receive a gold lapel pin which "will be recognized by conservative administration and congressional con-gressional leaders." Then, on Feb. 22, the NCPAC board will have what Hunt calls a "private reception" with the president at the White House. He also dangles the promise of other "private" meetings with members of the Cabinet. A spokesman for Nelson Bunker Hunt said the Texas millionaire has been an active supporter of NCPAC ever since it was founded. He has a good reason to be. Two years ago, NCPAC was accused of improper lobbying on Capitol Hill. It wasn't registered as a lobbying group, but it sent letters to several congressmen congress-men urging them to block efforts to tighten up a tax loophole used by silver traders, including Hunt. The case was turned over to the Justice Department's criminal division divi-sion for study. The investigation has just ended, and we've learned that the government is letting NCPAC off the hook on the grounds that the organization's letter was a one-shot deal that hasn't been repeated. Deaf ear: The Justice Department is investigating allegations that Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C, accepted at least $20,000 in bribes from renegade ex-CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson. Wilson was recently convicted of illegally selling weapons to Libyan dictator Muammar Quaddafi. Sen. Thurmond has vehemently denied the allegations. We can now relate a curious circumstance involving the allegations against Thurmond. At one point, the House Intelligence Committee staff was told that there was a shady connection between Wilson and the senator. But the committee staff didn't pursue the matter. Our associate Dale Van Atta obtained the secret transcript of a long interview with a former Wilson associate by the Intelligence Committee Commit-tee staff. The witness had previously told them of the alleged payoff to Sen. Thurmond. Leon Fuerth, the staff director, said to the witness: "On two occasions you expressed some concern about a member of the Senate. What is the connection between that and Wrilson's activities?" The witness was confused Was Fuerth talking about the middl twin he said had delivered the bribe? Fuerth: "No. I am talking about a member of the Senate." Witness: "Well. I don't know whether I should really go into that pari of it. because this is opening - that would be openit ,'an orm h.tt f have not read about in tin- pap i v '"bo -.itius ilitii alluded to it? middleman, who had claimed to be acting for Wilson. He named the place the bribe had allegedly occurred: the Capitol Hill Club. He gave other details, then stopped short and said: "I probably have already said too muchy to you." The committee staff apparently agreed with the witness. He was asked" no more questions about Thurmond. . In fact, they assured the witness they weren't interested in the bribery allegations at all. They told him they were looking into an entirely different matter. Executive memo: State Department sources say their auditors recently caught a contractor who billed Uncle Sam for goods that were never delivered. The contractor was supposed sup-posed to ship more than $70,000 worth of produce to Latin America. Less than a tenth of that amount was ever delivered. Employees at the General Services Administration are thoroughly confused con-fused over orders to double up their offices to save space. Cutbacks and layoffs at the agency have left it with more space than officials know what to do with. Our sources say that some 500,000 square feet at various GSA buildings are vacant. The agency has not been able to sublet the extra room, so the unoccupied space is costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials say they recently probed the vacation habits of one of their procurement directors. He attended a golf tournament in Florida and stayed at a fancy hotel, all at the expense of a contractor who was selling goods to NASA. The offending director was demoted and fined $5,000. 1983 t 'nitc! Feature Syndicate, Inc. Debbie Rapp Jane Seymour. I'd like to meet her in person. i 4 Sue Nixon John James. I'd be speechless. Reck Sanders Meredith Baxter. I'd tell David Birney that when he tires of Meredith, he can send her to me. ' " " rfA ... ; ' f - . . r A L Mark Eddins John Havlicek. I'd ask him for basketball lessons. Jill Davis Jan Michael Vincent. I'd just stare at him. f Jasrnsai.'ius.ttaW ?. yxna i.iv.ne, r.oucm 'Real men scorn porn I offer my hand today to the sensible women of Canada who have organized to revoke the license of a new pay-TV channel. The channel, calling itself "First Choice," intends to show pornographic movies. , At an outdoor rally in Ottawa last week held in sub-zero weather 500 women carried signs reading "Every Pinup is Somebody's Daughter" and "Real Men Scorn Porn." Similar protests were held in other cities, joined by Canada's leading female politicians. "What starts as soft porn becomes hard porn," said Maude Barlow, chairman of the crusade. Right on, Miss Barlow! We have seen that progression on New York City's "adult" channels. Erotic bedroom scenes have given way to whips and chains and scenes of degradation and pain. "We are not against sex. We are not against nudity," said Miss Barlow. In short, these are not a pack of frustrated harpies inspired by Carry Nation, the 19th-century scold who draped blankets around nude statues and smashed tavern bars with her hatchet. What Canadian women are against is the exploitation and abuse of women in the name of "entertainment." They are armed with the justice of their quarrel. At the heart of every porn flick, as the trade calls them, is the humiliation of a woman. Naked and helpless, she becomes an almost inanimate object, something to be used and abused. In the demimonde of pornography, cruelty cruel-ty and degradation are viewed as pleasurable. Oral sex, acrobatic sex, sex with men in women's dress, and unmentionable exercises that project a master-and-slave situation are standard stan-dard themes of porn films. To say that children never see these exhibitions simply isn't true. In households where parents watch porn flicks late at night, some children inevitably see some of the action. In this permissive age, young children are no longer tucked in at a reasonable hour with a bedtime story. The people who make audience surveys have reported that in many households children are still up and active at midnight. Canada's new channel, based in Toronto, has responded to the women's protest by claiming, "We are giving the customers what they want." The president of "First Choice" said his company had surveyed the potential audience and that 80 percent expressed an interest in "adult programming." Ah, yes, but how many understood the violence and perversion implicit in that term? Defenders of pornography offer the odd argument that ugly, friendless people, anti-social and deviant types, can achieve sexual satisfaction only by watching porn flicks. It is an argument outweighed by virtually every assessment assess-ment of this taboo diversion. Published this month in London is a new study, "The influence of Pornography Porn-ography on Behavior." Essays by 10 experts in the fields of psychiatry and sociology report some decidedly malign ma-lign effects. Among them: Men who read or view violent pornography are more likely to tolerate violence toward women and more likely to commit such violence. The report also notes that the number of rape scenes in paperback sex novels doubled between 1968 and 1976, and almost always the women are shown "enjoying" the rape. Thousands of interviews with rape victims refute this masculine fantasy. Despite a generally negative view of pornography, the English experts oppose censorship. So do most Americans. Ameri-cans. But even the most devoted civil libertarian must question whether films showing women as victims of sexual sadists deserve the protection of the First Amendment. 1983, Harriet Van Home Distributed by Special Features Syndication Sales Mewpaper: Subscription Rates, $8 a year in Summit County, $15 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 3787-3000 P"" Jaa Wilkin? W',or Duvid Hampshire Advertisint Sales .-. 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