OCR Text |
Show ( .. - Mw A.BDmnt Hit? What team do you think will win the NCAA basketball championship BYU, because they have the height and strongest line. - "f Page A2 Thursday, March 19, 1981 EdiittdDFial Help curb vandalism: report it Imagine, if you will, this scene: A carload of visitors is driving down one of Park City's poorly-lit back streets at night in a snowstorm. The driver approaches an intersection, but not noticing the stop sign lying face down on the side of the road, he pulls out onto the highway and into an oncoming car. That's a theoretical incident, but one that certainly is possible, thanks to vandals who get their kicks out of mowing down stop signs in town. Police Chief Mike Crowley said this week that vandalism is on the rise in Park City. In the period between October and now, 30 cases have been reported, resulting in an estimated $7,000 worth of damage to private and public property. That's a 33 percent increase in the number of cases over the same period last year. From those people who have been caught in the act, Crowley offered a general profile of the typical vandal: a male between the ages of 18 and 21 who lives and works in Park City, and whose main excuse for destroying property is "for the hell of it." Unlike burglary or theft, there is no obvious purpose for vandalism: there's no money to spend and no goods to fence. Just the satisfaction of slashing 14 tires, as was the case last week at the Copperbottom Inn and Snow Country Condominiums, or throwing a brick through a restaurant window, sloshing paint onto a house, or gouging the paint on cars with a set of keys. You can pass vandalism off to drunkenness, boredom, peer pressure, or a bad home life. But until the vandals are caught, the incidence of it is likely to rise. Police enforcement could be stepped up by increasing patrols and stopping pedestrians and asking for identification. But part of the problem can be solved by Park City residents. Crowley estimated that the vandalism cases recorded this winter, 85 percent of them were witnessed but unreported. It stands to reason that in a town this small and familiar that someone heard the breaking glass or saw the graffiti artist hard at work. But apathy or fear of being fingered as a rat seems to make people turn their heads. However, apathy soon would turn to outrage if the vandalism occurred on home turf. And if being a tattletale rubs witnesses the wrong way, Chief Crowley promises anonymity. The problem is so severe, he said, that informants can just report the incident, no questions asked. Most of the vandalism occurs in residential areas, especially condominiums, at night, in poorly-lighted areas. There's something to be said for keeping a porch light on or installing light poles in parking lots. But there's more to be said for watching out for the other guy and reporting what you know. BBM i- i SIRICANT5eU,iK)$r ANVONeAUftMM M0UTASKIN6 soweveRY mmiT OOeSTIONS, oRCHARee? .ui - Jimmm by Stanley Karnow In Saigon, consumer revolution stronger than communist revolution Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The Vietnamese communists swallowed South Vietnam six years ago, but they clearly have been unable to digest Saigon, as this city formerly was called. Communist spokesmen here assert that the "socialist transformation" of the South is proceeding successfully. Private enterprise, they say, gradually is being eliminated as the government imposes its control over the economy. It takes only a few days here, however, to perceive that the consumer revolution still is stronger than the communist revolution. For the Saigon population, which thrived on heavy doses of U.S. aid during the Vietnam war. continues to resist the new communist order. Moreover, it is plain that the Communist leadership in Hanoi is not pressing too hard for change despite its ideological pronouncements. Strolling around familiar neighborhoods neighbor-hoods I found myself transported back to the past. The streets are jammed with black marketeers peddling everything every-thing from American cigarettes and French brandy to Hong Kong textiles and Japanese radios. The source of this capitalist merchandise merchan-dise is no longer the PX, as it was during the American presence. Most of it is sent by Vietnamese in the United States and elsewhere to their relatives here, who make ends meet by selling their gifts. The "cargo cult" is built around a weekly Air France flight that unloads freight as well as passengers, and a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong that carries only freight. The operation, which is legal, benefits everyone. The airlines profit from the freight charges, the government collects customs duties, individual officials pocket commissions and the local people get their packages. Altogether, the airlines bring in a monthly average of 220 tons of cargo, the original value of which is estimated at more than $2 million. That is little in commercial terms, but it makes a huge difference when the goods flow into the black market, A Vietnamese worker earns an average of 70 dongs per month. A pack of American cigarettes sells at a street stall for 40 dongs. Thus, if he is lucky enough to have a cousin in California who remembers him, he can make the equivalent of six months' salary with a' carton of Marlboros or Salems. Officials make no secret of their involvement in the traffic. One of them, whose monthly wage of 160 dongs is relatively high, confided to me that his aunt in Paris sends him a regular package of toothpaste, vitamins and other such stuff every three months. He sells it on the black market. "I couldn't survive otherwise," he explains. This intricate market mechanism is such that products are preferable to dollars and other hard currencies, since products are more lucrative. The legal exchange rate, ridiculously arbitrary, is roughly 3.5 dongs per dollar. A dollar fetches 20 dongs on the black market. But a dollar's worth of aspirin is worth as much as 50 or 60 dongs, and drugs are easier to send. Besides, officials steam open letters in search of cash, which they probably keep for themselves. One of the many mysteries here is what proportion of the Saigon population popula-tion of 3.4 million gains from this black market, since only a small percentage can count on help from relatives abroad. At first glance, it looks like only a minority benefits and everyone else remains desperately poor. Top officials certainly siphon off a slice. They can be seen in the few private restaurants that flourish here, drinking French wines with meals that cost the equivalent of a worker's wage for a month. There also are families, formerly wealthy, who supplement their meager incomes by selling off heirlooms in order to buy imported items. Rare antiques, for instance, are available here for only a tiny fraction of their value in the West. They have been traded to merchants in exchange for the cash that acquires hair spray and shaving cream. Nor have the Chinese, a h;i It' million '' ' ii"in slill live in :h- district of Cholon, lost their financial importance. Despite the government's crackdown on them during Vietnam's war against China, they continue to sit on dollars and gold, and manipulate the money market with official tolerance. It should be added, too, that big sums are necessary not only to obtain imported goods, the food shortage here is so severe at the moment that the Vietnamese need money to eat more than a minimum. The rice ration, which averages about 29 pounds per month, is inadequate for adult Vietnamese, who eat rice three times a day. So they must turn to the "free" market, where a pound of rice sells for the equivalent of a worker's daily wage. The meat ration, which is not always available, is a pound a month. The alternative is "free-market" meat, which is out of sight.. The other day, for example, I noted that a worker would have to pay the equivalent of three weeks' salary for a pound of sausage. The Communists are encouraging this market economy in order to encourage the peasants to produce. Under rules adopted in 1979, peasants now can sell their surplus output as long as they meet their production quotas. But their surpluses are not large enough to give supply the edge over demand. A recent Communist newspaper article called for "vigilance" against economic "saboteurs,'.' suggesting that the regime may move to clamp down on this free enterprise. That may only be rhetoric, however. The Communists apparently cannot afford to tighten up their rule over Saigon without further alienating a population that has been accustomed to unbridled capitalism for a generation. In the end, Communist officials claim, gradual change will work. Whether it does or not, Saigon still retains a shadow of its old flavor-cheeky, flavor-cheeky, undisciplined and perhaps beyond the control of any regime, just as it was before the Communists took over. , 1 Released by The Register and Tribune Syndicate 1981 Illlliill'llililffllllllWIl . in-miftr" ' ' ' fc BelvaMalan BYU will win because of Danny Ainge. Rich Scott North Carolina, because David Thompson came from that school, and some of that talent may have rubbed off. O 4 I' -- '- ': Jody Bernolfo Indiana, because they have the toughest and best coach-Bobby coach-Bobby Knight. BYU is a close second, because God's a Mormon. Tom Dolan Utah, because of people like Pace Manion and Danny Vranes, and because of the strong back court. ft . Jim Kempthorne BYU. If they can get past Notre Dame on Thursday. T iff (fh. r- W HTl r 11 by Jack Anderson gCH&.llty CS ptC(EiltH & Joe Spear Confidential memo warns El Salvador needs money Washington There is some grim news from El Salvador. It's stamped "confidential," but the American people are entitled to know the truth. The U.S. embassy in El Salvador has warned that, without massive economic aid, the survival of the Salvadoran government is "severely imperiled." The message came from the acting U.S. ambassador, Frederick Chapin, in an urgent, confidential cable to the State Department. He reported that up to $40 million in U.S. aid would be needed immediately if the Salvadoran government was to survive the next six to nine months. "I am convinced that the most urgent need is for $22 million to $40 million," Chapin cabled, But that was three weeks ago. In the meantime, a special team has been in El Salvador assessing that nation's needs. Now the embassy reports that the price for saving the moderate government has skyrocketed. Th( regime will need $260 miHion in external financing to keep the economy afloat. The latest embassy cable warns that even the most optimistic Salvadoran leaders predict that "unless political stability is brought about soon, there is little chance the current government can survive the next' three to six months." President Reagan will have no problems, we should add, with military aid. This is because of a little-noticed clause in the foreign assistance laws which allows a president, in an emergency, to send as much as $50 million in military arms to a foreign country without congressional approval. ap-proval. . But there is a disturbing echo of the past in this emergency slush fund. In 1965, when the fund was bigger, President Lyndon Johnson drew hundreds hun-dreds of millions from it to expand the war in Vietnam secretly. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Alexander Alex-ander Haig has been up to Capitol Hill to give the Senate Armed Serivces Committee a secret briefing on the situation in El Salvador. Apparently, he figured the tough talk at the meeting would come from him. He told the Senators that more American military advisers would be sent to El Salvador. And unless the bloodshed there is brought to a quick end by international mediation, he declared, U.S. military aid to the junta could escalate. But the senators had some strong words of their own to throw back at Haig. They gave him a message to take back to the White House: Any sign of U.S. military intervention in EI Salvador would endanger the Pentagon's Penta-gon's budget. The Congress, they said, simply would not abide any attempt to use American troops to put out a Latin American brushfire. Our committee sources say the senators weren't bluffing. And their warning had some added weight: It came from Republicans as well as Democrats.. Credit Card Subsidy Part of President Presi-dent Reagan's anti-inflation strategy is to cut back on the use of credit cards. The easy credit encourages people to spend money they don't have. Congress could help curtail credit by changing laws that encourage consumers con-sumers to buy on credit. The regulations regula-tions allow the costs of credit card purchases to be passed on equally to all customers. This penalizes those who pay cash. But the multimillion-dollar credit card industry is quietly lobbying for an extension of the current laws. Three of the lobbyists who have been talking to the Senate Banking Committee, inci-. dentally, are former staff members of the committee. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board has summed up the case for revising the law in a letter to Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, chairman of the banking committee. "The credit card industry, in our view," says the letter, "is capable of prospering without this kind of federal protections." Arafat the Infidel? Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini has a low opinion of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat. The pistol-packing Palestinian may be in good standing with fanatics around the world, but Khomeini doesn't thinkheisfanaticalenough. The ayatollah would like to boot Arafat out of the PLO and replace him with an Islamic firebrand more like himself. Arafat, according to our sources, isn't devout enough to suit the ayatollah. Khomeini insists that Arafat's Ara-fat's guerrillas should pray five times a day. Even worse, a few Christian Arabs have been admitted to the PLO; Khomeini wants them purged. The ayatollah would also like to change the PLO's charter to make it a religious rather than a political organization. . Headlines and Footnotes Is the Labor Department's Women's Bureau sexist? Currently it is staffed by 45 women and four men... Rep. Jim Jones, D-Okla., chairman of the House Budget Committee, has this sign on his desk: "The buck slows down here."... Internal Revenue Serv'e agents are now under orders to raid the cash registers of small businessmen who are suspected of tax delinquency... Energy Secretary James Edwards apparently believes President Reagan means it when he says he'll abolish the Energy Department. Edwards rented a modest townhouse near Washington and signed only a two-year lease. 1981 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. The News paper Publisher . . Kditor ..... Advertising (H'lieral Ma Subscription Kales, $6 a your in Summit County, $12 a your outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. L'si's :tvx-7:!(i Jan Wilkiufi Beltina Moeneh Ian Wilking, Bill Dickson Terrv llnoan Business Manager ; Rick Unman (,ral)hKS Beckv Widenhouse. Liz. Ileimos Reporters David Hampshire. Rick Brough '". Phyllis Rubenslein ll)('N,'ltl" Kathv Deakin. Dixie Bishop Subscription & ( lassil s Anne Ber.netl l)is,ri,),,li0" Bob (irieve hntered as second-class matter Max 2:., 11177. at (he post office in Park City. I tall KllttiO, under the Act of March 3. IS1I7. Published every Thursday al Park City, I'tah. Second-class postage paid at Park City. I'lah. Insolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication, however. The Newspaper will assume no responsibility lor the return of such material. All news, advertising and photos must be received prior to the Tuesday noon deadline at our office Main Street in Park City, by mail P.O. Box 7:s, park City. I t. KIIMIO, or by calling our office (X(ll I (it!l-!llll I. Publication material must he received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. , ' |