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Show Mw AIteMit lit? 111. new tDODiiniiu; Do you think the demands of the hunger strikers in Belfast's Maze Prison should be met so that they are treated as political prisoners instead of criminals? Cyrus Thiebauld Originally, their crimes were criminal, but now they are trying for a political criminal status. Therefore, they should be treated as political prisoners, since what they are trying to do now PageA2 Thursday, May 28, 1981 EMMoDircLall is political. A 1 Welcome to Fun City Taking advantage of a golden opportunity is the American way. Whenever a situation arises where money can be made, you can bet someone will surface to capitalize on it. Take for example the Johnny-on-the-spot hawkers who sold the "I Lived Through Three Mile Island" tee shirts and bottles filled with Mount St. Helens ash. Or Abscam Rep. John Jenrette's wife Rita, who parlayed his publicity and her weird sexual revelations into a profitable sitting with Playboy magazine. Or the fellow just this week who sold sunglasses to onlookers straining to watch "Spider Man" climb Chicago's Sears Tower. But opportunists don't just appear where the national headlines are made. Park City has it's fair share too. No, we're not talking about land speculators and developers. We're talking about people who have a flair for the really original. Just last week a man approached the City Council with a novel use for the old sewer treatment plant near Park Meadows. He offered to open up a Bumper Boat concession. For the uninitiated, Bumper Boats are donut-shaped tubes with outboard motors. The idea is that the driver (helmsman?) (helms-man?) sits in the middle and rams into the other boats floating around in the old treatment pond. They're very quiet, have no exhaust, and they can't sink, he said. (Isn't that what they said about the Titantic?) Urn, thanks, we'll call you, said the council. While Bumper Boats perhaps rate high on the list of creativity, they aren't the only "attraction" that has been offered to the city to boost business. Let's see, there was Down the Tube. And then there was the plan for horse-drawn rides, battling for space on Park City's streets with the buses and the 10-wheel trucks. And we mustn't forget the woman who wanted to sell real live wax-coated Park City snowballs as mementos of the Snow Sculpture Contest. And a big hit with area residents probably would have been the go-cart concession proposed for Prospector Square. After all, the parking lots are sitting there doing nothing, and maybe it would have given those fellows who published that pretty picture book of dirt mounds, junk piles and unfinished condominiums in Prospector something to add to their collection. Fortunately, the City Council and the Planning Commission Com-mission are not made up of people who want to see Park City turn into a carnival act. They've been polite, but firm, about not allowing conditional uses that would set a precedent and bring a horde of dancing bear, Ferris wheel and Tatoo Lady promoters to town. But in case the city weakens, we've got a few suggestions for some really topnotch entertainment. Granted, we never would've thought of Bumper Boats on the sewer pond, but here goes: The Alpine Slide could be made useful all year round by running it as one of those log flume rides during the rainy spring, and a bobsled course in the winter. A great way to show off the town and use available resources would be to catch all the stray mutts and offer historic tours of Main Street in dog sleds. The dogs, of course, would wear miner's helmets and carry pickaxes in their mouths. The old Mine Train Ride could be converted into a Tunnel Tun-nel of Love. A giant blower could be mounted onto the top of the Coalition Building that would send fake snow fluttering down on top of visitors who wanted their picture taken of their summer adventure in a ski resort town. A Wild West show could be staged on Main Street. Or better yet, admission could be charged to watch people dressed up as drug enforcement agents pretend to arrest half the population of the town. No? Well, like the gent who appeared at last week's council coun-cil meeting said, "That's okay. We'll come back with another idea." -BBM I'M AW IRA MARTYR ,0REW 7H0A7E OR ill BlOVimKHtZCWSOFF,,, by Stanley Karnow Ties with U.S. may be stronger than predicted under Mitterrand Washington, D.C. The most remarkable remark-able result of the French presidential election was not the victory of Francois Mitterrand, the Socialist leader, but the crushing defeat of the Communists. Thus, it seems to me, Reagan administration officials are being excessively alarmist in their fears that Mitterrand will steer France into a radical course inimical to American interests. On the contrary, Mitterrand could well forge a more solid link with the United States than existed under his predecessor, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was infatuated with the notion of asserting France's grandeur. For Mitterrand, having given the French a moderate leftist alternative, may be able to reduce the Communists to a fringe role and thereby exorcise their influence. This is not to suggest that the Communists are going to evaporate. They still have a strong organization, especially in industrial areas where their sway over the labor movement is considerable. But their latest performance at the polls was their worst since 1936, when they made their first important appearance on the French political scene. And it was all the more significant because France today, nagged by unemployment and inflation, should have been ripe for their success. So, while the Communists retain the allegiance of their hard-core militants, they plainly have lost the support of the many middle-class citizens, intellectuals intellec-tuals and even workers who formerly backed them, if only as an expression of protest. The Communist boss, Georges Mar-chais, Mar-chais, deserves much of the blame for the failure. Arrogant and abrasive, he inadvertently dramatized the fact that the French Communist Party is really a bureaucratic machine built along Soviet lines and not the progressive force portrayed in its propaganda. Marchais committed the serious error of demanding that the party endorse the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan and its threats to move into Poland. As a consequence, he alienated many of his own Communist activists as well as party sympathizers, who hardly want to be regarded as pawns of Moscow. But more profoundly, the French Communist Party has been slipping for years because it has been unable to adapt to the rAlity of a changing France. . A generation ago, when France emerged from the wreckage of World War II, the Communists had two elements playing in their favor. Their record in the resistance against the Nazis, though exaggerated, was attractive. attrac-tive. And their pledge to eliminate the economic and social injustice that then prevailed was appealing. Since then, however, France has evolved. Memories of the war have faded, so that young French voters are bored by recollections of the fight against the Germans. In addition, they are more interested in the consumer revolution than in the Marxist revolution. Accordingly, French workers whose fathers once bicycled home from their factories now drive cars that they have bought on the installment plan. Similarly, French peasants have traded in their oxen for sophisticated farm equipment purchased on credit. Against this background, the Communists Com-munists have become an anachronism with their puerile formulas for class struggle. Back in 1978, as they faced legislative elections, the Communists and Socialists Social-ists tried to form a coalition in order to gain control of Parliament. But their united front split, primarily because the Communists refused to submit to Socialist predominance of the pact. Mitterrand could not have won the runoff in the presidential contest without Communist votes. Because the Communists fared too badly in the first round of the election last month, however, he may be able to govern without them. The test will come in June, when elections are held for a new legislature. If the Communists cannot do better than they did the other day, Mitterrand may manage to persuade another faction to give him parliamentary majority. If not, he probably will need the Communists. But he is unlikely to become their hostage. Nor will he necessarily be under pressure, should he require their support in the legislature, to include Communists in his cabinet. France of the future, in my estimation, may look complicated and often incomprehensible, as it did during the 1950s. It is worth recalling, though, that it was a closer U.S. ally then than it has been more recently. Forecasts of imminent doom, therefore, may be misplaced. (Released Dy The Register and Tribune Syndicate, 1981) Angel Sanchez No, because I think it is a ploy for the IRA to become recognized, and once the British do recognize them as a political group, they will have condoned the terrorist acts used to gain such recognition. Bill Snell I do not think they should be given political status because the British are now in control and the laws are stated and Britain has to stick with them in order to remain in power. . vs. Rand Holley Hell no! Every country is full of people trying to undermine the existing governments in their countries, and for the British to concede to terrorist demands would be an acknowledgement of such groups as political powers. Clint Bendtsen No, because they are in prison because of violent crimes. Mark Blaze Under the circumstances and the number of deaths that are occurring, oc-curring, the situation should be treated with a great deal of diplomacy and corrected with a concern for lives rather than political statements. - it, V 1 -' WUHTlr fZT by Jack Anderson yyr tCICli&Mjy fllHClCUgttll & Joe Spear Now oil companies want it both ways Washington There seems to be no limit to the oil companies'- greed. The federal government has been more than generous with its tax breaks and research grants to Big Oil. But still the petroleum moguls aren't satisfied. Oil industry leaders have formed a semiofficial group called the "Energy Task Force." Its mission is to give the Department of Energy justification for policies that will benefit the oil business. A steady stream of confidential proposals has been flowing from the Energy Task Force to the secretary of energy. The suggestions call for favored tax treatment and still more government subsidies for the oil industry. - A recent confidential letter from a member of the task force directed to Energy Secretary James Edwards, for example, shows what the oil tycoons arejp to. The letter is from Ralph Bailey, the chairman of Conoco, a major oil producer. It deals with the search for synthetic fuels as an alternative to imported oil. Bailey's letter proposes that Uncle Sam provide "financial incentives for the private sector to undertake capital-insentive, capital-insentive, high-risk ventures." Specifically, Speci-fically, Bailey suggests that corporations corpora-tions which want to manufacture synfuels be given investment tax credits, production credits and depreciation depre-ciation tax credits. Fair enough. If the oil companies are risking their money in the public interest, perhaps the government should give them a tax break . But one a synthetic fuel project turns out to be successful, it's a different story. Then, the oil companies want the taxpayers to get out and turn the operation over to what they call "private enterprise." In other words, as long as there's a risk involved, the oil companies welcome government subsidies. But as soon as it looks as if the project will be a moneymaker',. Big 'Oil wants iie-J 'iiii important thin'? Haig o)d the government to buttouCThe industry doesn't mind government help in the expensive development stages of synfuels. syn-fuels. But it suddenly becomes "interference" "inter-ference" when it gets to the marketing phase. They cannot have it both wasy. Either the oil companies should stick to "free enterprise" when they're developing de-veloping synthetic fuels, or they should cut the taxpayers in on the profits when they succeed with the public's help. A "New" Haig? President Reagan's most controversial policymaker is Secretary of State Alexander Haig. He's an experienced soldier-statesman who should know his way around the corridors of power. Certainly, he has the brains and guile to be an excellent secretary of state. He's a complex thinker, with a mastery of strategic concept and tactical detail. But Haig has a martial air about him that tends to raise the hair on the backs of the diplomats' necks. It may be his military manner. He comes on strong, like the four-star general he used to be. He can be arrogant and austere and aloof. Haig's headstrong views and take-charge take-charge ways brought him into an early collission with White House aides. At one point, he told associates angrily that President Reagan had lied to him. Haig even dictated an impulsive letter of resignation. Later, it took the president 45 minutes, man to man, to settle Haig down. And since he came out of that Oval Office session, Haig has been a different secretary of state. He handled himself skillfully, for example, on a recent trip to the Middle East. He called together all the American ambassadors on the Arabian peninsula and according to a confidential confi-dential record of the meeting confessed con-fessed the new administration had been going through "growing pains" and that his own bluntness was largely to blame for the "window rattling." But aribasiadorsji "was td getonwjth the work." Back in Washington, Haig attended an off-the-record breakfast with members mem-bers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He was affable and accommodating, even when the questions ques-tions got rough. He became a little testy over a question about his support of the military regime in Argentina. But then he relaxed and refused to let the other questions rile him. One congressman commented afterward after-ward that it was a new Al Haig who had testified. Chemical Warfare Our intelligence sources report that Iraq might be using nerve gas in its war with Iran. Secret reports indicate that as many as three dozen Iranian soldiers may have been killed by nerve gas during an Iraqi offensive last January. The Iranians are known to be stockpiling atropine the only antidote for nerve gas poisoning. poison-ing. Older Americans Month A few weeks ago, President Reagan signed a proclamation declaring May as Older American Month. Then he turned around and announced that he was planning to curtail Social Security benefits to senior citizens. , We hope he doesn't issue a proclamation proclama-tion declaring June as Freedom of the Press month. Watch on Waste The Justice Department De-partment billed the taxpayers for over $2 million worth of new furniture in 1980. Now an internal Justice Department Depart-ment report reveals that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unused furniture is currently gathering dust in high-rent warehouses. ... The federal government recently shelled out $60,000 to determine which typewriter of the highest quality could be purchased for the lowest price. The tests were then pronounced "inconclusive." 1981 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Newspaper Subscription Kates. $Hu your in Summit County. $12 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. l'sis :i7H-::so Publisher Kditor..... ....JanVVilkinS Advertising Sales General Manager ' Business Manager ; Graphics . Bettina Moench Jun Wilking. Kill Dickson ...Terry llogan Kick I.aiiman . Becky Widenhouse, Liz lleimos ij ........ i. pi,:,.., Kdiior:.;::;:.:::::::::::::::. "; ,,av,d ,,ampj!:i,T:.K'ckl. 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