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Show Mw ABDnuntt lit? 'OTewnDODnriQi: If you had the chance to ask Ronald Reagan one question, what would it be? Anita Storey . Do you plan on running for office again? (Hopefully not! ) Page A2 Thursday, October 14, 1982 " - s & i ; I "J $ y A sense of isolation is an American problem An open letter to the foreign exchange students at Park City High School: We've been running articles and pictures on each of you in The Newspaper every week with the idea of letting the community know who you are so you could meet people and feel more at home. We've talked to Niels from Denmark, Tina from Germany, Martin from Sweden and Anna from Norway, and this week there's a story on Adrianna from Colombia. Come to find out that almost without exception, you comment that Park City is nice, that the kids in school are friendly, but that it's hard to make friends. That's a distressing thought. You're in a strange country, away from your homes for the first time, and probably what you're feeling now is a sense of isolation. It would help to have a special, close friend. But before ydu start thinking there's something wrong with you, or with us, let us explain something. We are a very mobile society. We move around a lot. Just as you feel strange in leaving your home and coming to Park City, a lot of kids at Park City High this year about 50 of them are new and feeling strange about it, too. In your country, chances are you have been in one place a long time. You might have close relatives living nearby, if not right in your home. That's called an extended family, and it's something that's just about dissappeared in this country. The emotional upheaval brought on by moving around a lot is especially noticeable in a place like Park City. We're a resort community, and not too stable economically. It's hard to make a living here. Work is seasonal, and that means we're transient a lot of people moving into town, a lot moving out. A good majority of your classmates at the high school may share you're sense of isolation. Even if they're comfortably settled now, with close friends, chances chan-ces are they were new last year, or the year before, and went through the same thing. It's true that when you're a teenager, your peers friends sometimes are more important than your own family. But adults experience the same feelings of loneliness, of feeling unwelcome and left out, when they move to a new place. And because we move around so much and spend so much energy trying to not feel that way, we might forget to reach out to someone, like you, who might be having a harder har-der time than we are. You are not alone with your feelings of segregation at Park City High School. A lot of others feel it. The school administration ad-ministration sees the effects of it in kids using drugs and alcohol, behavior problems, truancy, and they deal with it as best they can while still trying to keep a school running and giving kids an education. It's unfortunate that you, who have come here for an enriching social and cultural experience, have to deal with it, too. It's not your fault: it's just part of our culture. It might enrich everybody if, at school, there could be a big brother-big sister system that would get you into the mainstream of things; the Student Council and the school newspaper could do some promoting. In the meantime, all of us could do better at tuning into others. We could all do more seeking, and more reaching out. -MQ THlSISiKOES AC0HSC1ENT10US OBJECTOR HE DOESrfTWANT TO SHOOT,. HE POESHYWANTTO KILL,, n c HEDOESNt WANT TO DROP BOMBS., SO WE PUT HlMWuAlL WHY? HE&ATHRKT TO SOCIETY. WeeMy pe(gnatH by Jack Anderson ear U.S. seeks Turkey's help in checking Soviet threat Washington The Soviet Union is taking advantage of Washington's preoccupation with Lebanon. Secret intelligence reports warn urgently that the Soviets are stirring up the war between Iran and Iraq. The Soviets are fomenting the fighting on botn sides; their probaDie objective is to create chaos in the Persian Gulf region. This is the source of most of the Western World's oil and is far more vital to U.S. interests, therefore, than Lebanon. But the United States has a staunch ally whose borders rub up against Iraq, Iran and the Soviet Union: Turkey. So the White House is taking a sudden new interest in this nation. A secret group of top administration officials they're known as the "High Level Defense Group" has been meeting with Turkish representatives. They want to get Turkey to agree to give the United States access to areas in Turkey from wliich developments in the Soviet Union and the Persian Gull region can be closely monitored. Understandably, the Turks want something in return. What they have asked for, specifically, is help in combating the terrorism that has been plaguing Turkey in recent years. Armenian terrorists have gunned down Turkish officials in Turkey and Turkish diplomats abroad. The Turkish Turk-ish government has asked for American Ameri-can help in stopping the attacks. The word from our sources is that the United States will agree to give Turkey assistance against the terrorists. This could mean not only intelligence information, but training and equipment equip-ment as well. Regulation Relaxation: Despite several devastating airline accidents this year, President Reagan's advisors want to relax the federal regulations that protect passengers from these tragedies. The proposed new regulations would allow airlines to meet safety standards just about any way they can. No longer would they have to follow strict guidelines. Definite safety requirementssuch require-mentssuch as the minimum number of flights a pilot must make, or the tests an aircraft must pass would be loosened. In the future, pilots would maintain only a "sufficient skill level." Planes would make only "acceptable proving flights." Current rules spell out the amounts of reserve fuel a plane must carry; the new requirement would call only for "an adequate fuel supply." Argentine Intrigue: In the power struggle that followed Argentina's loss to Britain in the Falklands war, Gen. Reynaldo Bignone emerged as the new president. But CIA sources tell us they doubt he will be able to hang onto his office. Several different coup plots are evolving that could potentially succeed, suc-ceed, say these sources. The most likely scenario calls for Bignone to be deposed by junior army officers. Bignone came to power with promises that elections would be held to select a civilian government before March 1984. And that, apparently, is the rub. Various military factions fear they will be pushed out of the political process in Argentina. So they are talking about forming combined military-civilian political parties which would serve to ensure the military's presence in any Argentine govern ment. Bleak Prospects: Trouble in the Middle East has knocked wartorn Central America off the front pages, but the ravages of armed conflict continue to bleed those nations. According to an internal State Department Depart-ment report, "The net outlook is so black and pessimism so pervasive that some elements of the private sector fear that private enterprise and private initiative may never recover." The analysis further predicts that "increased plant closings, capital flight, brain drain and falling income and unemployment will further aggravate ag-gravate social tensions and political instability" throughout the region. What's Next?: The word is out that President Reagan's chief budget-cutter, budget-cutter, David Stockman, would like to take his ax to the Medicare program. This is the first rumble of a battle that is likely to take place after the November elections. The funding for both Medicare and Social Security will come under close scrutiny. Congressional Budget Director Alice Rivlin, a constant critic of White House budget deficits, has announced she will quit her job in January. But look for her to stay on. Since Rivlin let her intentions to leave be known, she has been flooded with requests to stay. President Reagan wants to change the federal tax system to raise more revenues and Treasury Department officials have been studying several proposals. A flat-rate tax has been discussed and dismissed. Instead, expect the White House to push for "value-added" taxes on luxury items. 1982 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Karry Wren When will you allow your hair to go gray? 1 Andrea Rein When are you going to resign? Steve Hunt How can you propose to cut the budget and still increase the defense? vim Clifford Crutchfield Do you truly believe you're a capable president? 5 Kerry Cunningham What are you going to do about inflation, unemployment and the situation in Poland? Gharm is not enough Editor's note: This week The Newspaper News-paper introduces a new syndicated columnist, Harriet Van Home, replacing Stanley Karnow. Van Home is a general columnist with the New York Post, twice winner of the New York Newspaper Women's Club Award for "Best Column of the Year." She has also written for Vogue, Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, Saturday Review, Redbook and Reader's Digest. Whether she's attacking cynical politics or rekindling poetic memories of small-town America, Van Home writes in a crisp, personal style which engages the attention of her readers. We feel her column is an important addition to The Newspaper's Viewpoint section. Once upon a time when I was a skittish lass with long golden hair, I fell in love with an actor. He was handsome, witty, courtly and tenderhearted. tender-hearted. He was also, as he liked to point out, "utterly sincere." That, looking back, was the trouble. All that utter sincerity. With his adorable grin, his Irish gift for blarney, he could tell the most outrageous whoppers and tne girls with hearts too soon made glad-believed glad-believed every word. I rarely think of my actor beau-except beau-except when I watch the actor now in the White House conduct a press conference. Then those days of wine and roses come wafting back. Here is a president who's got it all. Handsome, witty, courtly and as he subtly reminds us softer of heart than Francis of Assisi. Moreover, as the ladies' Republican clubs will swear on their Bibles, he's utterly sincere. That's why the Congress spent a year bowing at his feet and that's why the press rolled over for him when he called them nice doggies. It's all that bloody charming sincerity. Well, it works. The Reagan performance perfor-mance on television is totally disarming. disarm-ing. So disarming that reporters do not question him closely and do not rise to rebut his more outrageous statements. Only next day in the cold type of second thoughts do we find reporters correcting correct-ing his misstatements and translating into gritty fact his windier responses. Reading these postmortems, we realize that we have again been charmed out of our senses. Like children watching a magician conjure the bunny out of the top hat, we have been too dazzled to cry, "It's a trick! " At last week's press conference the president delivered an opening statement state-ment blaming the recession on the Democrats for overspending in their days of power. Their fault 10 million out of work. Their fault the high interest rates. Their fault all the troubles we're in. Unemployment, Mr. Reagan asserted, as-serted, had begun its perilous rise long before he took office. The truth, as reported next day, was that unemployment unemploy-ment had begun to drop in the last year of the Carter reign. In December 1980 it was 7.3 percent. Today, as Labor Department figures are expected to show next week, it is 10 percent. "We've pulled America back from the brink of disaster," said our smiling president. "We're better off today than we were!" Yes, he said it with utter sincerity. The truth arriving late by limping messenger, as the Greeks used to say is quite contrary. Four million persons have fallen below the poverty line since that January day when Ronald Reagan gave his fine reading of that famous oath. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are at a record high. Retail sales, in more or less steady decline, fell again in August. Soup kitchens in Washington and Chicago report a 50 percent increase in hungry supplicants. Not only are we a poorer nation today, we are also sicker. Cuts in community health programs all owing to loss of federal funding have forced clinics to turn away thousands of desperate people. Daycare centers have closed, forcing working mothers to quit their jobs and go on welfare. With his charming smile the president presi-dent tells us that we'd be better off if the Democrats in Congress hadn't thwarted his balanced budget amendment. amend-ment. Oh, he's a thrifty one, he'd like us to believe. The irony the wonderful, wonder-ful, dramatic irony that will live on in the history books is that this thrifty president is presiding over the most staggering deficit the nation has ever known. Only one of the reporters assembled for this week's press conference posed a bold question. On the subject of our dangerous economic plight, he asked, "Does any of the blame belong to you?" "Yes," our star twinkled in reply, "because for many years I was a Democrat." As we were saying, charm. And all that utter sincerity. 1982 Harriet Van Home Distributed by Special Features TIlA paper: Subscription Rales, $6 a year in Summit County, $15 a year outside Summit County Published by Ink, Inc. USPS 378-730 Publisher - Jan Wilting Edi,or David Hampshire Advertising Sales Sm wilking, Bill Dickson Business Manager RickLanman Graphics Becky Widenhouse, Lli Heimos Staff Reporters Rick Brougllt MorgaB Quel Contributing Writers Bettina Moench, Jay Meehan, Nan Chalat Typesetting Snaron Paill( DWe Blshop Subscription & Classifieds , . , , Marion Cooney Darkroom & Photography - . Distribution , Robert Grieve Entered as second-class matter May 25, 1977, at the post office in Park City, Utah 84060, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Published every Thursday at Park City, Utah. Second-class postage paid at Park Cily, Utah. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are welcome and will be considered for publication. However, The 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 mall P.O. Box 738, Park City, Ut. 84060, or by calling our office (801) 649-9014. Publication material must be received by Tuesday noon for Thursday publication. |