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Show "tpy H'n' ii"1! in Washington Parental Thursday. February IK. 1M78. THE HERALD, Prove, Utah-Pa- 41 ge Kidnapping No Such Thing as Junk An antique is an antique is an still. A certain amount antique of time must pass (U.S. Customs says 100 years) before an artifact, whatever its artistic merits, can qualify. But a collector's item or collectible is something else - - again. There is no such restriction on various odds and ends of the consumer society. Even so. Britain may be setting a new record for the speed with which yesterday's souvenir becomes today's treasured collectible. Queen Elizabeth li s Silver Jubilee year has been con- signed to history for only a few weeks, but already a thriving collectors' market is developing in memorabilia of the great event. Busts, plates, coins, glassware, paperweights, utensils, candy tins and various items of apparel bearing the royal likeness or in- signia have become instant collector's items. Part of the reason is that the demand was Not only the Waste Not, Want Less Not all the oil that mobile Americans consume goes into their gas tanks. Some of it is in their tires. Seven gallons of crude oil go into the production of the average new automobile tire. On the other hand, only gallons of a into used tire. go recycling inforThis bit of energy-savin- g two-and-a-h- mation comes from the Tire Retread Information Bureau, which has a natural interest in the situation and notes that Americans saved an estimated quarter-billio- n gallons of crude oil last year by buying 34 million retread tires. This is one resource that is not in short supply. Some 10 to 20 million of the estimated 200 million worn-ou- t tires discarded every retreadable. are year To get reusable tires back into the economy, the bureau encourages civic groups to conduct regular collection and recycling drives. The proceeds benefit organization treasuries, and the energy savings benefit everyone. i r 0 Mason, you see. is going on 9, and the prein the closet of a Washington town house were purchased for his 5th birthday by his father, Arnold 1. Miller, and assorted sents already rising and by some ex pert estimates should triple or quadruple within 25 years. The jubilee boom is a notable but far from unique example of the extent to which collecting has grown from an expression of oer- sonal tastes on the part of an elite to an interest shared by great numbers of the public, il1 ; Star-Tim- e local communities. Newspapers, however, are more than valuable instruments to enlighten and mold public opinion they are also businesses. Without sufficient revenue, like other businesses they dependence in . can die Hard pressed for advertising dollars by the r competition of television, and paying ever-highe- prices for materials, especially newsprint, many owners have concluded that economic reality called for affiliation with a newspaper group. Who would argue that such a decision is less preferable to a decline and possible dissolution of a newspaper? Such a possibility has hovered like a dark cloud over the star and it- -, staff for years. Once the dominant daily and the establishment" newspaper of the capital, Star's fortunes began changing two decades ago after the Post purchased another local paper. While the Star stuck rigidly to an old look and old ways of presenting the news, the Post gained a reputation for crisp writing and provocative editorials, presented in a bright, chan format Then 'W atergate came along, making the Post a household word and further eroding the Star's position as that "other" newspaper For the six months ending in Washington. Sept 30, the Star"s weekday circulation the , ki. - c- i . , iff everything can be collectible material dolls, comic books. matchbooks. buttons, beer cans. In some collecting subgroups, it appears that the less an item's original value may have been the more it is esteemed as a collectible. Recently, there has been an upsurge of interest in tin toys, particularly mechanical 1930s Paul Harvey varieties, dating from the and long thereafter dismissed as junk. They now turn up at prestigious New York and London auctions, where a windup Mickey Mouse organ grinder recently sold for $3,300. So be careful in clearing out that attic. There appears to be nothing these days so outmoded and apparently valueless that it will not arouse the acquisitive in- stincts of someone somewhere for some reason. So They Say "I think justice has been done They didn't have to commit the kidnapping. They had to go to an awful lot of trouble to plan it, and they did that. So they really took that calculated risk. I don't feel sorry for the consequences." -- Assistant Attorney General for Richard Haugner, in regard to the three young men found guilty after hav- ing admittedly kidnapped 26 children aboard a schoolbus in Chowchilla, Calif., last year. 350,000, g k e y . I Almost overnight the Star took on a new look. Some writers were replaced, and the paper's makeup redone. Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist Pat Oliphant was hired away from the Denver Post. Bright new features became common topics of city conversation including a daily front-paginterview column, simply called "Q and A", and a lively, much imitated gos'which alone has been sip column "The Far, credited with boosting Star circulation. During the last fiscal year, Allbritton reported the Star's losses were trimmed to nearly $13 million, and he projected a "tiny" profit for the current year. Meantime, he has not sullered for his efforts: Through selling several of the star's affiliated radio and TV properties, plus the paper itself, Allbritton has realized a profit estimated at $70 million. The Star's circulation apparently has drooped again in recent months, and clearly it isn't out of the woods yet. At any rate, its new lease on life via Time lnc is good news Not only for those of us in the Fourth Kstate. but for all Americans who benefit from having the thinking of their government leaders tempered by the clash of ideas from two daily newspapers in this city e of power Your Money Pays the Bill Your money is being used to create. Out of pity for the unfo- rtunate offspring of our s society, we are using only the word "illegitimate" for babies born out of wedlock and some think it s unfair to such babies to label them at all. Yet it does seem, does it not, that we had fewer of each in the days when we were willing to call dirt what it is and junk what it is and sin what anything-goe- it is. Marlene Stucky can talk now. When she was an employee of the department of social and health services in the state of Washington she didn't dare. But she got so fed up with the appalling abuses of our government's welfare system that she quit. Now she can recite some of the circumand experiences stances her to reach the that caui , stomach-turnin- '. point. g For examples. Unmarried mother, age 20 WASHINGTON (L'PI) Clearly, this is not the year some 53 million among us are going to be permitted to go their complacent way un- challenged They are the smokers in the population. And they are now the target of two (count em. two campaigns to curb their i habit Almost no sooner did the administration's Mr. Energetic. HEW Secretary Joseph A Calilano ,Ir publicly make a lederal case out ot smoking than a real veteran of the wars, the American Cancer Society, revved up its own long-rucrusade The Calilano program ir,a have governmental cachet, but it has been criticized primarily as being too weak, relying on persuasion and publicity with all the probable el led oi a tap on the wrist to the subsidized tobacco in . dust rv By comparison, the plan lormulated by the Cancel Society's National Commis- sion on Smoking and Public policy would be a right to the jaw il a eai implemented calls lor lederal regulation ol tar and nicotine con tent ol cigarettes, a gnduatcd excise tax based on siid content, legulation ol i iL'aietle advertising and phaxing out ol the $M million It gi ow nig subsidy and on welfare, has had two babies at taxpayer expense. Pre- - and postnatal care for both was paid for at a cost of some thousands of dollars by you. Plus subsequent living allowances for all three. g She's pregnant again. And you will pic", jp the bills again. The father is unkown. When state welfare people suggested that this young mother should learn some marketable skill she replied, I nevei liked school and I still don't." So she and her illegitimate and probably adoffspring will be supditional ones by you. ported indefinitely Miss Stucky suggests that the state of Washington provide contraceptives and instructions for their use to any female, 14 or older, along with a written understanding that in any future pregnancy any and all maternity expenses will be borne by the mother or nearest relative. State lawmakers have promised to think about it. Donald F.Graff Anti-Smoki- averaged Post, in comparison, averaged 541,000 on weekdays and 763,000 on Sundays. Most thinking Washingtonians. despite their addiction to the Post, have not relished its becoming the only font of daily printed wisdom in the capital. They have followed the Star's ups and downs like a melodrama: financial statements and sighing at red-inrumors of collapse, cheering the slightest hint cf good news at the evening paper. So there was more than a little relief when Allbntton. 53, brought his Texas-sizcheckbook to Washington in 1974 and began a crusade to salvage an operation losing an estimated $1 million every month. He paid about $35 million for the paper and, he says, sunk an additional $30 million into keeping it afloat. It was, he explains, like "turning a supertanker around in the ocean." Star personnel were put on a four-dawork week for four days pay. Highly regarded James Bellows was lured away from the Los Angeles Times to serve as editor. (He recently returned to Los Angeles as editor of the Herald-Examiner- f 'flfl r II with less on Sunday. The other relatives. Mason never had a chance to open them. In June 1974. his mother whisked him away from the Washington area and dropped from sight, making Mason and his father the victims of a phenomenon that has reached crisis proportions in this country: Arnold Miller has spent nearly four years and more than $20,000 in a fruitless search for his son Through friends and a fluke, he learned last year thai his Toby, divorced him in Atlanta the year after she snatched Mason and won a court order there granting her custody of the child. She told the court she had no idea where the boy's father was. although Miller was right where she had left him when she took off with Mason. Miller's anguish, unfortunately, is shared by thousands of other parents each year. Crumbling marriages and soaring divorces rates contribute to anywhere between 25,000 and 100,000 cases annually, depending on whose estimates you accept. There is no effective legal remedy against a parent who simply runs off with his or her child. Custody orders of one state are unenforceable elsewhere, and many youngsters are abducted before a divorce and custody decree has even been granted. Parental child "stealing" is specifically exempted from federal kidnapping statutes, and no federal agencies the FBI, IRS or the Diilribulcd by I.A. Ttmtt Syndicot new Parent Locator Service of HEW are empowered to help locate missing victims. State and local authorities shun these cases too, refusing to become involved in "domestic" matters. But Congress, at long last, may be ready to crack down on thanks, in large measure, to the unrelenting efforts of Children's Rights, Inc. of Washington, the organization Arnold Miller founded the year after Mason was taken. The massive revision of the federal The case which triggered criminal code which the Senate has just pasMiss Stucky's resignation insed and sent to the House includes provisions volved a mother of to make parental a federal ofthree illegitimate children. fense punishable by as much as 6 mcnths in After these three ilprison and a $10,000 fine. It would also allow use of HEW's Parent legitimate children, this welfare mother reported Locator Service, originally set up to track herself unable to get pregdown fathers of children on welfare who fail nant. to make support payments, to trace youngsters abducted by a parent. The FBI Now she and her current could be used as a last resort. and boyfriend wanted a baby "Right, now, we have a Parent Locator Sershe could not have one and vice tnat will bring back the dollars but not the departsit down for this the child. Some sense of priorities, huh?" ment of social and health sersays Miller. vices authorized and paid for to Finally, the bill would require that custody tests expensive medical decisions be made by a, court in the state was It her problem. diagnose where a child has had his or her home and learned that she needed extenmake them enforceable elsewhere as well. sive surgery. This isn't the first time Congress has tried So that surgery and subscrisis. Reps. to tackle the and Hamilton Charles E. Bennett, equent hospital care was bilamounting to $4,300 Fish, among others, already have led to you. bills pending in the House Judiciary CommitAnd the woman and her curtee that address various aspects of the rent boyfriend they are unproblem. married and he is chronically In the past, however, the Justice Departinow the g are a ment has opposed making unemployed federal offense, complaining that to do so llegitimate parents of her fourth welfare baby. would overburden the FBI and other federal And you will continue to authorities. The Senate version, combining criminal support this "family" and civil approaches to the problem, is the best legislation offered to date. If the Carter administration is as concerned about family life as it claims to be, the Justice Department should quit dragging its heels and press for swift enactment of the measure. g Just about anything and Saving Washington's Other Daily Newspaper WASHINGTON The planned sale of the Washington Star to the Time Inc. publishing two empire raises fresh hope of preserving in nation's the voices major newspaper capital. Few need to be told that the other paper here is the Washington Post. Inc. deal was anThe $20 million nounced here the other day by Joe L, Allbrit-ton- , a millionaire Texas banker who bought the financially sinking paper four years ago, vowing to save it. "We have turned the Star around," he now says, explaining that the sale to Time is needed to further strengthen the Star. American daily newspapers are a relatively scarce breed. There are about 1,760 of them today -- nearly the same as 30 years ago. Independent dailies in recent times have been purchased by publishing groups at the rate of more than 50 a year. Only about 40 per cent of I S dailies today are independently owned, and most of these have circulations of less than 10,000 Some see this trend toward joint ownership as ominous to the preservation of editorial in- m propriate. lee Roderick J.. i became available. Prices on some limited edition items are Alameda County, Martha Angle and Robert Walters WASlllNGTON- -i NKA The presents are ready, all neatly wrapped and ribboned, awaiting the celebration of Mason Daniel Miller's birthday. But the packages are a little dusty now, and the toys may seem inapBv British public itself, but some 11 million tourists who visited Britain during the jubilee year snapped up die millions of mementos. As a result, jubilee collectibles arc scattered all over the world with a respectable concentration in North America where dealers, recognizing a likely good thing even before it developed, began importing stocks as soon as items ol tobacco The leal bottom line, however, is the commission s observation that while "a m.i-l- r lederal initiative'' is iiri essarv to deal with smok mg as a health problem, c, (living it to the extreme ot a ban on ( igaicttes would be neither entoK cable nor child-snatchin- Campaigns ng desirable in The a democratic society." Or probably any other type ot society lor that matter. In regulating public indulgence in such personalized vices as smoking and drinking, society is close to trespassing in an it is area of morals to legislate them without endangering the integrity of the law itself Basic to any serious ellort to deal with the problem must be a question: Whv'' Why do people smoke'' Why do they continue to smoke, even those aware ol and acknowledging the detrimental ellects" Most ol us probably I. ill into the habit largely bec ause .c see the cigaiette somewhat as the climber sees the mountain It is simply theie. as integral to the modern rites ol passage as access to an automobile or even puberty itsell Some l.ilet walk jwav with oi no dillicultv But lor most who stop smoking or who want to do so but cannot, it reqiiues an exeicise in sell little discipline and sell denial which can range hoin great to unheal able. Again, whv'' What expel Use theie is on the subject ol smoking indicates that the habit is .ibout :i pel cent phvsical addiction Nicotine as a Mibst.nice is a a poisonous alkaloid, pi imaiy ol insecticides ingredient The human body docs, however, acquire a tolerance lor a limited amount, and uncc so initiated craves icgiilat i cinloi cement The lemaimng !K percent ol pine habit, a product dividual and societal is in percent is usually easiest to deal with. In 72 hours of abstention, the body flushes itself of nicotine. The physical addiction is gone, but the psychological melody hngeis on. And this is usually 5 wheie the leal struggle begins Psychological dependence, as the American Cancer Society analyzes it. can be one or combination of a number ol positive or negative ellects ol smoking lor the individual The cigarette can be valued as a source of stimulation, lor the pleasure derived in handling or as a means ol accentuating all a pleasurable situation it can bt a Or ellects. positive (cnsolation. a means ol coping with disappointment and negative sell feelings, a distraction lrom emotional or all social discomlorl negative. The emphasis in any case is on "indiv idual " No preset lot-an- vvien HeP is Needed FHitnr Hpralrl- This letter responds to the letter written by one who had car trouble, who needed help but was not helped. Because I have passed up situations where help could have been given, I need to apologize for being so thoughtless. I honestly believe that most of us who fail to do the right thing are more thoughtless, than wilfilly ha'eful or neglectful. I have stopped to help where I could, but I have also passed efup situations where I reacted too late to be would behind someone and that fective hoped stop. So Mr. Peterson, thanks for the reminder. 1 will trv to do better. Others of you who have troubie or could use some help, and see me coming, please make it clear that or standing vou are not just parked there there for your health. My mind is often focused on my destination and on the clock and my eyes see only through a tunnel. It is some sort of a disease Harold Johnson 1125 N. Main, Orem Berry's World - can be w i it ten lor the public as a whole. Inlornia lion programs may to greater public con-lnbut- awareness, economic measmcs to a sounder public policy Hut ultimately smoking as a public problem must be answered on an individual basis Thoughts "LiU-rtis ii limn: of the to be free to worspirit ship, to think, to hold opinions, and to speak without fear free to challenge wrong and oppression with Hersuretv of justice " bert Hoover. 31st US. - "Senator, 1 think it Is imperative that we tour Panama immediately, if not sooner!" |