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Show Tuesday. November The Herald, its Opinions 26, 1985 THE HERALD. Provo, Utah, 1 readers, syndicated columnists and - Page 15 '. cartoonists discuss vital issues The Herald Comments REST Utah Banks Share Goodies With All Utah's bankers are to be commended for passing on to their customers the fruits of technology. In decades past, it could take a couple of weeks to clear interstate checks through the mails. Even local checks took many days, but now they routinely clear next day, or a couple of days at most. Still, some banks, especially in the east, play a cat and mouse game with large checks. The idea is that if a customer can be persuaded to wait up to two weeks before a big check is House Banking committee is suggesting for check clearance. But he adds that if the bill tightens requirements in the federal reserve system it will help. Currently, even if banks process checks rapidly, there is no requirement for the Federal Reserve clearing house operations to do the same. He said some of the millions of checks processed each day are being lost by the Federal Reserve. law now before the House of Representatives would put an end to the practice by requiring banks to credit a customer's account as soon as the check most technologically advanced check clearing systems available anywhere, but he added that CSB couldn't possibly meet the two-da- y clearing deadline the bill provides. Bischoff said he knows of no Utah banks profiting on customer float and he doesn't expect the bill to have much impact on Utah banks. The fact remains, however, that many items are delayed in the Federal Reserve clearing house operations. The technical barriers to timely money transfers are formidable, in part because of the avalance of checks being presented every day. But since the nation's population is moving more, interstate business is on the increase, every bank is computerized, and there is little excuse for any lengthy clearing processes through Reserve banks. Thousands of checks are inexplicably lost or delayed in the federal system. It is appropriate for the federal government to begin clearing interstate checks faster and to begin making the Federal Reserve system accountable for losses its clearinghouse blunders cause. "It's a gigantic A clears. Utah banks haven't been guilty of this practice and therefore should be commend- ed. Local bankers are worried about some of the times specified in the clearance bill, however, but in general they support the idea of giving customers credit for funds as soon as they are available. Bill Gibson, president of First Security Bank's Provo region, says he is a supporter of the bill because it has benefits for banks and for customers. He said it will discourage check kiting because it directs the Federal Reserve clearing system to speed up the collection process. Robert Bischoff, president of the Utah Banker's Association is less enthusiastic in his support of the bill. He says as it is now drafted, the bill needs to be more realistic in the time it allows banks to return a bad check. He said the technology is not yet available to provide the kinds of turn around times the WASHINGTON (UPI) TlSCMOflSB- - problem," Shaky Move - The other here eve- reception ning there was a high-levattended by a goodly number of Washington "movers and shakers." The trouble with the account I read was that it didn't specify which was which. It is. as you may know, very difficult for a Cabinet member, a presidential assistant, a member of Congress or an on'.inary bureaucrat to function both as a mover and a shaker. For many, if not most, a dual role is impossible. There are, of course, a few federal officials and lawgivers who have successfully made the transition from shaker to mover, or vice versa. But changing horses in midstream is always risky, particularly for movers and shakers who ordinarily remain ashore. People beginning a career in government are advised to decide early whether they wish to become a mover or a shaker. Then they should stick to that goal. My dictionary defines 'a mover as "a person or company that moves household effects or office furniture from one place to MDMMHEINTHE CfiHQRBSWEWSfi says Bischoff, who also serves as president of Utah's Commercial Security Bank. The bill credited to his account, the gives the Federal Reserve bank can clear it in a few days three years to come up with a and be earning interest "on the solution. float." He said CSB has one of the A Very ISSUED. another." A shaker, by contrast, is a member of a religious sect "practicing celibacy and common ownership of property; now almost exeinct." It came as a bit of a shock to me to learn that celebacy is noaiing extinction, although I was aware that many people have been abstaining from common ownership of property. The dictionary 'must have been referring to the sect as a whole because individual shakers are far from extinct. This city fairly teems with them. They abound on Capitol Hill, in Foggy Bottom and other power centers. am using the word loosely, however, in the framework of shaking up someone or something. Certainly I would hestitate to lure a shaker to move any properly happened to own in common. As for movers, I am using that word in the context ol actuating, inciting or instigating someone or something. Which seems to make it less menacing. 1 1 Guest Column About Bibles, Thanksgiving By WILLIAM A. GLENN Minister in Atlanta, Ga. When some four dozen Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the autumn of 1621, they represented fewer than half their group who sighted land at Plymouth. Mass., a year before. Over a hundred strangers to the New World had sailed on the Mayflower. During the first winter, disease and deprivation had cut their number to less than 50. They were called "separatists" because they had come to America to escape the persecution of the Church of England. They were determined not to let the tragic misfortunes obstruct their quest for religious and political freedom. And succeed with the help of the loc;'.l they did Indians who showed them how to farm the new found soil. When the first harvest was finished in the fall of 1621. the settlers had adjusted to a bountiful diet of game, fish and fresh crops. One Pilgrim planter wrote, to a friend back in England, "Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, so that we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours." Thus the first Thanksgiving was born. Ninety Indians joined the handful of rejoicing newcomers in a feast of thanks that lasted three days. Massasoit. the chief of the nearby Wampanoag Indians, led a party of braves into Plymouth I was jogging in Langley, Va., when I spied K in rubber boots hosing down a Ford in the CIA car wash. This surprised me because K ranked fourth from the top in the Company's hierarchy and was the last person I expected to see swabbing cars. "What gives?" I asked him. K cussed, "I owe this to Vitalv Yurchenko." "You knew Vitaly Yurchenko'.''' "I not only knew him. I was his babysitter. " I Dick West Movers and shakers usually are mentioned together in that order. The formation is not based on chronology, however. Generally speaking, you shake something or someone before you try to move them. Shaking softens them up and makes them easier to move. I assume that movers traditionally are mentioned first because their work is considered more important. Shaking requires very little training. You. too. can become a shaker, it you have the temperament lor it. All you need, otherwise, is plenty of brawn. With movers, however, a little finesse may be needed. Take moving legislation through Congress, for instance. Standard operation procedure requires the movers first to call in the shakers. Shaking doesn't always work, however, and the movers may have to resort to other devices to keep a measure mobile. That is one reason, at most high level receptions, the guest list is likely to include, along with assorted movers and shakers, a certain number of compromisers and skid greasers. But that is another story. versations. In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving as a national holidy, 242 years after the first observance in 1621. It is interesting to note that the forerunner of the Lincoln family Bible played a significant role in the first Thanksgiving. Could this be a coincidence, or otherwise? We have a possible clue when we consider that the first Neufchatel translation ' was sprinkled with the language of French humanism which emphasizes the human . ideals of liberty and dignity. These were the trademarks of Lincoln's visionary his concern for human rights thinking saved our nation. Who is to say whether ' Lincoln caught this spirit centuries after the first translation? The answer best comes from the pages of history. Following the first Thanksgiving, Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony wrote in his diary, "As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation." When Bradford died in 1657, he left behind a handwritten hymnal verse which summarizes the experience through which he and his Mayflower compatriots had lived, and prophetically describes the times of Abraham Lincoln: In wilderness He did me guide, And in strange lands for me provide, In fears and wants, through weal and . woe, A Pilgrim passed I to and fro. . . soul-searchi- The Bab y Sitter for Yurchenko said, "I'm impressed." "Don't cars." y carrying five newly killed deer and numerous turkeys as gifts. It was a festival of sport and eating, not a Thanksgiving in the sense we know it today. But scriptures were read and prayers were offered. The Geneva Bible brought from the Old World by the Pilgrims was a 1588 revision of the Neufchatel Bible of 1535 in Switzerland. The latter is considered by most scholars as the first true Protestant attempt at translating the scriptures from the Latin Vulgate used in the Catholic Church. Another revision of the Geneva Bible was completed in 1693, two years after Plymouth Colony became part of the Massachusetts Commonwealth. The Geneva Bible was modernized in 1744 by Rev. J.F. Ostervald, professor of divinity and one of the ministers of the Swiss Reformed Church at Neufchatel, Switzerland. Using the King James version as a basis, he made interpretive notes on each page similar to the Schofield Bible, and the volume became known as the "Ostervald Bible." This version, still containing the Books of the Apocrypha, became widely used in England and America by Protestants and Catholics alike. It found its way into the home of Thomas Lincoln, to be read by young Abe by the fireside as he grew up. the lasting influence of the scriptures on Abraham Lincoln can be gauged by the fact that 77 direct Biblical quotations or references have been found in his speeches, state papers and recorded con be. That's why I'm washing What a tumble for No. 4 in the firm." "Somebody had to be the fall guy when the rat redefected to Moscow." Ksat on the bumper of a sedan. "As Yurchcnko's nanny my orders were to slay with him day and night and see that all his needs were taken care of. If he wanted pizza I got him pizza, if he wanted to see an movie on a VCR I checked one out, and if he wanted to play Trivial Pursuit 1 gave him all the easy questions. There wasn't anything I couldn't produce including two tickets to the Redskins game." "I didn't know the CIA had Redskins tickets." "We don't. Someone in our basement forges them for us when we're on Company business." "Were you the one who took Yurchenko to Ottawa so he could meet his Soviet mistress?" "Of course I was. Yurchenko told me as his loved one to defect was whistle. But it didn't work out that way. Yurchenko whistled and his paramour gave him the Bronx cheer." "KGB agents were never good lovers." was a gamble. What we didn't know was that Natasha, or whatever the hell her name was. had been stringing Yurchenko along. She never had any intention of running off with him and raising a houseful of little defectors in Virginia." What did Yurchenko do when he realized he had made the trip for nothing?" "He went into a funk and told me he no longer believed in the American dream." Nothing you've told me so far explains what you are doing in the CIA car wash." "Although the Ottawa trip did not go as expected I was forgiven by the director and still permitted to be Yurchcnko's baby sitter. took him to the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the Capitol, and stood in line six hours for a tour of the White House." isn't that a dangerous place lor a defector'.''' "The Soviets would never look for a turncoat in a tourist line at the White House. In any case, my job was to keep him happy. The only thing that drove me up the wall was Yurchenko never picked "It F.pcot Poll was conducted nt Walt Disnov World's Epeot Center. Visitors to Epcot arc polled daily and their responses nrc tabulated by computer. The results of the poll ore analyzed by the New York research and public opinion polling firm of Allen. Shapiro and Keller ASK Inc. LAKE HUENA VISTA, I 11 The most popular place to r.iive the Thanksgiving turkey is at home, to a special Kpcot Thanksgiving poll Forty-eigh- t percent o) :(.Tl'.i visitms to Walt Disney Worlds ( end ,ml they usually have then Tli.inksgiv tng dinner at home Thirty live pet t i nt stated i $P fffr. Art liuchwald 1 Thanksgiving's for Eating Editor's note: The following C we drove up that all he had to do to get they l.iKe me traditional meal at someone house. Only 4 percent have Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, while 8 percent do not eat it at any one usual place, and 5 percent did not stale an opinion. Age made a difference in where respondents spent the holiday. Of the . 48 percent are usually enter- else's ear-olds- tained at someone else's home. Nearly the same percentage of those 65 and older 4!i percent do the entertaining. When asked what they look forward to in. i,i mi Thanksgiving, the visitors put loud ahc ad o seeing friends and relatives, by a margin ol 2 percent to '7 percent. - up a tab. I mean, we're talking about 120 days of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every time the check came he sat there with his hands in his pockets and pretended he didn't see the saucer. Wouldn't this tee you off?" "Yes, it would. But wasn't it the CIA's money?" "Maybe so, but Yurchenko could at least have made a gesture. The final straw was when I took him to dinner at the Au Pied de Cochon in Georgetown. I made up my mind that for just once Vitaly was going to pay the bill. When it came we sat there staring at each other. I didn't make a move, and neither did he. Finally he said to me, 'What if I walked out of this restaurant without paying the check? Would you shoot me?' I said, 'Of course not. We don't shoot cheap defectors who won't pick up the tab.' So Yurchenko got up and left. I gave the waiter my credit card, but by the time he returned it was too late. Yurchenko was sleeping safely in the Soviet Embassy." I sail, "Now I understand everything except why they assigned you to the car wash." K wiped a fender with a chamois cloth. "The boys on the seventh floor believe this is the best place to hide until Bill Casey no longer wants to kill me." |