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Show "The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love." W. Somerset Maugham, English author (1874-196- Mormons & Newspaper editorials are usually unas opposed to opinion columns signed but we'd like you which carry bylines to know a little about the author of this editorial. The writer is an active member of the LDS Church, holds a temple recommend, served a mission and loves the church. The message to some local Mormons is "relax a and a few ns little." Like most businesses in Utah County, the majority of Daily Herald employees are LDS. It also should come as no surprise that the majority of Herald readers are LDS. So how silly is the notion that this newspaper is Yet, there are a few paranoid think that is true. Then there who people are some hard-cor- e among our readers who are positive the Herald's sole purpose is to promote the LDS cause. How do we know? People from both camps call us and tell us. The truth is we publish the news. Most of it is favorable towards the church. Sometimes the news, as it is interpreted by some, places the Church in a bad light through no fault of its own. Remember Mark Hofmann? Recall that Ted Bundy joined the LDS Church? I Remember, we just publish the news, we don't create it. Frankly, it is embarrassing to our LDS staff members when n? anti-Mormo- noii-LD- S staff members get hostile phone calls accusing the paper of being staffers can't The non-LD-S understand why some people in Utah Valley would prefer to remain ignorant of a news story about the Church which is good, bad, or indifferent in newson and television likely running papers everywhere else in the country. In fact, our LDS staffers can't understand that attitude either. As a Mormon, this writer wants to know what the world is hearing about the Church. callers accuse When the n. ; anti-Morm- 5) Ooinions Editor: I'm currently a student at Orem High School and I'm writing about age discrimination in the malls. Although it clearly states on all applications that there is no discrimination in employment on any basis, including race, color, age, and religion, stores hire older people rather than high school students. Sure, there are those exceptions who will and do hire students, but the majority will not. When looking for a job, I went into a clothing store and asked if they would be hiring soon. The reply I received was, "We don't hire people until after they've graduated." If that's not discrimination, I don't know what is. Some employers may say that high school students aren't qualified or may not have enough job experience. But how are we supposed to learn new skills ard receive job experience without ever being offered a job. Even students who are qualified for the job would be overlooked if a high school graduate happened to be just as qualified. !' I'm not saying all stores in the mall discriminate against age, but it is there, and something needs to be done about it. For example, giving high school students a two week trial basis. We may just end up being a better employee than ever imagined. ' Why not give us a chance to show you What we have to offer. ; Stephanie Dunn Orem . Resents pictures Editor: I resent pictures of murders being committed, such as the ones in Sunday's Herald (Sept. 16th). It is bad enough to read about these horrendous, gory happenings without seeing it also. Please spare us this. Ixiis Poulson Orem Not worth risk Editor: When the Utah Winter Olympic Games Committee heard the news that the International Olympic Committee had selected Atlanta, Georgia, to be the site of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, their official reaction was "Atlanta is the best choice among the nominees." No one seems to be willing to. explain why Atlanta is the best choice arid what that means to Utah's Olympic bid. The purpose of the Olympic Games is to make money. Atlanta has the ingredients that spell $uffe$$. A number of wealthy potential corporate sponsors are headquarmillion prostered in Atlanta. Thirty-seve- n pective ticket buyers live within 500 miles of Atlanta. Here is the test question that will determine if the proposed Utah Winter Games will be financially successful: ask yourself if you are willing to buy tickets (cost not yet determined), brave the cold and icy roads, to see events you will be able to watch on television? It will be up to the 3 million potential ticket buyers living within 500 miles of Salt Lake City to make the Games a financial success. We should not expect the TV networks to make our Games profitable. We do not yet know how well the 1992, 1994, and 1996 we have no . Games will do in the ratings: idea what the networks will be willing to ' pay for broadcast rights eight years in the future. E. 'gentiles' Herald comment us of being controlled by the Church, it makes us all angry. Good journalists and we have good journalists working here seek to print the truth as accurately and fairly as possible without taking sides. That doesn't mean, however, that all news is true. For example, if a public figure makes a public statement, what is said is news. Public figures have been known to lie. Public figures have been known to give false or faulty information based on their best knowledge. Journalists aren't omniscient. They aren't infallible. There are many factors and the factors are not unique to this or any other news organi- zation. Maybe the following will put things in perspective. A newspaper is a business which must profit to survive. To profit, a newspaper must have advertisers. To have advertisers, a newspaper must have readers. To have readers, a newspaper must have credibility and offer crosswords, something for everyone comics, sports, wedding announcements, opinions, obituaries and most of all news. Does it make sense that a newspaper in Utah County would purposely set out to offend members of the LDS faith? Of course not. Does it make sense that this newspaper would attempt to cram an LDS agenda down the throats of its readers? Of course not. The majority of our readers, regardless of non-Morm- religious preference, understand this and we are grateful that they do. To those few who can't understand, we hope you will wake up and smell the coffee or Postum. Letters Age discrimination? Sunday Sept. 23, 1990 We should not expect corporate sponsors to make our Games profitable. We cannot foresee the economic climate of 1998. Nor can we foresee if the political climate of 1998 will encourage or discourage tourist travel. Robert Helmick, U.S. Olympics president, is quoted as saying "The decision is where is the best place to hold the Winter Games in this world, and the (International Olympic Committee) will make their decision based on that." This means Nagano, Japan, is now g the candidate. Consider these facts: Once every decade, the Olympic Games have been held in the Far East. They were held in Tokyo in 1964; Sapporo, 1972; Seoul, 1988. The last Olympic Games of the decade will be in 1998; the 1992, 1994, and 1996 Games will be held in Europe and North America. Therefore, the odds are that Nagano, Japan, will be selected to" host the 1998 Games. It is in the Far East. It has 100 million prospective ticket buyers within 500 miles of Nagano. The Japanese government and many corporations headquartered in Tokyo have the re$oiu?e$ to make the Games a $ue$$. And now, we Utah taxpayers have to answer this question: Should we be spending 56 million tax dollars to build facilities for the Olympic Games when we have no guarantee that the 1998 Winter Games will in fact be held in Utah or that they will be profitable? I, for one, think not. Rick Soulier Provo front-runnin- Meter reader woes Editor: I am writing in regards to the Provo City Update Letter which comes with our monthly utility bill. Under the heading of "Meter Readers Bitten By Dogs" it stated "Please help protect our meter readers by seeing that the dogs are properly secured during the employee's visit." How are we supposed to secure our dog when we don't know when the meter reader is coming to our house? We keep our dog in our backyard. However, the electric meter is on the back of the house. Are you suggesting that we not only keep our dog locked up in our backyard but also chained up in a corner of our yard all month long anticipating that the meter reader may come? When the meter reader does come, how can we be sure he will act reasonably? Just this summer in one of the dog bite incidents referred to in the letter, (our dog was not involved) the meter reader had pulled out a screw driver and was jabbing it at the dog! No wonder the dog felt he had to bite the meter reader. The dog was protecting himself against an attacking person! I have had to put padlocks on both of our gates because the meter reader does not close the gate after leaving. In the past, on more than one occasion, we have found our dog out running around on the streets because the meter reader did not close the gate after his visit. Perhaps, I can suggest a solution to our problem. If we were notified previously to the meter reader's visit or if the meter reader would knock on the front door first, we could make sure that our dog poses no threat to the meter reader. In return the meter reader must use some common sense like closing the gate after he leaves and making sure the latch is locked. If we will help each other, we can solve this problem. Mark O. Gibby Provo resident and dog owner Souter heading for confirmation - WASHINGTON (AP) At the beginning, David H. Souter was told he had to carry the burden of proof that he belongs on the Supreme Court, just the way a candidate for political office must make a case to the voters. That Democratic description of the way Souter's Senate confirmation would work is turning out to be wishful thinking. It was the skeptics and the other way around critics needed to come up with evidence that he shouldn't be confirmed, and they had none. And President Bush's first nominee to the Supreme Court is headed for SenaLe approval with no significant opposition in view. In three days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Souter presented a centrist philosophy, with neither sharp edges nor clear answers that would commit him on questions awaiting a new justice. While he is no activist, he declined conservative invitations to assail past Supreme Court activism. With no scandals, no skeletons and no striking disclosures at the confirmation hearings, the abortion rights and liberal groups opposing Souter are finding scant evidence of support. They're not going to get a nominee to their liking anyhow, since their test is a commitment to uphold the basic abortion rights ruling and Bush isn't going to choose a jurist who would satisfy that demand. So, unless somebody turns up damaging evidence that hasn't been found in two months of hunting, Souter will be confirmed to take the seat of the retired William J. Brennan Jr. next month. "Put bluntly, the burden of proof is on you, Judge Souter, the nominee, as it is on us when we stand for election," Sen. chairman of Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Judiciary Committee, had told him. But senators stand for election against other candidates. Souter stands for confirmation opposed only by negatives or vulnerabilities his detractors could find in his record, his resume or his judicial philcso- l., Walter Mears ASSOCIATED I nrncoo n r- - r r COLUMNIST phy. The liberal coalition that campaigned against the nomination of Robert H. Bork, denied Supreme Court confirmation three years ago, didn't reappear this time. Souter simply did not present, the target for it, after inquiries that ran all the way back to his senior honors thesis at Harvard College. "No one is entitled to be a Supreme Court justice, any more than any of us are entitled to be a U.S. senator," Biden had said. "...No one says to us, 'Well, you can be a senator unless we can make a case against you...' " He said the Constitution puts the same burden on a nominee, to tell the Senate why he should be on the court. In broad terms, that's what Souter did with his display of judicial erudition. But he did not fill in the blanks in a record that displayed experience without pinning him to specific positions on constitutional issues. Bork's writings and rulings had done exactly that, and those positions were used against him. The lack of legal writings was one of Souter's advantages. Bork had said that would happen, forecasting that his defeat would encourage presidents to nominate people who hadn't written much and had shunned controversy. Souter made it a virtue, testifying that he declined a book invitation and avoided legal writings because of his dedication to his judicial calling in New Hampshire. "The things that I would have wanted to write about most were the things that were going to be coming before me as a judge," he said, and outside writings could have forced him to disqualify himself in some cases. In his book, "The Tempting of America," Bork wrote that future nominees might be forced "to make campaign promises or face the possibility of rejection" by the Senate in an increasingly politicized confirmation process. But Biden said the questioning of nominees about their legal views did not start with Bork, noting that nominees of presidents long past were rejected by the Senate because of their declared positions on pending issues of their day. He also said that when a president makes a choice for political reasons, he ought to expect a political response. Biden said the Senate rejected Ronald Reagan's civil rights agenda legislatively and "was not about to let that agenda ... be smuggled into the Constitution" through the Bork nomination. Bush tends to nominate conservative Republican men, Biden said, but "there is no strong sense that he is intent on politicizing the nominating process." The rejection of Supreme Court nominees has not been all that uncommon over the course of U.S. history. Bork was the 12th man to be denied confirmation by Senate vote; 15 others have failed to gain places on the court for lack of action or because their names were withdrawn. Souter would be the 105th person to serve on the court. Said Biden: "Long after Saddam Hussein has bitten the dust, long after the current budget crisis has been replaced by some other dilemma, long after the phrases 'S&L,' 'campaign reform' and 'burden sharing' are tossed into the scrap heap of historical political trivia, long after President Bush is gone from Washington and almost all of us are gone from the Senate, far into the 21st Century, David Hackett Souter, if he is confirmed, will be making fundamental decisions about the kind of country our children and our grandchildren will live in." Student loan program des erves an WASHINGTON Charlotte Masiello of Cocoa Beach, Fla., holds down three jobs and has taken out several thousand dollars in loans to cover the more than $20,000 she spends every year to attend the American University in Washington, D.C. "It's just the way the system works," she said with resignation. "Students don't have time to gripe or moan about it. They have to scramble to get enough money and work as much as they can just to stay afloat. Studying turns into a relatively low priority." Masiello and millions of other young Americans who are either in college or planning to attend face a financial burden that could turn many of them away. Since 1980, the cost of higher education has gone up at two times the rate of inflation. The average cost of attending a private college or university has risen from almost $6,000 a year in 1980 to more than $11,000 a year now. Public four-yecolleges have gone from $2,487 a year on the average to $4,156. Some of the nation's premier universities now cost more than $20,000 a year, including living expenses. American students aren't the only losers when the price goes up. American taxpayers are carrying the burden of a student loan program that spends almost half of its money covering bad loans. The Education Department estimates that defaults on guaranteed student loans will cost American taxpayers about $2 billion this year. ar The future looks grim. The effectiveness loan program is flagging, and the cost is skyrocketing. There are currently $7.4 billion in loan defaults. Sources in the Education Department told our associate Tim Warner that the government would be lucky if half that amount is recovered. of the student I 4) Jack Anderson & si U Dale Van Atta UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE Ironically, government and private surveys have found that the students who default aren't deadbeats at heart. Most of those who don't repay their loans say they want to, but simply can't afford to. y The students who choose careers such as medicine, law and business have a better payback rate than those who go into teaching, social work and government service. Thus the loan program has had the effect of discouraging students from entering public service professions if they realize they cannot repay their college debts in those professions. Congress and educators have been struggling to create a better system. Among the most enlightened approaches is that of Sen. a member of the Senate Paul Simon, Subcommittee on Education. Simon supports using grants rather than loans as the major form of assistance for higher education. He thinks the taxpayers will end up paying less instead of more if the money is simply given outright to deserving students. "We have shifted to loans instead of grants, which sounds good in theory, but in fact costs more in the long run because we will subsidize interest and pay for st' dent loan defaults," Simon told us. His proposal, the Student Aid Readjust high-salar- D-Il- l., ment Act, got relatively little attention in this session of Congress. But Simon intends to push harder in the next session to reform a system that is quickly becoming useless. IT'S ABOUT TIME The Federal Aviation Administration is finally cracking down on airline pilots who mix drinking and driving. It has been nearly three years since we exposed the lousy job that the FAA does in keeping substance abusers out of the cockpit. Police departments across the country had records of drunk drivers, but the FAA never figured out how to tap into that source of information. The FAA recently announced that it will require pilots to sign a consent form giving the FAA access to the national register of driving records. In the past, the F AA has relied too heavily on pilots to report their infractions. The result has been that some pilots who lost their drivers' licenses kept their pilots' licenses. - L Private trade schools show a default rate on federally guaranteed student loans of about 33 percent, and Rep. Bart Gordon, thinks he may know one reason why. Gordon found three trade schools in Tennessee with top employees or owners who used to work for the Education Department. Now he is wondering whether trade schools around the country are recruiting people from the Education Department for their expertise in how to get student loans. That's fine if the trade schools want to improve their loan record and do a better job of finding students who will finish their education and repay their loans. But the levuimig tiuui viiii nit the taxpayers in the face if the trade schools are looking for experts to tell them how to stay on the federal gravy train without reducing the number of defaults by their students. . |