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Show The Salt Lake Tribune Page A6 PINION MONDAY, NOVEMBER1, 1999 OUR VIEW IT 1S INDEED A SHAME, MR. BUSH — BUT IT SEEMS The Salt Lake Tribune's Editorial Position Rating Video Games self-regulation. It's a smart strategy that should help parents and consumers whileavoidi entanglement in content ratings and censorship. ically, the video rental shops and e following picture industry ions, they are rating content and urging store policies intended to prevent the rental or sale of graphic sexuality, violenceor foul lan guage to children. Most parents probably are familiar with film ratings. Fewer are aware of ratingsfor video gamessupplied by the Entertainment Software Rating Board This organization, created by the In teractive Digital Software Association, a trade group, has beenrating video games for age-appropriate content since 1994. A public information cam paign that will begin unfolding in a couple of weeks is designed to make more parents aware of the video-game ratings. In tandem with he public information efforts about ratings, y video rental shops are imple menting newpolicies orreinforcingold ones that prevent minors from renting or buying games or movies with agerestricted ratings for video game Early Childhood (age 3 and over), eryone(age 6 and over), Te and ov Mature (age 17 and over Nand Adult Only It supplements these ratings with short phrases, called descriptors, which give furtherclues to content. The descriptorsfall into several categories, including violence, sexual theme guage drug useand alcohol use. are fairly detailed, for example, They they tinguish between animated violence andr stic violence. he ESRB ratings icons and de scriptors appear on video gamepack. aging andadvertising. Video stores shouid back up therat ings by refusing to rent inappropriate games to children. Successful self. policing should keep government out of the censorship and ratings business, and the constitutional with freeexpression that wouldentail, THE PUBLIC FORUM Hopeful Truce Reasoncan oftentimes be suppre whenit runs afoul of ideological ex. tremism, but apparently not forever, if a recent meeting of gay-rightsactivists andconservative evangelist Jerry Fal well is an indication Who would ever have thought that Falwell, long demonized as a mean spirited, repressive rightist among mostsocialleftists, would meet with a passel of gay-ri s and his former ghostwriter-turned-gay activist Mel Whitetodiscuss, of al things, the need to end violence against gays and Christians. Yet this is just what they recently did. Sure, in onesenseit was strangely procedural, sort of like diplomatic niceties arranged in a tit-for-tat way There were 200 gay-rights backers, the same number of members ofFalwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church. More over, there was no food because some evangelical Christians believe the Bible prohibits Ch ians from breaking bread with “sexually immoral” people. Popular wisdom has hadit thegay: rights crowdandtheso-called Christian Letters from The Tribune’s readers Right would never get together. They are too far apart; their positions so po- larizedthatall they can do is demonize eachother as somesortofsocial canker that must be removedforthe benefit of society though any headway made orice broken at the meetingis minor, it was nevertheless important given the popu: lar image not without cause that each camp wasfortified in an intellectual redoubt and wouldsallyforth only toattack theother. Both Falwell and White apologized for hateful speechdirected at the other side. Falwell said he hoped to show morelovefor homosexuals than he had in the past and Whitesaid his former associate changed not his viewof ho mosexuality but of homosexuals, Given the entrenchedpositions of the past, it was a remarkable meeting. Reason reared its head and it presented a view. Hopefully, this meeting will lead to morediscussion, more at- tempts to tone downvirulent rhetoric from bothsidesonthis issue. From The Washington Post Back Holbrooke States’ debts to the United Nations. In principle, this should not be difficult The Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favor of repayment, providedthat the United Nations reformitself. A majority in the House wouldbe happy to go along with that. But Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is determined to link the U.N. money to an antiabortion policy that President Clinton wouldveto. For the past twoyears, this linkage hasblocked the U.N. money. Unlessthe Republican House leadership can pre. vail upon Smith to back off this time, there maybe another blockage, and a deadbeat United States may loseits vote at the UnitedNations. That would put it in the same categoryas Iraq and Togo. Referring to the Holladay-Cottonwood Transition Corporation, subject of so much adverse criticism by governmen- tal leaders and the media, Robin Nelson wrote you (Oct. 30): “These meetings were never secret.” She's misinformed. Council candidates Baird and Bringhurst resigned from the corporation becauseofits secrecy. Liane Stillman, mother ofthe plan, admitted to the press in mid-September, “We would just assume do this with the door shut.” And, parenthetically, added: “We're havingfun.” Facts are facts. On the eve of the election, Robin, you can’t erase the tracks the corporation has left theycer- tainly weresecret meetings. ud has recently taken on several jobs that the United States wants done but does not want to doitself. It has sent, or is East Timor andSierra Leone. All three ventures are tough and could go badly wrong if they are underfunded. Other countries are paying their part. The UnitedStates, by contrast, has votedin favor of these missionsbutfails to pay whatit owesto the institution that is runningthem. It is easy to understand whyother countries resent American power when it capriciously. is exercised so Moreover, Smith is not only damaging the United Nations;he is advancing his antiabortion cause in a mannerthat ple out there and weshouldlearn tolive with thosethataredifferent. As Teri said in her last paragraph, “{the] world is just now beginning to realize that there are different people populating our world.” She is right. Wake up,all: gays, left-handed people, minorities, juveniles, and religious groups. We are all different! If we were the same, whata boringplace this would be. Weare moving into a new millennium and we need to learntolove oneanother. Differences are what makeus all unique. Respect the quality of difference and love your neighbor. NED R. NERDIN Midvale Expression of Support family planning organization that receives U.S. aid from “advocating” abor- I read with great interest your recent story regarding Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish of the Episcopal Diocese of alreadyinsisted that the United States get back a seat on the U.N. budget com- mitteethatit had earlier lost because of its indebtedness, He is committed to forcing through the U.N. reforms that the Senate demands, including a reduction in the United States’ share of the whichabortionis discussed or printing and her tribulations with alcoholism (Tribune, Oct. 23), Our love and admira literature that others could use in debates on abortion. These conditions tion go forth to Carolynas she undergoes treatment forthisdifficult challenge. She constitute a gag on family planning or. ganizations working in the developing world. That kindof suppressionoffree speech wouldbe unacceptable at home. It shouldnot becomepart of U.S. foreign policy. The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH'S INDEPENDENT VOICESINCE1871 PAST PUBLISHERS John F, Fitzpatrick (1924-1960) PUBLISHER Dominic Welch John W. Gallivan (1960-1983) EDITOR Jerry O'Brien (1983-1994) James E.Shell Shelledy KEARNS-TRIBUNE CORPORATION,143 S. MAIN ST, SALT LAKE CITY, #4111 1 is a remarkable and gifted individual andhas brought to the Episcopalian diocese and the entire community a deep sense of compassion and interfaith compatibility. Carolyn's dear parents, Obert and Grace Tanner, were generous benefactors to our community and state. Obert ‘Tanner was one of my mentors for many years, andI, like many others, watched and admired him as he so remarkably dedicated his time and resources to im: proving the condition of all aspects of our community, Carolyn, we know you will makeit. Our thoughts and prayers will be with you constantly, Please know that you On Oct, 11, the head of the International MonetaryFundsaid that the IMF would advance$640 millionas the second installmentto funda $4.5 billion loanto Russia. This decision was madeafter $15 billion in IMFloan moneygiven to Rus- sia had been laundered through several NewYork banks. Whatthe hell is going on? Fifteen thousand million dollars is missing. Most of this money was provided byU.S. taxpayers. are DON L. LAWSON BrighamCity ® Mail to Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110 1B Ourfax numberis (801) 257-8950. Quality of Life? Thank you for your insightful edito- Unfair Criticism vial regarding the Fat Police (Tribune, Oct.11).It’s about time someoneset the I was offended bythe editorial “Stick to Basics”(Tribune, Oct. 4). To state that record straight regarding quality of Jife. students’ poor test performanceis a result of poor teaching and poor curriculumis an insult to the teachers, parents blamed on poor teachers and curricu- lum, no other entity has to take responsibility to help solve the problem. Low test performanceis a multifaceted issue; belittling all teachers and minimizing the other issues will not solve the problem. The “excuse” that poor performance byUtah’s schoolchildren in tests of their ability to read and write due to large class size does not “stink” — it is a real issue. Could it be a coincidence that Connecticut scored the highest, 165, on the National Assessment of Educational What do those morons overat the New England Journalof Medicine, American Cancer Society and Harvard University know about healthylifestyle and quality of life anyway? Don't they know these are mutuallyexclusive? Thank goodness we have journalists to straighten them out. If they only realized thatlife isn’t worth living if we have to apply self-controlandnoteat anything we want at anytime. I had no idea how muchbetter life could be until I started The Tribune “ice cream andslab of chocolate cake”diet. Of course, they now haveto pry meout of my airplaneseat, and I keep getting this annoying wheezing and chest pain when I climb a flight ofstairs, but that’s a small price to pay for “quality of life.” JACK SADINSKI Sait Lake City Progress (NAEP) eighth-grade writing test and hadthe lowestaverageclass size of 14 students in the nation; while Utah was among the lowest scores, 143, and had the highest averageclass size ofat least 24 students in the nation (“Utah Education Shakedown Grim-faced teachers, marching the Students Not Big on Writing,” Sept. 29)? To paraphrase your comment, this would not qualify as a coincidence; in streets of downtown Salt Lake City large classsizesis low test scores. Yes, there are some poorteachers in be timefor the Utah Education Association's annual convention. The UEA's Oct. 7 march comes on the heels oflast fact, it looks like the natural result of This year, even more than in the past, there are excellent reasons for the tion. The definition of advocacy might submissions statements like that do nothing to help solve the problem,but help perpetuateit As long as education problems are House leadership to rein in Smith. The United States has a new ambassadorto include organizing a conference at all and students of Utah's schools. Blanket even pro-life advocates ought to find troubling. The languagethat he seeks to attach to U.N. dues would prevent any the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, ‘whois determined to makethe United Nations an effective instrument for serving U.S. interests. Holbrooke has published not I was bewildered by the lack of un- to point out, in a tongue-in-cheek fash ion, that there are different types ofpeo: about to send, peacekeepers to Kosovo, Because of the volume of mail received, derstanding that Teri Bateman ex pressed (Forum, Oct. 14) in her response to Julene E. Fisher's letter (Forum, Sept 26). I believe that Julene wasattempting organization's budget At the sametime,the United Nations Bad Loan Where to Write @ Whensubmitting letters to the Public Forum, please includeyour full name, signature, address and daytime telephone numbers. Information other than your nameand thecity in which youlive are kept confidential. @ Keepit short. Concise letters developing a single theme are more likely to be published. ™ Please type and doublespace. @ Letters are condensed andedited. JIM CORNWELL Holladay-Cottonwood UniqueDifferences ANOTHER VIEW TheClinton administrationis trying. for the third consecutive year, to wring money out of Congress to paythe United Meetings Secret the state; however, notall of them are pooras your editorial implies. Instead of constantly criticizing teachers as The Salt Lake Tribune has been doing recently, I challengetheeditorial staff todo as the Native American saying goes: walk a mile in a teacher's moccasins Spend sometime observing a variety of classes, schools and grade levels, maybe even teach a few days. See whatis really going on at the ground level, do not rely whining for more money. Happy-faced children,enjoying a two-dayrespite from the gulag known as public school. Must month's U.S. Department of Education report (“Utah Students Not Big on Writing,” Tribune, Sept. 29) showing that Utah's eighth-graders scored below the national average in a nationwide writing test. For this, Utah teachers deserve a raise? If we were serious about giving our students a better education, we would be on whatis heard from theState Office of Education,legislators or implied by test results. After doing this and seeing how ated by the nation’s teacher unions. many good teachers there are and the exciting teaching that is going onin this state, then you will be in a position to tition, not more cash. As long as 83 cents of every government “education” dollar more accurately write editorials about teachers and education. Your comment that the best elemen- pockets ofschool personnel(according to the National Center for Education Sta- tary teachers should teachfirst and second gradeis an excellent idea, However, why would a person in college choose to go into education, knowing that he/she doing everything possible to end the government-school monopoly perpetu- Government schools need more compe- ends up, notin the classroom, but in the tistics), students will be shortchanged. I agree with oe signs carried by ing fudents de- have the love and admiration of all the le of Utah, We will all shouta col. ive hurrah when you return. will be under constant criticism (en: couraged by editorial articles such as “Stick to Basics”) from the public? “education associations,”"students will continue getting less. JON M. HUNTSMAN Salt Lake City MARILYN KLINE West Jordan MICHAEL MORRIS Spanish Fork 4 {+8 -6~8-8-6-—6-~9@ 8 -<@ | regulation, the people who rent orsell you oryour children movies and games on video havelauncheda campaignof Pett ees fee ees ees eee In aneffort to headoff government |