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Show po mi no on Sun Advocate 6 Thursday, October 27, 19BB Shopping by mail 'I It wont be long before holiday shoppers descend on shopping malls and retail stores en masse. To avoid the rush, you may have decided to stay home and shop by mail. But before placing orders, be sure to follow some important shopping tips. d Dont be by con artists selling merchandise through the mail or over the telephone. While most mail order and telemarketing companies are legitimate, some fraudulent ones are only interested in making a fast buck. They may simply take your money and close up shop. To protect yourself, check the company out with your Better Business Bureau before placing an order. Watch out for exaggerated claims or unrealistically low prices for merchandise. Read catalog descripis it wood or plastic? Diamond or tions carefully glass? Also, compare prices for similar products in your area. To help protect consumers against mail fraud, the Postal Service has changed its rule on C.O.D. orders. In the past, consumers were required to pay the Postal Service for C.O.D. orders. The Postal Service would then pay the company that had shipped the merchandise. The rule now allows the recipient of a C.O.D. package to pay the charges with a check made payable to the sender. Consumers can later stop payment on the check if they think the goods have been intentionally misrepresented. Keep in mind, some banks charge a fee for canceled checks. Of course, some mail order problems pop up when consumers fail to fill out order forms correctly. Dont forget to fill in your name and address! Also check for if you miss it, delivery may date for orders a cut-onot be guaranteed in time for the holidays. Keep a copy of the ad or brochure when you place an order. Also, jot down the date you placed the order and the number of your check or money order. Remember, never send cash through the mail. short-change- ff Life & other trivialities Let gas guzzlers go extinct Remember those gas guzzlers so popular in the 50s, 60s and 70s? Remember the heavyset luxury sedans and the early Mustangs and Camaros, with big engines that got a few measly miles to the gallon and needed lead in their diet? They seemed to be going the way of the dinosaur. We imagined that by the end of the century, we would be taking our kids to auto museums to see the relics of ' era. that But apparently Detroit automakers have 'forgotten the soaring oil prices and long gas lines that persuaded millions of American consumers they would rather own smaller, more foreign cars. and decided Motors have the best way Ford General to compete with their Japanese rivals isnt to beat them at the compact-ca- r game. They would rather try to increase their revenue by increasing the heft of their product. But bigger and more powerful automobiles bum standards more gas, and the federal 1975 in in stood manufacturers the way. So adopted to officials roll back week last they persuaded federal 1989 27.5 miles a gallon to cars from the standards for 26.5 miles a gallon. That, in a sense, made the U.S. Transportation in one of the most Department a shortsighted American marketing schemes since fashion designers tried to bring back the miniskirt and, with far more serious consequences for not only the consumer, but for the planet as well. Howard Ris, national director of the Union for Concerned Scientists says that the decision to ease standards comes at a time when scientists are increasingly concerned about the environmental damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels. With a pattern of unusually hot weather signaling a possible global greenhouse effect worsened by emissions, Ris said this is no time to roll the clock back in Detroit. True, lower gas prices might prompt some Americans to forget mileage and concentrate on flash and high horsepower. But fossil fuel is a limited resource. It wont be around forever. And, the Americans taste for gas guzzlers wont last long if petroleum prices go from, say $13 a barrel to $40 a barrel. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the Detroit assault on federal fuel standards is that General Motors and Ford executives said they needed a reprieve to compete better with the Japanese. They lost their edge in the first place because the Japanese began building better engineered, automobiles. These are basically sound consumer instincts, and U.S. automakers should heed them in order to recapture the domestic market. They should not try to court American car buyers with the siren song of power. How powerful will an American farmer feel driving a big gas guzzler if a future drought aggravated by the greenhouse effect destroys his crops year after year? What will motorists feel if theres another Arab oil embargo, lines at the gas station and gas prices that accelerate almost as fast as their cars? We suspect they will quickly rediscover the cars with good gas mileage. Will Detroit be ready? We hope so. If not, Americans may rush to the foreign-ca- r manufacturers that will give them what consumers and the environment require. devil-may-ca- re , fuel-efficie- nt fuel-econo- Daddy was a By STEVE CHRISTENSEN Managing editor Tuesday night I found myself in front of the television set watching David. My wife thought I was crazy, she went in the other room to read. David was a premier movie on ABC about a boy who was set on fire by his father. It was based on a true story. Thats why my wife refused to watch. The boy was burned over 90 percent of his body. But, he survived. David Rothenberg is now 12 years old, leading a life as normal as possible for someone who has burn scars over his entire body. It was a gripping story, with a superb acting job by Bernadette Peters, who played Davids mother. She and Charles Rothenberg were divorced. Charles took David occasionally for visits, but this time talked the mother into allowing him to keep David fora week. Apparently he had no intention of bringing David back. They went from New York to California, presumably to go to Disneyland. Thats when the problems started. It rained, NOTICE TO SUN ADVOCATE READERS Contents of special written columns or letters published in this newspaper do not in any way reflect the position, attitude or support of the Sun Advocate. d and it rained. David got mad at his father because Disneyland was closed. Then he became a terror, like any boy would who was cooped up in a motel room for days. Well, dad was a little crazy to begin with, and this didnt help. He had second thoughts about keeping David, so he called mom. But, after listening to mom scream at him, he thought up a new plan. He gave David a sleeping pill, then put some combustible materials in the motel room, poured some gas on the bed, and threw in a match. Boom. Dad then sped away in the car. He later told police he was planning to kill himself too. But, he didnt. He was later caught and admitted to what he did. He said, I didnt want to do it, but I did it anyway. Meanwhile, David was fighting against all odds for his life. Even the doctors told his mother he would probably die. But he fooled them. He lived. After he was a little better, but still wrapped from head to toe, he wanted to guy know where his father was. He asked if he was in jail. His mother said he was, and David asked, Did my daddy do this to me? Thats when I started to cry. A few days later mom asked David if he would like to go visit a young girl who had just been brought to the hospital with bums. David asked, Did her daddy bum her too? More crying. During sentencing for Charles Rothenberg, the judge said, Never have I seen so hideous a crime and so innocent a victim. If I had my way I would put you in prison for life and throw away the key. He sentenced Rothenberg to 13 years in prison. That was the maximum California state law would permit, since David lived. Had he died daddy would have gotten life with no chance for parole. The movie left a dent in my life, a dent that will probably never entirely be removed. If you know a child who is being abused, call a local law enforcement agency, or the child abuse hotline at mike royko fuel-econo- high-gas-milea- ge no-goo- Bush learns tough lesson Herbie Mullin was a dangerous young man. Several shrinks agreed on that, which is why Herbie was locked up in a state mental institution. But the governor of his state was looking for ways to save money and please the voters. So he slashed funds for mental hospitals. And that meant hordes of patients had to be turned loose. When Herbie hit the street, it long to prove the shrinks were right. He bought a pistol for $22.99 in an auto supply store and put it to use. Before the cops caught him, Herbie drummed up considerable business for un- didnt take him dertakers. He killed a priest in a confessional booth, a woman and her two small sons in a mountain cabin, an old man tending his garden, a young couple in their home and at least four others. The foreman of the jury that found Herbie guilty sent an angry letter to the governor of that state. He wrote: None of this need ever have happened. I hold the state executive (the governor) and the state legislative offices as responsible for these 10 lives as I do the defendent himself. ... At least twice it was determined that his illness could cause danger to the lives of human beings. But Herbie wasnt the only menace turned loose in that state. There was Edmund Kemper and 290 a and pounds, pathetic case if there ever was one. When he was only 15, Edmund got angry at his grandparents. So he shot them to death. But when this governor decided to please the voters by saving money, Edmund, then 21, was turned over to his mother. It was a bad break for mom, because Edmund soon killed her with a hammer. That was for III. He was starters. Before he was finished, he killed at least seven other women, mostly college coeds, and cut off their heads. Why, you ask, am I telling you these grisly stories? Because they are evidence that George Bush is no longer a wimp or a weenie or any of the other snide things people used to say about him. These stories are evidence that Bush has, indeed, changed d and is now a tough, fellow. Let me explain how it all ties together. two-fiste- Eight years ago, Bush wanted to be president, and he ran in the primaries and caucuses. But not once did he mention crazy Herbie or crazy Edmund, the two mass murderers. Not once did he say to his You are soft on opponent: mass murderers because it was YOU who was responsible for their release. He could have said such things because the California governor whose policies led to the release of Herbie and Edmund was Ronald Reagan. No, Bush talked about Reagans voodoo economics, although he later became fond of voodoo. But he never said a word about Reagan being soft on crazies who kill priests in confessionals, old men in gardens, hammer their own moms to death and cut off the heads of coeds. Oh, that could have made for some rousing Bush campaign pamphlets: Ronald Reagan is soft on fiends who kill their own grannies and grandpops. But George Bush will protect the grannies and grandpops of this nation. And he could have flooded voters mailboxes with the terse and angry letter of that jury foreman. Had he done that, he might have won the primary and become president years ago. Instead, Reagan went on to roll over Bush, win the Republican nomination and spend eight years as our nations First Husband. Obviously, Bush learned a lesson. Hes toughened up, walking tall and just itching for somebody to make his day. As everybody knows by now, hes turned a thug named Willie Horton into one of the major issues in his campaign. Horton is the convicted killer who committed a rape while on a weekend furlough from prison in Massachusetts. Although a Republican governor started that furlough program, Horton was released while Michael Dukakis was in office, so Dukakis has to take the heat. And the heat is being applied with blowtorch effect. As I noted earlier this week, the GOP is flooding Illinois with a pamphlet that flatly states: All the murderers and rapists and drug pushers and child molesters in Massachusetts vote for Michael Dukakis. It just shows that youre never too old to learn. (Continued on Page 7) r |