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Show Sun Advocate IP DOH DO OH 4A Wednesday, March 0, 1983 Tailor Economic health making recovery Perhaps its too early to burst out in Happy days are here again but the nations economic health is improving. The patient is leaving his sickbed and walking briskly through hospital halls, so to speak. Inflation continues to moderate. Theres an increase in e consumer buying. The stock market is up to an rates are falling. high. The bond market soars. Interest Gasoline and heating oil prices are going down. Jobless claims are falling. New orders to factories have risen 4.5 homes posted their percent. Sales of existing single-famil- y in on record increase January. largest monthly All these are good signs. The president is pleased, and he has told the nation it is beginning to taste the rewards of doing away with government spending. President Reagan, when proposing his $848.5 billion budget at the end of January, predicted the Gross National Product the broadest measure of the nations economic activity would increase 1.4 percent for 1983. Now economists are more optimistic, anticipating the GNP will rise 4 percent or 5 percent in that time. GNP growth for January alone was almost 1 percent, according to a preliminary estimate. The jobless situation still is one of major concern. The unemployment rate is 10.4 percent. It is not expected to drop below 10 percent during this year. But there is a good sign. The latest Labor Department filings for unemreports show the number of first-tim- e to 472,000 in the second week of ployment benefits fell February; down 38,000 from the week before. The drop indicates labor conditions are stabilizing. All of these signs are healthy ones. But because unemployment will continue there must be a modest jobs program, such as the one proposed by Congress and agreed to by the president. What the nation doesnt need is spending legislation that will again send interest rates soaring and put a damper on buying. Let us hope Congress will read the trail signs correctly and restrain its impulse to tinker with the economy. When recovery can be seen standing there on the horizon, this nation needs no actions that will turn it back again toward recession. all-tim- out-of-cont- A tougher rule for d run k drivers The U.S. Supreme Court strongly reinforced the ability of local jurisdictions to convict drunk drivers and thereby to reduce the death and mayhem they are causing on the nations highways. The court recently said that any driver who refuses to test will have this fact used as take a evidence against him in a criminal trial. Obviously, this will strengthen the successful prosecution of those who laws in some states. violate the tough new drunk-drivin- g Had the court sustained the South Dakota decision that held the use of this evidence violates a drivers Fifth blood-alcoh- ol Amendment right against prosecutors would not have been able to tell juries that defendants had refused to take the tests. And who under these circumstances, except drivers, would ever submit to such a test? Indeed, arguments that refusing the test is a right protected by the Fifth Amendment are completely spurious. In applying for and accepting a motor vehicle operating license, citizens tacitly give the government authority over driving that would be inappropriate interference in other aspects of their lives. The clear reason for this derives from the potential threat posed to other persons by every driven vehicle. Moreover, the Supreme Court decision was a logical extension of its 1966 ruling that permitted police to force test. Most states, however, drivers to take a blood-alcohtests on drivers to prevent force the have refused to violence between drunken motorists and police. The courts new ruling is especially appropriate inasmuch as the 25,000 Americans killed annually by drunken drivers represent approximately half of all American servicemen who died during all of the Vietnam cold-sob- er 1983 Copi7 jack anderson WASHINGTON hunkering down - Far from defensively embattled Interior Secretary James Watt has launched a power grab that makes him boss of the administrations politically sensitive water policies. Decisions on just who would get federal help in developing the nations limited water resources and cleaning up existing water supplies used to be made by a congressionally y mandated group called the Water Resources Council. Its meetings were open to press and public. Watt changed all that. The decisions on who gets how much federal aid are now made by the Cabinet Council on Natural inter-agenc- Resources and Environment, which Watt heads. And the decisions are made in secret. Cabinet Council meetings are closed; theyre not even New Service with joe spear Watt makes power grab . Stripped of its power, the Water. Resouces' Council; no longer holds meetings. Instead, action memos are prepared and handed around among the representatives of the various agencies on the council. In other words, the councils role has been reduced to shuffling paper. What difference does it make whether water policy is set by y an panel of experts in open session or a group headed by an unabashed political partisan like Watt, acting behind closed doors? My associate Vicki Warren has inter-agenc- obtained copies of secret and other documents that make Cabinet Council minutes Watts clear what means. For example, in a memo to the president, Watt recommended establishing new guidelines for determining how much of a water projects cost should be borne by the federal govern- - .. matter how great their need. Agricultural water for the adprojects v ministrations Republican ment. Another problem with the guidelines, according to the Watt memo to the White House, could create is that they political problems by reducing strongholds in the West would get up to 65 percent of the costs paid by Uncle Sam; but in municipal water projects the largely Democratic cities of the Northeast would get zilch. The memo shows that Watt also favors requiring the money to be provided that is, before the up front federal government antes up its share. In his memo to the president, Watt warned that the non-feder- presumption of up-fro- expected levels of federal support for specific water projects. Right again. Watt has already run into flak on Capitol Hill. Some members of Congress are convinced tht Watt is determined to make himself the al water czar. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate that would recreate a group of experts to set water policy in other words, a resurrection of the Water. Resources Council that Watt has eviscerated. An Interior Department official denied that Watt is a water-polic- y czar. So did an official of the Environmental Protection Agency who works cost nt sharing may be viewed as discriminiatory against states with limited fiscal capacity. Indeed it may: Critics charge that the guidelines mean that those who can pay will be able to get water projects wherever and whenever they want; those who cant will be unable to get federal aid for water projects no ! with the Cabinet Council. ' ol castle country MASH War. Pass potatoes 'n gravy, please People may not be overly concerned about the state of the nation. But theyre sure to be interested in their weight. They step on the scales every morning. They take toast without butter, coffee without sugar. They frequent salad bars. They forgo Harvey Wallbangers for a dry white wine. They know all about the latest diets grapefruit and and d canned carrots, grapes and spinach eggs, coffee. They have tried them all. cantaloupe, sex and black Their weight goes up and down with the stock market. Thus, word from a life insurance company that a little more weight might be a good thing burst like a bomb upon the dieting public. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. announced its first new height-weigtables in 24 years, stating the weights at which people are likely to live longest have risen slightly. Now, Metropolitan didnt say, Go out there and gross up. It said only that heavier people are now living longer, perhaps due to better nutrition, more exercise, better hard-boile- ht health care. Even though a couple of pounds might not hurt from an actuarial standpoint, the nation is hooked on the notion that thin is beautiful. Gravy and mashed potatoes are a nice dream. Back to the carrots and celery sticks. u By STEVE HEIDE Staff Writer Well, its been a week now. The shock is slowly fading. Hospitals are reporting fewer cases of the dreaded Hawkeye withdrawal syndrome, and we are seeing those green arm bands mourning the loss of the 4077th less frequently. All over the country, folks are slowly adjusting to the fact that MASH is now just a video memory. For many MASH addicts, the realization has been a painful one. We have followed the crazy antics of Hawkeye, B. J., Hotlips, Klinger, Radar, Winchester and Colonels Blake and Potter as they stumbled, bled, cried and laughed their way through 11 years of television history. America was fascinated with the doctors and nurses of the 4077th, and the show was consistantly in the top 10. But why? What was it that drew the conscience of a nation together every Monday evening, and what was it that made the final show, viewed by more than 125 million fans, the highest rated program in the history of TV? By the book, MASH should have never worked. It contained none of the d hooks that todays media pros say are what the people want in their slick-minde- IbsoirwBir a video memory No beautiful bubbletelevision fare headed blonds in skimpy shorts and bouncing vigorously, no superheroes that can see through walls, no J.R.s or unsolved murders, and there were no scenes where the heroes jump their cars over anything that gets in their way. And the 4077th hung out its shingle at the worst possible time smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam controversy. If there was a less popular subject for a comedy in 1972 than war, it was in deep hiding. Yet, despite all the obstacles, and against the predictions of a number of major television critics, MASH grew, prospered and by the time the 4077th struck its tents for the last time, it had endured three times longer than the real Korean war. And in that longevity lies some of the reason for the shows success. MASH could be viewed as part of a cleansing process, a communal scraping of the festering wound that had been inflicted by the carnage, both at home and in those steaming jungle deltas, brought to America by our involvement in the Vietnam war. Hawkeyes words were as much about Siagon and Mai Ly as they were about Seoul and Pham Mun Jong. The absurdity of war is universal, and MASH was a statement to the world that we know that we paid the price too. Some parents sent sons to die in those jungles, others watched theirs carry signs and strike for peace, but we all found out too late that the scars of that war will be a long time healing. The doctors and nurses of the 4077th have helped us to bind those wounds. The sight of doctors up to their arms in blood and human flesh trading to save their sanity was a stronger statement on the senseless stupidity of war than all the one-line- rs sit-in- s and MASH speeches combined. taught us to laugh at our- selves, and showed us that our precon-ceived notions about the glories of war Z were wrong. Now, the 4077th has moved for the final time. A whole generation has grown up with MASH, and the words of Col. Potter, B.J. and Hawk have given us much to think about. If there were medals for bravery in the face of inane television, then the entire troop would be so honored not only for saving us from the drivel of Charlies Angels and Threes Company, but for trying to say something truly worthwhile amid the video wasteland. And for that we say, Salute, "' MASH. - - ' ' |