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Show Sun Advocate ED (5) p) DODD 4A Wednesday! May 18, 19B3 Don't ignore working poor The working poor are just like the rest of humanity except they have less money, more or less, is the conclusion of a new Reagan administration study of poor wage earners removed from the welfare rolls in the last 18 months. Most kept their jobs and stayed off welfare. That is encouraging news, but not cause to assume all is well among the working poor. n of the The nationwide study focused on a n removed from workers families nearly quarter-milliothe welfare rolls as a result of President Reagans 1981 budget cuts. Critics worried that poor workers would quit their jobs in order to retain welfare eligibility. But the study found that only 15 percent of workers who lost cash benefits and medical coverage returned to welfare rolls. Of those who did, about half were off welfare again within cross-sectio- two months. The findings combat some faulty assumptions about the poor. They show that working welfare recipients are neither shiftless freeloaders nor moved solely by financial incentives. After the Reagan cuts, many of the working poor would have been better off swapping wages for welfare. But neither money nor free time meant as much and opportunities that come with emas the wage earners carried on without ployment. welfare. The work ethic prevails, but that does not mean the working poor are healthy or secure. The new study implies that their medical needs are not now being met. Other studies point to a sharp increase in the number of children households. And surveys in several living in hospitals around the country show that an unexpectedly large number of children and elderly people may be suffering from malnutrition, a phenomenon that some doctors say is largely attributable to cuts in the federal safety net. Unfortunately, it looks as though the Reagan administration hopes to use its recent study as one excuse for making still deeper cuts in the federal safety net. The administrations 1984 budget includes a $1 billion cut in the food stamp program, as well as cuts in subsidized housing aid and nutrition programs. The Reagan administration may chose to ignore the needs of the working poor, but Congress should not. Poor wage earners stalwart devotion to work is reason for granting them more, not less, federal help to make ends self-respe- ct Low-inco- near-pover- 1983 Copley New Service ty paul harvey I meet. (Reprinted by permission of The Minneapolis Star and Tribune) Recently Thought control means trouble Fifty years ago, 40,000 Berlin citizens watched German students carry books and pamphlets out of offices and libraries and dump them on huge bonfires in the citys . streets. They were purging Germany of the works of disruptive Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Sigmund authors Freud, Marcel Proust. Their works were judged unfit for German readers. The Third Reich not only sanctioned but commissioned the search, seizure and destruction of materials that' contained ideas not conforming to government-approve- d patriotism. Book control led and thought control followed. Nothing could be written or said that subverted the Nazi movement. These controls conditioned German minds into accepting the Holocaust. Ah, but that was long ago. It couldnt happen today. Dont kid yourself. Last month in Marthas Vineyard, members of a local church burned books and records they called satanic trash. The demonstration was similar to many others that have taken place in this country. People who know what others should read have burned everything from The Living Bible to Playboy magazine. The lessons of history are clear. Censorship is far more dangerous than anything contained in a book or a record jacket. Censorship destroys independence of thought and spawns subservience. Let us remember the Berlin bonfires and stand strong against thought control. nations . -- for five dollars. By reducing curriculum and grade requirements in schools we sacrificed excellence on the altar of equality. . - taller. .What .I gotta be me says is that whatever I am is okay and how can that always be? If me chronicaly drives too fast through a school zone then it is likely that me will someday kill somebody. The protest, thats the way I am, is a copout. What that says is that the protestor is incapable castle country : didnt have any secret. of In the name of tolerance we have tended to tolerate goof-off- s in the classroom, deadbeats who dont pay their bills, goldbricks who wont work and even hoodlums who insist, But, I gotta be me! When Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy ran up that long unbeaten string - in the late Forties it was axiomatic that his teams always triumphed in the - second half. Frank was a personal friend. Repeatedly, I sought the secret of whatever halftime inspiration he was able to impart to his players. He insisted he really I remember we were up most a night one night before it came out: At halftime I would praise Johnny Lujack (or whoever). Johnny, Ive never seen you play better but it wasnt good enough. This next half you are going to have to play better than Lujack! With,, each,,, player,,: thus challenged to be better than himself, the Fighting Irish were of -- . invincible. Individuals being me not good enough. was It still isnt. fc 1983, Los Angeles Times Syndicate G3SITaWira Don't leave teens in ignorance By STEVE HEIDE Staff Writer But Mom, all I want to know is what is happening to me! I mean, what is sex all about anyway? Youll learn all about those things when you get married. Youre too young to worry about such stuff. It will just confuse you. v . IW Sme Today, she is trying to put the pieces of her life back together. After bouts with alcoholism, two miscarriages and a divorce, she has grown old before her time. She is cynical, weary of life before her third decade of living. We became friends in the years after the birth of her unknown child, and we have talked about the invisible scars left by those months of emotional torture. Some 10 years later, the fate of that child she never saw still haunts her. She says the doubts and heartache will sometimes wane as she tries to busy herself in the rebuilding of her life, but in the quiet moments, she wonders just what the child is like, and what different path she might have followed if she had not become a mother in her 16th year. Im not blaming all my problems on getting pregnant when I was a teenager, but it made life a terrible thing for a long time, and I was so guilty that I felt many times I would be better off dead. I just wish my folks could have talked to me, helped . ; ' The hbove conversation is no figment of my imagination I know the girl and her mother who spoke those lines well. They were the family of my best friend in high school, and as I sat waiting in the kitchen for my friend one day, I overheard their angry exchange. The young girl was 15 at the time. Less than a year later, she was pregnant, unmarried and frightened. She had the baby, and her parents, for whatever reasons, forced her to give up the child for adoption. She was destined to lose a child and her own childhood all in one blind moment of passion for which she was not prepared. Congress wont let me wage a secret war in Nicaragua, the bishops wont let me use my nukes... Golly! Being a superpower just isn't any fun anymore." our Any er educators have been indicted by three separate studies revealing that public education has become --farcical. , High school graduates unable to comprehend what they read in the Yellow Pages or the TV Guide, unable properly to make change , 1983 CopWr youngster wishing to be and most do, somebody, resorted to aberrant behavior. He wore flowers in his hair and earrings in his ears and sang, I gotta be me. The classic American brand of individualism said, Let me stand apart so I can stand Nobody has ever equaled the Leahy record at Notre Dame when his football teams went undefeated for 39 games. I may be the only who knows why. non-play- gotta be me me a little more. But I dont blame them, they just couldnt talk about sex. I didnt want to get pregnant, and the terrible thing is I didnt know that I was going to. I just didnt know what was going on. Her parents were not cold, uncaring people. They were loving, and for the most part happy and supportive parents. They treated me as an adopted son, and I know they did not neglect their children. But the taboos they had learned kept them from talking about sex and childbirth and contraception. Despite their best intentions and concerns, their daughter was left alone, with no guidance, facing the urges of a developing human sexuality with only her instincts to guide her. Now, as a group of Utah citizens press for the courts to uphold a new state law requiring parental notification when contraceptives are prescribed for minors, I cant help but wonder that if maybe my friend, had had somewhere to go, - somewhere she could have turned to for the information and guidance she so desperately needed, maybe she could have been spared the tragedy that has marred her life. If the new law is upheld, doctors, clinics and organizations like Planned Parenthood will find their hands tied, as they will no longer be able to aid those youngsters who come to them for help. Those without guidance from home, those with parents that cannot face the subject of sex may find themselves left in ignorance. And ignorance is not bliss it is a killer, a destroyer, and it will lead the unwary down a path that goes nowhere. So teach your children well, give them the answers they need, and guide them with a steady hand. But dont leave those children less informed than your own with no options. For the sake of those like my friend, I pray we do not extinguish the light that could lead them through their dark times. . |