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Show Parents of some Woods Cross High School students are passing the buck regarding drug and alcohol use problems The only ones "turning their eyes away from required discipline problems" are those parents School officials and teachers are not social workers nor doctors Neither are they the keepers of the students they attempt to educate. After the educators teach classes that cover drug and alcohol use and its resultant effects if used, their responsibility ends in that area Why do so many parents believe their responsibility to then children ends when they give life to them? Can these parents not detect their children are using drugs and alcohol Are they so preoccupied with their own selfish endeavors that they cannot recognize when their children are not performing normally? Are these parents so that they do not see beyond their immediate selves? Much trouble could be prevented if parents would be parents in all senses of the word. This includes discipline in all areas of life. EDNA PASS Bountiful In The Majority Several years ago I was privileged to talk on the average child I see no reason to charge my premise v uh the years, and Im suie that many, mai y teachers will agree. Vhat is wrong with being average? I assume, because he has an MD following his name, that Joseph Cramer (Forum, Jan. 20) considers himself above average. Let me point out that the majority of those who contribute to mans welfare, be it in the sciences or otherwise, are very average individuals. His criticism is that the Granite School District creates average individuals. Of Trihune Headers Opinions course, the first grade t hild performs better the tests are easier By the time the child reaches ninth grade he has also had nine more years of home, church, scouts, neighborhood experience Aren t these social environments also partly rt ,,onsible for his overall performance ment of the judges of the 3rd Judicial Dis trict Court As attorneys, we hold positions of trust and are officers of the court We believe the comments made by the county attorney to be wholly inappropriate DAVID E. LITTLEFIELD CRAIG M PETERSON - All the "influences, including the schools, combine to mold the student into the all around "average" American citiz.,i. The citizen who helps to make our country great LEE STEVENSON E. PAUL WOOD Shouldve Stopped It Public Forum letter must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear 9pKlHG ments are more sophisticated than during previous apparitions. Flora Lewis Lewis Lehrman, the New York businessman who used his fortune to run against Mario Cuomo in the rice for New York governor, has made a kng, intricate analysis that was distributed by Morgan Stanley, the investment bank. Leirman points to the need for monetary reform, to fight protectionism, to relieve the collar of the burden of being the prime interrational reserve currency, and he concludesthat the answer is to d return to noney at the fixed price of $500 an ounce. But for all the reasoning and appeals to history, this is still a girrmick, and a dangern ous one. Like the Gramm-Rudma- n law, its an at empt to create an automatic mechanism tiat will do things governments need to do, ind for which they dont have the courage r the will to take responsibility. It is like putting a sword of Damocles over your own lead so you will no longer be in a position to decide your own fate. Some ultraconservatives who are backing gold are also turning against President Reagan, considering him to moderate, because they are losing hope that he will complete during his second term the toughest parts of the agenda with which he started his first term. These are people who want to dismantle what has been achieved over several generations of social and economic reform to domesticate the beast that lurks in unrestrained capitalism. They want America to revert to a country of Puritan morals and jungle economics, restoring the fang and the claw of social d Darwinism. The attraction of a currency for them is exactly that it removes from government both the obligation and the tools for keeping stability in the economy, without cataclysmic booms and bursts. gold-base- deficit-reductio- gold-base- lov rates I admire Gov Bangerter for trying to create someaccomplish the impossible thing out of nothing. Or put another way, save our educational system without spend- - ing PAT DENSLOW Director of Organizing Utah Teachers United Mission Impossible How could the Utah Legislature ever consider passing a law to commemorate Human Rights Day? They're too racist to honor Martin Luther Kings birthday and too sexist to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. They should just be honest with themselves and create White Male Mormon Supremacist Day. MARY To take - atwtge. of olk special . ? Huh US UM...FK,NO. tw m'ibu Be check in6 any And wuere would yu uke that wrm bas to f0Gram? WOODHEAD SmOMfVpDEASF. flights? & J fNTl SECURITY? NON-WTT'T- MtWSEK OF OUR frequent crashes ,Yx) 6ET A FREE FLIGHT AFTER EACH CRASH voke instability, pnmote speculation and are bad for trade and investment in the long term. The worlds money system does need discipline just as it needs careful handling to ease down the crushing mountains of international debt. The bottom line is that we live in a state that has a lot of kids to educate. If we deny our children the education they deserve, we are also denying them a future that is equal to anyone else's in the nation The governor's proposal is wasting valuable time Let's admit we have a problem, more and solve it with a real solution money to attract and retain the best teachers and lower class sizes to a reasonable level It is a good idea to hire paraprofes-sional- s, but let's not look for a fairy godmother" corps that will do the job for noth- NON W VOU To FIT VJnH Arce Nbo pro- 21 Unworkable Miracle awntenancelow ,..WE cant N0N-ShAXM- WmD You uke 1 no-co- work in a very demanding job for nothing I don't hear calls for volunteers to solve the workload problems of policemen, doctors, lawyers, accountants, computer programmers. etc Usually, if a permanent "helper" is needed, you write a job description. attach a salary, and look for an appli- ,. State Senator, District 31, mg murh money This would truly be 3 mir' at le The problem with "miracles," however, is that they just don't work in real life We all volunteer for good causes, but it is unreasonable to expect a large pool of permanent labor to exist that wants to DONA M. WAYMENT OK There are sound points in the argument e OR. v young In response to "Realisic Beginnings" (Forum, Jan. 15), I do not believe trust and honesty between parents and children can be accomplished by legislation. I do believe trust and honesty between parents and children have been eroded by previous legislation allowing the government and private organizations to usurp the role of the family. The only way to reverse As members of the Utah State Bar, we wish to publicly disassociate ourselves from comments made by Ted Cannon, the Salt Lake County attorney, regarding the integrity of the grand jury process and the involve- - Friday, January Clearly young people need guidance in making such major decisions in their lives. This guidance should come from the family ha has loved and nurtured them all of their Realistic Response At Arms Length currency-exchang- For example, when a young couple believes they are safe because they are using contraceptives and an unwanted pregnancy still results Or the girl who uses an IUD and develops a serious infection that results in sterility. Or what about the girl who develops a thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, stroke, fetal abnormalities, etc. from the use of the pill. writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reason on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. All letters are subject to condensation. Mail to the Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110. RANDY LIVINGSTON that floating in a Forum Kules In response to "Best and Worst of Times" (Forum, Jan. 24), the two men who brutally murdered the dog, by roasting him alive over a fire, should be sent to prison for their horrible action. Those men have free choice of w hether to work or be lazy, to get drunk or stay sober, to the other anilive or die. But our cousins are helpless victims. mals That poor little dog looked to those men for love and kindness. All of us let him down when we allowed those cruel men to slaughter him, just because they are too lazy to work for their food. I wish the writer, who witnessed the act, had put a stop to the murder. this previous legislation is through new legislation Children have the right to the advice of their parents, without the pressures of outside influences, which encourage them to be deceptive and thereby destroy a trusting relationship No one should have the right to interfere with the family unless the child is in an abusive environment Early sexual activity is a major decision child's life and not only impacts his or her life, but the lives of family members The many ramifications of early sexual acwhether contraceptivity are often tragic tives are used or not ANN L. WASSERMANN SUZANNE MARELIUS Tying Currency to Gold Ignores Responsibility New York Times Service LONDON The old idea of tying the currency to a fixed price of gold is being pushed again by the hard right. The argu- The Salt Lake Tribune, The Public Forum Passing the Buck Mew's TmatT.. NO, THANIOjbu. us Today? one. go? uw. It is welcome to see that Lehrman supports Treasury Secretary James Baker in his turnaround from the view of his predecessor, Donald Regan, who advocated that the United States need not cooperate with other countries to keep currency-exchang- e rates reasonable. The size and complexity of modern trade and the almost instantaneous speed of modern financial transfers make it impossible for any country to manage its economic relations by itself. But the key to needed changes is government management, not abdication, which would result from an arbitrary and obligatory link to gold. For one thing, gold has no particular intrinsic value. Fixing it at $500 (because Lehrman calculates that is a fair price for the cost of production and incentive to mining in North America) would be no more a operation than directly pegging currencies to one another. For another, it would be a windfall for the Soviet Union and South Africa, the worlds two largest gold producers. Sandy Grady America Wont Forget This Nightmare free-mark- Knight-Ridde- r Newspapers WASHINGTON There are moments that leap off the TV screen with such terrible vividness, they stick in the national mind like shared nightmares. Jack Kennedys death was like that. And so was the space shuttle that became a fireball. Management means agreements and rules. Bakers proposal to have the Group of Five countries pledge intervention in currency markets and the attempt to tackle the debt issue are both a good start, but they dont go far enough. No automatic device exists to sustain growth, keep inflation down, reduce debt and assure the provision of human needs that are essential to social and political stability. The idea of a minimum of social justice, which has permitted Western societies to weather the high unemployment rates of recent and it has been reyears, was hard-wowarding to the preservation of democracy. Gold contains no notion of justice, it is dead metal. But it is a symbol, not only of wealth but of the other old ideas that rights are based on wealth and that government based on democracy has no business interfering in the ways that wealth is distributed. There is great fragility in the current world economy. The gold standard would be a way to make governments impotent to deal with it. Years from now, anybody who saw it will remember 11:40 a m. EST, Jan. 28, and the hellish fire burst and the white streamers floating silently down a blue Florred-yello- ida sky. It was that way in Washington, a city of pride and power where technocrats talk glibly of billions for space warfare. Those pictures tumbling off the TV screens said: something has gone dreadfully wrong. At 11:40 a.m., the Imperial City turned into just another small town USA. Questions and posturing would come later. Momentarily those images of a spacecraft blossoming into a fiery ball jarred politicians back to their own humanity. In the White House, someone handed the president a scrap of paper and Ronald Reagan strode quickly down the White House hallway to a TV set. He watched in stunned silence, said an aide. You could see on his face anxiety, sorrow, concern. Like everyone else, Reagan thought instantly of Christa McAuliffe. The bubbly schoolteacher was on the space shot because of a Reagan campaign vow. I cant get it out of my mind her husband, her children, Reagan said huskily. Alone upstairs at 11:40, Nancy Reagan saw the sky blast live on TV and said, Oh, my God, no! Bill Nelson, a clean-cu- t Florida congressman, came back 10 days ago from a d ride on the space shuttle. Now at 11:40 he was watching in his office. There were cheers for liftoff. Then the flower of flames. glitch-plague- Theres been a major explosion, Nelson, that. Sen. tight-lippe- said pale. Nobody escapes d, Jake Gam, watched the Conniving Plan to Oust Yolcker Just Didnt Work envelope of fire and burst into tears. Jake had flown as a space shuttle crewman. Those were my friends, said Garn. Mike Smith the pilot was a mother hen to me Tears were not exclusive to the Senate floor. Cab drivers, elevator operators, workers in NASA offices were numbed by the 11:40 fire burst. The calmest man in town was John Glenn. Twenty-fou- r years ago, Glenn had been the first American into orbit. Now he had the best perspective I heard on the 11:40 shocker. Sen. Glenn, freckled and hard-jawestill showed the Right Stuff. This is a day I guess we always knew would happen, said Glenn, somber and stoical. "Weve been dealing with such speeds and power and complexities. But after our wasnt this the string of absolute triumphs 56th manned flight? tragedy like this reminds us of our human frailties. Glenn was grimly amused that the public had begun to think of space shots as tame as Disneyland rides. "NASA doesnt talk about danger. Astronauts do, among themselves, said Glenn.' We watched those early test rockets burn the Original Seven up. We used to talk about whod be alive at the end. Slowly, of course, Washington put back on its power 11.40 Bald, intense ... d, face. The Washington Post WASHINGTON Beginning last fall, some of the smart money around ti wn began writing the political obituary of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker. Business Week, for example, ran a cover line asking: "Is Paul Volcker Being Forced Out?" Inside, the magazine answered in the affirmative. It predicted that Volckers power would soon slip: To take the seats of two governors who had by and large supported Volcker, President Reagan had nominated Manuel from the Treasury) Johnson (a supply-side- r and Wayne Angell (a Kansas farmer professor backed by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole). The idea was that Johnson and Angell would team up with Vice Chairman Preston Martin and Martha Seger (earlier named to the Board by Reagan) to make an "Gang of Four" on the board. So, the theory went, Volcker would soon do what the administration really hoped he would do: pack his bags and go. There are all sorts of things wrong with this simplistic theory, including the assumption that the administration wants to get rid of Volcker, which might shake confidence in the dollar around the world. The Reagan administration does think that Volcker is too keen on regulating the banking industry. But Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III and Volcker are in accord on major monetary policy issues, and work closely together on Third World debt problems. anti-Volck- seven-memb- The one substantive issue that may di- vide the Reagan administration and Volcker in the future is the timing of future monetary ease, as an offset to the potential deflationary impact of The administration is assuming that the n targets will largely be s. H deficit-reductio- met, whether or not the automatic mechanism of the law is put to use. This may or may not happen. But if it does, additional monetary ease, which takes effect with a time lag, will be needed to compensate for the tighter fiscal policy, the effects of which are felt quickly. Some Reagan officials now fear that the Fed will want to see the deficit reductions assured before it moves to ease monetary policy. If there is any conflict with the Fed on and the need for such ease and its timing it would be something there may not be for the future: There are no policy disagreements now. In any event, the "rang of Four" theory was full of holes. First, it betrayed a lack of knowledge of where the real power resides in the Federal Reserve System. The nations overall monetary policy is not made by the Board of Governors, but by the Federal Open Market Committee, also chaired by Volcker. seven-memb- The FOMC, in addition to the seven governors, includes the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and four of the other 11 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents, who serve on a rotating basis. A recapitulation of the published 1985 votes of FOMC meetings shows support for Volckers leadership ranging from unanimous votes to a maximum of three dissents (on one occasion). So it would take much more than a shift in the views of just two governors to change the balance of power on the Feds board. main policy-making Beyond that, as is true of nominees for the Supreme Court, past opinions and speeches offer little real guidance on how a prospective Federal Reserve governor will vote over a term of up to 14 years on a Board that prides itself for its independence. Insiders confide that there was a grin on Volcker's face last week after Johnson and Angell said at confirmation hearings that they found little to criticize with current monetary policy. Angell, moreover, labeled the Gang of Four talk preposterous." The Kansas banker stressed his belief that the No. 1 priority of the Fed is to fight inflation. He used words that Volcker might well have chosen: "There is no way I will ever advocate any policy that would return this country to inflation." To be sure, there will now be some changed perspectives on the Feds proper a function in the hands of regulatory role the Board, not the FOMC. The addition of Johnson and Angell may curb Volckers freedom in this area. However, since Johnson and Angell have opposing views on the use of junk bonds in takeovers, Volcker apparently would be victorious in a split if the issue comes up again. His effort to curb junk bonds was up3 held 3-- 2 in earlier votes. Debates within the Feds board may also be more intense. Angell, for example, reportedly wants the Fed to pay closer attention to commodity prices in making overall monetary policy. But neither Johnson nor Angell appears to be rigid in applying philosophical preferences. Angell isnt insisting that monetary policy be tied in lockstep to a commodity price standard. And although Johnson continues to insist that deficits do not cause high interest rates, he also holds that federal expenditures must be cut because projected deficits take too large a share of GNP." Adding it all up, a key Federal Reserve official grinned last week when asked how he thought policy would shape up with Angell and Johnson on a new board. "The Gang of Four theory is destroyed," he said. "I dont expect there will be any fundamental changes." Reagan, realizing an upbeat State of the Union pitch would sound tinny and false, postponed it. The president went on TV to reassure school kids that the haunting fire burst was part of taking a chance expanding mans horizons. Reagan, whos excellent at such moments, said the journey will continue." ... And politicians, remembering their game, began asking questions: What happened at 11:40? NASA, usually a s gusher, clamped down a news blackout. So speculation a fuel tank rupture, an icy liftoff, sabotage, pressure on NASA for too many flights ran wild. Would the tragedy set back NASAs $7 6 billion budget? Probably not. Would it muffle enthusiasm for Reagans Star Wars7 Good heavens, no. public-relation- while. Certainly the ambitions of 1 700 candi dates to be the first journalist in space are o hold. "This shows how it wrong is," grouse Frank Borman, "to expose cor gressmen and teachers to the risks of te pilots. juai ar stunned U.S. small town. But John Glenn, who has seen it al tough and fatalistic and American You find out what and go on," said Youalwajjj Glep |