| Show '4 A Ogden Standard-Examin- Wednesday August 29 1984 er niDOtfD GDgben §tanbarh-i:xamtn- £r 4h Editorials Spending to pave Burr Trail unwise i Utah Gov Matheson has called a special session of the Legislature for Sept 5 to deal with certain emergency mat-ter- s d Burr Trail from Boulder in Paving the County to Bullfrog Basin in Kane County in southeast Utah is under no circumstances an emergency Paving this shortcut trail to the Lake Powell Recreation area is an unnecessary expenditure with little or no benefit other than to the 50 to 80 people who reside in the tiny hamlet of Boulder A fine graded highway is already near completion con- meeting Boulder with Torrey which is on Highway 24 This "is and should remain the main highway continuing to f Hanksville and traversing the magnificent scenery of Wayne County and Capitol Reef National Park This is an ' unequalled scenic route and is only 50 miles longer than the proposed $20 million shortcut to Lake Powell which — would bypass already developed communities on Highway 24 and 95 that are already geared up for tourist services The rationale for seeking $8 million from the Congress and asking the taxpayers of Utah to bear the burden of an and eventual $12 million allocation to pave the Burr Trail is not clear It is a winding trail through the switchbacks of a canyon that on certain days by a traffic count accom- modates a traffic flow of as few as 10 vehicles The project aims to turn a dirt road into a paved stretch ‘ passable by tour buses The Burr Trail is already good enough for ordinary cars Wayne County commissioners are justifiable upset and angry that Gov Matheson and Sen Jake Gam appear to be determined to earmark precious tax dollars to build e this costly and unnecessary winding and roadway which would bypass Torrey and Hanksville ' With increased visitation to Capitol Reef National Park finally the economic benefits promised those communities 1 Z and the surrounding area a decade ago are beginning to be 66-mi- le Gar-‘flel- 4 ! i ! hard-surfac- 1 i v y realized The people of these towns have every right to feel ‘cheated if the Burr Trail cutoff project should go ahead d°w The new motels full service gas stations and good "restaurants in Hanksville have been built with the expectation that the tourist business will continue to grow and flourish with more and more travelers with the destination of Lake Powell using the newly completed Boulder-to-Toand Capitol Reef highways t rey People in Torrey and Hanksville are understandably up-- £ set They have invested heavily to improve facilities to travelers and would experience a loss of i: tourist trade by this imprudent expenditure to pave the t! Burr Trail Traveling the Burr Trail would not result in savings other than driving time amounting to a little more than an hour That hour would be among the breathless : scenery in Capitol Reef National Park and south of Hanksville The House of Representatives killed the Burr Trail funding proposal once Sen Gam brought it back again It has been approved by the Senate interior committee and v is expected to come before the full Senate when it reconvenes on Sept 5 Rep James Hansen is pushing the House version which is expected to have greater difficulty for passage than in the Senate where it will be a rider on one of the more important appropriation measures tWith all the talk of tax hikes towering deficits and programs begging for more money funding this pav-- : ing project would be irresponsible ’ ' The proposal for the Legislature to earmark $42 million - as a downpayment on the state’s share of $20 million — the engineer’s estimate of the cost — does not qualify by any measurement as an emergency and is definitely not an appropriate subject for a special session called to specifl- ' cally deal with emergencies r- a well-spe- nt - so-1-c- ial “I propose we make the world safer by signing treaties that limit the testing of nuclear weapons and radio microphones” Nation will survive Ronald Reagan While Ronald Reagan waited for his uproarious adherents to calm themselves one of the network cameras pursuing contrast got down tight on the face of a Harvard in- David B Wilson tellectual Caspar W Weinberger ’38 LLB ’41 onetime resident of Dunster House and victor in the Oxford Union debate two years ago stood alone on the convention floor among the jumpers and screamers delaying the Reagan acceptance speech His countenance radiated ecstasy Nothing in this life so enraptures the intellectual psyche as having been right when just about everybody else was wrong And abounding evidence of his own prophetic gifts enveloped the secretary of Defense in a euphoric glow All the years and sneers about “Bedtime for Bonzo” and the Gipper were erased And Weinberger’s insight rarely shared among his peers had been proved golden A Harvard classmate of Weinberger’s told me that Weinberger after watching delivery of Reagan’s landmark speech during the 1964 campaign recognized in Reagan the special quality that 20 years later has the president apparently poised for a triumphal Weinberger his classmate remembered saw in Reagan “the custodian of the Dream” Now the American Dream is just that a fantasy inspiring to the dreamer It is not universally popular even among Reagan’s Johnson-Goldwat- er compatriots But it captured de Tocqueville’s imagination and has survived Charles Sum- ner Charles Dickens Henry Adams the i Muckrakers the Expatriates Mencken Sinclair Lewis Prohibition Repeal Depression and the Hippies Yippies Trippies and snobs of counterculture and social revolution Its roots are in the old frontier and the cowboy culture in King Philip’s War and at Louisbourg at Lexington Concord and Bunker Hill in the thought and oratory of Washington Hamilton Jefferson Jackson Webster and above all Lincoln the first Republican president and the greatest whose gentleness of manner and rough humor belied a ruthless devotion to national coherence unity and power Radical revisionist historians and opportunistic politicians have savaged the American Dream in recent years The national history has been chronicled in terms of rac ism and genocide oppression pollution exploitation injustice and over-simplifi- demonstrably er inconsistent and son I’ve taken great comfort in each and every one of the scientific studies which tell us that certain differences in brain development give girls an edge in learning over boys during the early years and that boys absolutely take off when they hit their late teens first-bor- n This is the kind of research that mothers of teenage boys pin their hopes on I fortu-- " nately also had the foresight to give birth to a daughter and have been pinning the rest of my hopes for a family scholar on her It seems only fair that after two jocks I should at least get one scholar Of course nothing of the sort is working out about" the Democrats keep talking never measures up to the Dream But the Dream has a reality of its own People are to a remarkable degree what they believe themselves to be V There is substance to the Republican -- argument that the opposition party has been reduced to dealing in fear — fear of war infringement of civil rights and acid rain deficits economic collapse and now it seems fundamentalist theocracy It’s probably a good thing that the cancer liberties Democrats keep talking about these things But they are not what’s happening What seems to be happening is that Americans are feeling good again about themselves and their country and their future casting off shackles of shame and guilt and enjoying unprecedented prosperity For a while under Reagan the custodian the reality has moved closer to the Dream His stewardship for all its faults has been astonishingly successful Weinberger was right It is probably too early to conclude that this presidency represents a change in American life as dramatic as the New Deal It just might But the Republic is intact and it will survive Ronald Reagan despite what you may hear from his opposition between now and November Boston Globe fundamentally decent as Sunday School Eternal hope: Impart love of learnin As the mother of a friends of course American reality earth” almost forgotten People have had enough of this trashing Any doubts about the Dream’s robust survival should have been dispelled in Dallas by felicitous accident the contemporary capital of the cowboy culture (although Fort Worth might file a' counterclaim) Reagan often almost naive an innocent at home abroad and an in error reputedly misguided frequently Judy Mann club proceedings of editorial boards resource exhaustion with Lincoln’s “last best hope of WASHINGTON — Like most mothers I have always tried to impart a love of learning to my children And like most mothers I have also tried to impart a love of learning in a timely organized fashion as opposed to — swer doing it at the last minute So far I haven’t “How many tribes do you have to do?” had to worry about being spoiled by success “Five” he replied “Hi we're a couple of Reagan's rich country better represents the American people and captures their confidence than the massed faculties of sociology and political science the misty sour secular Utopianism of the “mainstream” churches or the doleful Not too long ago one Saturday before the son end of school last June my straggled to breakfast with Indians on his mind — as in his report on Indians that was supposed to be done over that weekend Needless to say that morning was the first time I’d heard about it “What about that report?” asked his who had helped him brother the 1 look up Iroquois “How much have you done on that so far?” “I’ve started the first tribe” came the an- - school resumed dragging her tattered blanket behind her and wearing a woeful expression “Is today a school day?” she asked “Yes” “Oh no!” she wailed “What’s the matter?” I asked “I don’t want to learn!” To which his brother responded: “THAT Her brother the appeared REPORT BETTER NOT BE DUE MON“Let me talk to her Mom” he said DAY” “School is fun” he declared “You learn and His little brother drew up to his full then you get to go outside and play with height “It’s not” he answered innocently your friends Don’t you want to do that?” “It’s not due until Tuesday” “NO” she responded loudly “I DON’T LIKE ALL THAT LEARNING!” “That’s garbage!” exclaimed his older brother “Waiting until the last minute to do “Look” he said “I know exactly what a long report That’s no way for you to you’re going through I went through the learn” same thing myself” This I have to tell you was music to my The next thing I know he is extolling the ears A decade-lon- g virtues of school and learning propaganda effort was paying off It was also the kind of dialogue “Do you always want to be the unsmartest -that is a true test of a mother’s willpower I one?” he asked in conclusion am proud to report that I bit and my tongue “No” she responded defensively made no mention of my eldest son’s religion “Well then you have to go to school and that Week was due in a paper and had to the learn” he said quite simply best of my knowledge not yet emerged from I do not know what I’ll do if my daughter f the research stage the scholar decides to drop out of school at My hopes for my daughter the scholar age 4 This is the stuff of working mothers’ suffered a severe setback however the very nightmares next day Our weeks during the schoool year But with the start of school just around are divided into what she calls the corner hope springs eternal in the hearts days and school days For instance during of mothers who have committed themselves the holiday break last winter her school ran to impart a love of learning to their children a p which she agreed to attend only on the worrisome condition that she ' It may not be easy but sometimes it actually works wouldn’t have to learn anything United Feature Syndicate She appeared in the kitchen on the day stay-at-ho- play-grou- i |
