Show HA Cgdeo Erday Standard-Examine- March 23 1337 r O Editorials HcuNE NOTICED MGUfc Financial EAFtiS NL srj I cP Future for women depends on their will to be prepared As society becomes more egalitarian and more women enter the labor force the patronizing term “women’s work” is slowly leaving the national vocabulary But it should be remembered that many of the 40 million women 45 years and older forsook education and employment to undertake the invaluable task of raising children and maintaining households What support then exists for these women if they are suddenly divorced or widowed? Not much They often lack marketable job skills and rarely have any equity in pension or plans Statistics compiled by the Older Women League bear out a grim truth Several million women over 65 are forced to survive on just $3000 annually in Social Security benefits Then there is health care which is a particular dilemma because women live longer than men About 40 percent of divorced women and 27 percent of widows for example have no private health insurance Approximately one in six has no health insurance at all and has little chance of qualifying for it Women who have sacrificed all their lives receive no respite even in their twilight years This is nothing less than a national shame Thankfully the problem is slowly getting the attention it deserves The 1986 Budget Reconciliation Act requires numerous emhealth insurance rates to divorced ployers to offer wives and widows of employees for up to three years The Retirement Equity Act of 1984 offers women some pension relief adding a year’s credit toward retirement pensions for all employees who work over 1000 hours a year And the act prohibits pension planners from counting maternity leave as a break in service The 1986 bill has also helped reducing from 10 years to five years the time for vesting in company pension plans More should be done The skills that numerous and elderly women possess are rarely useful in the marketplace nor do they occasion the benefits to which all working Americans are entitled -aged Recognizing that society has an obligation but is not totally beholden to women the Northern Utah Women’s Conference — a cadre of women in the federal and private work force — has scheduled a smorgasbord of workshops Saturday at Weber State College intended to enhance women’s awareness and skills leading to a succession in their careers their homes schools and their communities Subjects to be covered will provide an excellent opportunity for women to further enrich their personal growth add to their storehouse of knowledge Today’s women Women must plan for the future and its eventualities must chart their own destiny prevent the potential that they could be left to fend for themselves in a world for which they are Victory for 65 mph First District Congressman James Hansen is today savoring what is perhaps his sweetest victory in the six years 6 House vote he has served on Capitol Hill: The that will allow states to increase speed limits to 65 mph on interstate highways outside urban areas We share Rep Hansen’s concern that his victory will be President Reagan has threatened to veto the $886 billion highway construction bill that includes the 65 mph provision a proposal that will allow faster legal driving on 33910 or the 43291 miles of interstate highway and affect every state except Delaware Reagan has expressed disdain for the highway measure which will distribute urgently needed financial assistance to states and communities for road and bridge projects and for mass transit systems The president doesn’t like demonstration projects that are earsome of the marked for funding in the highway construction bill pork barrel projects some senators and representatives have successfully included for home states Hansen has lead the fight to increase the speed lin't on rural interstate highways for the past two years He has to challenge Rep James Howard of New stood Jersey who fostered the 55 mph speed limit 10 years ago and has fought successfully to keep it — until now On highways where the vast majority of drivers arc contemptuous of the 55 mph and consistently travel faster it makes sense to raise the speed limit to 65 mph Presuming that the president doesn’t veto and throw up a roadblock at the highway construction bill and kill the hopes for the 65 mph the idea of coupling a higher speed limit with a crackdown on speeders must be pursued There must be an insistence for stiff enforcement and fines that would hae a bracing effect on drivers’ attitudes Tighter enforcement can make 65 mph a ceiling instead of the speed limit floor a us — J— Without California it would It no wonder that all of us who love have a special place in our hearts for California and Californians Where else I ask you would the state government formally establish a Task Force to Promote is wackos Nowhere is where The Golden State does such things though and thus performs a valuable service for the other 49 for which it gets little credit The new unit will be funded for nearly of a million by California to do whatever it is that forces task do And OK as I am I feci better about America knowing that we have a state where they can not only think up ideas like this but find the money to pay for them Have you ever considered what a dull country this would be if it ended at the Arizona state line if there were no California? Arizonans and Nevadans wonderful Sun Belt citizens though they are are sort of ordinary people who rarely do anything that is entertaining to the rest of us If California ever slides into the sea as it threatens to do any moment I doubt that they will be much good at taking up the slack The flair for doing California things seems to be unfakable: Either you’ve got it or you haven't And if you've got it you are almost certainly already in California The idea for a task force for example was thought up by California Assemblyman John Vasconcellos who has his share of the flair Vasconcellos is reportedly known as the ” representative which if true would mean that he has a substantial constituency California is the unin unusual movements challenged No from geological to spiritual When s was stricken with a heart attack three years ago he wrote voters asking “Imagine Jim Wright yourself swimming with me in my arteries with a tiny brush with solvent in each hand” As they say out there whatever works for you Vasconcellos’ co Bay Area district is in the San Franciswhich somehow does not surprise me However he is from San Jose and not from Marir County as I had supposed when I heard about the idea An official would seem to us old agency for fans of California a natural Marin County kind of project for that beautiful area is the psychobabble capital of the Milky Way galaxy Possibly the assemblyman from Marin County failed to sponsor the bill because he thought the state group might duplicate the work of his county's existing Commission to Encourage Getting in Touch With Your Feelings I can only wonder Though I do know the to San Jose I know little about the way Californians north of Sanla Barbara reach conclusions My personal observations were made mostly in Southern California which was my post for the defense of the Free World in the 1950s As my new bride and I 'were delighted to discover California was and I hope still is the only state that feels dike a carnival — not especially permanent but a lot of fun while it lasts California was weird and wonderful in those days probably because it seemed so easygoing and in its peculiarity Back in the era when Annette Funicello wore Mickey Mouse ears instead of a sw imsuit the purpose of surfing was to have a good time not to make a lifestyle statement way be dull Southern Californians I had previously met out around the real world seemed like mellow Texans And that I learned on the spot is indeed what about half of them are the other half being mellowcd-ou- t Oddly enough these fine people are sneered at by Northern Californians as a lot of boneheaded bumpkins and goofy layabouts Insofar as they think about Northern California at all the Southerners regard it as the home of uptight worrywarts and who do not even have good tans Nor are climate and emotional temperature the only lines of division California also boasts both ends of the ideological spectrum If Marin in the north is the nation’s most liberal county Orange County in the south is its most conservative However the mutual and affectionate contempt with which Cali- fornians regard each other doesn’t seem to cripple their ability to get things done together somehow Let's face it a state that gave the nation Ronald Reagan and Gov Moonbeam Shir- -' is ley Temple Black and Sister a state that understands the meaning of the term modus vivendi Note for instance that Vasconcellos’ plan for a task force for was solemnly signed into law by Gov George Deukmcjian a conservative Republican not notably strong on Heaven only knows what the new outfit is up to But whatever that may be I would bet the farm that the Californians in its ranks are enjoying themselves at it that being the spe-- ’ cial genius of those folks A substantial body of sociological research suggests that America gets its trends of to- morrow from what is happening in California today We could do worse Dallas Morning AVhj Bureaucracy is nation’s worst enemy WASHINGTON — On a recent Friday morning John Lehman secretary of the navy was attacking a breakfast waffle with all the zeal of a fighter pilot strafing a hostile beach Knife in one hand fork in the other he was out to demolish a target But Lehman wasn't full of waffles he was full of the old pep and vinegar that have made him the best secretary of the navy since the War Department was reorganized 40 years ago Lehman is 44 In another few weeks as soon as the Senate confirms a successor he will leave the post he has filled from the start of the Reagan administration In these six years he has stepped on some admirals toes he has raised congressional hackles he has tangled with the high and mighty including the secretary of defense but by the eternal he has built a navy the nation can be proud of On this particular morning Lehman was ’not minded to talk of ships of war and this was unusual for his usual custom is to sell a guest at least one battleship and two carriers Neither was he thinking of the Navy’s superlative record in recruiting and holding highly qualified young people It wasn't the Soviet Union’s expanding navy that troubled him “Do you know the greatest enemy of national defense?" he inquired "It isn’t the Union It’s our own bleeping bureaucracy" Ichntan was full of figures Did his guest know how many people were wotking directly under the Office of the Secretary of Defense? No I thousand! He chewed on the figure: I thousand! There are 53(100 in the Defense Logistics Agency Fif the action? No James J Kilpatrick thousand! The Joint Chiefs of Staff have 2000 men and women assigned to shuffle the papers Two thousand! Lehman is incredulous What he wants to know do all these people do? When he came on board six years ago he found an impenetrable bureaucratic thicket in his own bailiwick This was the Navy Material Command with 650 whiz kids dabbling in every bleeping thing After a while he concluded that 200 could do all the essential work so he abolished the command two years ago and eliminated 450 billets “Things are going smoothly now" The only way to cope with the defense bureaucracy Lehman concluded was "to go over under and around it" Frontal assaults are futile Multiple layers of bureaucracy in his view were directly responsible for the tragic loss of lives in the terrorist attack on Marine barracks in Lebanon The original order had been for the Marine commander to maintain tight security but by the time the order was relayed from here to there and up and down and in and out the order had been so watered down that the Marines on guard duty had all Ihe shooting power of a hotel doorman There wouldn’t be such a suffocating says lehnun if it weren’t for the the hunger on Capitol Hill to services Did his guest know how many committees and subcommittees have a piece of bu- reaucracy t ! Count ’em! Out of curiosity Lehman once assigned an aide to measure the volume of laws rules and regulations affecting defense procurement In due course the aide returned with the figure The requirements take up more than 1100 feet of shelf space Nearly of a mile! The secretary looks back on his six years of hustle and hassle with general satisfaction One victory at the Naval Academy he recalls with special pleasure He was astonished to discover that the academy's faculty included 80 professors of engineering more or less but only one professor of philosophy He set reforms in motion that now require cadets to learn something of history literature and thci humanities as well Those reforms reflect Lehman's own intellect He holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Cambridge He earned his doctorate in international law at the University of Pennsylvania The guy is a brain He's also a helicopter pilot with the rank of commander in the Naval Reserve His plans are to spend six months writing a book and then to put in five or 10 years as chief executive officer of a duxtry And after that? lie’s fallen in love with the Commonwealth of Virginia and Virginia's enfeebled Republican Party is hard up for gubernatorial candidates One former secretary (T the navy from Virginia John Warner lias made it to the Senate lchman’s political cruise is just now getting under wav Vnnonal Vnt Syndicate ’ I |