Show Our view m 1 Saturday May 8 2004 A4 The Herald Journal Local ATV park could ease abuses W crazy and blast up hills and around tight curves making as much noise as possible ATV parks are great for that The obstacles outclass the ones found in the mountains where Mother Nature never had ATVs in mind If you run off the road and get hurt you don’t have to wait for a helicopter to come get you Best of all the mountains are saved for those who want to enjoy them under their own power and the farmers can relax Like everything ATV parks cost money But private parks exist throughout the state so they must make money too Perhaps incentives could be provided by Logan city Cache County and the Forest Service to lure someone into the business Our guess is they’d have no end of volunteers to help design and build the park In Ogden participants at the local park buy memberships arid become part owners which reduces the chance of die park being sued for liability if someone gets in a wreck Of course that doesn’t change the fact that riders would have to be driven to the park Perhaps storage sheds at the facility would solve that prob- lem — kids could ride their bicycles to die park and get out their ATVs With any luck they might decide to stay on their bicycles e haven’t always waxed vehiwarm and fuzzy about cles on this page When misused they can shred sensitive ecosystems terrorize wildlife and render a trail too noisy and smelly to be hikeable So it may strike some as ironic that we would love to see an ATV park somewhere in Cache Valley But think about it for a moment and it becomes apparent it’s the thing to do A lot of ATV riders may be making illegal trails because they literally don’t know what else to do The majority of legal trails in Cache Valley cannot be accessed directly from city limits since ATVs are not allowed on public streets This means that young teenagers a large proportion of ATV ridos must wait for their parents to drive them to a Forest Service road or cut through a farmer’s field on the edge of town Once on die legal road the riding gets boring pretty fast For young riders eager to test their machines and their mettle the urge to cut up a hillside can be hard to resist For this type of rider — arguably die one who will do the most damage — the forest is unnecessary They aren’t looking for a wilderness experience They want to zip around like all-terr- man-ma- de Your view that isthe case then perhaps the server should find another job Mr man suggested that Cache Valley diners who do not have the means to “provide a proper tip” should not eat out until they can I wonder how his employer feels about that diner’s take A on tipping 1b the editor: Tips are hot an entitlement Mr v Hibshman managed to hit on one of my pet peeves In his letter of May 6 he made some points with which I VonThylor ' agree However in the end he seems Providence to say that just being there entitles him to at least a 1 5 percent tip I have only been a Cache Valley resident for the past three years and it does seem that tipping hoe is less than most other areas that I have lived I think it To the editor is unfortunate that servers are not paid Regarding the current “indecision” a higher wage and that they must about the coloration of the old courtdepend on tips to make a decent livhouse I guess my question is this': ing However that is the way the sysWhy the push for color conformity tem now works when the designers and builders of the ' The system does provide an incentwo later additions made no attempt to tive to the server to perform I usually “match” the original center portion? tip about 20 percent of the bill before The builders of the newer additions tax if tht service has been very good had plentiful locally made yellow However just because the wait person brick as in the original and also the shows up takes my order and eventucapability to match even the original ally delivers the meal and the check : window lintels but they chose NOT does not mean he or she will earn a to make it all look alike Has anyone big tip A good tip must be earned stopped to wonder why? That means a timely delivery of my I submit that with even having order my water glass is kept full the materials and skills to “matching” server checks back a couple of times the building parts all look alike make to make sure the meal is OK and if I they chose not to do so because they have any requests after the meal is wanted the original pioneer part to served they are carried out promptly stand out and not be lost or forgotten A good server is attentive to his or her by conformity Makes a lot of sense customers The best tips will go to doesn’t it? those that work hard to make my dinThose who espouse making the ing experience very pleasant building uniformly red with dye will I In Cache Valley as other places “mask” history in the process Someexcelfrom lived servers have vary day if successful in that endeavor lent to mediocre Consequently my they will too late regret their decision tips range accordingly In fact if the when people begin to ask especially service is particularly bad my tips where the original part is among the the low because be may insultingly sea of red My vote is to keep the server did not earn it and I have a integrity of the building intact Histostatement to make Occasionally a its on demands ry needs no embellishment As it restaurant may place stands the building also shows the servers that prevent them from perevolvement to meet the needs as time forming excellent service If the servwent mi er is not given the time to perform is to instructed or service just superior Robert Mitchell do the minimum then he or she will not be able to earn really good tips If Logan Let courthouse remain as it is - Commentary Blame culture for soldier antics By Kathleen Parker Orlando Sentinel w hen President Bush told the world that abuses at Abu Ghraib prison do not reflect American values he was right The best American values in spirit if not always in practice respect human life dignity and the rule of law But some of what happened at Ghraib specifically the sexualized humiliations may reflect American culture especially in the instance of the naked human pyramid which is nearly iconographic within the ado-lescent Zeitgeist that spawned our current generation of soldiers The images from Abu Ghraib now irreversibly tattooed on the Arab brain were every cliche magnified The human pyramid males mooning masturbation bags over heads: What we saw at least in part was ‘’Hie Family Brothers Do Baghdad" How else to explain the giddy photographs of young soldiers mugging for cameras and giving the thumbs-u- p sign beside Jiumiliated prisoners naked and masturbating? Another Farrelly movie ‘’Dumb and Dumber" conies to mind I don’t want to overstate my case by insisting that the culture made 'em do it but we’d be missing a few dots if we didn't admit that the culture that birthed our young soldiers has dumbed down the definition of human dignity The Farrelly Brothers — kings of the gross-ocomedy film genre characterized by scatological humor and raunchy sex jokes — are convenient touchstones in the larger discussion about the debasing of American culture In their for the developmentally arrested ‘’There's Something About Mary” the male star gets his genitals stuck frat-hou- se ut side-splitt- er The T he statistics at first sound alarming A new government report shows that the number of US traffic deaths rose nearly 1 percent last high of 43220 Some headlines attributed year reaching a 13-ye- ar the increase in fatalities to the favorite whipping boy of everyone it seems but consumers: the SUV headlines leave out First for ' instance we learn that while overall fatality numbers have in recent years seen a modest increase they remain much lower today than in the past when many more Americans were being killed each year on roads far less crowded than today’s Also less than shocking was the Kathleen Parker a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel wel- - ' comes comments via at kparkerOkparkercom although she cannot respond to all mail indvidually t oF vwmwi L N WW? 9uu n unm DARRELL EHRUCttfeity odHor CiNOY YURTWeaturee actor BRUCE SMITHpuMahar CHARLES McCOLLUMhrwnaging actor U60MO n wort Hjcy to be gtfhml cut eft wautitide of toyua tfo though txy year and a certain number of these are bound to end up as statistics Blaming it on the machines reflects a typically modem tendency to remove personal responsibility from the equation portraying people as passive victims of circumstance or malfeasance rather than free and active authors of their own fates That strengthens the hand of those who see the solution to all life’s challenges and misfortunes as more government paternalism Lettersipolic L The Hamid Journal weicomoeiottem to too PotontiaRy Mom or olfenelve teflon ww noi oa puoasnoa nowovor ana mo oanor moenma toe right to edit allettem to confbmi to too langto and styto neqummenta of too actor The Opinion page ie Handed to acquaint madam mth a vanity ot wawpoH on manat ol pubic importance and provide mentwm of toe commawy wto a tomm tor toeavtowe Pemonal ootomna cartoona and lottom Iwi roads! wAact opnona of twr snail and craatom Edftonato under too hoadtog 'Our View reomaont too vws of toe Hamid Journal a oosns-- MfTw ex DOtnc Ityu c&vluskmi se after-hour- increase in SUV fatalities as there are more SUVs on the road every Editorial potic JOVJ2UEY TO &AU-- V frat-hou- Herald Journal NGW&P&dPl£N pew ' A deeper reading of the story provides context the attention-grabbin- g Lima (Ohio) News DcKT'tbuJUW Y 53-pa- ge Here’s one rap you can’t pin on SUVs IPVCWKUllNfr TU£R : National view Non Sequitur 6£U-PlMCR- - voked the most outrage in the Arab world where men being naked in feont of other men is deeply humiliating Being forced into the posture of a woman is as bad as it gets Perhaps most shocking of all the photographs were those showing young female soldiers ridiculing their male captives — behind a stack of bare male bottoms or pointing at the genitals of a mastur- bating prisoner In one account a young woman gleefully reports that one of the prisoners under her watch has become tumescent And then might we presume giggle giggle? How did such depravity come to pass? How could our bright and brave young people come to behave so stupidly? While some claim they were merely following orders surely those orders didn’t include posing for pictures At the same time they’re displaying for their pictorial diaries the soldiers seem bereft of historical conscience unburdened by any awareness of larger — and lethal — contexts into which their scrapbooks might be placed To them it seems Abu Ghraib s was just another photo op an to inhibparty sans grown-up-s it their jaunty trip through a Heronymous Bosch garden of perverse delights Family family farrelly family life is but a dream We can’t blame America’s culture entirely but as we’re trying to change the hearts and minds of others we might take a closer look at our own You can’t steep a teabag in sewerage and expect it to taste like Earl Gray in a zipper Later when he pleasures himself he misplaces his "issue” which subsequently becomes hair gel for "Mary” Don’t ask Such is what has passed for culture for many of the kids now populating our military My point: There’s not much difference between what those soldiers enacted in Abu Ghraib for digital cameras and 15 seconds of instafame back home and what America’s increasingly debased culture' embraces as good harmless fon Quickly I want to draw a dear distinction between the photographs of naked prisoners and other reports of physical torture There’s no v excuse for either — no justification no exit from a foil hearing and appropriate punishment — but there is a difference In a report about Abu Ghraib completed in February Maj Gen Antonio M Tfcguba noted that some abuse of detainees wait beyond anything we might construe as mere hazing and probably m&ts most definitions of torture One excerpt for example reads: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees pouring cold water on naked detainees beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair threatening male detainees with rape sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick ” No it’s not Saddam’s plastic shredder but these examples clearly violate the Geneva Conventions that tenuous thread to civilization to which we cling during wartime Heads should roll publicly and swiftly Meanwhile the other psychological tortures — the dehumanizing images of naked men forced to perform as sex slaves — have pro HI (pd of utfvritative scfctkm ’ — Jdgt Leaned fod America Lotte's should be: Typewritten and double-space- d No mors toon 450 wads in langto Addroaaod and include daytkno phone number tor purpoaas of vonllcation Signed by too autoor todvtouais are Imriad to one pubiahod let-- ' tor mtoin ary 304ay period Addraaa totters to hpatterOhywwtcom Guoel am atoo wetoomo and am nn si toe actors (Secretion jurist (1S72-156- |