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Show Much 23, 2001 The Summit County Bee Page A2 Tell Me About It Will It Pass? The C a ni p a i g n Finance I Reform hill. that mean, Senators McCain and Feinpold are sponsoring tor passage now. Will it pass? sen lliough almost all Republican House and Senate members said (lies will vote for it. the voles of Democrat members, who had I pledged them previously only because they knew it had no chance of passing, cannot he taken for granted now that momentum has increased. Realistically, both parties should know in their hearts that oiii country faces a progressively d worsening stage of a money-fermente- cancer threatening to destroy a system Lincoln so accu-laiel- y slated as ". . . this government by the people, of the people and tor the people. In my opinion, the average citien would have to be a special kind of dumb not to realize that money controls politics, absolutely It is even more crucially impor. tant now. since Dubya's election, because the criticism of the Supreme's decision about Florida's vote counting apparently will never subside. Add to that the fact that the new Democratic National Chairman. Committee Terry Aulilfe, has turned the emphasis of losing to a Republican President into a total revenge mode for their parly . and has placed their top goal at raising a minimum of $50 million in campaign funds for this year alone. This quest for Mc by Lon SlmliUr such big bucks means no holds barred when asking, this early-on- , for such a huge bag of spitndooliks. His statement about President Bush, rivets it: "Like father, like son - one term " The urgent need for a reform hill wasn't tcmbly visible up until about the beginning of the decade, when campaign-mone- influence became a very unpleasant problem. Increasing almost exponentially from that point till now, out of the $296 million spent this last elecs of it came from tion, This establishes 800 donors! only the fact that fas economists have warned us) out of us 280 million Americans, the top 2.7 million richest ones have as much cash on hand as do the bottom one million fellow citizens who are in the lowest earning category! The 8CX) donors, of course, came from this top group. Democracy supports capitalism, it's true. And it's also true that as long as money buys influence (as in politics) the rich will get richer, and a. Both the poor. . . well, of the world's top communist leaders. Lenin and Stalin, hated capitalism. Castro couldn't put up with it, either. Yet he found one thing about it he liked, enabling him to amass over $300 million for himself. It's a fact that while the averr, age citizen, the median seems to he reasonably happy, it is also a fact that the top 2.7 million (through their patronage to politicians) will be in control so long as they keep funneling the d to their mega-buck- s candidates. And as long as middle this is so. the ersatz-happ- y class will he allowed to make just two-third- vice-vers- wage-earne- fat-ca- ts money-controlle- MARCO BLACK Sfnfl.ll Infill- Hit - I can't imagine ever having to make a tougher decision than the one rny husband and I had to make in the wee hours of the morning on March 9. 1985. We gave our permission to remove the life supports from our v old son. Ijogan. lie had been placed on machines until my husband and I could be with him to say our goodbyes. Cradled in our arms, he took his final breaths in a sterile hospital room in San Francisco. He had been flown by helicopter to the city when the hospital in our small town lacked the sophisticated equipment to diagnose his condition. As we made the seemingly endless ISO mile drive, my husband and I tried to convince each other that when we arrived in San Francisco we would he met with encouraging news. We hoped and prayed that we would he told Logan would be okay, that all he needed was surgery. It was not to he. Digan was horn with hypo plastic lelt heart syndrome. It was not detected at birth, so we had no idea lie was sick until he went into heart failure at home. It is the most helpless leeling in the world when you are holding a once thriving baby, who suddenly ceases to respond to anything. Hypo plastic left heart syndrome is a defect where the left side of the heart (ails to fully develop. Left untreated it is always fatal. Treatment, which is either a heart transplant or a process that requires three surgeries, still offers no guarantees of survival. At the time we had Logan, no babies born with HPLHS had survived. Thankfully, there have been some successes since, particularly when the defect is discovered before the babys birth with an ultra sound. This is the same ailment that "Baby Fae" suffered from. I was pregnant with Logan when the controversial baboon heart w as transplanted into that infant. I can still remember wondering if I could do something so drastic and so iffy to one of my children. I never had the chance to make that decision. After Logan's death, people were quick to offer condolences, which we greatly appreciated. We had our two older children, which kept us sane. Friends would attempt encouraging words, but some came across as ludicrous. I think the phrase that bothered me the most, was at least you didn't have time to get attached to him. I believe that is a terribly ignorant thing to say to someone who has just lost a baby. Of course we were attached to him. we all were. Most expectant parents are deeply in love with their babies long before they are bom. We were also advised by others that we should sue the hospital Ok Summit County larders of the will continue fat-ca- ts to expand exponentially. Consequently, the earnings gap between rich and pour will simply continue to widen. Bill O'Reilly, news commentator (Fox), has stated that . . our government has been corrupted by special-interemoney. Thai's why like can gel electBill Clinton guys st ed President, while people with principles can't even enter the race." I keep thinking about John McCain. He entered, but didn't Now. last. . . was simply the McCainFeingold Bill, through he brings a message. It's the same one he tried to get across during his out-spe- primary campaign, only to be arrived. O'Rourke said it best in describing the three branches of government, not the legislative, executive, and judicial we learned about in school. . . but money, television, and B.S. ... Thought for the day: "The unions buy candidates. . . the corporations buy candidates. . .the political machines buy politicians. Bill O'Reilly. MAkE where he was bom. "What for? always that the doctor should have detected his heart condition at birth. Perhaps he should have, however, if he had of, what would have happened then? I well-meani- to these people that if we had would explain known, we probably never would have been able to bring him home from the hospital. Specialists would have tried in vain to save him. We would have done anything and everything to bring about a miracle, just to lose him anyway. We would have mourned him instead of enjoying him while we had the chance. And enjoy him we did! W'e even took a short trip to Oregon before he died. "Baby Fae and her parents went through hell with that experimental baboon heart and sadly, she only lived two days longer than Logan. I often ask myself if those two extra days were worth the pain and agony required to get them. I don't think so. Sue them? No. If there are any blessings to be found in this, it is in knowing that his short time on earth was free from pain and filled with love. Although we still miss Logan tremendously, we are thankful for the time we did have with him. His life and death taught us to appreciate what we have to keep and ups and especially the downs that come our way, in perspective. Quarterly devoted to the development of winter sports activities in Utah. One researcher is delving into the history of outdoor, recreational ice skating throughout Utah on lakes, streams, and natural or man-maponds. Personal reminiscences and photographs of skaters are of special interest. Photographs and written reminiscences should be de sent to Miriam Murphy, co Utah Historical Quarterly, 300 Rio Grande. Salt Lake City. UT 84101. Original photographs will be copied and returned to the owner as soon as possible. If you prefer to be interviewed on the telephone about your experiences, please call Mrs. Murphy at Please call or write before April 1, (SOI) 2001. 268-398- 4. N Utah State Historical Society Litter Editor: I'm sure everyone has noticed the amount of litter, trash, and dead animals along side of the -- All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the Managing Editor or Publisher. mo OUT 0B tLie EdiTOR I like to visit to Rockport Reservoir. The place is simply a mess. I used to take a small, plastic grocery bag on my visits to put trash in. Now, I take a large garbage bag and it does not come close to holding all of the trash. I wonder whether the state officials at Rockport take notice, or whether they even care? As I understand it there is a law against littering. How many people have you seen or heard about getting a citation? I'll bet none. Isnt there a dollar fine for littering? If one park ranger and one police officer were to write me citation per day, the fines would add up to seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars per year. That ain't chicken feed. Hmmm, maybe the officials could quit raising taxes! the road There are two dead sheep along-sid- e between Echo and the junction. They have been lying there for a couple of months. Soon they will begin to rot and stink. There is a dead deer on the road between Echo and Henefer. about 34-mi- le west of the cafe. It has been there all winter. Recently it was pulled off into the weeds on the south side of the road. Isnt local government responsible for removing carcasses and trash from the roadsides and recreation areas? Someone is not doing his job. I also wonder whether anyone else cares? Have you noticed that the more our taxes go up. the more neutered cattle? government treats us like nd Wayne Healey roads, highways and. parks, lakes, well, everywhere. The past ten years or so littering has simply An Explosion Of Violence Is the Santee shooting just another symptom of kids on psychotropic drugs? BY SALLY FALKOW Special To The Bee problems. Andy Williams, the shooting suspect, told friends he was planning to shoot up the school, but they thought he was joking. Two boys even searched him when he came to school on that Monday morning. The education system's methods of handling violence in schools is not working. In the last three years 41 people have been killed in school shooting incidents. The statistics of teenage crime are quite startling: Every four minutes a child is alcohol-relate- spree at his Springfield, Oregon, high school that left two dead and twenty-tw- o injured. He was taking psychiatric drugs and had been attending "anger management classes. In California alone 298,000 chil- dren are prescribed stimulants, which the Drug Enforcement The shooting of two teenagers at Santee, California on March 5 highlights once again the failure to effectively deal with students' behavioral arrested for an andor Wave Publishing, Inc. (LTSP puNnhcd weekly fur $16 per year m Summit Gunry. Senior Ciraen Editor: In connection with the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City the Utah State Historical Society is preparing an issue of Utah Historical would ask. The response was The entire contents of this newspaper is Copyright 200 1 The Summit County Bee m Researcher Seeks Memories Photos of Ice Skating 1 DncnwK, SI 3 in enuntv; $21 by Waue Publishing Inc., 165 South, IOC Ynt, Hcher City, UT 64032. Penndicais Pmtaae Paid at GnlviUe. UT 64017. POSTMASTER: Send aJJrev change to The StenmU County Bee, P.O. Box 7. Galville,LT 84017. 525-64- Letters To P.J. Humorist Be Staff The Summit County Bee YOUR pay-bac- has ICIC WHAT I RXim A SMMI mTAiiS S 1EFT. MOV eouu) YOU KAR UNOE AFTER IVC UXKD OUT KW YOU FOR SO MARY YEUS? WHY IO0KC ignored because there were no constraints on the amount of money cascading to the other two candidates. They were being financed by this same 2.7 million who were the richest of all Americans, and. predictably, one of them assumed presidency, basically through the medium of exchange. It was literally bought for them. No matter. The inescapable k time result is the same; Parent Can The HarcIest DEcisioN a BY 90s y enough to he happy, while the d offense. Every four minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime. Every 4 minutes a child is arrested for a drug offense. Every four hours a child commits suicide. The 8.3 million children living in California make up more than 10 of all the children in the US. One in ten of the kids referenced above will be in California and a shooting in a California school was bound to happen. In the Columbine High School shooting spree in 1999, both teenage boys responsible for the shooting. Eric Harris and Dylan Keble, had undergone "anger management programs and An Harris had been taking a psychiatric drug. Twelve students and one teacher were killed and 23 others wounded before the two boys shot and killed themselves. On May 21. 1998, Kip Kinked went on a wild shooting Administration fDEA) says can cause "psychotic episodes, violent behavior and bizarre mannerisms when abused. "These drugs have been overpromoted, overmarketed and oversold, resulting in profits of some $430 million annually, states theDEA. In some of the nation's schools, up to 20 of the classroom are on these stimulants. Dr. Peter Breggin, Director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology at Bethesda, Maryland believes these drugs are not the answer. Until recently, no studies have systemati- cally examined the rate of psychotic symptoms caused by routine treatment with stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and Genesys, a faith based community program started by Reverend Alfreddie Johnson of the True Faith Church in Compton, Los Angeles. Here violent teenage offenders go through a comprehensive program based on the works of author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. The program includes literacy, learning how to learn a unique study method communication skills, mentoring and involvement in community activities. "We have had over 30 kids through this program in die last few years," said Armando Elias, Coordinator of Genesys. "30 to 40 percent of them were on psy- chotropic drugs like Ritalin and Prozac. The Genesys program has saved many teenage lives. Most of these youngsters were in gangs and involved in violent crime. "This program works, said Elias. "It has saved the lives of many teenagers. When they do this program and they learn to read, study and communicate, they stop being violent." After the shooting at Littleton, amphetamine (Dexedrine, Adderall). Breggin says doctors who prescribe stimulant drugs often seem oblivious to the fact that they can cause psychoses, including mani-clik- e and schizophrenic like disor- Colorado, the Colorado School ders. While we have an education system that relies on "educational use of psychiatric drugs, we have a powder keg just waiting for a spark. "In my practice of psychiatry, I am frequently consulted about children who are taking three, four, and sometimes five psychiatric drugs, including medications that are FDA approved only for the treatment of psychotic adults, said Dr Breggin. "The drug treatment typically begins when the children develops conflicts with adults at home or at school. In retrospect, these conflicts could easily have been resolved by interventions such as family counseling or individualized educational approaches. Just such an approach is used at Board adopted a policy that standard educational methods must be used in inference to psychotropic drugs. Genesys is proof dial this approach works. Subscribe to The Summit County Bee |