Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1983)
Dialogue Sex not worth $2,1 million By Doug Vaughan _______ Editor in Chief_____________ * Just some questions: Why do teenagers like sex? Want to earn $2.1 million? The truth is out. Congress passed a bill that will research why teenagers like sex. Oh yes, there is a little cost with that. You guessed it, $2.1 million. This intrigues me. First of all, why wouldn’t they like it? Secondly, this salary is head and shoulders above my current $4 plus an hour wage as a slave. Do I have the qualifica tions? Maybe I have the answers, but then maybe they are common sense. I am happy knowing every American’s tax dollars are being used to find out why people fulfill their natural desires. Aren’t you? Better yet, part of this bill allots money to an institute to find out why they like to do it in their homes. As opposed to what, I ask. Or maybe I shouldn’t ask. With all the current hardships that this country is facing, I feel there has to be something a little more productive that $2.1 million can go towards. I know $2.1 million is like spitting in the ocean, but why teenager's like sex is almost on the same line as why we like to talk. But wouldn’t you know it would be Con gress. Maybe a study should be done on their sexual behaviors. We have all heard the joke about why Congressmen don’t like bookmarks, right? Oh well, we’ll let scandals be scandals. On the other side of governmental spen ding, I came across some other interesting info. Not only is Congress willing to pay $2.1 million to find out about the birds and bees, but the Pentagon almost got suckered into buying a 12-cent hexagon wrench for close to $10,000. Wonder if they are interested in buying some great farming land I have up in the tundra? General Dynamics Corp., a St. Louis, Mo. corporation, allegedly offered the Pentagon this 12-cent wrench for $9,609, along with two three-inch pins for $7,417 each. The spokesman for the company, of course, “had no comment.’’ Good choice. This incident was the latest in the Senate’s investigations of alleged overcharges for military parts. Overcharges? That is putting it mildly. Last year the government spent over $19 billion on spare and maintenance parts. I guess that’s on the same line as spending $2.1 million on the analysis of teenage sex. Considering that the average American pays more than $3,500 per year in taxes, two taxpayers would have had to work a full year, and pay taxes in order to buy one of the pins. Without identifying themselves, govern mental aides said they were offered the pins free of charge from a local electrical supply store. Did anything good happen this week? The brightest spot of the week came as Presi dent Reagan signed a bill that designates every third Monday in January, beginning in 1986, a federal holiday, honoring Martin Luther King Jr. King became the first non-president to have such a holiday named in his honor. King dealt with a problem that has so many times caused violence. The catch is he did it without violence. The honor was whole-heartedly deserved. <The Print accepts letters to the editor. The letf' ters are subject to editing, and should not be false, libelous or obscene. All letters should be signed with authors name ^and address.________________________________ i Denny Smith ’s letter against media justified By J. Dana Haynes Arts Editor I recently received a letter warning against a dire threat to our country. The letter began with: “86 percent seldom or never attend church services .. . 81 percent voted for George McGovern for President in 1972 ... 81 percent also voted for Jimmy Carter for Presi dent in 1976 . . ..And now, they say President Reagan’s economic program will fail... Who are they? THE NATION’S MAJOR NEWS MEDIA!’’ Notice the use of capital letters there. Nice touch, I thought. And who, may you ask, sent the letter? Who is so disparaging of the media? Who likes using those three periods so much? Con gressman Denny Smith, take a bow. The letter goes on for four pages, plus lots of neat stuff enclosed and came in a gold and white envelope that asked the musical question “Have they turned you against the President?" Personally, I take excep tion to very little that Smith said in the opening paragraph, but then I’m not one of those newsmen he fears. Indeed, it is Wednesday November 9, 1983 true I seldom attend church services. However, I definitely did not vote for McGovern in ’72 (Editor’s note: Mr. Haynes was 12 years old in 1972. He recently admitted that he thought Captain Kirk would make a good president at the time). I also didn’t vote for Carter in ’76 (Editor’s Note: Mr. Haynes was still too young to vote in 1976. He did, however, switch his allegiance from Captain Kirk to Cat Stevens for Chief Executive). Furthermore, I have never said Reagan’s economic program will fail. I’m quite sure it will be a glowing suc cess, since his program is to create as much unemployment as possible, blame Carter for it all, give big business carte blanche to rape the planet and any employee they wish, blame Carter for it all, reinstate big-stick, gun boat diplomacy around the world, especially in hot spots (wars do wonders for an economy, you know) and generally blame all the ills of the world on Carter (Editor’s note: To date, Mr. Reagan has never blamed Jim my Carter for either the sink ing of the Andrea Doria or Legionaires disease). With an economic policy like that, how could he fail? The rest of Smith’s letter is pretty good, too. He goes on to ask me (the addressee) to do three things. First, to answer the enclosed MEDIA BIAS SURVEY (All caps again. Gets your attention, doesn’t it?). Second, to sign and mail my STOP MEDIA BIAS POSTCARDS to the president of CBS, NBC and ABC televi sion networks. Lastly, to sign and mail my SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT POSTCARD to Mr. Reagan. The STOP MEDIA BIAS POSTCARDS are my favorite. There are three of them, already addressed to Mr. Grant Tinker, Mr. Thomas Wyman and Mr. Leonard H. Goldenson, the network presidents. The three postcards deride the networks for running “deliberate anti conservative, anti-Reagan bias’’ and each threatens that I will stop watching each par ticular network if things don’t change. To Denny Smith’s favor, I must note that he got the fronts and backs of the postcards in the right order. Can you imagine what would happen if the card addressed to Grant Tinker threatened to boycott ABC. Tinker would probably start sprinkling “Bonzo Goes to College’’ jokes throughout NBC’s “Mr. Smith,’’ a show about an ape in Washington. Basically, the letter is fron a lobbying group called Con servatives Against Liberal Legislation (as opposed, I guess, to Conservatives For Liberal Legislation), with Denny and the center piece. The letter goes on for four pages decrying the unfairness of the media. In many ways, I agree with the committee and Denny Smith. The President and the media could get along better. Perhaps, when Reagan says such things as the “rescue mis sion’’ in Granada was definite ly not an “invasion,’’ the news reporters shouldn’t snicker. When he says “budget enhancement” is not the same thing as “tax hikes,” we should all nod sagely. When he says there is not documented evidence that acid rain is bad, or that it even ex ists, the papers and the net works should just leave well enough alone. With these, and a few like policy changes, the media could get along much better with Mr. Reagan and please Oregon’s own Mr. Smith. It’s certainly worth a try. (Editor’s note: Mr. Haynes is currently of voting age. In 1984, he still might not vote in line with the Conser vatives Against Liberal Legislation.) ÎQHAPÔODY!! THE OPPORTUNITY EXISTS. EXPRESS YOURSELF! Trailer B Page 3
