P agi A ? M arch 2 ó , 1997 • T he P ori land O bserver EDITORIAL Attention Readers! Please take a minute to send us your comments. We’re always trying to give you a better paper and we can’t do it without your help. Tell us what you like and what needs improvement... any suggestions are welcomed and appreci ated. We take criticism well! Get your powerful pens out NOW and address your letters to: Editvr. Reader Response. P.O, Bo» 3137. Portland. OR 97208. Jfîo rtlan it (©bseruer (USPS 959-680) Established in 1970 Charles Washington Publisher & Editor Mark Washington Distribution Manager Gary Ann Taylor Business Manager Paul Neufeldt Production & Design Danny Bell Advertising Sales Manager Tony Washington Arts & Entertainment Gary Washington Public Relations Audrey Washington Business Assistant Contributing Writers: Professor McKinley Burt, Lee Perlman, Neal Heilpern, Eugene Rashad 4747 N E M a r tin L u th e r K ing, J r. Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97211 503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015 E m ail: Pdxobserv@ aol.com Deadline fo r all submitted materials: Articles:Friday, 5:00 pm Ads: Monday, 12:00pm P O S T M A S T E R : Send Address Changes To: Portland Observer, P.O. Box 3137, Portland, O R 97208. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon. Subscriptions: $30.00 per year The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manu scripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned it accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property of the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad. © 1996 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITH OUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland Observer-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publica tion—is a member of the National Newspaper Association-Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publishers Association • Serving Portland and Vancouver. S ubscribe to Cbe |io rtia n b <if)b aerucr The Portland Observer can be sent directly to your home for only $30.00 per year. Please fill out, enclose check or money order, and mail to: S ubscriptions T he P ortland O bserver ; PO B ox 3137 P ortland , O regon 97208 Name: Address: City, State: Zip-Code: __ __ ___________ T hank Y ou F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver Gun control can work Gun Control can work, now that we have instant background check and all the honest citizens fingerprinted that buy firearms, maybe we should work on drying up the Gun Supply to the Criminals To keep the Guns out of the hands o f criminals and teenagers, why not give a Tax Credit fo r Gun Safes. While gun cases do display our gun collections, they do not protect them, and burglars walk o ff with 5 or 6 firearms at a time Since 95% of all firearms used in Crimes, have been stolen and sold on the street, these guns are obtained through burglaries A good share of these burglaries are committed by teenagers who are hooked on drugs and have no other way to support their habit. Even though 80% o f all crimes are drug related, Politicians, don t mention drugs too much, because 40% o f our work force uses drugs and another / 0% are so disabled by drugs they can't work. They don't want to offend them, after all, they do vote They have even tried to outlaw "Saturday Night Specials ", these are guns that are so cheap you can throw them away after committing a crime Well, the street guns are all "Saturday Night Specials" A Firearm that would cost $300 00 or $400 00 at a Gun Shop or Gun Show, they can be bought on the street fo r about $60.00 A Tax Credit fo r Gun Safes, would be the best Gun Control fo r drying up the guns to the criminals. Maybe the drug pushers fighting for their territory, would go back to knifing each other, at least innocent by slanders wouldn 't be getting shot —P.M. Lister, Concerned Citizen p e Editorial articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views o f |Jnrtlanb (©bseruer r s p e c t i v e s “Small Is Beautiful - Or Is It? everal decades ago an innovative economist by the name of Schumacher caught the world’s attention with a little book that very quickly became a best seller. “Small Is Beautiful” was the title and it changed some of the thinking toward development in ‘Third- World* countries. Today, there is a comparable ap preciation for the diminutive-size business enterprise, a process driven by the nation’s escalating mergers, downsizing and layoffs. “Small is not so much a thought-out process or a academic exercise with this sudden expansion o f micro-com merce, but rather the result o f a survival strategy utilized by tens-of- thousands o f highly skilled but newly-unemployed members of the workforce. Professor Schumacher’s little text highlighted a number of inventive processes that could be used to “down-size" the agricultural and manufacturing techniques that west- em nations were forcing upon the small countries they intended to aid. Unlike much of academia, this sa vant actually went into the Held (jungle, bush and savanna) and dem onstrated his successful small-scale economics that took into account the culture and tradition of the popula tion. We are immediately led to reflect that this great surge in small business en ter prise in our own country may dras tically modify a number o f social relatio n sh ip s — both within and without the family. It is especially significant that a great deal of the new economic ac tivity will be conducted from the home. Obviously, there is already a shifting and modification of tradi tional duties, many previously sex- assigned In Prof Schumacher’s econom ics realm o f the “undeveloped r peoples" there had been a series of financial and social disasters as westerners attempted to install the technologies ofmass production and similar “cold, impersonal” forms of trade and commerce. Schumacher quickly perceived that any workable system would have to take into ac count certain traditional roles that had been firmly established over the centuries. ‘Work must have dig nity!’ By 1 particularly Professor remember the case Mckinley study on ‘chicken Burt and e g g s’. The Im p o rt-E x p o rt Bank and anotherhugh International agency had teamed up to make this small country a regional mass pro- ducerof frozen chickens and ofeggs. Tens of millions of dollars and the most sophisticated equipment avail able could not make a success of the ill-fated venture with its acres of sophisticated brooding pens and re frigeration and an uncomprehend- ing populace Schumacher’s solution was to downscale the venture to a network of ‘family-sized’ ventures, where individuals had meaningful roles in the production process and, very importantly, could visualize the pro cedure from start to finish. What he did in so many of these models was to ‘restore the human equation ’ Now, local people made the egg cartons. I know that it must have occurred to you, “could such a process be at work in our own country?” We do not have an identifiable Prof. Schumacher, but certainly, under the pressure of expanding layers the fam i ly un it business enterprise is becoming more and more important in our economic system. We must ask several other ques tions, like is this a long term trend in domestic relations? Or will the pow erful economic giants, created by the mergers and buyouts move quickly to sop up and trade they may have missed the first time around. Children that have families that trully care To the Editor: C *" am writing this letter is hopes you will be able to help my family and other like me in a nightmare situation. You see I have been at the mercy of a merciless agency for almost two years now. It all started when two children, (teenagers) conceived a beautiful baby girl, my granddaughter. The child was injured, no one know how or who. No charges were ever filed. Children's Services took the child. This is where the nightmare and pain, also the games, ups and dow n^ hope and despair begins The agencies incentives are Fed eral funds if adopted to non-family members. Their agenda is to divide and conquer. They try and break down families with their constant games. They make a person think they are nothing and count for even less. They choose families they think cannot defend themselves and are not wealthy enough to retain legal help of any caliber to fight them. They make up lies and put on record things that have been proven the opposite to be true We are not allowed to speak, even if we were allowed to speak we are not heard. It s a bad script. This is the worse travesty of justice and denial of our civil rights that I have personally ever come in contact with as an American citizen How this could ever be justified is beyond all belief. They tell you things to do that might help you only to come back later and say they didn’t tell you this and they said that. I feel all the time that I have just been taking up space and going through the motions to no avail. As time goes by and I speak with others, it’s the same agenda they have used a thousand times before me and after me. Our families have not been di vided as they have tried to do. But our families have been beat down to the point of depression and not be ing able to move. Even if we knew how to move But this is common practice for this agency. I am a law abiding citizen. I work hard, pay iny taxes, pay my bills, don t drink or do drugs, and live in a society where children are ripped from their families, played with emotionally and put up for adoption, and never have the right to know who or where they came from or how better much they are loved! I am not wealthy or from money or this would not be happening. I am not poor but I don't have the kind of money it lakes to fight this agency either. So just because I am not in a position to know what to do they think they can get away with mur der. CSD tells me what I can do but in the same breath they tell me it won t do any good anyway. They discourage and lie to you and turn around and say they did not tell you the things you know they did. I was told it would cost me around three thousand dollars for home studies, psychological evaluation etc. and there is probably not a chance I would get her I would have to go up against two or three other perspec tive adoptive parents and some god panel would chose the one who they deemed to be the best family. I can not believe this injustice to the hu man race! Why in the world would you own family be given to strangers when you are a perfectly good and loving person that wanted to raise your own grandchild? Instead of PShe (SJfator Send your letters to the Editor to: Editor, PO Box 3137, Portland, OR 97208 checking out my background, they put my granddaughter in foster care, which must cost the state a fortune. I am not trying to minimize my granddaughters injuries. As they were not something to take light of, they were quite serious. That’s what I have been told anyway. But due process is denied. Their due process is a joke because its their laws, made up as they go along. Their due pro cess is to leave the grandparents out. There are many like me that do not have the know how or have the funds to fight these people that play god with our lives. That does not justify our loses. I believe this is why they choose people like me. All I can do is hope and pray that this letter gets into the hands of someone that will take me seriously. I am nol a crack pot or a lunatic, or even delu sional. I have been living in hell long enough. Thank you for listen ing to me. May God bless you and open your eyes and heart to what is going on. No matter what they call themselves next week it’s the same agency with the same agenda. People seem to forget that chil dren are people and have feelings and should have rightsjust like any one else! Sincerely, Micaela E Dunkel- berger, Portland, Oregon Is partial birth abortion justified? ' he pro-abortion industry and those office holders ' who supported the grue some procedure of partial birth abortion built their defense of the horror on the lie that the abortions were done rarely and only on ill women or deformed children. After last w eek’s New York Times story, the abortion lobby's one, hollow, wooden leg of lies has collapsed, and abortion advo cates have no leg to stand on,” said Family Research Council Associate Director of Government Relations Amy Myers on Wednes day “Physicians from C Everett Koop to the American Medical Association agree that no medical reason exists to perform a partial birth abortion, and therefore par tial birth abortions must be banned to stop what is tantamount to legal infanticide.” Myers issued her statement as Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.) and Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) held a joint news conference in the U S Capitol announcing the re-introduc tion of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act and upcoming hearings on the horrid procedure Partial birth abortion is an abor tion technique used after the 20th week of pregnancy in which the feet of a child are grasped and pulled down into the birth canal. The bahy is partially born — body outside, head lodged inside — when a scis sors is stabbed into the base of the skull and living brain tissue suctioned out. Reasons an abortion ist uses such a horrible procedure include the fact that it’s easier to be sure that the baby’s entire body has been removed. In many abortions, the baby is dismembered in the womb and pulled out piece by piece. That is more difficult with an older child, and one complication from abortion is infection and bleeding because a part of the child is sometimes left inside. "The next lie the media must un cover involves the smoke screen the abortion industry uses when it tries to hide behind ‘health’ talk," Myers said The Supreme Court, in Doe v. Bolton, defined the word “health" so broadly that ALL abortions were made legal through the ninth month for any reason whatsoever. "The life of the mother has al ways been protected in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act,” Myers noted. “The abortion industry is attempting to gut this vital legisla tion with legal word games while wearing the sheep's clothing of health talk. Unfortunately, womeiT s lives will not be saved because of the health language. Only children’s lives will be lost.” by the Family Research Council Civil Rights Journal: In Support of Alexis Herman by B ernice P owell J ackson am a native Washingto- nian, so I guess I should 1 not ever be surprised at the politics of that city. As an African American woman, I know that It is never easy for any of us. But the delays surrounding the nomination of Alexis Herman as Secretary of Labor have surprised and saddened even me. 1J Alexis Herman is a woman who has spent much o f her professional life working on behalf o f working men and women. She began her career in her native Alabama as a social worker for Catholic Chari ties, working to develop skilled training opportunities for unem ployed youth and unskilled work- f ers. I first heard her name twenty years ago when she was director of a special training program at the Recruitment Training Program to get m inority women into high- paying non-traditional jobs. Work ing with Ernest Green at RTP, Ms. Herman was responsible forchang- ingthe lifeo ptionsofthousandsof African American men and women and their families. In recognition o f this signifi cant accomplishment and her ex traordinary talents, only a few years later, during the Carter ad ministration Ms. Herman became the youngest person ever named to head the W omen’s Bureau o f the Department of Labor. Both of these < experiences required Ms Herman to work closely with both labor and management, with men and women, with a variety of commu nity groups and captains of indus try. She mounted new programs to help low -incom e and younger women with employment-related problem s and was elevated to deputy undersecretary. Continuing to hone her politi cal skills and acumen, she went on tocoordinatethe 1992 Democratic Convention in New York City and to work as Director of Office of Public liaison in the White House. Thus, it seems that Alexis Herman has spent her professional life pre paring herself to be Secretary of Labor o f the United States Yet her nom ination remains mired in the muck and mire of the 105th Congress and is only sched uled to reach the Senate Labor Committee floor on March 18, some two months after her nomi nation In the words o f Boston G lo b e co lu m n ist T hom as Oliphant, “The fact is that white men from both parties with Alexis Herman’s background and record in government, business and poli tics have been confirmed by the dozens for senior positions in de fense, intelligence, energy, hous ing, transportation, scientific work and Jeffords (the Labor Commit tee Chair) has routinely voted for them ” And whilea lot of unproven innu endos have been heard in cloakroom co n v ersations about President Clinton’s fundraising activities and her lies to them, there have been no formal face-to-face accusations against Ms Herman. Indeed, she has met individually with a number of Senators and answered their ques tions In the words of Dr. Dorothy Height, President o f the National Council ofNegro Women, “Is it fair that the professional career and stel lar reputation of Alexis Herman is being buried in the ashes of decep tive and damaging delay, spins of repetitive misinformation and innu endo all to the point of the possible abuse of the hearing process. But it seems that once again, when it comes to the nomination of an African American woman to high office that the United States Senate is not seeking the truth Rather, it prefers to let the nominations wal low, to let support for the candidates wane and to kill the nominees’ repu tations without ever letting them answer their anonymous accusers. I( sounds a lot like McCarthyism It feels a lot like racism and sexism in our nations'corridors of power And we all lose from it. (Note: You may write Senator James Jeffords in support of Alexis Herman at 728 Hart Senate Build ing, Washington, DC 20510 or fax (202)224-8330. You may also write your own Senators asking them to confirm her nomination at the same address.)