Ill I'I'NI lt MiRK.t (.AZETTETIMES. TaunuUy November I. U73
Horse sense
lltISTV.JI.K
KGW TV reporters who hoped they had stumbled onto
another "Watergate" by airing allegations of wrong -doing by
the Lake Penljnd Corp on Oct. 22, didn't do their home work
very well When their expose-type newscast is stripped of all
its innuendo, allegations, surmises, speculation and
downright distortion, only two facts energe from that
broadcast -there is, as charged, a Lake Penland, and there
is. as charged, a Lake Penland Corp Otherw ise. there isn't a
word of truth in the w hole sorry mess that has turned into a
tempest in a teapot, upset half the state of Oregon, given Gov.
McCall a bad case of trauma, overjoyed the advocates of
ecology . and cast a cloud upon the integrity of a few Heppner
citiens.
I will not dignify the KGWTV distortions by repeating
the innuendos of "hanky panky " by Lake Penland Corp They
have been refuted and shown to be false by the
Gazette-Times article of last week and by the one which
appears on page t of this issue.
Just as it appeared that Judge Paul Jones iwho is
obviously the intended scapegoat of the whole affair i had
been given a clean bill of health, along comes the Sunday,
iKt 28 issue of the Oregonian w herein a staff reporter. Paul
Pintanch. writes concerning the Lake Penland affair:
' Jones acknowledged he is owner of all 40 lots at the site
Lake Penland' but said the corporation is non-profit and
denied he was an officer."
Judge Jones, of course, never acknowledged any such
thing. He is not and never w as and never w ill be the ow ner of
40 lots at Lake Penland. He is and has been from the
beginning the owner of one lot for which he paid three
thousand dollars, title to which has not reverted to him as
yet
So much for the integrity of certain newsmen and certain
news media It isn't hard, with these two cases of bad
reporting so close to home, to understand why Mr. Nixon
might be upset by what reporters choose to write about him.
Officials of Lake Penland Corp. have a right to answers
to some questions, such as: Who furnished the erroneous
information that brought the two KGW-TV reporters to
Heppner" Once here, why did not the reporters check into
records before "shooting from the hip" in such an
irresponsible manner1 Was the story actually written in
Portland before the reporters ever got here? Why did Gov.
McCall act so impulsively by asking for Judge Jones'
withdrawal from a seat on'the Oregon Land Conservation
and Development Commission within a matter of a few
hours and without ascertaining the facts? Why was Jones,
whose sole involvement in Lake Penland was purchase of a
lot. singled out for investigation while officials of Lake
Penland Corp. were not?
The tw o representatives here for the "informal hearing"
may have revealed the crux of the matter by their reaction to
t he-manner in which the Lake Penland project was built. The
were astounded that 25 businessmen would hand over
seventy-five thousand dollars to Orville Cutsforth and not
even get a receipt for their money. They didn't know Orville.
And they didn't know the 25 businessmen. And they didn't
know that people in this section of the country grow to know
and have faith in their friends and neighbors of long standing.
People east of the Cascades operate in a climate of trust.
They believe in open dealing, and they don't write down and
tile every "nod of the head" with the County Clerk in the
presense of nine w itnesses. Had they followed strict protocol
in raising money and proceeding with the dam. they would
have been so busy with legal and bureaucratic redtape that
the dam would not yet be built. "What did Orville Cutsforth
do with the seventy-five thousand dollars?" the two Salem
officials wanted to know (and which, strictly speaking, was
none of their business i. "He built a dam." they were told.
Incredible! A little faith and trust among friends must be
something rare in Salem.
Sen. Mark Hatfield has mounted a crusade to cut military
spending by reducing military appropriations. He believes,
and correctly I think, that government spending is the No. 1
cause of inflation. But he proposes to cut tat trom the
military budget i which surely exists) without cutting it from
other and equally spend-happy departments of the federal
government. If the entire military budget were wiped out
there could be no great reduction in the rate of inflation,
because only 18 per cent of the federal budget goes to the
military forces. On the other hand, the Department of
Health. Education & Welfare consumes 72 per cent of the
budget i if the figures of Howard K. Smith. ABC news
commentator, are correct). It would appear to me that a
prime target for reduction of spending would be the HEW.
with the military taking a lower priority. As long as we have
a military strong enough to keep the country free, we can
afford the luxury of social programs promoted by HEW. But
if the military forces fail and our enemies triumph, there w ill
be no HEW and no social programs at all. It is far more
desirable to be alive in a free country sampling the joys of
unemployment compensation than to be enslaved by a
foreign power and put to work in the salt mines.
- i ne mjuoie wTfn "people who want to cut budgets is that,
pinned down, they don't know what to cut out of a program.
Well. I've got a teeny suggestion for HEW. The letters the
Gazette-Times has been getting from HEW agencies in
Portland come with air mail postage paid. There is no air
mail' service between Heppner and anywhere, so why spend
11 cents to do an 8-cent job0
Last week in Eugene. 2.000 parking meters were hooded
and shoppers given unlimited parking in the downtown area.
Not only have the meters driven shoppers to surburban
shopping centers, but now. perhaps too late, downtown
Eugene merchants are taxing themselves $235,000 a year to
reinstitute the free parking they surrendered years ago
because of a sales pitch given by parking meter salesmen,
of course) that they would regulate traffic and raise money
lor the city As in many other towns and cities, the parking
meters have just about destroyed business. There is yet time
for Heppner to remove its parking meters before somebody
builds a shopping center away from the downtown area and
otfer free, unlimited parking. It will be too late, once a
shopping center is in. (or downtwon businesses to counter the
flow of traffic -and business-- that will flow to such a center.
Heppner is well aware that these meters have served their
usefulness. They are no longer needed because there is no
parking problem. They are a source of irritation and
annoyance. They do not return enough money to maintain
and repair them They are ugly and unsightly And if (he city
council prides itelf on carrying out the wishes of the people,
why has H ignored the poll taken by the Gazette Times
wherein the people voted 5 to 1 for removal of the meters ?
) mxcm V )
jm ) 1
Click!
Somebody out there likes us .
(Editor's note: This editorial was written by a Canadian
editor and was recently read into the Congressional Record.
We think it worthy of repeating at a time when the United
States is hard pressed to find one friendly nation among all
those she has given aid over the years, i
The United States' dollar took another pounding on
German. French and British exchange this morning, hitting
the lowest point ever known in West Germany.
It has declined there by 41 per cent since 1971 and this
Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as
the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people
in all the earth.
As long as 60 years ago, when I first started to read
newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the
Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The
Americans did.
They have helped control floods on the Nile the Amazon,
the Ganges and the Niger.
Today the rich bottomland of the Mississippi is under
water and no foreign land has sent a dollar 3 help.
Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent. Britian and
Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans
who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in
debts.
None of those countries is today paying even the interest
on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc w as in danger of collapsing in 1956, it w as
the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be
insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris.
I was there. I saw it.
When distant cities are hit by earthquake is the United
States that hurries in to help.. .Managua. Nicaragua, is one of
the most recent examples. So far this spring. 59 American
Communities have been flattened by tornadoc Nobody has
helped.
The Marshall Plan, the Truman Policy, all pumped
billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries,
Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the
decadent warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries hat is gloating
over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own
airplanes.
Come on, let's hear it!
Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal
the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar n- the Douglas
10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international
lines except Russia fly American planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a
man or woman on the moon?
You talk about Japanese technocracy a id you get radios.
You talk about German technocracy and you get
automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and vou
find men on the moon, not once, but several limes. ..and
safelv home again.
You talk about scandlas and the Americans put theirs
right in the store window for everybody to look at.
Even their draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our streets, most of them. . .unless they are
breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from
Ma and Pa at home to spend here.
When the Americans get out of this bind. . as they will. .
who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of
the world. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds. Let
someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign
buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.'
When the railways of France, Germany and India were
breaking down through age, it was the Americans who
rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New
York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old
caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5.000 times when the Americans raced to
the help of other people in trouble.
Can you name me even one time when someone else
raced to the Americans in trouble?
I don't think there was outside help even owing the San
1 rancisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone and I'm one Canadian
who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They
w ill come out of this thing w ith their flag high. And when they
do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the ands that are
g'oating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of these.
But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians.
And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th
annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was
broke. This year's disasters. . .with the year less than half
over. . .have taken it all and nobody has helped.
Batteries may spark man 's future world
by ROBERT t. RADCLIFFE
Armed with fresh batteries,
man may yet rule the world.
This idea comes to mind
after a look at what's being
called "the revolution in
packaged power," or the
success in building better
batterieS-more powerful,
longer-lasting, and smaller, if
not always cheaper.
The battery builders of
America are charged up over
tomorrow. They predict:
-By the 1980s, hundreds of
thousands of small battery
powered passenger cars each
year replacing gasoline guzz
lers on city streets.
-In the next four or five
years, about one-fourth of all
new- wrist watches run by
button-size batteries.
-For thp near fntoremfltL
portable batteries-a discov
ery that may date to before
Christ --has already made it
self indispensable in modern
life, the National Geographic
Society says.
Man is now ready to conquer
life's chores with battery
powered hair dryers, tooth
brushes, fishing lures and cold
drink stirrers.
Tiny batteries energize
surgically implanted pace
makers to steady heartbeats,
keep pocket-size beacons
flashing to pinpoint downed
fliers, and tune in the world
for the deaf with hidden-in-side-the-ear
hearing aids. '
Basically, a battery is
merely a device generating
electricity from chemical ac
tion. The earliest ones--the wet
cell type-were heavy, and
Miltiary and aerospace e
quipment requires miniatur
ized dry cell batteries for new
integrated circuits, drawing
only low currents. Today's
cordless electric gadgets are
safer than their plug-in counter-parts:
Household current
is about 1 17 volts, but batteries
put out 5 to 15 volts-well below
the 25-volt level considered
dangerous.
Cars use lead-acid bat-teries--43
million went into
used cars last year, and 11
million into new cars-costing
about $25 each. Lead-acid
batteries arrived in 1912 with
the invention of the electric
starter, soon to end the
harvest of broken arms reap
ed by the hand crank.
Among lhnsi
ern kitchens equipped with
even more labor-saving gad
gets, all rechargeable.
Electric power stored in
corrosive acid. That's why car
batteries once were strapped
to running boards or slung
underneath.
hoping for an electric car are
lead-acid battery makers.
They toresee a small, two
passenger, low-speed, com
muter car capable of 75 miles
of stop-and-go driving on one
battery charge.
A run-down battery could be
replaced in a few minutes at a
neighborhood service station,
they say, or recharged at
home with household current
and a converter. One cost
estimate is 1 to 3' 2 cents a
mile.
Archeologists say they have
found electroplated materials
4,000 years old near old
Baghdad, and 2,000-yearK)ld
batteries-pots with iron rods,
copper sheeting, and signs of
acid corrosion.
Science usually credits It
aly's Alessandro Volta with
inventing the first primitive
batteries about 1800, but
shudders at his method of
-4estif)g4fecm : He touthetHhe
wires to his eyelids and judged
the power of the weak
currents by the flash appear
ing before his eyes.
The mail pouch
EDITOR.
Recently when I attended the American Cancer Society
mobile unit in lone. I asked w hy I had not been able to use the
unit in Heppner and w as told that one of our local doctors had
told them not to come.
He gave his reasons as the women of Heppner would not
understand that this was not a complete physical
examination, but only a PAP smear lest for cancer.
I think the women of Heppner are more conscientious and
we should be able to decide for ourselves whether or not we
should use the "free" facilities I understand a physical
examination is terribly important : however, a PAP smear is
important by itself in the prevention of uterine cancer, and I
think that many more Heppner women would have availed
themselves of the "free" facility if the unit had visited here.
I hope after this the women s wishes will be the deciding
factor
MRS. NORMAN CLOW.
Heppner
Mayor of Hardman
lEAI MISTER EDITOR:
Does happenings run in cycle, or Is II Ihe reporting of the
doings in this world that cU like a broken record ever oncl in
a while?
This question was studied up one side and d wn the other
by fellers at Ihe country store Saturday night.
After the discussion It was general Barred. Mister Editor,
that news is like wimmen's clothes, li s got lo keep up with
the fashions of Ihe day , One season the skirts is all you hear
annul, and the next lime you look Ihe gals has fergot wuther
skirts Is short or long, but they're all wearing the same
wooden sole shoes with big clodhopper heels. The fellers Is
convinced that's (he way It rs with news.
Fer a solid month, allowed Ed Doolittle, all you can read
about in Ihe papers Is Inflation. Hack in Ihe summer we had
Ihe Watergate hearings. Ed went on. and Inflation was off
somewhere shifting fer itself. First thing you Know
somebody has come up with a new disease, and we read
about that fer a week. Rut comes the Worli Series and
medical research is dead fer the duration Hurricane season
alius is cause lo keep the weather on the front page fer a
spell, Ed added
Lately, said Ed, we've had plenty of new news like same
old war between the Arabs and the Jews and Ihe Vice
President quitting, and that is what is so puzzling about all
the UFOs Ed said people usual see all these flying objects
during dog davs when news is slack, but in the lasl couple of
months we've'had a flock of UFO sightings all Ihe way from
Mississippi to Moscow - and right in the middle of all the
other news. Ed said thev really might be sompun to this UFO
business after all, if It's going to keep making Ihe papers
right along with Agnew. inflation, the Mideast, and Lake
Penland.
Clem Webster said he had been reading ibnut the strange
lights and the spaceships, and he had saw here a perfessor
that studies Ihe stars at Northwestern Unis -rsity said flat out
the visitors was from another planet. Wh. I s worrying him
now, declared Clem, is that all of em wai ts lo visit us, but
none of em wants to live here. They've all I k off in a hurrv
after a quick look around. Maybe, Clem said, they know
somepun we don't.
Actual, broke in Bug Hookum, the reported visits of UFOs
has been in this country. Hug said he saw by the papers
where Russians scientists had reported picking up strange
radio "pulses" they figgered was another world trying to git
in touch, but they ain't had any visits. So the UFOs don't want
to git clost to Russia.
Issac Comfodder. that don't have much lo sty at the
country store sessions, said that explains they is intelligent
life behind them UFOs. Issac said fer his mone Russia ain't
even a nice place to visit.
Yours truly,
MAYOR ROY.
W f s f
Sweet
charity
puterized
BY
LESTER KIYSOLYIVG
"Now, ttey qm'f wild men, but neorly.
they're Wofergote itnesses'"
In 1968. the income of the Christian Childrens Fund, Inc. of
Richmond. Va., (CCF) was $10 million.
By 1971 that income had more than doubled to $20,578,416.
. This remarkable accomplishment had its beginning in
advertising placed in church magazines. The ads show large
photographs of adorable little girls placed just above such
heart-rending captions as:
"HUNGER IS ALL SHE HAS EVER KNOWN"
As Ihe income mounted over three years, these same
appealing photographs of little girls began appearing on TV
s well as in such purportedly respectable magazines as
lime and Reader's Digest. The little girls now adorn
1 ighway billboards as well.
"Why do these ads always use little girls?" asked the Rev.
Jerald Huntzinger, a Richmond Methodist minister.
His question was of course, rhetorical: For the Rev. Mr.
Huntzinger. as advertising manager of CCF, knows full well
why. And he says so, in a newsworthy article he wrote for
Fund Raising Management magazine:
"Because the oersnn most ant lo become a CCF sponsor
i$12 per month for a guarantee 'Your child will write to you')
has a' well-defined profile:
She is 50 years old. her family is grown up, she has a
normal residue of guilt. ..Her happiest days were when her
babies were in diapers - and now she is just plain
lonesome., .Not all CCF's prospective sponsors are going to
fit into an exact profile, but if ever ad is slanted for this
profile, the people on the fringe of this profile will be most apt
to respond. Because, let's face it America, the problems of
Ihe woman in middle age are the problems of us all."
The handsome young minister also writes in his article
(which is enthusiastically entitled $25 MILLION YEAR IN
OFFERING AS ALLMEDIA DRIVE SCORES") that:
When anyone answers these CCF ads, his name goes into a
compuler. which provides an immediate responding letter as
well as a follow-up letter 30 days later, if there is no reply.
Then the "regular cycle" of what Huntzinger describes as
"Mailings professionally created to appear non-professional"
includes six additional appeal letters.
"When a sponsor gets behind in giving, he receives a series
of four computer-written collection letters - Marling with a
soft reminder and getting firmer as the series
progresses. ..This 'collection' program generates enough
back payments each year Ri more than pay for Ihe entire cost
oTThTla1flapl'ssTngsiyslem ! "
"The technique is direct marketing. . .Ihe ii come has now
moved from arithmetic and geometric grow h."
Besides the computer, advertising and administrative
costs, there is a considerable expense involved in getting all
those letters translated so that "your child will write to you."
this touching, but expensive technique has been resisted
by such respected relief agencies as the American Friends
Service Committee in Philadelphia as well as the Catholic
Relief Services and Ihe Church World Service ( Protestant ) in
New York. These agencies, who keep their overhead at less
(han 10 percent, can feed entire villages, promptly, because
ihey do not have lo spend time and money looking for
photogenic children and translators of their letters.
But the Rev. M. Huntzinger's geometric gold mine of
computerized children will probably continue to thrive. For
the donors to CCF apparently prefer written appreciation
from one child, as translated, lo the unheralded satisfaction
of feeeding and clothing several children.
THir
GAZETTE-TIMES
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