Page X THE GAZETTE-TIMES, Heppner, OR., Thursday, Apr. 3,
1975
Horse
sense a
ERNEST V. JOINER
w
fly
W '"111
0 A few years ago during these Ides of March a few
newsmen were solving the nation's ills over a few breakers of
bourbon. Clarence Hall of the Wareham, Mass., Courier had
just had a round with his accountant and the income tax
people, and began compiling a list of people and things he
hated. He got some help from the rest of us, and before long
he had a column on the subject. And didn't we all!
The thing I hate most at this time of the year is Certified
Public Accountants.
I dislike taxi drivers, health and accident insurance
policy salesmen, telephone solicitors, psychiatrists, men who
wear loud pants, radio disc jockeys who talk a lot, people who
use such words as "viable" and "structured," men hair
stylists cowboys who wear Levis so tight they are forever in
danger of emasculation if they suddenly squat. But I hate
Certified Public Accountants.
I dislike education instruction, tweedy college profes
sors, politicians who make speeches about reducing taxes,
telephone operator supervisors, head nurses, people who call
other people "darling," people who begin every explanatory
sentence with "Basically," surly waitresses, people who are
surly to surly waitresses, men who leave their top four shirt
buttons unbuttoned to expose the hair on their chests, football
announcers who describe and analyze every play, American
Legion conventions and people who like dogs more than they
like people. But especially, I hate Certified Public
Accountants.
I dislike car salesmen who sell you a car and then you
find out the gas tank is optional, privileges for minorities that
can't be had for the majority, bigots other than myself,
fence-sitting editors, people who play canasta, anything the
government has anvthing to do with, hypocrites, almost bald
people who swirl their hair around from the back to cover the
bald spot, doctors who hum, people who wake up happy,
haughty public servants, public relations men, book clubs,
book salesmen, perfectionists, people who wear two-tone
pointed shoes, people who wear dark glasses to disguise their
shifty eves, and shifty-eyed people without dark glasses. And
1 hate Certified Public Accountants.
I dislike people who ask. "How are you?" Then rush
awav without giving you a chance to tell them, wedding
stories where every detail of the bride's outer- and
under-attire is described but you never learn the name of the
groom environmentalists who write editors 1500-word letters
loaded with libel and add a P.S. saying "If you have guts
voull print this exactly as written and without editorial
comment." small men with large fannies, large women with
small fannies, jingle contests, chiropractors, tour guides and
computerization. Mostly, though, I hate Certified Public
Accountants.
I dislike TV weather forecasters, restaurants with
knotty-pine walls, bank commercials saying how friendly
they "are. cucumber sandwiches, bums, liars, loudmouths,
bullies, tax collectors, pimps, people who show home movies,
and people who pour catsup all over their french fries.
But Certified Public Accountants I hate. They are pale,
skinnv wet-nosed and self-righteous. They write small neat
figures Their Big Deal is balancing columns of figures. They
treat you like they would a criminal. They are cold,
humorless, colorless, devoid of human compassion, callous
and cruel.
I filed my income tax this week.
This is still a great country. Here every man is presumed
to be innocent, unless he just got back from a convention.
There is one man in the Oregon Senate who gets
respectful attention. When he rises, silence falls. All eyes are
glued to his. His colleagues watch his every move. They'd
damn well better. He is Jack D. Ripper of North Bend,
representing the 24th District.
Next to saving the environment, growing vegetables in
natural manure and impeaching the president the national
kick" is to force every man. woman and child to fasten seat
belts. Manufacturers have been persuaded to make cars that
will not start until seat belts are fastened. Billboards,
magazines, television, radio, newspapers and platform
speakers cry out for "buckling up" as if the national
existence depends upon it. State legislatures have passed
laws imposing penalties for failure to fasten seat belts
including fines and forfeiture of drivers licenses. During all
this furore, hubbub and clamor; all this outpouring of
concern for automobile drivers who don't give a damn one
way or the other about seat belts not a voice has demanded
that school buses be equipped with seat belts and that
children be required to use them while buses are in transit .
Why?
The sex discrimination suit is becoming the national
kick It's the biggest thing to sweep the country since the
hoola hoop. Up in Connecticut a waitress filed a sex
discrimination suit against a restaurant that fired her for not
shaving her legs. She said she stopped shaving her legs five
vears ago when she found out men liked them that way.
Customers had complained about her gorilla-like legs, but
she refused to shave them because, she said, men didn t have
to shave theirs! I imagine she owns the restaurant by now
and has male waiters in mini-skirt uniformi-and shaved
legs On another front, the Housing and Urban Development
Act of 1974 prohibits mention of sex in the sale or rental of
dwellings. This meant that a girl advertising for another girl
to share an apartment couldn't specify a girl was wanted. All
of which resulted in some pretty hilarious situations when
men applied to share the apartment, were turned down
because of their sex, thus violating another federal law! HUD
has now "informally advised" newspapers that ads seeking
roommates or persons to share apartments are exempt from
the 1974 law. So, at long last, a federal agency has admitted
there can be no total enforcement of many sex discrimination
laws. Which we all knew from the beginning. See you in the
men's room, girls!
m
I THE GAZETTE-TIMES
MORROW COUNTY'S NEWSPAPER
Box 337. Heppner. Ore. 97836
Subscription rate : $6 per year in
Oregon. $7 elsewhere
Ernest V. Joiner, Publisher
Thur&Hav and entered IS 1
ruuiinnru vivi; -
sccond-clasi matter at the post office at g
Heppner. Oregon, under the act of March 3, 1879.
L Second-class postage paia ai iioppner,
Caravan
to visit
A caravan of Airstrenm
trailers from the Eastern
Oregon Unit will hold a rally
at the Morrow County Fair
grounds on April 4. 5, and 6.
Approximately 20 trailers are
expected according to Edgar
Alliert. a local member of the
group. This unit was organiz
ed about one year ago and is
an off -shoot of the Wallv
Byam group that is a national
organization.
The group has a breakfast
and pot luck planned during
their visit.
Other rallies will be held by
the unit nt various times of the
year.
Visitors are welcomed by
the travelers.
NOTICE
public hearing willhc held
:ii the Heppner City Hall. April
7 It p m . to prepare an
,Mllicatum for t Community
Itlm-li (Irani as outlined in the
IIoimiiu and Community
eelnpmenl Vet of 197 J.
Citiens will be asked lo
nri's preferences about
iriiiiM' activities and lo
.i'.'.ki in the selection of the
-ninmiinitx 's needs, and assist
the ! council in preparing
ilie "rant application.
Ml interested ciliens are
ii'"i'i to attend this meeting
Moml.iN night and participate
n the (Irani Development
ii.plMMlmll
The mail pouch
EDITOR:
As a firm believer in communication; as an ordinary
student of journalism, and as a community-minded citizen, 1
am herewith registering a protest and a personal apology.
It seems to me that the prime purpose of a newspaper is to
serve its entire community (and I do recognize it has various
secondary functions, too.)
This paper has in years past served its community quite
well-and has pleased many former residents who continue
to look to it for news of Morrow County and of old friends
here All the segments of the community, the horse lovers,
the officials, the schools, the ranchers, the mill people, the
civic and fraternal organizations, the business enterprises
and the various religious groups have shared its pages.
List weeks issue woefully neglected the last of these
communal segments-the church-going citizens to whom the
week following Palm Sunday and climaxing in Easter is Holy
Week .
There was no publication of special ecclesiastical events,
no listing of the das and hours of the special services
arranged at the community's churches.
Perhaps th editor felt land he always has reasons) that
those persons interested in such matters could find out the
where and when on their own.
Most places on this planet there are at least three points of
view concerning attendance at religious services: (I) There
are those so strongand so sure of themselves that they feel no
need of such guidance and inspiration; (2) Those who are
Christmas and Easier Christians who like knowing where
and when to go when they occasionally feel the urge to
attend: V Those already mentioned who regularly ask
guidance and inspiration, who constantly seek "The Way."
As a more than five-year, part-time contributor to this
paper I apologize to the second group especially because 1 did
not push this year for the proper publication of church
activities. I am sorry.
JUSTINE WEATHERFORD
ED NOTE: In an effort to bring the time of the Easter
services to the community, every effort was made to contact
either the church or (he ministers for the times and place of
their worship services. All to no avail. Why didn't the
ministers call to notify the paper of their Easter schedules?. )
EDITOR:
Concerning your editorial of last week, this illiterate would
like to know how the American Press Institute determined
that 90 per cent of high school graduates never read another
book in their lives. There are quite a few of them still alive,
and they might decide to do the job tomorrow!
CLIFFORD A. WILLIAMS.
Lexington.
EDITOR:
Oregon Revised Statutes 118 0' reads as follows:
118 050 Pension, retirement and social security benefits
exempt from taxation. There shall be exempt from taxation
under the provisions of ORS 118.003 to 1 18 840 the value of all
benefits not exceeding the sum of $20,000 payable to each
beneficiary, other than to the estate or to the executor or
administrator of the estate of a deceased person, under:
(1) The National Social Security Act,
(2) The National Railroad Retirement Act.
iji Any pension or retirement plan established by federal
or state government or any municipality or any political
subdivision of the state, and
(4 Any pension or retirement plan or trust established by
an employer which qualifies for income tax exemptions
under the' Federal Internal Revenue Code.
(Amended by 19.15 C.727 No. 2: l3 c 392 No. 1 : 1967 C 485
No. D . ,
In other words, any widow or widower is required to pay a
tax. based on how many years they are expected to live and
draw any survivor's pension. Irrespective of the fact that
they might die the next day or if living, pay income tax on all,
or part, of the pension.
An alteir.pt is being nude to rea! Una unlair
provision- HB 2140 in the House Revenue Committee-seeks
to do exactly that.
Unfortunately, most people don't know, and some Just
won't believe, that Oregon could be so backward and unjust
as to lie one of only seven states in the United Slates to have
such a law.
What is needed to pry the repeal law out of committee is a
cry from the people who are, or may be victimized by this
unjust law. I urge your readers o write to their legislator and
demand that the law be repealed NOW!!
Oregon can't be so financially and morally bankrupt that it
must exist on the paltry amounts left to support widows and
orphans.
VERLE W. RUSSELL,
Milwaukie.
EDITOR:
I am sorry to see Mr. and Mrs. Joiner leave for California.
It was refreshing to have an editor give me something to
think about and not particularly care what I thought of the
wav he accomplished it.
With his two papers so far apart. I hope he can find quite a
bit of time for Heppner.
W W. WEATHERFORD
Meeting to
deadline problem
As one long suffering citizen
put it after looking at his
shriveled bank balance on
April 15: "A taxpayer is a
person who doesn't have to
pass a civil service exam to
work for the government."
Those comforted by the
adage that misery loves
company can take heart.
Taxation was just as bad and
sometimes worse in the good
old days, the National Geo
graphic Society says.
The people of Lagash, an
important city-state in ancient
Sumer. overthrew their ruler
36 centuries ago for a new king
who promised to reduce taxes
and dismiss the tax agents.
But things apparently
weren't much better a thous
and years later. A contempor
ary cuneiform writer groused
on a clay tablet: "You can
have a lord, you can have a
king, bul the man to fear is the
tax collector."
Egypt's pharaohs gathered
fortunes through direct levies
and tribute. After dividing
land among his people,
Harnesses .he Great 1 1304-1237
B C. ) set up a special tax scale
based on the share each
farmer received.
Three thousand years later
levies on land still were a sore
spot. The American author,
Charles Dudley Warner ob
served, "The thing that is
most generally raised on city
land is taxes."
At various times and places,
taxes have been levied on
almost everything that people
need or desire, including salt,
tea. coffee, wine, furs, cloth
ing, houses-even on water
and grass consumed by ani
mals. Peter the Great of Russia
taxed beards to promote the
clean-shaven look. England's
Queen Elizabeth I boosted
wool production and her tax
take by ordering all males to
wear "a woollen cappe on
Sondaies and Holy days."
As cars are taxed today, so
in the past were Roman
chariots, coolie-drawn carts in
the East, and English hackney
cabs.
At one time. Chinese inspec
tors at "squeeze stations"
spaced along the highways
extracted multiple tools not
only on merchant goods but on
the belongings of ordinary
travelers.
Throughout history people
have met their taxes with all
kinds of payments- everyth
ing from token Ixiuqucts of
ruses lo a handful of pcper
corns, elephants' teeth, hens,
cheeses, and hams
In the United States, mod
ern hard losers bombard the
Internal Revenue Service with
things like the shirts off their
backs and tape bandages
which supMisedly show how
much it hurts
One man included a handful
of buttons with his return.
"You gl the shirt last year,"
he explained.
Mark Twain was even more
direct when he answered the
riddle: What is the difference
between a taxidermist and a
tax collector? Twain's an
swer: "The taxidermist lakes
only vour skin."
Elcctricco-op
to build lines
The Columbia liasin Elec
tric C(MiK'iatie. Inc. announ
ces that it is making an appli
cation for a loan from the
ltm.il Electrification Admini
stration which will provide
Home loan funds for the
construction of approximately
:'u miles ol m KV transmission
hue The facilities covered by
the announcement will consist
of 20 miles of single pole
IraiiMiiission line from the
north city limits of lone in
Morrow ('iiimly running gen
erally west north of highway
71 to McNab and then west
along the county road lo a
terminus substation approxi
mately one mile north of Olex
in Gilliam County. The line
generally follow the old 22
righl of way along the
Mayor of Hardman
DEAR MISTER EDITOR:
The fellers at the country store Saturday night took note
that Congress is taking 17 days off fer Easter to res! I up from
its labors since the 11 days it took off o.-. Lincoln s birthday.
Now if we could git Henry Kissinger to stay home fer a long
weekend, declared Bug Hookum, the country could relax and
catch its breath. . ,
Like they sav. went on Bug they ain't nothing certain In this
life but death and taxes, but death don't go up ever time
C,i"Sdmeven with April 15 coming up he felt better about
taxes after this piece he saw on (he calendar fer Congress. He
said il adds up to 103 days paid vacation fer the honorables
this vear. but Bug allowed it's a bargin at the price. He was of
a mind that members of Congress are heap cheaper o
support when they're home on vacation than when they re In
session or seeing the world at public expense
General speaking, the fellers took the view that Bug was
Irving to make the best of a bad situation, and they was
divided on whutber trying to look on the bright side of .vr
issue is a good Idee. Fer Instant, allowed Ed Doolittle. a
bnldheadod feller might brag about gitting rid of herdanderr,
but he winds up with more face to wash.
These silver linings we alius look fer. said Ed, usual git us
in the same bout with the feller that burned down his barn to
git rid of the rats. .
Clem Webster was disagreed with Ed, which is usual. Clem
said he has got to the place where he looks fer good news
cause bad news is so common it ain't news. Clem said a dog
biting a man is bad news and a man biting a dog is good news
in this turned around world where we git rebates on taxes we
got to borry money lo pay and rebates on cars and everthlng
rise we can't afford lo buy.
Itul the good news in the car business, Clem went on, is
where this voting feller from Iran come all the way back to a
dealer In Oklahoma where he went to school to put in a
gux eminent order fer l.ooo trucks cause a salesman at the
dealer treated him nice and give him a good deal when he
bought a car while he was a exchange student here
Zeke Crohn got in the good news spirit. He said he had saw
where thev is lo many 1975 college graduates fer to few 1975
jobs in their field of training, and the more education you got
the less e hancl you got of finding work. That is happy news.
Zeke allow ed, cause it proves w hat he alius said, better lo be
a ignorant bum than a smart unemployed.
You use to see articles about how much more lifetime
income a college degree meant, but you can't have nothing
coming In if you can! find work, was Zeke 's words.
Sneaking of looking on the bright side. I recall the feller
thai broke a mirrer over his old lady 's head. He told the judge
if be was going lo have seven years of bad luck he might as
well gil some benefit out of it.
Yours truly.
MAYOR ROY.
French newsmen
receive
best-seller
B LESTER KINSOl.VINO
The. Saudi Arabian government had a special gift for each
of the French newsmen who accompanied Foreign Minister
Michel Jobcrt on his recent state visit to King Faisal. It is a
Moslem Ik-si seller. Soo.ooo copies of which have been
published during the past five years by the Islamic Press In
"when Uganda's wild dictator. Maj Gen. Idi Amin ("Big
Daddy" Dada discovered this book in October 1973. he
promptly cabled Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. And
despite the fact that the Yum Kippur War was still raging,
Gen Amin requested Mrs. Meir to order Israeli generals
Moshe Dasan. Yitzhak Rabin, Mordccai Hod and Haim Bar
Lev "to le present when I am delivering my address to the
General Assembly of the United Nations "
Why did Gen. Amin want the Israeli generals present?
Because he planned to deliver a two hour address on this
Moslem lies! seller, entitled "The Protocols of The Learned
Elders of Zion," ..... k
Then, apparently, someone advised "Big Daduy that this
hook had been exposed as a forgery more than 50 years ago,
although this has not diminished the Arab appetite for Its
Jew-baiting.
The Protocols" purports to be the minutes of a secret
meeting held in 1897 in which Jewish leaders allegedly
plotted to dominate the world-mainly through economic
means.
The book's origins are equally fantastic: an 1864 satire on
French Emperor Naoleon 111 by Maurice Joly was
combined with the ravings of a Parisian anti-Semite named
Druinont, plus a German novel called "Biarritz."
Then, some 40 years later, the Czar's secret police in Paris
dug up this material and sent it to a St . Petersburg editor who
had organized a pogrom and who claimed to have obtained
the secret minutes of "The World Union of Freemasons and
Elders of Zion."
Czar Nicholas II hud this book investigated and ordered its
publication halted after his investigators reported It to be a
complete fabrication.
The London Times and the Frankfurter-Zeitung reached
the same conclusion when it was republished in Germany
just after World War I.
The book had its defenders, however, one of whom wrote;
"The Frankfurter-Zeitung repeats again and again that
"The Protocols" are forgeries. This alone Is evidence for
their authenticity, What many Jews wish to do Is herely
clearly set forth. "-Adolf Hitler, In Mein Kampf.
That the Protocols arc so widely distributed In Moslem
countries by Moslem publishing houses with little or no
protest from Moslem religious leaders-Is something of a
revelation of Moslem morality,
Something of an antidote to such material is provided in a
new book by the Rev. Roy Eckardt, chairman of the
Department of Religion at Lehigh University in Pennsylvan
ia. Dr. Kckurdt in "Your People, My People" deals not only
with the Protocols but also with less virulent (and therefore
more persuasive) pro-Arab periodicals such as Christianity
and Crisis, as well as the incredibly one sided Quaker report,
Search for Peace in the Middle East.
will
KV
route.
The Olex substation will be a
5.IMKI KVA, KiKV lo 14 4 24 9
facility which will require a
small enclosed area of 85 feet
bv lift feel.
If there are any comments
on the environmental aspects
of Ilie promised construction,
Kiev should be submitted to
I he Cooperative within Ihirly
Additional information
he obtained at the
y v
(lavs
mav
Cooperative office In Heppner.
VOTING PRECINCTS
ARE CONSOLIDATED
There will be a consolidation
of voting precincts for the
Blue Mountain Community
College budget election to be
held May 6.
Precincts 2, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are
consolidated. Voting will take
place In the old city library
building.
Ills SSISTNCE
UI.AItl.E
Internal Revenue Service's
loll Iree telephone assistance
will lie offered on Saturday,
April 5 and again on Saturday,
April 12 The service Is
available from Bam. until I
pni Further assistance will
he available until 8:45 p.m. on
Monday, April 14 and 15,