Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 111, Ed. 1 Wednesday, May 10, 1989 Page: 2 of 22
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I
2—THE NEWS-TELEGRAM, Sulphur Spring*, Texas, Wednesday, May 10,1989.
editorials...
— It's a beginning
— District Attorney Frank Dong has moved his offices
into an old restored house on College Street. Before he
made the decision to lease the house, it was a fire-
damaged building that was an eyesore to the otherwise
pleasant neighbomood just east of the downtown square.
The restoration and use of the house as an office comes
at a time when the Main Street Project is just getting un-
der way in an. effort to bring lii„ to a part of Sulphur
Springs that was waning. Officials of the Main Street Pro-
ject, and others involved in downtown revitalization,
know that just renewing buildings won’t solve the prob-
lem of an empty downtown — revitalization calls for
people and activity.
Tnat’s why Long’s decision to establish his office in
the restored building marks one way to lead the way —
and his action may spark other business and professional
individuals to follow suit
The enthusiasm already apparent by the old-time
downtown business owners to support die Main Street
Project coupled with any new faces should help return the
area to the viable center it deserves to be.
Mary Grant
A judicial outrage
Dong Lu Chen’s wife was unfaithful to him. So on
Sept. 7, 1987, he took a hammer and hit her eight times in
the head, killing her.
Apparently lulling an unfaithful wife is no big deal in
China, where Chen was bom and raised. But it was with a
great deal of surprise and chagrin that we learned that
New York Judge Edward Pincus sentenced Chen to
probation for the killing of his wife, Jian Wan Chen.
Why the light sentence? Judge Pincus cited “the effect
of his wife’s behavior on someone who is essentially bom
in China, raised in China and took all his Chinese cus-
toms with him to the United States.”
Somebody should tell Judge Pincus and Mr. Chen that
they are not back in China, but are in the United States,
where killing a spouse or anyone else is a bad thing.
Some customs, however, should be left behind. Beating
and killing women, not uncommon in such places as
China, India, Brazil and other cultures where women are
less valued than men, are two of those customs. Certainly
such customs should play no role in a U.S. courtroom. Do
you hear. Judge Pincus? ,
Navy's not thrifty
about procurement
By Jack Anderson
ami Dale Van Alta
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon,
where the majority of your Lax mon-
ey is burned, is under investigation
for the way it shops — officially
called ‘procurement * With the fed-
eral deficit at an obscene level and
the government under attack for en-
demic waste, you would think the
Pentagon might be a little bit more
careful about procurement these
dan.
Think again. The Navy has quietly
signed a contract with the highest
bidder for the job of scraping barna-
cles off the hulls of Navy ships. Even
in this, the most menial of jobs, the
Pentagon can’t get it right
It took two and a half years for the
Pentagon to make the choice. In the
meantime, a handful of small compa-
nies exhausted their resources bid-
ding, rebidding and then waiting for
the decision Historically the Navy as
not made life easy for the hull clean-
ers. In ooe round of bidding, the origi-
nal low bidder pulled out in frustra-
tion. Another company spent
$600,000 just trying to convince the
Navy that it was qualified to enter the
competition. A third (company was re-
jected in the current round for lack of
experience, even though the Navy
contract is the only game in town and
a company can’t get experience with-
out it
For reasons the Navy declined to
explain to us, the current hull-clean-
ing contract is going to Seaward Ma-
rine Services of Norfolk, Va — the
company charging the highest price,
nearly $55 million for the five-year
contract.
The public forum
Creating winners
Editor, The News-Telegram:
As a resident of our fine city, I
see many things to be very proud
of, one of which is our students and
faculty involved in this year’s UIL
programs.
Our students not only do their
best for our schools, but they also
start forming winning habits which
help our future adult leaders be-
come winners.
Our faculty spends many extra
hours helping ow young people
prepare and practice for contest in
these programs.
These folks are real teachers!
“They care.”
Thanks to students and teachers
fora great job this year.
to you teachers for
We first reported this barnacle fi-
asco last July when the Navy was
moving on the contract at a pace ri-
valing frozen sap. Seaward’s compet-
itors told us they thought the Navy fa-
vored Seaward and that no one else
had a fair shot at the contract. After
our report, the Nava! Investigative
Service assigned an agent to dog the
bidding process.
Seaward has had the Navy hull-
cleaning contract since 1979. The
contract is supposed to go to small
businesses But at one point the Navy
changed the rules when Seaward got
too big too qualify. Seaward’s current
contract expired in 1986, but the
Navy has extended it during the end-
less rebidding process.
Seavac International Inc. of San
Diego underbid Seaward by nearly $4
million, but apparently the Navy
wasn't in the mood for comparison
shopping. Seavac General Manager
Gregory Dies told our reporter Dawn
Larsen that he is not taking no for an
answer. He has protested the award
to the General Accounting Office and
is threatening to file a lawsuit to stop
the contract.
Parker Diving of Los Angeles also
underbid Seaward, but its president
Don Walsh thinks that kicking up a
fuss would be a waste of money, and
he has wasted enough already. Walsh
thinks his company was just window
dressing so the Navy could say it
around
the handful of hull-cleaning
companies in the United States, the
Navy contract is a make-or-break
proposition There is virtually no de-
mand for American companies to
scrape the barnacles off private ships
because the private companies have
it done in foreign ports for cheaper
prices.
Sources within Seaward told us
that many employees didn’t think, as
high bidder, that they had a ghost of a
chance. According to one employee.
Seaward workers were agonixing
over mortgage payments and some
had gooe looking for other jobs. 'Ev-
eryone was shocked when we won,"
he said.
Everyone except Seaward Presi-
dent Duke Armstrong He told as he
was confident he would win because
his company was the best qualified
We wanted to ask the Navy if Sea-
Ward was worth $4 million mare, bat
the Naval Seas Systems Command
declined to respond to n
The opinion page
Vote shows Congress is in disarray
4
Jack
Rnderson
L._
By Robert J. Wagman
WASHINGTON (NEA) - In the
first major budget showdown of this
Congress, many Democrats joined
with Republicans in defeating a key
amendment to a bill aimed at provid-
ing funds for housing, the homeless
and the war on drugs The shockingly
wide 252-172 vote showed that deep
splits still remain over budget issues
despite the recent White House-con-
gressional accord
The Appropriations Committee had
previously drafted a package of $4 9
billion in "emergency funding" for
critical needs for now through the end ,
of the current fiscal year in Septem-
ber It had not indicated, however,
where the money was going to come
from The committee assumed that,
since almost everyone agreed the ad-
ditional funding was necessary, the
deficit would simply be allowed to
grow another $5 billion
But then Republicans indicated
they were prepared to make political
hay from this example of Democratic
spending So the Democrats decided
to make the supplemental bill a pay-
as-you-go proposition. Tjiat's when
the trouble started
There was no agreement on where
the money should come from Finally,
‘The debate over budget priorities that has
consumed this body over the last tour years
has not ended, ’ said Rep. William Gray.
Majority Leader Thomas Foley, D-
Wash , suggested that, since no one
could decide where to cut, the cuts
should be made everywhere
Foley submitted, for the Democrat-
ic Leadership, an amendment calling
for an almost across-the-board cut of
051 percent from most discretionary
programs.
Foley’s argument, offered during
almost three hours of extremely bit-
ter debate, was that no federal agency
could say that it did not have a half-
percent of fat in its budget
But that’s not what opponents said
Most Republicans, and not a few
Democrats, zeroed in on the fact that
a half-percent would translate into a
$1 billion Pentagon cut.
Defense Secretary Richard Cheney,
following the time-honored tradition
of threatening to cut where it would
do the most political damage to mem-
bers of Congress, wrote Minority
Leader Rep. Bob Michel, R-Ill., that if
he had to cut $1 billion between now
and September, the money would
have to come from the National
Guard budget, research contracts,
and from the release of some 28,000
servicemen whose paychecks are the
backbone of the local economies
where they are stationed.
To listen to the Republicans’ floor
argument, the proposed cut would
have left the country all but defense-
less while the national economy
would have been thrown into a reces-
sion by the cancellation of Pentagon
contracts. President Bush, said Mi-
chel, was ready to veto the supple-
mental money package if it included
any cut in the Pentagon budget
Ironically, the day before, when
BeR*e w? it,
cars will Be RMelW
BY OUST ADDING MTeR
To CRSATe FUSION.
Cheney presented his new budget to
the House Armed Services Commit-
tee, he sounded much different: “I’m
told that as much as half of some bud-
gets are wasted. My problem is that I
don’t know which half"
Not only Republicans were Upset at
the across-the-board cut idea So were
92 Democrats who joined with 160 Re-
publicans in shooting down the Foley
plan.
Some spoke against the Pentagon
cut, but most were concerned that the
across-the-board approach being pro-
posed would cut specific domestic
programs they had championed This
included many powerful committee
and subcommittee chairman who
rarely vote against the leadership
For instance. Rep Robert Roe, D-
N.J., chairman of the Science, Space
and Technology Committee, argued
that NASA and federal research bud-
gets were already sorely underfunded
and could not stand any cut whatso-
ever Proponents of housing, job
training, law enforcement and pro-
grams aimed at the elderly all of-
fered similar arguments.
When the amendment failed, the
leadership did not want to pass the
supplemental appropriation without a
funding mechanism. So Speaker Jim
Wright, D-Texas, ordered it sent back
to the Appropriations Committee for
“corrective surgery."
This congressional disarray over
the budget does not bode well for the
future. In com ipg-weeks, under the
general agreement with the adminis-
tration, the House must begin turning
out specific appropriations bills allo-
cating spending for fiscal 1990 Then
it will have to begin discussions with
President Bush over the form of the
fiscal 1991 budget — a budget in
which everyone admits many painful
cuts are going to have to be made if
deficit targets are to be met
Rep. William Grey, D-Pa., the No. 3
man in the Democratic leadership
and former chairman of the Budget
Committee, indicated that he is very
worried:
‘This vote shows that the debate
over budget priorities that has con-
sumed this body over the last four
years has not ended.
Robert
Wagman
I
Hanging up on long-distance 'trickery'
By Robert Walters
TALLADEGA, Ala (NEA) - Tele-
phone users in Alabama and a few
other states enjoy a special benefit
not available elsewhere in the nation
— they do not have to risk being
gouged by “alternative operator ser-
vice^ companies. ,
Almost 1V4 years ago, the Alabama
Public Service Commission threw the
entire industry out of the state after
receiving hundreds of complaints
about AOS providers imposing inflat-
ed charges for the long distance calls
they handled.
AOS companies differ from AT&T,
MCI, US Sprint and other reputable
telephone toll companies in one very
important respect: They specialize in
charging more rather than less.
They offer their services not to res-
idential or business subscribers but to
the operators of hotels and motels,
bus and railroad stations, truck stops,
airports, hospitals, prisons and col-
lege dormitories whose telephones
are used by transients, visitors and
others lacking access to alternative
service.
(Long distance calls placed from all
of the 1,400 pay telephones at one of
the nation's busiest airports, Harts-
field International in Atlanta, are
handled bv an AOS company.)
The managers of those facilities —
whose telephones generate $11 billion
in annual revenues — are lured into
designating the AOS companies as the
sole providers of long distance ser-
vice from their telephones by the
promise of generous commissions.
To produce sufficient revenues to
pay those commissions and earn sub-
stantial profits for themselves, the
AOS companies typically charge tele-
phone users three, four and five times
more per call than the respected
companies.
In some cases their tolls are 19
times as high and in many instances
they bill users for calls placed but not
completed. Moreover, many callers
do not learn of the inflated charges
Europe has changed
By William A Rasher
Back in 1987, when President Rea-
gan negotiated the Intermediate Nu-
clear Forces treaty with Mikhail Gor-
bachev. the Nixon-Kissinger crowd
joined various harder-right analysts
in condemning the agreement. By re-
ducing the likelihood of a nuclear con-
frontation, they argued, the treaty
simply increased the danger of a con-
ventional war, in which Soviet pre-
dominance would be overwhelming.
Moreover, the treaty would encour-
age neutralist tendencies in West Ger-
many, quite possibly resulting in
Bonn’s withdrawal from NATO.
In recent weeks, therefore, as West
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has
succumbed to domestic political pres-
sures and called for negotiations look-
ing toward further de-nuclearization,
these critics have not been slow to
say, "We told you so." It’s time to re-
mind them, in reply, of a few hard
truths.
The first hard truth is that neither
the peoples of Western Europe, nor
any other human population, will
main committed to a strategy of
terrene* through mutual assured
struction by nuclear missiles for tine
moment longer than absolutely neces-
sary, and any government that pro-
poses otherwise is simply conniving
at its own downfall.
That may be unfortunate, but it is
an unassailable fact, growing out of
the international left's long, success-
ful, and Meed largely anrasMed pro-
paganda campaign concerning the
unique awfulness of nuclear weapons
If the nations of the Free World want
ed to base their defense on sack weap-
on as a valid option, they should have
i to to desir-
ability many years ago. By arguing,
instead, that they simply had no
choice, they forfeited the nuclear op-
tion the moment some other became
available.
That was why, at Reykjavik, Presi-
dent Reagan amiably agreed with
Mikhail Gorbachev on the theoretical
desirability of a world without nucle-
ar weapons It is also why Mr. Reagan
subsequently agreed to verifiable mu-
tual reductions in IRBMs, under the
INF treaty.
From these considerations follows
hard truth No. 2, which is that any So-
viet leader can, sikT always could,
create internal problems fot NATO
any time be gdl ready to negotiate se-
riously abojut reductions in nuclear
arms.
For dpCades successive Soviet
bosses were unwilling to do so, be-
cause Soviet inventory of ICBMs
and IRBMs was their only guarantee
of superpower status. But Gorbachev
faced tougher choices than ever pre-
viously confronted a Soviet leader.
The Soviet economy is a basket case.
Far from taking over the world, it is
painfully clear that by the end of the
century communism will be seen as
just another light that failed. Gorba-
chev chose, therefore, to abandon
Moscow's pretensions to global hege-
mony and obtain what benefits he
could from a less threatening posture
Unquestionably the benefits are
real. Always assuming that Gorba-
chev’s declared intentions are fol-
lowed by cprreaponding actions, both
the United States and the nations of
Western Europe will agree to further
arms reductions and other steps to
until they receive their monthly tele-
phone bills.
In December 1987, the Alabama
PSC ordered the nine AOS providers
then doing business in the state to halt
all operations. Although the agency
has since allowed one firm to return
under close surveillance, state offi-
cials remain rightfully leery of the
industry.
Connecticut, Kentucky1, North Car-
olina and Mississippi are among the
states that also have generally
banned AOS providers, while South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Virgin-
ia and Florida are among the states
that have taken punitive actions.
In a harshly worded order that
bluntly accused the AOS companies of
“fraud,” the Tennessee PSC last year
said: ‘The business practices of the
AOS companies are unethical at best,
illegal at worst.... AOS carriers do not
compete for business. They profit
from ignorance and trickery." ^
Estimates of the number of AOS
companies nationwide range from as
few as 50 to more than 200. Some of
the largest firms are headquartered
in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Oregon and
Maryland.
The industry justifies its inflated
charges by asserting that it provides
special services — including multilin-
gual operators, message forwarding, i
concierge services and weather fore-
casts — but it has done virtually noth-
*■
ing to inform users of their availabil-
ity and some critics are dubious about
the validity of the claims.
The AOS companies now are seek-
ing to extend their operations by sign-
ing up as customers the owners of res-
taurants, bars and ether neighborhood
retail establishments with one or two
pay phones.
The Telecommunications Research
and Action Center, a public interest
group in Washington, D.C., has waged
an aggressive campaign to warn tele-
phone users about abuses in the AOS
industry Rep. James Cooper, D-
Tenn., has introduced remedial legis-
lation in Congress.
But the Federal Communications
Commission, which ought to be pro-
tecting the public, recently declined
to regulate AOS rates or billing prac-
tices. It held, in effect, that exorbitant
rates are justifiable if they are dis-
closed in the future
© 1*»» NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN
Robert
Walters
Berry s World
"Sorry, Mr, but tharaa no hiding from
funk mail. ”
t
(
I
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 111, Ed. 1 Wednesday, May 10, 1989, newspaper, May 10, 1989; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth823713/m1/2/?q=%22~1~1~1%22~1&rotate=270: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.