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Freedom Of Press
Unfolding before the eyes of
the American people this
week is a drama that contains
all we need to know about
freedom of the press.
On Monday, an announce
ment was made in the Soviet
Union that an accident had oc
curred at a nuclear power
plant in the Ukraine, Russia's
breadbasket, and that "aid is
being given those affected."
Period. End of official
communication.
It is now believed that a
nuclear meltdown may have
taken place at a nuclear plant
near Kiev, a city of 2.4 million
people.
There are reports, unof
ficial of course, that an explo
sion may have occurred and
that the facility is burning out
of control.
The government has con
finned that two people are
dead.
There are more reports,
unofficial of course, that as
many as 2,000 people have
been killed.
The first official disclosure
of the accident came hours
after Sweden, Finland and
Denmark reported abnonnal
ly high radioactivity levels in
their skies.
This morning, Poland and
Austria are reporting the
same.
The world is now into its
third day of an accident that
could affect the health and
well-being of untold millions
and the Soviet Union has yet
to make public the extent of
the disaster or to ask for
worldwide assistance in con
trolling its effects.
It is stylish in the United
States to berate the press?it
invades individual privacy, it
reports too much too soon, it
has a callous disregard for ex
tenuating circumstances and
delicate situations.
But this week we are seeing
what can happen when the
press and the government are
one and when the adversarial
relationship between the two
ceases to exist.
R is not a pretty sight.
As Americans, we will con
tinue to voice our indignation
when we suspect the press has
missed the mark, and com
plain we should.
For if the press ceases to
strive for the high mark and
the people cease to care, the
days of our democracy will be
numbered.
Gas Tax Holds Promise
In The Courier-Times
Roxboro
Just as we were beginning to
get comfortable with lower prices
at the gasoline pump, along
comes Gov. Jim Martin with his
proposal to bump up the state tax
on gasoline by 2.75 cents per
gallon.
Gov. Martin says the gas tax
hike is needed in order to help
pay for the roads that already are
on the drawing boards at the N.C.
Department of Transportation.
By the governor's calculations,
increasing the gas tax from the
present 12.25 cents per gallon to
15 cents per gallon will yield the
state an extra $75 million right
away 'and an additional $110
million a year by 1991, assuming
folks continue to buy more gas.
Without the additional money,
delays can be expected for those
roads that currently are planned
for construction from five to
seven years hence. Gov. Martin
reasons, and rightly so, that the
earlier such roads can be built,
the sooner North Carolina can be
realizing the benefits of new and
expanded industries that those
roads help to attract, bringing
more jobs for our citizens. And of
course those same roads would
have the immediate practical im
pact of relieving some of the traf
fic congestion being experienced
by larger cities and rapid-growth
areas of the state.
The gasoline tax certainly
seems the most appropriate
source for extra road-building
money, a fair price to be paid by
those of us who use the roads and
create the wear and tear on them.
And thanks to those falling prices
at the pump, a 2.75-cent per
gallon hike in the tax shouldn't be
too hard to swallow by motorists
who for so long have plunked
down considerably more than $1
a gallon.
Editor's Quote Book
The more one comes to know'
men, the more one comes to
admirethedog.
Joussenel
Gov. Martin plans to propose
the gas tax increase to the short
session of the General Assembly
when it convenes in June. He
may run into some trouble
pushing through some other
aspects of his plan, such as shift
ing funding of the Highway
Patrol from the Highway Fund to
the General Fund. But we suspect
most legislators will agree that
the gasoline tax offers the
quickest and fairest means for
raising extra money for main
taining existing roads and
building the new ones North
Carolina needs.
Looking Back Into The Record
May 3, 1946
WASHINGTON-The nation's
whiskey-makers slashed their
production schedules 40 percent
today in line with the govern
ment's newest efforts to scrape
up grain for famine relief.
Erwln Robbins and family are
expected to move within the next
few days to an apartment in the
fui?t H. F. Jones home, now
the property of Dr. F. P. Hunter.
Mr. Robbins, a former service
man, replaced Ed Cheves here
with the Farm Security Ad
ministration.
Mrs. John Kerr, Jr., a member
of the Warren County Welfare
Board, took part on the program
arranged for the State Con
ference of Social Workers at
Winston-Salem on Monday. She
spoke on Foster Homes for Chil
dren.
May 5, 1M1
A Warrenton woman has been
l one of 1,022 winners in
sweepstakes spon
sored by the Liggett & Myers
Tobacco Company. Mrs. Ellen S.
Moaetey of Brehon Street has
been awarded an Argus movie
camera as a fourth-place winner
in the $169,000 contest.
Plans for a new agricultural
building to cost more than
$100,000 were submitted to the
Warren County Board of Com
missioners on Monday afternoon
by the Warren County Agri
culture Committee.
Mrs. Ola K. Mustian retired as
an employee of the Littleton Post
Office on April 30 after 36^ years
of service. Mrs. Mustian, the wife
of N.B. Mustian, a North Warren
ton merchant, began work with
the Littleton Post Office on Nov.
1,1924.
April 29, 1976
Plans to merge the Citizens
Bank, Warrenton, with Branch
Banking and Trust Company, a
wholly owned subsidiary of
Branch Corporation, Wilson,
were made public today.
A Warrenton woman, Mrs.
Sallie Baskervill, participated in
a tree planting by the Boydton,
Va. Chapter of the United
Daughters of the Confederacy at
the Mecklenburg County Court
house Square on the morning of
April 12.
Dr. James W. Clark, Jr., an
associate professor of English at
North Carolina State University
and a former Warren County 4-H
member, has been selected as
one of the state's four outstanding
4-H alumni for 1976.
The Warren County Scene
Getting a preliminary taste of the lazy days of summer is this
local young fisherman who appears well equipped for a big catch
and a comfortable stay. (Staff Photo by Dianne T. Rod well)
Carolina Commentary
Jay
Jenkins
Assorted Bits And Pieces
Eddie Knox of Charlotte, who
lost the Democratic gubernato
rial nomination in 1984 and
switched to the Republicans, has
been named by Governor Jim
Martin to lead the campaign
against the constitutional
amendment that would change
state elections to odd years when
presidential candidates aren't
running. Opponents say the
amendment would space elec
tions too close together. Knox
thus might have too little time to
decide which party banner he'd
carry in the next one.
*??
Fellow who recently com
pleted the "drunk school" after
being convicted of driving while
impaired suggests it would be
more effective if a synopsis of
the course were required for
youngsters getting a license for
the first time.
What do U. S. Senators Russell
Long (D-La) and Robert Dole
(R-Kan), Lee Iaccoca and Joe
Namath have in common? Each
took a North Carolina bride.
? ??
Senator Jesse Helms has tried
to distance himself from his
National Congressional Club.
But he's never too far away to
sign the fund-raising letters.
? ??
Mike Royko of the Chicago
Tribune said President
Reagan's sorties into Grenada
and Libya reminded him of
heavyweight Joe Louis' heyday,
when the champ fought "a bum
a month."
Years ago, the director of the
SBI walked into the office of his
boss, the attorney general, and
said emphatically we've got to
do this and that. When he
finished, the attorney general
said in his mountain twang,
"Jimmy, you're fired."
"I believe in an America
where the separation of church
and state is absolute?where no
Catholic prelate would tell the
President (should he be a Catho
lic) how to act and no Protestant
minister would tell his
parisioners for whom to vote."
John F. Kennedy to the Greater
Houston (Texas) Ministerial
Association on Sept. 12,1960.
***
Various tips being passed
along to overseas travelers
seem to boil down to a single
admonition: disguise the fact
that you're an American.
Frank Layden, Utah Jazz bas
ketball coach, reminiscing about
his rough-and-tumble high
school days in Brooklyn: "We
had a lot of nicknames?Scar
face, Blackie, Toothless-and
those were just the cheer
leaders."?Sports Illustrated.
House Speaker Sam Rayburn
on one of his rich but lucky
Texas oil friends: "He was
playing the bass tuba the day it
rained gold. "-In Search of His
tory by Theodore H. White
(Warner Books).
???
Retired state employees in
North Carolina, already faced
with the uncertainties of old age,
won't take kindly to former
Governor Jim Hunt's suggestion
that $50 million of their pension
funds be invested in venture
capital. They don't want to gam
ble with the grocery money.
Kay
Horner
Buried In British Soil
Yesterday, in Windsor Castle's Frogmore Garden Cemetery, the
body of Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor,
was laid to rest next to that of her husband, Edward, who for love
of her in 1936 renounced the throne of England.
A younger generation might well find it difficult to believe that there
once was a time when the plans of a young king to marry a twice
divorced American shook an empire to its foundation, caused an arch
bishop of the Church of England to pull out his hair and a prime
minister to threaten resignation.
Those plans also sent the king and his soon-to-be bride packing off
in social exile to France and to a gypsy-like existence in which he
would never again call England home.
The marker at the grave of the Duchess will read simply "Wallis,
Duchess of Windsor, 1896-1986."
That of the Duke reads as follows:
HRH The Prince Edward Albert Christian George
Andrew Patrick David, Duke of Windsor
Born 23rd June 1894, Died 28th May 1972
King Edward VIII, 20th January-llth December 1936
The last line reminds us of a statement made by Edward's father.
"After I am dead," he commented, "the boy will ruin himself in
12 months."
Those in the royal family would say he did it in a mere 11.
Despite the admonitions of well-meaning advisors that one can
always find another woman to love, but never another throne, Ed
ward plighted his troth to Wallis and those who like their history
seasoned with a pinch of romance have for the past 50 years repeated
the story of the king who could not rule without the woman he loved
at his side.
It would be a fairy tale if it ended there.
But those intimates who watched as the Duke and Duchess made
history tell us that until his death, the Duke was slavishly devoted
to the Duchess and that she repaid his devotion and fidelity with
something other than payment-in-kind.
But through it all, no one has surfaced who was ever privy to any
utterance by Edward that he regretted the abdication.
It would seem from our modern vantage point that relinquishing
the crown would have been pain enough for a king. It was not. He
and his Wallis were never again warmly welcomed in I^ondon's social
circles, much less in Buckingham Palace.
Hopes that he and Wallis might be elevated to some degree of royal
respectability when his beloved niece "Lilibet" became Queen of
England in 1953 were dashed when his invitation to the coronation
excluded the Duchess. He watched the proceedings by television,
rather than attend without her.
Lilibet visited him in France shortly before his death, and there
were occasions through the years when members of the royal fami
ly greeted him with civility.
But no biographer gives credence to the notion that resentment over
his failure to "do his duty" was ever allowed to wane by members
of the royal family.
Today Wallis lies in the grandest company, beside her Edward and
his great-grandmother Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
And not far away is St. George's Chapel.
Edward once reminisced, "Henry VIII is buried there, you know,
with Jane Seymour, who was perhaps the nicest of his wives, and one
of Queen Anne's children?'a mixed grill,' Papa used to say, 'a
strange busload to be traveling through eternity together!' "
Some say Wallis is buried in royal soil because it was the last wish
of Edward, one that his niece chose to honor.
Others say the decision was made after Wallis threatened to have
Edward buried in her family plot in Maryland.
At any rate, she now rests for eternity among the best of the royals.
If Papa were here, he would no doubt surmise that the busload gets
no less strange as time goes by.
Mary
Catherine
Harris
Never Trust Skinny Cook
"Warning! Skinny cooks cannot be trusted." I read the admonition
on a magnetic sign on my friend's oven door.
Of course, at face value it's a humorous rationalization for those
of us who dabble in the culinary art and who also dabble too heavily
in the culinary product. We stay outside the realm of "skinny"
because our success in putting calories together with some degree
of delectability is outweighed by our success in limiting caloric intake.
We all know that good cooks are not always rotund, but the truth
remains that the world is far from full of blue-ribbon chefs who are
also professional-model svelte. I have difficulty imagining the pencil
thin Twiggy in a smudged apron and up to her elbows in flour or
smacking her lips over a bubbling cauldron.
While spending waiting time in restaurants and other public places,
our family enjoys trying to guess the livelihoods and relationships
of strangers by simply observing them. Athletes with muscular phy
siques and sweat pants, fanners with uneven suntans and John Deere
caps, mechanics with telltale hands and uniforms and soldiers with
erect postures and close haircuts are readily identifiable. Never once
have we observed a slender frame parade by and subsequently at
tached the label "good cook." The two traits appear at serious odds.
The first hint suggestive of a good cook must be a little evidence
that he has partaken of his own concoctions and that the concoctions
were digestible. !
Who would want to sit in the swivel chair of a hairdresser who
stands beneath a multi-colored and unkempt coiffure? And who would
place his own health in the trembling hands of a pale physician with
a hacking cough? We wish proof that one's experiments have suc
ceeded first with himself before we place ourselves at his mercy.
This week my husband read in the May issue of the "Farm Jour
nal" magazine about a world champion barbecue king from Arkan
sas. The article notes that the cook, who is also a farmer, "can make
everything from whole hogs to rattlesnake look, smell and taste
terrific."
The account is interesting but the photograph on the page tells the
whole story of Jim Quessenberry, award-winning cook. Had the pic
ture appeared in an issue of "House Beautiful" and without the story,
I would have surely guessed the ample frame dressed in plaid shirt
and bib overalls, preparing to fork a golden brown fowl on a barbecue
grill, to be a fanner and also a capable chef.
(Continued on page 3)