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Na JIM HEFFNER Columnist The naked truth I see where another female reporter has complained about poor treatment in a National Football League locker room. Too bad. Detroit Free Press reporter Michelle Kaufman re- ported that Tampa Bay Buccaneer linebacker Jimmy Williams shoved her and said: "you don't belong here." According to Williams, the reporter was blocking access to his locker, and he moved her out of the way. "I've been around locker rooms for ten years and I've never complained about anything like this," she said. Kaufman said she took the incident to mean women shouldn't be in the locker room, but Williams said he meant she shouldn't have been blocking his locker. The fact is, she shouldn't have been in the locker room at all. It is absolutely ridiculous to allow women in a men's locker room with the men running around naked. If I were a pro athlete, I wouldn't undress in the locker room, I'd find somewhere else. When Dale Murphy was with the Atlanta Braves, he dressed after games in the trainer's room to avoid the women reporters. When men reporters are allowed in women athlete's locker rooms, then and only then will it be ok for women to go into the men's locker rooms. Actually, I don't believe that either. I don't think men ought to be allowed into the women's dressing areas. I'd be willing to make a bet that most people in this country feel the way I do. I guess I am PI. (politically incorrect.) Heidi ho - Can you believe the so-called "Hollywood madam," Heidi Fleiss, is coming out with her own line of clothing? She is selling cotton and flannel boxer shorts for $35 a pair. Oh! but they must be worth the price. They have an embroidered Heidi logo, a three-button fly and a built-in pocket for, get this now, a built in pocket for, condoms. ; Next I guess Heidi will place a designer condom in the pocket of each pair of shorts and raise the price to $50 a pair. Isn't this woman merely a procurer? Are we sup- posed to rush out and buy overpriced clothing from a woman who sets up sexual trysts between prostitutes and Hollywood types (I really struggled to clean that sentence up)? I've seen Heidi Fleiss on a couple of those interview shows, and I can't explain it, but she reminds me of a toad stool. Sensitivity index - I see where "Working Woman" magazine has cited New York Mets manager Dallas Green with an anti award. These are awards the maga- zine hands out each year to people they consider anti- women. The reason for the award is that Green, answering a question from a reporter as to how he had been able to cope with all the Mets' defeats this year (103 loses) an- swered, "Oh, I just go home and beat the heck out of my wife and kick the dog and whatever else I've got to do to get it out of my system." The magazine took that comment seriously, which tells me how they came up with the name Working Woman for their magazine. I think that means they are working on developing a brain. Do we need the EPA? - According to an article by Robert W. Lee in "The New American" magazine, In early July 1970, Richard Nixon submitted to Congress his plan to create the EPA as an umbrella entity to con- solidate and administer federal anti-pollution pro- grams. The EPA formally began operating on December 2, 1970 with a budget of $303 million and a staff of 3,860. Today its budget exceeds $4.3 billion, with a staff of approximately 18,000. In 1990, according to the EPA's own figures, the agency's regulations cost each American family around $1000, or a total of about $115 billion. The tab will exceed $130 billion this year. Folks, that's how you expand the bureaucracy. I think we ought to do away with the EPA and start over. It would be cheaper, and besides all that agency is do- ing today is spending a big chunk of the national bud- get trying to stop people from smoking. Free enterprise - Word is out that a panhandler in New York City's Central Park is stopping people and asking them for $50,000. when they look at him as if he's crazy his retort is, "OK, I'll take any spare change you have. Now that's what I call a man who knows what he wants out of life. Established 1889 Published Thursday at East King Street at Canterbury Road, Kings Mountain, North Carolina 28086, USPS 931-040, by Republic Newspapers, Inc.-2nd Class postage paid in Kings Mountain BOD ROD mci letter irs vesret driest Boras Publisher Darrell AUSHN........ oe rl Cis Associate Publisher Gary Stewart...... .Editor Elizabeth SleWar......c..i........ deine tttnsrtiiomisssssesiin News Editor Shirley Austin ....... .Advertising Representative Bill Futon...) in al a oi Advertising Representative Lavra Hullette.......... coi sine, Advertising Representative Nancy Miller...... .Advertising Representative Sarah Griffin... lS Business Manager Cheryl Pullen Bookkeeper Deniece Talbert Circulation a Fran Black... Julie Bodle.... SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In Gaston & Cleveland Counties: 1 Year $16.00; 6 Months $9.00. Other NC Counties: 1 Year $18.00: 6 Months $100 00. Outside NC: 1 Year $21.00; 6 Months $11.50. REPUBLIC = NEWSPAPERS, INC. Member North Caralina Press Association Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: Kings Mountain Herald: P.O. Box 769, Kings Mountain, NC 28086 Back issues, one month or older, when available, are 70¢ per copy. This photograph is of Tom and Salena Parton Trott's wedding 50 years ago in Central Methodist Church. Note the attendants’ dresses and the costumes of the men in the wedding party which denote that ‘styles of the 1940's are returning today in formal wedding attire. From left to right, Richard Yoder, Mary Frances Elliott, Leone Patterson, Frank Vanderlin, Frances Goforth, Rev. J. G. Winkler, Rev. Robert Owens, Scott Trott, Saralee Harrill Dorton, W. K. Mauney Jr.and John K. Shull, far right. Our View Once again the United States Senate has over- stepped its bounds. That august body, in its infinite wisdom, passed a bill last week that can only be construed as oppressive. The bill seeks to impose stiff penalties for blocking access to abortion clinics. The bill, if it is signed into law, means a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for vandalizing one of the clinics and the same penalty for violent acts against the operators of said clinics. If a person is convicted of blocking the doorway of an abortion clinic, he or she is subject to six months in jail and a $10,000 fine. The bill is specific in its goal, which is to stop peo- ple from protesting abortion mills. It offers no penal- ties for blocking an auditorium where a person associ- ated with the pro life movement is speaking. Although there were a few pro life Senators who signed on to the bill, by and large, it was the same old crowd of pro abortion Senators who created the mea- sure. Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass is the leader of the pack. He said, "The only people who have to worry about this bill are the people who believe in violence, those who threaten violence and those who are ob- structing entry to clinics." Forget the emotional issue of abortion for a minute and consider a couple of things. The people who block entry to abortion clinics do not appear to be violent. They lie prone on the side- walks and offer no resistance when hauled off to the lock-up. They are U.S. citizens, and don't they have the right to peacefully assemble and protest? Why should those particular protesters be labeled felons or violators of federal law, and those who protest wars, dirty ater andjthe cutting of forests where the spotted owl resides, pe treated as saviors of the world? Abortion hill is out of order The federal government has no business imposing a law where a local ordinance already exists, unless that local ordinance is unfair. There can be no doubt that those few incidents of violence that have occurred at abortion clinics cannot be tolerated. When an individual takes it upon himself to murder a doctor who performs abortions, he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. All states have laws against murder, and they are sufficient. Why should the murder of a doctor who performs abortion be any different than the murder of a convenience store operator? Kennedy refuses to accept comparisons of abortion clinic protesters to the civil disobedience of civil rights protesters, arguing that civil rights leaders were trying to guarantee constitutional rights while protesters ob- 4 structing access to clinics are trying to deny a constitu- tionally “protected right. That's pure hogwash. How about the right of peace- ful assembly? Isn't that mentioned somewhere in the constitution? Kennedy and his cohorts, according to reports, agreed to several modest changes in the bill. One of the changes was to reduce the fine of those who blocked entrances from $100,000 to $10,000. He is a prince. The only possible intent of this bill is to "get the pro-lifers," according to Jesse Helms, R-N.C. Whether or not you are a Helms fan, in this case he is right. This bill will not stand the constitutionality test, nor should it. If the Supreme Court can rule that burning the flag is a form of peaceful protest, then surely they will see that blocking the door of an abortion clinic falls into the same category. REFLECTIONS | ¢ on Religion and Life ® DONALD MITCHELL Interim Pastor, First Presbyterian Church Apostle to the skepties November 22, 1963 will long be remembered as the day on which President John F. Kennedy was assassi- nated. We are asked, frequently, what we were doing when we first heard the announcement of that shoot- ing. And most of us remember. What we do not remember, however, is that on that same day, 30 years ago, two other deaths were record- ed. Aldous Huxley, the brilliant author of "Brave New World" died in Los Angeles, and C.S. Lewis, an English university professor, died in his home outside of Cambridge, England. Of these three gifted men, it is C.S. Lewis who has had the greatest impact in our generation. In his early life Lewis reacted negatively to Christianity. He con- sidered it to be the promoter of second class architec- ture, bad poetry and an interfering deity. But one day during a routine bus trip, this atheist became a "con- verted man" and he began to employ his exceptional skills in speaking and writing on behalf of the tradi- tional truths of the faith which he called "mere Christianity." It was quickly apparent that he was a most unstuffy theologian with a singular gift for turning on the light of understanding and conviction in those who heard him. The 20th century has not seen a more intelligent and articulate defender of the faith. Early in his career, Lewis made an important point which needs to be reconsidered today. He had discov- ered while serving in the armed forces, that many of the young soldiers had never been presented with a convincing case for Christianity. When they did learn about it, they were impressed. As he observed: "If they appeared to b unchristian it was only that their teachers had been unwilling or unable to pass the good word on." Religion had not declined so much as it had not been taught. Although he had no clerical credentials, Lewis rose to the challenge of presenting the basic truths of Christianity. He gave a series of 29 radio broadcasts over the BBC which provided him with an average lis- tening audience of 600,000 people. These talks were enormously popular and seemed to bear out his con- tention that people will respond to the Christian faith when it is cogently presented in terms they can under- stand. Lewis went on to write as many as 25 books, all of which demonstrated his lucid style and the force of his logic. Millions of copies of these books sold while he was alive and an increasing number have been sold since His death. One person when asked which of Lewis' books he considered the best, responded 0 one I am now reading." Large numbers of people wrote. to Lewis seeking his advice and ‘by some miracle of ‘managed time, he re-" - sponded generously to all of his correspondents. A sample of his advice is provided by these lines written to a young New Zealander who had gone to England to teach and who was experiencing difficul- ties with the faith: "Keep your conscience bright, and your brain clear and believe that you are in good hands." Unlike many of his God-is-dead contemporaries, Lewis himself had full confidence in those “good hands." When he died, he was honored as a Christian apologist, a literary historian, a scholar-critic, a writer of science fiction and of children's books. His obituary in the London "Times" noted that he had caught and held the attention of those who were usually apathetic toward religion. Many people who considered themselves agnostics gave him a favorable hearing. After his funeral, one colleague said to another as they left the graveyard: "We've certainly lost a friend." "Yes," came the response, "but only for a time." Murder, robbery and the one-room school house State officials recently decided to track four new categories of violent crimes in our public schools: homicide, robbery, armed robbery and assault on school officials. Upon first hearing such news, I ques- tioned why such crimes were not already being tracked, then it hit me - these are our schools where “Johnny is supposed to be learning his three Rs. How can we have reached a point in society and in the government-run education system where we must track murder, robbery and assault rates in our schools? Recently, officials at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) calmly put out a report that begin- ning on December 1, school principals across our state will be required to start reporting such violent crime data. The Raleigh bureaucrats will then supposedly take the information and use it to draw up plans to pre- vent violence and promote security by the utilization of security patrols, armed law enforcement officers, video cameras and metal detectors. All of this is a far cry from the one room school house where our forefathers learned to read, write and "cipher." One wonders just how far away we will get from education until the citizens of North Carolina be- come so fed up that they simply will not allow schools to exist where the murder, robbery and assault rates must be charted. GUEST COLUMN THOMAS GOOLSBY Carolina*Syndicated Columns We have tried throwing money at the problem, all to no avail. We spend $4,802 per year for each student in our public schools, about 96 percent of the adjusted national average spent on education. At $35,344 in to- tal average compensation, our teachers receive 93 per- cent of the adjusted national average of teacher com- pensation. With all of the money spent on education, the North Carolina taxpayers receive lousy results for their cash outlays. On the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, our eighth graders ranked 34th out of the 42 participating states in math profi- ciency and only 53 percent of our eighth graders ranked at or-above a basic skill level. Our students’ SAT scores and graduation rates continue to rank low. On the most recent SAT, our students ranked 21st out of the 24 states where the SAT is most widely used. Although our students may rank low, our bureaucrat quota is high. In the 1970s we had one "staff" person for every two teachers. Now the ratio is one to one and dropping. The ratio of teachers to non-teaching admin- istrators has also fallen from 76 to one in the 1970s to 50 to one today. Does our bureaucratic top-heavy, non-educating, government-run school system offer us any answers to our dilemma? No. They only seem to foster the mad- ness by deciding to track homicides, robberies and as- saults on school grounds. Further, they continue to tell us that our state's problem is that we don't spend enough on education, even though study after study shows us that money is not the answer. We should learn a lesson from the one room school house. In such an institution, children learned. They were locally controlled and paid for with local taxes. Parents were involved and the students appreciated the * "opportunity" to learn. Additionally, no bureaucrats existed in the one room school house and DPI officials were not needed to track murders, robberies or as- saults. Kings Mountin Little Theatre puts on a good show The Kings Mountain Little Theatre deserves sup- port of the Kings Mountain public. Although the recent show,"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' was not well attended, it should have been. It was one of the most ambitious productions of the thespians and one of the hardest, since fhe setting was a ward of a mental hospital. Michael J. R. Gilks cast the characters perfectly for the roles and the story brought home a strong message, even though it was presented at times with risque hu- mor. But, it was adult theater at its best and worth the small admission and the two hours in the audience at the Woman's club. "You gotta laugh when things ain't funny,” said David A. Jones, whose efforts to buck and change the system didn't work in the end for him but enabled an- LIB STEWART ® News Editor other man , Rahn Scott as Chief Bromden, to fly over the cuckoo's nest. All the cast had to take on unique roles for the dra- ma. Chris Lowery, as Billy Bibbitt, learned to stutter and the patients in group therapy played their roles well. Shearrer Miller as Nurse Ratched was the woman that everyone loved to hate, including the audience who booed her when she gave shock treatments to McMurphy and punished the whole ward by not let- ting them watch the World Series on television. Other outstanding character performances were by Lora Goins as an aide; Mindy Reynolds as a nurse: and David Whetstine, Chris Lowery. Chuck Wilson. Mark Laughter, J. Murphy, James Glenn. Jim Champion, Bob Baker, billed as the star of the Little Theater stage, and the sexpots who livened up the scene, Stephanie Myers and Sha Van Dyke. Ina Blanton was assistant to the director. Joni D Smith. Dina Foster and Jeff Grigg were in charge of lights.
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.)
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