The Republican from Springfield, Massachusetts (2024)

April 22, 1991

Publication:

The Republicani

Location:

Springfield, Massachusetts

Issue Date:

Monday, April 22, 1991

Page:

9

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

UNION NEWS MONDAY APRIL 22 1991 9 ROYKO Any resemblance to the national anthem is strictly accidental By MIKE ROYKO Let's test your knowledge of musicTell me what song these lyrics are from 1) Oh dah lah hah la hah haha eee hee hah aaaand uh I have I aaaan uh uvva uvva uvva fruh heee heeeeee 2 Anna homma duh homma du du maaaaaaaaa 3) Dee uh dee hah hah hah buh huh eee buh huhe eee eee eee ray You say you recognize it? Non sense Of course you do likely that heard and sung it dozens or hun dreds of times depending on your age Your parents sang it And probably your grandparents too You still know it All right throw out a few hints a very old song The words were written more than 150 years ago The melody is even older than that You still know? Then you go to many Opening Days at baseball games Of course when rancis Scott Key wrote that line as well as the others that precede and follow it he kept the lyrics much simpler for the human brain to comprehend: the land of the free and the home of the And for many years the way it was sung But no longer done that way In recent times there has developed a sort of informal competition among singers at ballparks hockey rinks bas ketball stadiums and other patriotic gathering places to see who can best turn Star Spangled into something most resembling the howls of a maniac locked in the asylum tower not sure when and where these free form interpretations began although I vaguely remember some guy named Jose creating a stir a few years ago by opening a World Series with a rendition that sounded like the Star Spangled Cha Cha Cha Since then I have heard the anthem has been performed as the Star Span gled Rock the Star Spangled Disco the Star Spangled Gospel the Star Span gled Blues the Star Spangled Hoote nanny the Star Spangled Barbershop Quartet and the Star Spangled Scalded Cat A few weeks ago a woman who sang it before a Chicago Bulls game is be lieved to have set a record by using a variety of prolonged howls shrieks warbles screams and other vocal acro batics to drag it out to more than five minutes (3(3 I think it is time to draw the line After all it is our national anthem As such it should be performed with some dignity 99 A man who was there told me: understand one word And I swear if I were a Chicago policeman driving on a street in my squad car and I heard those sounds coming from a building I would radio for backup then draw my gun and go crashing into the place on the assumption that a woman was being brutally attacked by a gang of I think it is time to draw the line After all it is our national anthem As such it should be performed with some dignity rather than sounding like the singer has been bitten in the rear by a pit bull doubtful that anyone would stand in center court at Wimbledon and sing: hah Say hey he hey iv ow ow owah guh ray hey hey hey hey shush Qwa hey qua hey heee save our gracious ballpark style) The English would say more than tut tut sure Nor would they be impressed north of the border if someone gave them: hoooo Cay hey cay neee dah! Owah yes owah ahooooma ahoooma and ney yeh ney yey tivuh tivuh baby baby light my uh fiya lah hah hee huh ay and Canada! Our home and na tive If Mr Key could return and be trans ported to an athletic arena to hear a modern intepretation recognize the tune but probably say: English is no longer the native And think of the children Generation after generation of parents bring their children to ballparks to introduce them to the national pastime Do we want these children later standing up in the assembly hall and saying: teacher it starts like this: hoh hey cah han you see uh see uh by the daw haw hawns err uh err ee uh lee lah Even worse these wild eyed ren ditions of the Sta hah stah hah span uh gulled bayuh bayuh ner her hers en courage the more excitable beer soaked rock oriented members of the audience to leap up and clap their hands above their heads and shout hey yeah go baby That what rancis Scott Key had in mind On the other hand some musicolog ists say that the melody can be traced back to England where it had differant lyrics and was a drinking song So maybe not totally inappropri ate for singers to sound as if they just downed a quart of whiskey RASPBERRY Perhaps time for a new look at affirmative action various sorts sufficient to persuade zg zg the university that the lower scores I i 1 1 did not indicate inferior candidates But the fundamental public policy The problem is hOW tO niiocfinn romaine CnrmAn ILnl 4 Uza iviuuniij uupyuot uixau 111V criteria are spelled out and that they include not just test scores but extra curricular involvement barriers overcome and judgments regarding the prospects for success in school and afterward By WILLIAM RASPBERRY WASHINGTON The particular case of the Georgetown University Law Center may wind up obscured in the murk of misleading assumptions statistical imprecision racial mis chief and be trayal of confi dentiality But the ques tions Timothy Maguire tried to raise in his somewhat in temperate col umn in the Law Weekly will sooner or later have to be laid on the table The questions begin with this one: Is it ever justifiable as a matter of pub lic policy to choose black applicants over better qualified white ones? Let me say straight out that it has not been determined that Georgetown Law has done any such thing What Maguire a senior law student report ed is that among the files he saw (as a temporary file clerk in the admissions office) black students were admitted with an average score of 36 (out of a possible 48) on the Law School Admissions Test while the average score for admitted whites was 43 We know whether the files Maguire saw constitute a fair sam pling or even if they do whether there were other factors in the appli backgrounds including per severance in overcoming handicaps of Eventually there will have to be a ranking of applicants Can it ever be fair to choose lower ranking mi norities or women over higher rank ing white men? Should black skin (as opposed to specific disadvantage) be worth extra points? Two frequently heard responses seem to me illegitimate: irst that it happen and second that sub jective considerations favored whites for so long that now time they fa vored blacks Partisans on both sides of the ques tion know that it does happen that universities and private and public employers sometimes give special consideration to minorities In some cases the special consideration is in the interest of the institution making the selection: a newspaper seeking to improve its coverage of minorities an insurance company seeking to in crease sales to minority clients a po lice department wishing to improve its public image But sometimes the extra considera tion is justified by nothing more than the fact that blacks have been victims of discrimination in the past and ought to be favored (at least in close cases) now Is that fair? correct for racist history while main taining a sense of pres ent day fairness 99 A friend a successful black law yer and sometime law professor admits to philosophical doubt un derstand my claim against this he says not sure I understand my He thus moves beyond two notions frequently used to justify special con sideration for miniorities historic discrimination and present day social and economic impediments to success and goes directly to the hard ques tion: When will the legacy of slavery and state enforced discrimination cease to be a reasonable basis for ra cial preference? A black graduate of a black college (or a third tier public institution) who scores 36 on the LSAT may strike the admissions officer of a top ranked law school as a diamond in the rough But what of the black applicant whose un dergraduate school was Yale? Says my friend (whose reasons for insisting on anonymity strike me as legitimate): only justification I can come up with is that it is so important to society that there be well trained black lawyers that the best law schools ought to look for ways to admit But these bright but lower scoring black applicants find second tier law schools eager to snap them up? he admits education is both training and a ticket where you graduate from puts you in a different The problem is how to correct for racist history while main taining a sense of present day fairness As the flap at Georgetown demonstrates a good many decent minded white students think au tomatic special consideration for black applicants is fair says my friend the white kids at George town Law were born in 1968 All they know is attempts to deal with the his tory of slavery and segregation They feel guilty They have no sense that they should defer to He does not conclude nor do I that affirmative action has run its course and ought to be abandoned in the interest of color blind fairness But he does believe as I do that fairness is the ultimate test and that it is time to put the issue squarely on the table or he says come to the point where not what we want but what we can justify as a matter of fairness what people will put up with getting damned hard to articulate this issue in ways that make sense to people who are not members of the That may be reason enough for peo ple of good will to take a hard new look at this thing called affirmative action THIS IS THE MAM THESE ARE WHO WAS OR A IRAQI PEOPLE WHILE 'WORSE WITH WHOM WE THAN HITLER" SAlp WE WERE 1 NOT AT WAR LETTERS Weld protecting privileged class Massive cuts to our public higher education sys tem must be stopped before irreparable harm is done Those of us in the middle class depend upon our community colleges state colleges and the Universi ty of Massachusetts to prepare ourselves and our children to attain the skills required to survive eco nomically But Governor concept of belt tightening begins by placing the belt around the necks of mid dle class workers and their children while he pro tects the pocketbooks of the privileged class who can send their children to expensive private schools Can you imagine what an additional 15 percent cut in state support for nearby Holyoke Community College would mean when added to the 26 percent reduction in state support already suffered since 1987? How many classes and programs would no longer be available to area residents? How can largely self supporting young adult low income students from middle income families earn enough to pay proposed further increases in tuition and fees on top of the 50 percent increase in tuition and 90 percent increase in fees that students have been charged over the past three years? Many scholarships and loans are not realistically available to students whose parents earn in the opinion of some financial aid form but in the opinion of some bank How long will good faculty remain to teach in public colleges in the face of furloughs the lack of any pay increase for the past three years the threat of massive layoffs and plans to substantially reduce the benefits that were previously negotiated in good faith with the commonwealth? How can average people hope to build a better life for themselves and their children during and after the recession without the educational opportunities provided by good quality public higher education? We must say now to the governor and any legislators who would take the short sighted course presently proposed to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and their hopes for a bet ter future EDWARD BROWN Westfield Employers should be courteous I am a 52 year old female who has been unem ployed since eb 4 In the past 10 weeks I have answered numerous ads for jobs and gone on many interviews The Massachusetts economy is terrible Many peo ple are out of work through no fault of their own PEIRCE Economic recovery end all fiscal crises in the states By NEAL PEIRCE Shaken by the national recession the fiscal foundations of one state govern ment after another are starting to crumble The estimate of com bined 1991 and 1992 budget deficits has now soared to $126 billion more than the total general fund of all but four other states Lay off every state em ployee shut down all Cali fornia universi ties and prisons and still the bud get wouldn't be balanced says Gov Pete Wilson $24 billion deficit is proportionally even greater 37 per cent of the general fund budget To fill a $6 billion budget hole Gov Mario Cuomo is talking of the biggest spending cuts in New history in cluding $33 billion in aid to local gov ernments The hit for New York City facing its own $31 billion deficit would range from $400 million to $600 mil lion Are these fiscal nightmares to end sdon when economic recovery comes? Perhaps to a degree It's unlikely 30 states will face quite such deep deficits a year or (wo from now But now there is growing concern that many will Take California It may not experience another welfare case rise of 47000 as it has this past year But the 235000 student increase fed by the vast immigration will likely be repeated The prisons will likely add 12000 more inmates in a year Medicaid expenditures are expected to continue going through the roof California would need an economic recovery beyond wildest dreams to cover its constantly escalat ing costs The state may now face a that even good times can't cure Across the 50 states the ebullient era of the has come to a halt No longer will year in year out revenue increases keep states on Easy Street The fresh cash to take over social programs Washington forsakes or to experiment boldly in education housing and eco nomic development is gone Their backs against the fiscal wall governors and state legislators are starting to do just what Washington did in the Reagan years shove off re sponsibilities to the next level down State aid to counties cities and towns is on the chopping block in half the states this year says State Policy Reports ed itor Hal Hovey And when and shaft" federal ism reaches the grassroots level the only potential victims are local taxpay ers critical local service budgets or both Localities have neither the broad taxing authority nor the diversified tax base of states And they operate in a world of nuts and bolts reality far removed from a federal government that keeps running up scandalous deficits notwithstanding Gramm Rudman Hollings trickery and (3(3 Across the 50 states the ebullient era of the has come to a halt No longer will annual revenue increases keep states on Easy Street 99 budget summit bravado As the vise tightens in statehouses and town halls officials soon exhaust the economies: shedding of luxu ry services forcing layoffs of excess personnel and tightening accounting Taxes are starting to take off too Last year 30 states enacted some $103 billion in new taxes Governors and leg islators elected in last poli atmosphere at first tried to duck the tax bogeyman But by the time the dust settles this year says Hovey there may well be $15 billion in state tax increases Indeed without near miracles in some states the new tax figure could go even higher Sadly new taxes won't launch initiatives in criminal justice child care infrastructure replacement or any other area They're just to keep the ship of government afloat The unsavory outcome may be higher taxes for less services and not just in 1991 but for some years to come The insidious thought arises: Are we seeing America start to slip as a high income nation? Will increasing govern ment parsimony translate soon into a lower quality of life for millions of us? This is not a crisis from which state lotteries riverboat gambling or fiscal gimmicks will save us It makes you think former Sen Paul Tsongas of Mas sachusetts has a sound point when he says America won't hit the recovery road until it starts manufacturing the hard goods the rest of the world wants The hard times of 1991 the seem ing impossibility of making ends meet for so many states and localities ought to lead to some hard rethinking of what government does and which levels of government should do it How can we effect stem to stern redesign of our in health wel fare education public works to make them produce the same or great er benefit for an affordable cost? In states like California and New York the faintest early rumblings of those kinds of basic debates can be heard Such states ought to be designing systems and then starting to sell the reform models to their own populations And the states ought to be engaging the attention of a federal government that constantly postpones its own fiscal reckoning It take a fiscal Armageddon to focus our attention But now we're down to the bottom of the fiscal food chain facing crisis in the states and localities that can't print money or run up trillion dollar deficits It is time to stop trivializing public policy and get to work on reconstruct ing a country) These people myself included spend countless hours going through the want ads composing resumes and calling Employers are in what could be called a market However common courtesy has become very uncommon Would it be such a big chore to ac knowledge the efforts of the unemployed? A tele phone call or a pre printed postcard could prevent false hope in those of us who are desperate to retain our self respect while looking for work When personnel people say they will let an appli cant know the outcome of the application and inter view employers should make sure they follow through on that Please please acknowledge the effort that we are making In the long run you would be helping your public image as well as helping job applicants hang on to their self respect ANOTHER UNEMPLOYED PERSON Springfield Another opinion of 5A noise I read with interest an article about the continua tion of Westover based 5A night flights While I can sympathize with the residents who live in the flight path of arriving and departing 5As like to add a different perspective The 5As go over our house every morning at approximately 3:30 We live in the accident but my son is a loadmasterinstructor on the 5As and has been back and forth to the Mid dle East since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis In fact he was in an air raid shelter the night the bombing started wearing a chemical warfare suit that malfunctioned I thank God every time I hear one of those planes go over our house because it means that my son and his crewmates are home safely one more time JUDITH A JAUNDOO Belchertown Leiters Letters should be brief legible and writ ten on one side of the paper Pen names will be permitted and letters condensed at the discretion A communication MUST carry the name and street address of the writer for verification.

About The Republican Archive

Pages Available:

1,200,369

Years Available:

1911-2018