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Page 4 NORTHWEST HERALD Section B Tuesday, August 20,19t5 Opinion Study the airport study The controversy over a feasibil­ ity study for a McHenry County airport reached fever pitch last week A public meeting held Wednes­ day showed residents' concerns on the issue. Many salient points re­ garding financing, environmental impact, and other legitimate is­ sues were brought to the forefront. Unfortunately, a basic tenet of the American system of "rights" was trampled upon in the process. A speaker detailing the current findings of the study was shouted down. This behavior is cause for worry. Similar actions by "bully boy" groups in totalitarian nations is censured by all of us. Such behav­ ior by cmpaus activists in the 1960's brought a quick reprimand from everyone. So too should the actions by a few at Wednesday night's meeting. We are not simply talking about rudeness or points of etiquette. Freedom of speeech is a funda­ mental, constitutional right in this land. Regardless of our feelings on a given issue, we cannot suspend that right without doing severe damage to our constitution, our nation and our Community. Points in the unfinished study were called into question and re­ futed by audience members. That is the effective way to deal with such a study. Shouting down a speaker, and using profanities only serves to dilute and erase the ef­ fectiveness of thoughtful measures. There are outlets for opposition to an airport. Elected officials can be swamped with phone calls and mail if a citizen is against a specif­ ic issue. Concerted campaigns to let these officials know how the citzenry stands on an issue can be launched. These officials have been voted into office to decide upon such issues, weighing all factors. The feasibility study should be just that; a study considering the possibilities, implications and po­ tential problems of a given issue. The county board should not con­ sider it a preliminary plan. It is not something that should exist simply because its existence might give defacto impetus to the real­ ization of its subject matter. That is not its purpose, nor should the county board consider it such. It is the duty of the county board to consider and weigh all the facts before coming to a decision. Public opinion is a fact and cannot be ignored. However, the board must have all the facts. Without a finished study, the board cannot fulfill its duty. An issue such as this one will have a great impact on this area, and can lay the groundwork for future decisions. The feasibility study for a Mc­ Henry County airport should con­ tinue until it is completed. FLIES SWARRiMSi THE NOSTRILS <¥ M 1 SEE WE GOT HEB6 IN TIME F0(2. Wc OPENING PEV^RK9..." The dial-a-dirty racket Is Reagan the target? WASHINGTON (UPI) - Dick Viguerie and his conservative co­ hort now are out to get George Shultz fired. Most put this latest New Right crusade in the fat chance category, but sacking the secretary of state may be only a guise for the real purpose of the campaign. Viguerie has just sent out a fund- raising letter "for this nationwide grassroots effort to change the di­ rection of American foreign policy." Included in the mailing is a list of 25 reasons Shultz should be dis­ missed, including six examples 61 "terrorism or other acts of war­ fare" against the United States, including the recent TWA hijack­ ing, which have been answered by threats of U.S. retaliation but no action. "People are sick and tired of this country being pushed around by two-bit hijackers and communist puppets," Viguerie wrote. Some of the charges against Shultz are general: He has "sought to impose a mindless or­ thodoxy on State Department offi­ cials by purging those who dis­ agree with the Foreign Service establishment" and has "system­ atically excluded people with a common-sense view of internation­ al affairs from important jobs in the foreign policy apparatus." Others are more specific: He lobbied in favor of continued ob­ servance of the SALT 2 treaty, "supported more than $250 million in aid to the Marxist government of Zimbabwe," opposed establish­ ment of Radio Marti, backed the Contadora nations' proposals for Central America, "which would Arnold Sawislak have legitimized the Soviet colony in Nicaragua, "supported the so- called Genocide Treaty" and "re­ fused to acknowledge Soviet treaty violations so as not to damage the prospects for more treaties with the Soviets." In all, an impressive list of sins and one that suggests that even those who believe Shultz is a rotten secretary of state would have to concede he has been aiiujsy one. ' Such a list 6f transgressions, which literally includes errors of judgment or policy in five conti­ nents, might also raise the ques­ tion: How could President Reagan have failed to notice that his secre­ tary of state was committing so many outrages against American interests? One possible answer is that he didn't and that Shultz is doing what Reagan wants done. That has the advantage of the assumption that Reagan knows what is going on in his own administration and if it is true, then the arrows Viguerie et al have launched at Shultz real­ ly are aimed at the president and his conduct of foreign policy. In light of history, that is not too far-fetched a notion. Critics of pop­ ular presidents, and Reagan is one, often say the chief executive is being badly served by their un­ derlings. Harry Hopkins frequent­ ly was attacked by people who were really angry at Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sherman Adams was a convenient whipping boy for those who objected to the way Dwight Eisenhower did business. WASHINGTON - "Hi," says the breathless voice at the other end of the line, "I'm Suzie, and I'm the sort of girl who'll try anything once." If it's not Suzie, it may be Connie or Sarah or Laurie or Alice. They're the voices of dial-a-porn, one of the most lucrative rackets in the underworld of sex for sale. A Senate subcommittee two weeks ago held a hearing on a bill to prohibit this traffic in lewdness, and in Utah a federal grand jury has indicted two of the reported kingpins of the business. The Senate bill is sponsored by Jesse Helms and John East of North Carolina and by Jeremiah Denton of Alabama. It would apply both to dial-a-porn and to the use of cable for the transmission of sexually explicit material. In its present form the bill is patently unconstitutional. It would pro­ scribe not only obscene material but also any "indecent or profane" material, and when the govern­ ment gets into indecency and pro­ fanity the government is on ex­ ceedingly shaky ground. If the measure is to get anywhere, it will have to be revised. The July 31 hearings brought out eloquent spokesmen for and against the bill. The subcommittee heard from two lawyers represent­ ing Playboy Enterprises. They agreed that "obscene" material may perhaps be banned from ca­ ble TV -- indeed, this already is the law -- but they insisted that the First Amendment does not per­ mit censorship of the merely "in­ decent." Barry W. Lynn, repre­ senting the American Civil Liberties Union, said that a ban on indecent or profane material "would effectively bar every R- rated, and many PG-13 and PG- rated films from cable, depriving viewers of one of the principal reasons for purchasing Che service." On the other side, the subcom­ mittee heard from Bruce A. Tay­ lor, representing Citizens for De­ cency Through Law, and James A. Clancy, a California attorney who has led a crusade against hard­ core stuff on cable TV. Taylor got a little carried away. He referred to dial-a-porn as a "legal and ethi­ cal catastrophe now facing this nation." It is hardly that, but the racket appears to have reached propor­ tions sufficient to justify congres­ sional interest. Dial-a-porn mes­ sages first were offered late in 1982 lames J. Kilpatrick T or early in 1983. The operative telephone numbers were adver­ tised in girlie magazines and quickly were spread by word of mouth. Little boys get the numbers off the walls of school bathrooms. Business boomed. In February 1983, Suffolk County, N.Y., filed suit to stop the operation. In Sep­ tember the Federal Communica­ tions Commission began a look- see. On the last day of its legislative session of 1983, Con­ gress directed the FCC to make regulations that would prevent or deter juveniles from dialing the dirty numbers. The FCC gave it a stab with a time-of-day restriction in June 1984, but a court challenge immediately developed and this year the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals sent the regulation back for fur­ ther consideration. Meanwhile telephone bills have been rolling up across the country. Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., heard from outraged constituents whose curious kids had charged $200 and $400 in telephone bills to hear from 'Suzie or Connie or Alice. In Salt Lake City, U.S. Attorney Brant D. Ward is relying on an already existing provision of feder­ al law to go after Carlin Communi­ cations Inc. and its two principals, Carl Ruderman and Ira Kirschen- baum. This past April 25 he won a 23-count indictment against them. Other defendants are Kevin Good­ man, a recording technician, and Samantha Fox, a porn star who allegedly made some of the re- orded messages. I am of two minds on this trash. Part of me says that Congress should prohibit; the use of tele­ phone lines for dial-a-porn calls and the use of cable TV for explicit depictions of sexual acts. It de­ bases and trivializes the First Amendment to cite its protection for this material. Another part of me cries hurrah for the Supreme Court's 1969 decision in Stanley v. Georgia: "If the First Amendment means anything, it is that a state has no business telling a man sit­ ting alone in his own house what he may read or what films he may watch." Dial-a-porn is a profitable rack­ et. Evidence in the FCC's test case indicated that between February 1983 and February 1984, Carlin's three numbers in New York City alone drew 180 million calls. The Carlin outfit allegedly received 2 cents for each call -- $3.6 million in gross revenues. The affected telephone companies also fared well. The national mores, already sick, just got a little sicker. (James Kilpatrick is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate) a/ERWNE$lTUP STRAIGHT IN OUf? 6HAIR$! ... and ycv Jake tm ovt of Your MOOTH..NDW WHO WANTS To „ RKm?? VOU/WTEERS, Pl£A5E tl Sp. Anniversaries, annexations and A-bombs NORTHWIST HERALD "We often pray for puri­ ty, unselfishness, for the highest qualities of charac­ ter, and forget that these things cannot be given, hut must be earned." Lyman Abbott ROBERTA. SHAW Editor and Publisher LEONARD M. INGRASSIA Executive Editor STEVEN H. HUNTER Marketing Director MICHAEL E.MORSCH News Editor/Regional DENNISM. McNAMARA Editorial Page Editor RONALD L. STANLEY Circulation Director WASHINGTON (UPI) - So much of historical significance happened in August -- the annex­ ation of Hawaii in 1898, for exam­ ple -- it is difficult to single out individual milestones without slighting some event. However, the 50th anniversary of Social Security and the 40th an­ niversary of V-J Day both received wide attention. I was sorry to see the V-J annni- versary marred by a squabble over how many American lives were saved by President Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan. I was in Europe when World War II ended 40 years ago, thanks to another SS organization known as Selective Service, and, quite frank­ ly, the life I was primarily inter­ ested in saving was my own. Therefore, since I was being transferred to the Pacific Theater, I welcomed the news, reported by yet another SS publication ("Stars and Stripes"), that a war-ending bomb had been exploded in the Far East. I still am not clear whether it was the a-bomb threat or the pros­ pect of having my typewriter un­ leashed against them that caused the Japanese to surrender. Either way, we now know that the hard-working atom has not ex­ actly made the deserts bloom or otherwise lived up to some of the more extravagant predictions seen Dick West for cheap, abundant fuel in the post-war era. Indeed, the way things in the post-war era have been going late­ ly, I expect any day now to pick up a newspaper and find an item that reads somewhat as follows: "Chairman Maxwell Twitt of the Joint Congressional Subcommittee on Atomic Consumer Products in­ troduced legislation today to re­ quire the recall of all nuclear- powered mousetraps sold in this country. "He acted after an elderly wom­ an was treated for radiation inju­ ries suffered while baiting a trap manufactured by the Nukem Ex­ terminating Co. of Chin Strap, Va. "The victim, Owly Sue Cranny, 89, of Mt. Molehill, Ala., was not seriously hurt. Nevertheless, Twitt said there is a potential for severe damage to entire communities where mice exist. "The House member also took advantage of the occasion to insert into the Congressional Record the entire history of atomic consumer products in the United States. "In the beginnning, he reported, companies such as Nukem were heralded as the logical extension of the atomic bomb of the type dropped on Hiroshima 40 years ago. "These firms tamed the atom for peaceful uses, including the extermination of rats, he recalled. But doing in mice with atomic en­ ergy was not all it was cracked up to be. "For one thing, Twitt noted, there arose the problem of dispos­ ing of irradiated mice carcassed without atomizing the trash collectors. "For another, baiting the traps proved hazardous for civilians un- traihed in nuclear physics. "'Who,' the congressman asked, 'wants to put on a special anticop- tamination suit before changing the critical mass in a mousetrap? "Mrs. Cranny obviously didn't, and as a result absorbed enough radioisotopes to irradiate a regi­ ment of Enrico Fermis.'" (Dick West is a columnist for Unit­ ed Press International) Write us! ; Send letters tp Reader Forum,! The Herald, 7803 Pyott Road; Crystal Lake IL 60014. Letters must be signed and give the author's ad­ dress and telephone number for the editor's reference. We recommend] letters of 300 words or less. All let* ters are subject to editing for dark' ty and brevity. /