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Page 2 NORTHWEST HERALD Section B Friday, August 2,19S5 Advice *̂"1 " Donald Kaul Donald Kaul Is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services DEARABBY B y A b i g a i l V a n B u r e n Coke is it-alas You're probably going to think I'm some kind of left-wing pinko creep when I tell you this, but here goes: I didn't care when they changed the old Coke to the new Coke and I didn't care when they changed back. I don't like Coke; never did. I don't like Pepsi either. Nor 7-Up nor Dr. Pepper nor any other soft drink. There, it's out. Sounds kind of un- American, doesn't it? I've always taken the position that if you drink something that's bad for you, you should have a hangover to show for it. The closest I've ever come to liking a soft drink was back when I was a lad in Detroit and had a flirtation with Veraor's Ginger Ale, a drink so gingery that it could hardly be called soft. I'd go into malt shops and say, "I'll have three fingers of Vernor's in a dirty glass, and hold the chaser." Sometimes I'd make a girl laugh. Not even Vernor's makes a drink like that anymore. When I did drink a cola, I drank Coke, but that was because I liked the bottle. You know, that beautifully shaped little bottle that fit right in your hand? When Coke went to the big bottle I quit drinking it altogether. It truly is un-American, I guess, not liking Coke; the drink's populari­ ty is so vast that it has come to symbolize our entire culture in the eyes of much of the world. We bring Coke to the heathens even as the Romans brought law. I'm free to admit that I don't fully understand the phenomenon. Why would this sweet, carbonated drink seize the imagination of the public so? More, say, than Hershey's chocolate or Smith Bros, cough drops. When William Allen White of Emporia, Kan., the most famous small-town newspaper editor of his time, was interviewed on his 70th birthday by Life magazine in 1938, he insisted that he be photographed beside a Coke dispenser at a local soda fountain. "Coca-Cola is a sublimated essence of all that America stands for," he said. America stands for being sweet and syrupy and bad for your teeth? Perhaps, but I don't believe it. I'll bet if you did a blind taste test, not three out of 10 people could tell the difference between Coke and anything else, let alone between new Coke and old Coke. I recently had that experience, more or less. Having given up drinking on the advice of my liver, I found myself at a party with nothing to drink but the new Coke and Diet 7-Up. First I drank a 7-Up. Then I drank a new Coke. I compared. There was no difference. They both tasted like something drained from a car radiator then chilled. Robert Gould, a social psychologist, recently said of Coke: "They've associated a trivial part of life, the drinking of a soda, with peace, happiness, winning, love, the essence of existence. You can't tamper with Coke without tampering with all the symbols. The psycho­ logical attachment is independent of the product itself." That's closer to the mark. What he's talking about, of course, is the power of advertising; the power, especially, to create symbols that we react to in a manner prescribed for us. That's more than a little frightening, the fact that there are people who can make us like things for reasons that have little to do with the nature of the things themselves. It's television, of course. The average person these days, by the time he or she reaches adulthood, has spent more time watching television commercials than reading books. (Groan.) We've taken one of the most powerful educational tools the world has ever seen and used it to teach people to suspend rational judgment when making a decision. And not Just in the matter of soft drinks and toilet tissue, either. Television is well on its way to complete dominance of our political process. It is hardly a coincidence that the people who created President Reagan's wonderful soft-focus television ads last fall are the sameones who did the equally wonderful -- indeed, almost identical -- Pepsi ads that brought that drink up to the level of Coke in sales. Nor is it surprising that some of the research that went into the near-disastrous changing of Coke was done by Pat Caddell, President Carter's pollster. Once a Carter man, always a Carter man. The worlds of entertainment and politics and advertising are fast becoming one. Some sort of high-water mark in this confusion was reached during the last Republican National Convention when that huge, movie-sized shot of Ronald Reagan waving to the crowd was projected (m a screen in back of the speakers' platform and Nancy Reagan, Standing on the platform, waved back -- at his imagel I don't know where it's all going to end, but I have a feeling that President Reagan was right when he said, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Toto, where are you now that we need you? © 1965 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC. Woman wants a sober lover DEAR ARBY: I'm 22 and head over heels in love with .a man who is 35. We've been dating for four months and I can't get him off my mind. I wish I could, because he told me right from the start that he didn't want any com­ mitments. He was married to his ex-wife twice and says he is still in love with her and pro­ bably always will be. Lately when we go to a nightclub, he drinks too much and I end up driving him home and putting him to bed. When he's drunk he says he's falling in love with me. Once he asked me to move in with him. I told him to ask me again when he was sober. He never did. I really care a lot for this guy, Abby. How can I either get him to love me enough (when's he's sober) to marry me, or get him out of my system? FRUSTRATED DEAR FRUSTRATED: If you really care about him, try to get him into an alcohol rehabilitation facility where he will be treated for alcoholism and taught how to stay sober a day at a time--which is all any recovering alcoholic can do. You can't make anybody "love" you, or marry you, but with counseling you can get a person out of your system if you're determined to do so. DEAR ABBY: Twenty-five years ago we liv­ ed across the street from a prominent attorney (a widower) who died suddenly. His relatives were cleaning out his home and they gave my husband a drawer filled with socks--old and new. He was told, "Take what you want and toss the rest." As he was sorting through them, he found $2,000 in bills stashed in the socks. We immediately contacted the executor and returned the money. And would you believe, the deceased's only child (a married daughter,\ living in another state) never as much as said "Thank you."- More surprising, nearly everyone we told said, "You should have kept the money. It was yours." What do you think? R.M., BLOOMINGTON, ILL. DEAR R.M.: Your first impulse was right. For you to have kept the money the old gentleman had been literally socking away would have been dishonest. DEAR ABBY: Recently one of your readers wrote, "America is the only country in the world where mothers will drive their kids to the YMCA so they can get some exercise." Well, I want to tell you that America is the only civilized country where parents let their kids get up before dawn to deliver newspapers. I was born in Europe, and when I went back there and told people this, they couldn't believe it! JEANNE DUPREY, SEATTLE DEAR JEANNE: Why Is that so hard to believe? Many of America's most successful businessmen started out as young boys with a paper route. What better way to team respon­ sibility, the value of a dollar and the Im­ portance of sticking with the job come rain or CONFIDENTIAL TO "YOUR READER IN MAUI, HAWAII": Nobody said It better than Benjamin Franklin: "To be proud of knowledge, Is to be blind with light; to be proud of virtue, Is to poison yourself with the an­ tidote." Another plea UP]photo John Jenco, the nephew of the Rev. Lawrence Jenco who is being In Lebanon, *" ~ " sday. Reli seven Americans still held hostage in Lebanon called on President held hostage ing with Wnil speaks with reporters following a meet- ite House officials Wednesday. Relatives of fotir of the Reagan to attempt a "direct dialogue" with their captors if behind- the-scene efforts do not soon win their release. i S Silkwood case goes to court once more United Press International DENVER - The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a split decision, ordered a new trial to decide if punitive damages can be awarded to the family of Karen Silkwood. Silkwood was 28 when she was killed in an auto accident in 1974 in Oklahoma while en route to meet a Businessman suing Soviets wants default called in case By Michael C. Tipping United Press International LOS ANGELES -- A businessman suing ihe Soviet Union for libel claims he should be able to seize some $70 million in Soviet assets frozen in the United States because there has been no official response to his suit. Raphael Gregorian, 56, is asking a federal court for a default judg­ ment against the Soviet Union be­ cause it has failed to respond to his $400 million lawsuit. Gregorian and his attorney filed the request for a default judgment in federal court Wednesday, argu­ ing that time expired July 30 for the Soviet newspaper Izvestia and the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade to answer the suit. "They were served with our com­ plaint in Moscow on May 31, and they had until July 30 to respond," said Gerald Kroll, Gregorian's at­ torney. "I checked with the (court) 'There She is' again United Press International ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Miss America 1985 will stroll down the runway at this year's beauty pag­ eant serenaded for the first time in three years by the traditional song, "TtiereShels." Pageant officials and the compos­ er Wednesday announced they had settled differences that kept the tra­ ditional song from being sung at the past three annus' pageants. Dropping the tfng created an up­ roar that was outstripped in recent it history only by the publica- of nude photos of the 1983 Miss America, Vanessa Williams, and the removal of Bert Parks as the show's host in 1980. clerk, and the Soviet Union has not filed an answer, and my office has not been contacted by anybody." A hearing on the default request is scheduled Sept. 23 before U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon, who ruled July 17 the Soviet Union was not protected from the suit by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1977. v Kroll said U.S. Embassy person­ nel in Moscow served the suit on the Soviets May 31. Since then, the only response from the Soviets' was an offer to the U.S. Embassy to give Gregorian $200,000 for medical equipment bought by Soviet hospi­ tals but never paid for, in exchange for his dropping the suit. Gregorian refused the offer. Gregorian's company, California International Trade Corp. of Palo Alto, was one of the largest non- manufacturing American business operating in the Soviet Union. He lost his accreditation to do business with the Soviets last No- THE vember after an article in the gov­ ernment-controlled newspaper Iz­ vestia accused Gregorian of shady business practices and claimed be made a habit of contacting Soviet specialists in fields "historically of interest to American intelligence." The businessman filed suit in Jan­ uary, chargin libel and breach of contract. The $400 million suit seeks compensation for lost business and punitive damages against the Sovi­ ets and a Southern California com­ pany, Mine Safety Appliances, that Gregorian said profited by his oust­ er and reneged on its agreement to pay him commissions. Kroll, citing U.S. Treasury re­ ports, said Latvia, Estonia and Lith­ uania -- now Soviet states -- have had some $70 million in gold, bank deposits and other assets frozen in the United States since 1947. Should he fail to seize those as­ sets, Kroll said Soviet goods shipped to the United States could be attached. reporter to discuss nuclear contami­ nation at the Kerr McGree Corp.'s Plutonium plant were she worked. An autopsy showed her body had been contaminated by plutonium. Court records indicate she had been contaminated in several unex­ plained incidents in the weeks be­ fore her death. A federal court jury in Oklahoma City initially awarded $10 million to her family, in addition to $500,000 for personal injuries and $5,000 for property damages. Wednesday's decision by the Pen- ver-based appeals court was the re­ sult of a U.S. Supreme Court deci­ sion last year that ordered the appeals court to reconsider the pu­ nitive damage award. BUI Silkwood, Karen's father and guardian of her children, alleged his daughter's death was the result of Kerr- McGree's negligence. Coming to terms By Mark Patinkin Providence Journal Something strange is happening out there. Lately, whenever I start switching through cable, I run immediately into TV wrestling. A week ago, I walked into a bookstore. There were three TV wrestling paperbacks, I recently read one other fact that's even more telling. Someone is about to come out with a line of Hulk Hogan dolls. Hulk Hogaii is a TV wrestler. For some reason, the greatest nation in the worla has this year become captivated by watching people with names like Ivan Putski do kneedrops on the faces of other people with names like Abdullah the Butcher. I'm trying to figure out why this is. The promoters insist it's patriotism. The biggest of the wrestling books is called "Hulkamania!'f First of all, you have to wonder about any author who puts an exclamation mark at the end of his title. Most agree that Hemingway would have been trying too hard if he'd called it "The Old Man and the Sea!" But the point of mentioning "Hulkamania!" here is one of its last lines. "In these troubled times," it says, "America has found its new idol." The book's subtitle, incidentally, is: "Hulk Hogan. America's Hero." For all I know, he may be. The last TV wrestling show I saw was kicked off by some guy with a good heart but a bad voice singing, "Stand Up, America." Then came the national anthem. Finally, two clergymen gave invocations. Once God and country had been thanked, Hulk Hogan began doing kneedrops on the face of a guy named Sergeant Slaughter. Or maybe it was Killer Brooks. Wrestling was never that big when I was a kid. Like most American males, I took it in gym. It was taught by the standard grammar school coach. He was famous for saying things like, "Half theSfelaqftUMhis side, the other two-thirds over there. It soon became clear why this kind Of wrestling -- legitimate wrestling -- never cut it as a spectator sport. No action. All we did was lock together, turn beet-red and break after two minutes. Then someone in television got the idea of changing the rules. Maybe that was the key. Maybe Americans like fights with no rules. It was a few years later, in high school, when I first began watching this new form of wrestling. My favorite was Dick the Bruiser. I liked the way he'd spontaneously grab the announcer's mike and give such commentary as, "Anybuddy out deah who don't like how I fight, I'll bust your head, too." I especially liked the time when he picked up the journalist's table, walked back into the ring and began hitting Big John Studd over the head with it. Then there was Ivan Putski. He used to keep a wood cudgel in his shorts, smash his opponents between the eyes, and hide it again before the referee caught him. At least I think it was Ivan Putski.Maybe it was the Mad Turk. Anyway, I lost track of the sport after a time. I presumed other people lost interest as well when they, like me, started noticing that the kneedrop- pees never tried to get out of the way Of the kneedroppers. Then, suddenly, this year, it got big again. How big? Well, Hulk Hogan has even been a special guest character on "Search for Tomorrow." The books seem to be the most unexpected twist. Actually, I kind of like the way they're written. One has a chapter on an aging wrestler named George "The Animal"/Steele. He looks about 50. "Unlike wine," the book says, "George has not mellowed with age." I find myself having a bizarre reaction to it all. Whenever I come across a televised bout, I have two responses. First, I shake my head at the depraved nature of anyone who would watch such nonsense. Then I sit down and watch it. A week ago, I had the most telling experience of all. I was wat replay of the 1984 Olympic wrestling finals -- real wrestling. I turned channel briefly during a commercial. And there was Hacksaw Butch Reed putting the Great Kabuki to sleep With a Freebird hold. Or maybe it was One Man Gang. 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