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.Olympic atMetes, fams lost pegspedive
It's a little sad to see the Olympics end. Frankly it's
going to be hard to give up all that hype and hysteria
cold turkey. As commentator Jim McKay might say
in a blather of patriotic sentiment, "Gee, there's just
nothing like catching that Olympic spirit." Ain't it
the truth.
The Olympic spirit, loosely defined, is that bull
headed stubbornness that pushes the athlete to
new heights of greatness. For the fan, Olympic spirit
is that chest-puffing, button-busting, all-out yahoo
ing pride in one's country.
Now the Olympics are over and the mythical
Olympic spirit will be put back into its box for
another four years. Strange thing this Olympic
spirit. It's often inspiring and always exciting. It's
been responsible for some absolutely fantastic
accomplishments. But it turns dangerous and ugly
when it's allowed to triumph over common sense.
It's great to talk about the Olympic spirit that
finally pushed punch-drunk Gabriella Andersen
Schiess over the finish line to place 37th in the
women's marathon, all but unconscious from ex
haustion. It's great, that is, only after she had been
declared okay by the local Olympic hospital. That's
just so much Olympic 2020 hindsight. She should
have been stopped. t
I'll never forget the sight as she almost incoher
ently teetered her way into the stadium. She was
lost, exhausted, confused, emotionally naked in
front of millions of people. Track officials were con
fused as well but refrained from giving her the help
she so desperately needed.
She continued to sway, stumble and stagger
around the track, seemingly oblivious to her peril
but proclaiming it louder with each rubbery, gro
tesque step. And still the officials did nothing. That's
not perpetuating the Olympic spirit as much as it is
abusing common sense.
Push your body to the limits of its capabilities.
Fine. But this woman was way out of her league and
ner body knew it. She was on automatic pilot with
no gas left. The warning signs were obvious and
ignored.
The fact that she by some miracle happened to be
all right after the race hardly diminishes the argu
ment What would they have told her family if she
had sustained permanent brain damage? "Sorry, we
just wanted to see her make it?" "She was a brave
little competitor?" "At least she finished"? Hardly
consolation. She should have been stopped.
The gutty, potentially dangerous effort put out by
Andersen-Schiess makes me think of Jim Fixx, the
man credited with starting the jogging craze with
"The Complete Book of Running." He wrote once in
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the book, "The qualities and capacities that are
important in running such factors as willpower,
- the ability to apply effort during extreme fatigue
and acceptance of pain have a radiating power
that subtly influences one's life." It not so subtly
influenced Fixx right into his grave. Fixx died of a
heart attack while jogging through a rural village in
northern Vermont. I wonder if he just might like to
put an asterisk by that passage now?
Don't miss my point. The Olympic spirit is glorious
if tempered with reason. But at times it simply gets
out of hand. That goes for the fans as well as for the
athletes.
Recently, as I listened to the insessant chants of
U-S-A, U-S-A, for the umteenth time, it seemed to me
that this, too, was Olympic spirit run amok.
Be proud of your country, sure. But to the point
that the Olympic spirit turns even the most sensible
among us into jingoistic atomatons, rooting for any
thing with a USA on its shirt, no.
Let's keep the Olympic spirit let's keep it in
proper perspective.
Jsraea A. Fcssell
lax increases comin
despite 2.478
If you have tears, prepare to shed
them for one of President Reagan's
2,478 favorite ideas.
He got these ideas from Peter Grace.
When conservatives say "Let Reagan
be Reagan," they mean "Let Reagan be
Grace." One of the most radical fellows
in or aruund government, Grace, a
businessman, chaired the commission
that recently rendered 2,478 recom
mendations for "cost control" in gov
ernment. Reagan has seized upon these recom
mendations as a refutation of the
notion that a tax increase will be
required to reduce the deficit to man
ageable proportions. Vowing at a press
conference to rely instead on spending
George Will
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cuts, Reagan said, "We have a task
force working on 2,478 recommenda
tions ... of ways in which government
can be made more economic and ef
ficient by simply turning to modern
business practices."
Reagan has not read the 10-foot-high
stack of documentation for the 47
Grace volumes, so he can be forgiven
for not knowing that they involve a lot
more than "modern business practices."
Brigades of public-spirited persons
donated their time to the commission,
and identified hundreds of possible
efficiencies that could indeed save bil
lions of dollars. But most of the large
sums pertain not to more efficient
administration of policies not with
diminishing "waste, fraud and abuse"
but with changing policies.
For example, the report proposes
cutting federal pensions for more than
5 million federal workers, and their
spouses. Were Reagan to endorse all
2,478 ideas, he would lose 50 states.
He and other conservatives who use
the Grace report to suppress talk of
tax increases are, shall we say, selec
tive in their enthusiasm for the partic
ular recommendations. This was shown
when Congress recently tumbled over
itself in aniic haste to send to Reagan a
bill that does the opposite of the Grace
proposal concerning federal sales of
hydroelectric power.
The proposal was that federal power
marketing administrations charge for
their electricity something more than
mere cost-recovery rates, if not the full
rate the market would bear. Congres
sional conservatives recently had a
chance to stop praising and start im
plementing the Grace recommenda
tions with respect to the Hoover Dam.
Since 1937 the dam has been gener
ating electricity under a contract that
guarantees cheap power to parts of
Nevada, Arizona and southern Cali
fornia for 50 years. Although the con
tract still has three years to run; al
though Congress has so much work
and so little time that it can not pass
even appropriation bills in a timely
manner; although the Depression-era
Hoover rates are from one-fourth to
one-fourteenth those that unsubsid
ized Americans pay nevertheless,
Congress has rushed to extend for 30
years, until 2017, the cheap sale of this
federal resource.
The vote in the Republican controlled
Senate was 64-34, with every senator
from west of Missouri voting to con
tinue the subsidy. That is Reagan
country, pardner, but it also is where
there are other cheap federal power
arrangements.
Furthermore, conservative cowboys
can spot trouble coming across a far
mesa and they saw a slew of troubles in
the suggestion that federal resources
should be sold'at something approach
ing market rates. Suppose that obnox
ious principle were applied to water,
or grazing, fees. All those folks whose
church-going clothes include cowboy
boots and Adam Smith neckties wor-
ship at the altar of the GFM (Glorious
Free Market), but this is hitting close
to home.
Conservative Republican senators
said (hang on tight this argument
can give you ideological whiplash) it
would be "laissez-faire economics
the public be damned" to end federally
subsidized rates. They said it is good
conservative government-bashing pol
icy to continue this subsidy. Why?
Because it is "consumer protection
to prevent big government from charg
ing big (market) rates. Anyway, they
said, it is sound anti-government pol
icy to prevent government from going
"into business to make a profit." (What
happened to Reagan's sound business
practices? Hush.) Besides, subsidized
power is stand up and salute, con
servatives a "tradition."
As Mark Twain said, get the facts
first you can distort them later. The
fact is that the Congress has again
demonstrated the real conservatism
of modern government, which labors
to protect people from disagreeable
change.
Twain also said that thunder is im
pressive, but lightning does the work.
The Grace report is thunderous, but
Congress must do the work. Will Rea
gan, who praises the Grace approach,
veto the bill by which Congress shreds
a Grace idea? No,
Reagan now says he will veto any
increase in "personal" income taxes.
The adjective is a modifier, modifying
his opposition to taxes. His pledge
leaves as it should lots of kinds of
taxes unmentioned. The Hoover Dam
vote illustrates why today's 2,479th
idea that tax increases arc coming
will net go away.
KZl, Washington Post Vriitrs Group
Tuesday, August 14, 1984
Page4
Daily Nebraskan
