Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 358, Greencastle, Putnam County, 3 October 1985 — Page 7

'Feminist dream'of no-fault divorce a nightmare for women, kids

WASHINGTON (AP) Women and children are suffering reduced incomes and lower standards of living from no-fault divorce laws that started out as “a feminist dream" and turned into an economic nightmare, a Stanford University sociologist says. “I thought only good could come out of no-fault,” professor and author Lenore Weitzman said Wednesday in a speech to the Women’s Legal Defense Fund. But she said her research shows that in the first year after a divorce, the standard of living for women and minor children

opinion

Letters to the Editor Fire chief expresses thanks

To the Editor: To the community of Greencastle and Putnam County, I wish to extend a very sincere thank you for all of the help that was given throughout the day and night of Sept. 24 and 25. Without the help of countless people, this fire would have been much more devastating. There cannot be enough said for the City of Crawfordsville Fire Department and the five men who responded to our call for help. Without their assistance we would not have been able to contain the fire to just one block. We salute you. I would also like to take this time to thank all of the organizations and individuals who contributed the much

Courthouse effort appreciated

To the Editor: In all the excitement and tragedy of the fire last week in downtown Greencastle, many acts of kindness and cooperation inevitably went unknown and unreported to the public at large. Take a minute and read about one of those acts: At the height of the fire, ladies in th?‘ auditor’s office and the recorder’s office were genuinely alarmed that wind shifts and heat blasts would blow out windows on the west side of the courthouse. Serious damage could then result to original sets of ledgers that were under their control. The readers should be aware that these ledgers and journals of records are very large and very heavy. Nevertheless, these dedicated employees, together with concerned citizens like Mrs. Elizabeth Pierson, hand-carried those books to the east side of the buliding, out of harm’s way.

A glimpse of the lust for power without accountability.

By ANTHONY LEWIS c. 1985 N. Y. Times News Service BOSTON Jeane Kirkpatrick has just performed a valuable service for American democracy. She has given us a glimpse of the authoritarian mentality that lies beneath the genial surface of the Reagan administration: its lust for power without accountability. In a newspaper column Kirkpatrick denounced Professor Abram Chayes of the Harvard Law School for representing Nicaragua in its World Court suit against the United States. An American lawyer who thus opposes his own government, Kirkpatrick said, violates “a citizen’s obligation to support decisions made through normal democratic processes.” By what “normal democratic process” did the American polity approve a war against the government of Nicaragua? Approve the creation and funding of a “con-

Where there's smoke .. ■ there's fire in debate over restricted areas

By IRVIN MOLOTSKY c. 1985 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON With witnesses speaking in front of a sign that says “The Audience Is Requested Not to Smoke,” the war of the smokers versus the nonsmokers has begun a new battle. The issue this time is whether the federal government’s buildings ought to have separate areas so that nonsmokers are not exposed to the fumes from smokers. A bill that says they should is being promoted by a senator who admits to puffing a cigar or pipe from time to time. It is being opposed by, among others, a representative who doesn’t smoke at all. “Thank you for being here today, and please take note of the no-smoking signs,” said the bill’s principal sponsor, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Stevens remarked that no law currently requires no-smoking signs in the Senate office building where the hearing was being held but that the decision had been made voluntarily by the Government Affairs subcommittee on Civil Service, Post Office and General Services, of which he is chairman. “We need a law instead of informal agreements like this because these can be vetoed by one person,” Stevens said after

falls 73 percent while for men it rises 42 percent. According to Ms. Weitzman, the average judge looking at a sl,ooo-a-month salary and a family of four will give the man S7OO and assign S3OO for the woman and two children. “Divorce is simply an economic disaster for the divbrced woman and the minor children in her family,” said Ms. Weitzman, whose findings are set forth in a new book, “The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America.”

needed food and drinks. A special thanks to the men and the town boards of Bainbridge, Madison Twp. Fire Dept., Cloverdale and the Cataract Fire Department in Owen County. To the family and friends of Beth Anne Brewer, I wish to express my deepest sympathy and condolence. It is most regretful that, living in an era of such high technology and advanced civilization, such events still occur. I only hope that when such tragedy occurs that we continue to learn from our misfortune and search for a better way, to prevent future suffering. Robert Elmore, Chief Greencastle Fire Dept.

And all the while, of course, they knew full well that the books would have to be returned to their proper shelves the next day. The next day, however, brought some unexpected help. The ladies were met by a team of volunteers from Operation Life. These were the same O.L. technicians who had spent most of the previous day rendering medical assistance at the scene of the fire. But on this day they loaded all those ledgers and journals onto their gurney and simply rolled the books back to the appropriate office. That’s teamwork. That’s the kind of caring by county employees and cooperation from Operation Life personnel that taxpayers need to know about. They all deserve our unqualified thanks for a job well done. Jack Waldron, president Putnam County Council

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Anthony Lewis

tra” force to fight that war? Approve American direction of the force? Approve the use of terrorist methods? Approve the mining of harbors, the destruction of crops, the shooting of wedding parties? The American people did not approve those actions, and the Reagan administration knows they would not. That is

the conclusion of the second of three days of hearings Tuesday. Stevens’s staff had hoped that the bill’s probable main opponent, Jesse Helms, R-N.C., would attend the hearing Wednesday. Stevens and Helms are among the most unyielding members of the Senate, and an immovable object would have met an irresistible force, or something close to that. Helms did not appear, but among those who did show up was Rep. Charlie Rose, a D-N.C., who is a lot less confrontational than Helms but nonetheless defends the tobacco interests of his state, one of the country’s leading tobacco producers. “I don’t smoke and I don’t encourage other people to smoke,” Rose said. “I represent people who grow tobacco, not the people who manufacture cigarettes and encourage other people to smoke.” Concerning Stevens’s bill, Rose raised visions of a police state in which flying squads swooped down on people, perhaps even members of Congress, who lit up in nonsmoking areas. “I would hate to divert the Capitol police to arresting a constituent of yours or mine for smoking in the wrong place,” Rose said to Stevens. The best solution, he said, is courtesy toward one’s co-

No-fault divorce is available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. While it has reduced acrimony and trauma, nofault has robbed women of economic leverage and aggravated economic inequities, Ms. Weitzman said. “Our aim should be to equalize the standards of living of men and women after divorce,” she said, adding the alternative is “sentencing a large part of our future generation to poverty.” Ms. Weitzruan’s research is based on 2,500 court cases in Los Angeles and San

Restrictive new legislation isn't needed Trade laws already at president's disposal

By RICHARD L. LESHER President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce WASHINGTON- A popular saying holds that for every problem, there is a simple solution - and it’s usually wrong. It would be best to keep that fundamental truth in mind as we consider appropriate responses to the exploding U.S. trade deficit. THE RESPONSE suggested with increasing frequency, both by the public and by members of Congress: pass new laws punishing countries running large trade surpluses with the United States. A simple solution - but unfortunately, the problem is not that simple. In fact, Michael A. Samuels, vice president in charge of the International Policy Division at the U.S. Chamber of commerce, recently performed a great public service by pointing out just how complex the international trade issue really is, in a speech before the American representatives to the 22nd U.S.-Japan business conference held in Minneapolis this summer. I would like to perform a public service of my own by sharing some of his thoughts. Ambassador Samuels said many of the factors contributing to our trade deficit exist right here at home. Among them: the “major national embarrassment” of high budget deficits; our predilection for consumption, which “fuels the demand for imports; ” our lack of knowledge about the rest of the world (few of us speak foreign language or even know geography); the ascendancy of the service economy over manufacturing and most important, the appreciation of the dollar - caused not just by our fiscal posture, but also by the confidence of foreign investors in the American economy. TO THOSE PROBLEMS, Ambassador Samuels explained, we can add a series of international complications. First, there is the debt crisis in many less developed countries, LDCs, which drives them to “export more and import less” in order to pay off their obligations. In fact, the United States has long encouraged such economic activity among LDCs to reduce the need for foreign aid. Other countries, he added, are simply growing more slowly than the United States. This depresses the demand for U.S.

why the president and his cohorts have carried out their Nicaragua policy by stealth and lies. The administration said the objective of the contra war was to interdict weapons shipments to Salvadoran guerrillas, but Reagan himself made clear that the purpose was to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. The administration pretended that Nicaraguans were running the show when Americans were. A year after Congress barred a CIA role, we learned that a National Security Council staff member was supervising the covert war. All that is what Kirkpatrick means by “normal democratic processes.” She means a political system in which the executive does what it wants, unhampered by any duty to account for its actions. It is the model followed in many countries, but it is not what George Washington and James Madison had in mind at our Con-

Francisco as well as interviews with divorced men and women and divorce attorneys and judges in Los Angeles and San Francisco. She also did a national survey of state laws. Studies and statistics from other states indicate the California findings are typical of the national situation, Ms. Weitzman said. She said her research provides the first data on what has happened under nofault. Among her findings: —A 1970 California law requiring equal property division “seemed like a feminist

" OKW, 81/YS, NOW LOT GO OVER THE RULES ONE MORE TIME..."

products in their markets, even as our appetite for imports increases. Ambassador Samuels noted < 4hat the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the international framework under which most of the world’s major trading nations have agreed to keep their markets open to foreign goods, governs only 10 per cent of all trade. Finally, “cultural, political and economic differences among countries,” naturally serve as barriers to free trade. OF ALL THE FACTORS contributing to our trade imbalance, only the last would be addressed by import surcharges or by other new legislation aimed at restricting imports. Yet those same internal customs and habits of our trading partners are, realistically, the most resistant to change.

stitutional Convention. That the Reagan administration wants power without accountability is not news. Reagan has tried to give the United States an Official Secrets Act by executive order, without legislation. He has declared “national emergencies” in order to impose economic sanctions without congressional approval. He has made recess appointments to avoid the inconvenience of Senate confirmation. He resisted any restraint on his rash use of troops in Lebanon. But Nicaragua is the most dangerous example of the authoritarian tendency. It is also the most discouraging, for those of us who count on Congress to rein in an overweening executive. When Congress last summer approved “humanitarian assistance” to the contras, it appeared to exclude an American military role. But while practically nobody

workers. “I don’t have any restrictions on smoking in my office, but no one in my office smokes,” he said “This sort of stuff is getting into codifying human contact,” Rose said of Stevens’s bill, although he added, “I realize that a little white cigarette with smoke coming out of it is an easily identified target.” Stevens had already identified the target, and he told Rose that the bill represented “the way things are going” and that members of Congress from tobacco-growing states especially ought to take note of that because of growing health concerns over fumes from other people’s cigarettes, so-called passive or secondhand smoke. The issue arouses a range of people. One of them is William Lesser Jr., a civilian employee at the Pentagon, who has been distributing antismoking literature at the Steven’s hearings. Lesser’s method of petitioning is simple and gentle When representatives of the Tobacco Institute (which says there is no proved link between smoking and disease), the Coalition on Smoking or Health (which says it is foolish not to recognize the smoking-illness link) and other invited witnesses put big piles of

Thursday, Oct. 3,1985, The Putnam County Banner Graphic

dream come true” but has made it more than three times as likely that the family home will be sold to meet the equal division requirement. Previously, women typically received the house, and children had some stability. —ln dividing property, courts do not generally take into account career assets future earnings ability based on education and skills, pensions and retirement funds, and medical insurance. —Alimony is “largely a myth” in America. Ms. Weitzman said 85 percent of

Instead of resorting to simple - and simplistic -- solutions, we should act to address all-the factors limiting our ability to trade. We must get our economic house in order - and create the conditions that allow American industries to be more competitive. The reach and enforcement power of GATT must be enhanced. We must continue to look for ways to deal with the debt crisis, and our trading partners must be urged to beef up their economies to step up their demand for U.S. exports. THAT DOESN’T MEAN, however, that we have to turn the other cheek when our trading partners deliberately restrict U.S. products from entering their markets. But instead of scattershot new legislation that might violate trade agreements, invite

noticed, it opened the back door to just such a role. A supplemental appropriations bill, now law, allows U S. authorities to “exchange information” with the contras. And Rep. Dave McCurdy, D-Okla., succeeded in writing into the Intelligence Authorization for 1986 language that the report says would permit “provision of intelligence information or advice to the contras. ” Edgar Chamorro, a former contra leader, told the World Court in an affidavit what such “information” means. Among other things, he said, the CIA advised the contras of “the precise locations of all Nicaraguan government military units.” That is what the legislation would evidently allow. McCurdy and his colleagues say they are against U.S. intervention while actually allowing it. The example of the Chamorro affidavit shows one function of the World Court

their testimony on the press table, Lesser established a smaller pile of his own, leaving a “Personal Statement in Support of Senate Bill S-1440 (‘Nonsmokers’ Rights’)” by another federal worker, Carl Nye. He also left a copy of his own six-page tract, “The Fallacy of ‘Smokers’ Rights,’ ” at the desk of each senator in the committee room today. But when Stevens was the only senator to show up, Lesser retrieved the neglected material, tore the cover sheet from one copy that had been addressed to an absent senator and gave it to a reporter who had wandered into sight. Meantime, the absent Helms was not far from most everyone’s mind. Asked to assess his bill’s chances, Stevens said, “I hope to get it before the Senate next week.” When it was noted that other anti-smoking laws had run aground on rocks strewn by Helms, Stevens said, “Well, that’s true, and maybe it’s time for some of us to stop some tobacco legisation unless we get rights for ourselves. If this bill can’t get to the calendar, I don’t see why tobacco subsidy legislation should get there. Two can play at that game.”

divorced women “don’t receive a penny’ although attorneys believe 75 percent are awarded alimony and judges put the figure at 50 percent. The average award lasts 25 months. —The average child support award is S2OO a month for two children. Ms. Weitzman said the awards generally were less than what the average welfare mother receives, with high rates of delinquent payments. She said fathers with $50,000 incomes were as likely to be in arrears as those with SIO,OOO salaries.

retaliation and insulate U .S. industry from beneficial competition, the president should use the trade laws already at his disposal. These allow him to address trade violations the way they should be addressed -- on a case-by-case basis. The president has taken an important step by using his authority against a broad range of industries, both services and manufacturing, in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and Europe. What we don’t need is restrictive new legislation that would tie the president’s hands and very possibly hurt more than help. What we do need, as Ambassador Samuels suggests, is to take a step back, take a broader look at the trade problem, and ensure that we don’t choose the solution that is simple, easy - and wrong.

hearings: to bring out the facts of what the United States is doing in Nicaragua. That is accountability which the Reagan administration has tried to duck by running away from the World Court proceeding. 1 should say that I am a friend of Chayes. When he was legal adviser to the State Department during the Cuban missile crisis, I saw his insistence on respect for law in the Kennedy administration’s responses. I know his devotion to the American principle that power must answer to law. Kirkpatrick does not believe in that principle. She thinks the end of effective executive power justifies the means. She thinks the duty of American lawyers is to cheer what their government does, however lawlessly. She is ignorant of the part that law has played law and independent lawyers in making America strong and free.

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