The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 8

(S)pflK)nLn) A8 Good deeds showed there's a Santa Claus There really is a Santa Claus. If you look carefully you will see him and if you listen carefully you'll hear him. I saw him In Andrew Schini, 412, and his family as he helped make the cookies and delivered them to the special helpers of our city. These people had to work on Christmas Day and Andrew surprised the Normal fire and police stations, Brokaw Hospital, Doctors Office and neighbors with plastic baggies of assorted cookies. A big thank you to Mr.

and Mrs. Claus for teaching their little Santa a very precious gift of giving, for children learn what they live. sincere, well-meaning individuals who genuinely desire the best for our elderly citizens. But as in all issues this coin has two sides. If you demand service, you must be willing and able to pay for it in a timely manner! Not payments delayed up to four months.

The General Assembly is set to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday for just two days. Please call your state senator and representative at their Springfield offices during those two days and urge them to restore $43 million to the Medicaid nursing home program. This action would ensure quality care in our facility and throughout the state. JOHN C. KIRKTON Minonk (The writer is administrator, Lida Home Minonk.) LETTERS Medicaid nursing home funds critically needed Could you operate a quality nursing facility providing the best possible care to its residents and be expected to wait four months to get paid for these services by the state of Illinois? Our facility is facing this financial crisis today! Because of political maneuvering, the Medicaid funds that pay for nursing home care have been reduced by $43 million.

Because of this uncaring action and our commitment to quality, it may be necessary for us to subsidize this shortfall by seeking a bank loan for meeting payrolls, delaying payments to our service vendors, or by reducing the scope of programs to residents. None of the "solutions" listed above are acceptable but hard times can necessitate less than desirable measures. At Lida Home, approximately two-thirds of our residents receive assistance through the Medicaid program. This means that two-thirds of our income is delayed by up to four months. To adequately understand the impact of this, the reader simply has to deduct two-thirds of their take-home pay each month and resolve themselves to receiving it four months later.

What effect would this have on YOUR lifestyle? The amount of legislation pouring out of Washington and Springfield seemingly has no end. Much of it comes from I also saw Santa in the Illinois State University student who hugged the little girl at Baby Fold and I saw him in the workers who used their own money to buy the children gifts. I saw Santa in the helpers and workers at the mission who made Christmas for many people. I also saw him in the many people who placed gifts under the Brotherhood Tree and many who gifted in many ways. I saw Santa in the eyes of our parents at St Mary's as they came with their canned goods for our Christmas program.

I saw Santa in each child as they sang. I saw Santa in Bob Hope and cast and especially in the eyes of our men and women in the Gulf, far from home. Yes, there really is a Santa Claus who knows what it means to do without so he or she can reach out and help and share with others. As I knelt before the beautiful crib and looked at the statues of the first giver of gifts and His mother and foster father, I thanked God for sending love into the world to teach us by doing, by living a life shared with others. Isn't this what Christmas Is all about? Being Santa, mother, father, children, teachers, families.

LENORA JOYCE Bloomington Here's your opportunity to speak out The Pantagraph welcomes letters from its readers commenting on current public issues. All letters are subject to editing and can be no more than 350 words. No more than one letter from the same person will be printed within 30 days. Only an original to The Panta graph bearing the writer's signature and complete home address will be accepted. A daytime telephone number is required for verification of letters not delivered in person.

Mail to: Pantagraph tetters to the Editor, 301 W. Washington St, Bloomington, 111. 61701. GEORGE F. WILL EDITORIALS Hartigan contract ties Burris' hands Neil Hartigan has been Illinois attorney general for eight years.

But he waited until his final days in office to negotiate a union contract with about half the workers in his office. Hartigan can say all he wants about promises made months ago. It still smacks of a last minute move to save the jobs of his people. If the contract was such a good idea, why didn't Hartigan negotiate one years ago? Why did he wait until he was leaving and stick his successor with whatever problems the contract causes? After an unsuccessful bid for governor, Hartigan is turning over the keys to the attorney general's office to Roland Burris Jan. 14.

Both are Democrats. The contract was an inappropriate action for a lame-duck politician. This was not a matter of tying up loose ends. It was a matter of tying the hands of Burris. Although Hartigan said he made contract changes requested by the next attorney general, Burris told a Chicago television station, "If I had my druthers, I'd rather negotiate the union contract myself." This is not simply a matter of hurt feelings or stepping on toes.

The contract can make it difficult for Burris to make changes in the office that would control expenses. That hurts taxpayers. Hartigan's action is a disservice to Illinois. Vietnam memorial not a stage prop Despite initial controversy over its design, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., has become a symbol that has drawn people together and driven out personal demons. A smaller version that has traveled around the country has become known as the "Moving Wall" not only because of its journeys but also because it, like its counterpart, is emotionally moving to those who see it Wednesday the Vietnam Veterans Memorial became something else a backdrop for a politician's news conference.

Sen. Paul Wellstone, went there the day before he was to be sworn in. He placed a bouquet of roses near the name of a Marine from Minnesota and made a pencil rubbing. He told reporters, "This is not the time to rush to war" in the Persian Gulf. Certainly, Wellstone did not intend to offend anyone with his display, but just as certainly, he did.

Let us hope that Wellstone's actions at "The Wall" do not start a trend among politicians to use the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for political theatrics. Let us hope it does not make the memorial a focal point for demonstrations. This is a place to bring people together, not tear them apart. It's not clear why people should vote Republican If demography is destiny, Republicans can relax. But nothing is destiny and events are making Republicans tense.

The new census means eight states which have been tending Republican in presidential elections will gain 19 electoral votes. But suddenly there is no clear reason to vote Republican. Two years ago, the Republican boast was peace and prosperity and a clear ideological profile. Today the nation is on the lip of war and the slope of recession and the party resembles the shapeless lump of 20 years ago, midway through Nixon's first term. Nixon's objectively liberal presidency pioneered racial quotas by federal policy (the "Philadelphia Plan" in the building trades), proposed a guaranteed annual income, established the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Health and Safety Administration, went into railroading (AMTRAK), tried to go into airplane manufacturing (SST), saw a Nixon chief justice (Burger) lead a court in affirming forced busing and overturning 50 states' abortion laws.

The Nixon administration imposed wage and price controls. No Democrat ever so shredded market principles in peacetime; it was the most radical intru-siveness by government since Prohibition. In foreign policy, its obsessions were arms control and detente. Between 1968-69 and 1971-72, government spending soared 26 percent, non-defense spending rocketed 44 percent and defense spending declined 3 percent Like Nixon, who once said the nation needed a president for foreign policy but could run itself domestically, Bush says he much prefers dealing with foreign policy rather than domestic problems. Hence the unseriousness of his domestic policy.

His constitutional flippancy is apparent in his endorsement of six amendments (concerning abortion, school prayer, balanced budgets, line-item veto, flag desecration, term limits) and his belief he can launch a major war without congressional approval. This is part of a pattern. Jon McGrath, whose name suggests Scottish ancestry, is a blue-eyed contractor who is one-64th Cherokee (the equivalent of one great-great-great grandfather). Hence government counts him as a privileged "minority," a designation worth (so far) $19 million. WHAT DOES BUSH think of such pernicious nonsense? He opposes all quotas (1990 civil rights bill) he doesn't support (race-exclusive scholarships), just as he opposes all new taxes other than those (costing the average household $215 in 1991) he supports.

Is the picture clearer in foreign policy? No, even muddier. Bush is perhaps hot thinking about such things, so busy is he thinking about a New World Order. IN PURSUIT OF THAT chimera, the administration has become an active adversary of the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel. The administration voted for a U.N. resolution that declares, against history and law, that the West Bank and Jerusalem are "Palestinian lands." This is one more propitiation of what are called U.S.

"allies" in the Gulf undertaking. Those allies include Syria, China and some other tyrannies the administration is appeasing in exchange for permission to spend much U.S. treasure and perhaps much blood on their behalf. The New World Order semantic extravagance covering policy overreaching obviously concerns order, not freedom. Order is not a contemptible goal, but it is not enough.

But the latest bulletin from the presidential viscera is hopeful. He has a "gut" feeling that Saddam will leave Kuwait rather than get his "ass kicked." Close your eyes and try to imagine a thoughtful and truly conservative president say, Eisenhower talking like that And try to imagine a reason, other than demography, for Republican jauntiness. Europe's radically safer situation allows vast U.S. forces to be shifted to the Gulf. Asked if those forces can come home after Desert Shield, Secretary of State Baker is doubtful, because Europe "wants" them in Europe, and new arms agreements presume substantial U.S.

forces there. But such wants and agreements are not sufficient reasons. America's 25th largest school district in terms of student enrollment is in Germany. It educates some of the 723,000 Americans in the 14 NATO countries. "Our troops," writes Sen.

Patrick Moynihan, "will soon have been on the Rhine for half a century; that is the stuff of Roman legions." Is this administration, which supposedly saves its thinking for foreign policy, thinking about this? Or about this: Transportation Secretary Skinner, who governs the Coast Guard, had Christmas dinner at a remote, 24-year-old Coast Guard outpost on the Turkish coast Why is our Coast Guard still guarding so many other people's coasts? When in early 1988 Spain said U.S. aircraft had to leave, NATO decided to build a new $800 million base in Italy. Much has changed since then, but not that project, which is, in part, your tax dollars at work. Quotations "The basic message is there's no light down there in the tunnel that we can see. The recession is clearly in place and clearly has further to go." Economist Robert Dederick of Chicago, commenting on the fifth consecutive monthly drop of the Commerce Department's Index of Leading Indicators.

BILL FLICK 1990 by NEA. Inc. A LITTLE HARMLESS DIVERSION FOR THE TAXPAYERS You also tend not to stay out as long, which means you're a little less wrecked the next day. NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1984 The last three days before The Night are always the worst, as you grope around wondering what you will do on The Night. Everyone does SOMETHING on The Night So we got a sitter, caught "Terms of Endearment" at the Castle, then partied over pate, Busch and meatballs at office friends 'til 2 when the sitter's contract expired and we were ready to.

Awoke early on New Year's Day, even if I didn't want to, because young children rarely wait, especially on Jan. 1. NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1990 Pondered The Rite but, for a change, opted instead for home. Had a nice meal, played Junior Monopoly with the 7-year-old, watched him saunter off to bed about 9:30. And then Me, I sat swelled up in an easy chair, propped in front of a TV, desperately trying to stay awake 'til Guy Lombardo well, actually it was Jay Leno this year said it was time.

Tick, tick, tick. Rarely do I even stay up until midnight anymore, I thought with amusement Not now either. About 11:30, as I recall, my brain said lights out I awoke early on Jan. 1, wondering what was the big deal? Happy 1991. Flick on CITYLINE, 829-9000, enter 2450 Today: A nursing home full of Heathers and Brookes.

NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1966 Had a "party" at home with my older sister and two of her friends, playing Yahtzee and eating Bugles while pouring maraschino cherry juice into Cokes, 7Up and a large portion of the kitchen Formica. Just before midnight, my sister flipped on Dick Clark who had moved his American Bandstand to Times Square. 4-3-2-1 plop, down went that lighted ball. Privately, I was sort of glad when it finally did lights out, at last NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1973 Home from college and legal to drink, an inalienable right I fervently observed. Big party at Lisa Spicer's and we all went Games, beer.

Music, beer. Chatter, beer. Chicanery, beer. Women, beer. Wooziness.

beer. Then, between stops in the bathroom and another Steppenwolf record, we made a run for some more beer. At 12 o'clock, we all went whoopee, and I remember first experiencing that New Year's Eve rite when at about 11:57, all partying stops so you can prepare to scream, yell, wear hats, kiss everyone and hear Auld Lang Syne, and then about two minutes after that, go back to partying as if nothing had ever happened. Four a.m. came quickly.

Next day, I awoke to good memories interlaced with queasiness, headache, halftime of my very own Cotton-Mouth Bowl and one lingering thought: Never again. At least, until next year. NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1979 Once married, you find New Year's Eve a tad less hectic and easier to handle, what with at least having someone to stand in the corner and be sentimental with at the Big Moment. The life cycle of living through New Year's Eve NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1961 Now 7 years of age, I told my mother this would be the year I tried to actually stay up and at midnight, blow a horn and toss some confetti, then pick it up of course so the dog wouldn't eat it Living on the other side of the Hudson, about 35 minutes from Greenwich Village, several family members and friends went there for the eve. Others were out in the kitchen playing cards.

Me, I sat swelled up in an easy chair, propped in front of a black-and-white Dumont TV, desperately trying to stay awake 'til Guy Lombardo said it was time. Tick, tick, tick. I'd never stayed up until midnight Not now either. About 11:30, as I my brain said lights out I awoke early on Jan. 1, wondering what was the big deal? The Pantagraph Independent in everything, neutral in nothing.

Founded Jan. 14, 1837, by Jess W. Fell JOHN R. GOLDRICK Publisher and Chief Operating Officer PETER E. THIERIOT BILL WILLS Chairman of the Board Managing Editor LENORE S.

SOBOTA Opinion Pages Editor.