European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 11, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 the stars and stripes Friday april 11, 1986 writing in t mystical magical by Andy Rooney when i was a kid i never wanted to be a cop or a fireman i wanted to be a columnist. If that s what i am to be Here there arc some thoughts about it that come to my mind in no particular order there s nothing mystical or magical about being a writer. A writer is just a person who writes something. If you do a lot of it you get to know some things about it that other people Don t know. But while there arc almost no people who arc not dentists who can fix Teeth there Are quite a few people who Aren t professional writers who can write very Well. I m just saying this so you la understand that 1 Don t have an exalted idea about writers or columnists. Even though 1 have no inclination to deify writers it irritates me that the importance of the writer in the arts has diminished in the past Rooney 25 years. They Are no longer considered of first importance in television in motion pictures or in the theater. In the Book business the promoter is often More important than the author. I understand the reason for my irritation. I m a writer and if writing in t important i m not important. I Hope i m not going to be known As a writer of funny columns. I m an essayist and sometimes what i write strikes people funny but humor has been a disappoint ment to me As a writer s tool. If there s any humor at All in a piece it s called Light and is dismissed As being of no importance. I think it has something to do with the fact that there s no humor in the Bible. Years ago i had a memorable lunch with James Thurber and my hero As a writer . White. Thurber said people kept coming up to him telling him How much they liked his things. They always ask me when i m going to write something serious Thurber said. My god i am if you write a regular column you have to do it wherever you Are. I like the Challenge of finding a place to write. In a hotel room All the surfaces Are too High and Don t have any place for your Knees. It is often practical to pull a drawer All the Way out of the Dresser and insert it upside Down. The Bottom of the drawer provides a Fiat surface at the right height with knee space underneath. I Don t use an electric typewriter. There s no sense pretending you can use machinery that thinks faster than you do. An electric typewriter wants to go before i m ready to say anything. Good ideas Are overrated. It makes More difference How a writer handles an idea than what the idea was in the first place. The world is filled with people with Good ideas and very Short of people who can do anything with one. I m tired of Good ideas. An essayist should be a reporter too. No one has so much stored up in his head that he can presume to sit Back for the rest of his life and Tell the world about it. Writers Don t very often say anything that readers Don t already know unless it s news. A writer s greatest pleasure is revealing to people things they knew and did not know they knew or did not know that everyone else understands As they do. This produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and doing it once in a while is a writer s greatest pleasure. I Hope i can do some of that. C Tribune Media services too much help for the elderly by Ellen Goodman there arc in life Small moments of recognition that produce a Click a glottal Stop of consciousness. Finally once and for All you know something is out of whack. Maybe it happens when you read the statistics again and at last it sinks in a child in America today is six times More Likely to be poor than an elderly person. Something has gone out of whack. We have looked at the elderly too Long As a single class. By and Large they Are no longer the ill Clad ill housed ill nourished population that Franklin Delano Roosevelt described. The country has done a remarkable Job of changing that dismal portrait and so have the elderly themselves. Today the rate of poverty among those Over 65 is lower than among the rest of americans. We be made these changes at a Cost we find easier to calculate than to remedy. This year the working population will pay $200 billion in social Security taxes. Those benefits have increased 46 percent in real terms since 1970, while the real wages of those who pay them have declined by 7 percent. More than half of the Money from All social programs goes to the 11 percent of americans who arc elderly. The transfers from the working age population to the elderly Samuel Preston of the University of Penn Sylvania explains Are also transfers away from Chil Dren since the working Ages Bear far More responsibility for child rearing than do the this in t a time for elder bashing nor do i have the stomach for generational warfare. We can t replace the stereotype of the impoverished old with a new stereotype of the entitled old. But it is important to update policies to match the new reality. As Preston says if the main purpose of social programs is to help people who Are poor have More resources it does t make sense to use age As an indicator of there is already some pressure to right the imbalance within and Between generations using the tax Structure. We now tax half the social Security of elderly couples with incomes Over $32,000 and put that Money Back into the social Security Trust fund. There is at least talk of extending that tax and of awarding future Cost of living increases on the basis of need. As for medicare some reformers recommend raising Money from the 40 percent of elderly who pay income taxes and using it to lower medicare premiums for Low income people. Other politicians from sen. Daniel p. Moynihan d-n.y., to president Reagan want to raise the personal tax exemption for All but the highest in come brackets to $2,000 As an Aid to families with Chil Dren. These Are nibbles and not Complete answers. There Are few politicians who want to raise the hackles and the opposition of their older constituents by raising issues like the one posed by Paul Hewitt of age americans for generational equity in the country agrees that it s a Good idea we Aren t providing student Loans for families with $100,000 incomes and yet we Are doing it with social Only 38 percent of the voters in the country live with children. It is an article of Faith among politicians that the elderly will think of themselves first. But i am not so sure or so cynical. The other Model that older americans respect is the family. In the family when it works right we do not Send our children to summer Camp while our parents Are without food. Nor do we Send our parents to Florida while our children need clothes for school. We make adjustments we balance the Check Book according toned. It is time to rebalanced that Check Book now not by a Standard of age alone but using the calculator called fairness. C Boston Globe Washington Post today s crossword. _. .,.-by Eugene Sheffer across 1 Blackjack half 4 Thunder sound 8 strike 37 cabinetry Wood 40 words of under standing 41 the gamut12 review in 43 captivate favourably 45 big Book 13 Punjab Princess 14 Inlet 15 inter 47 Mona 48 a Bridge far 49 Wallet Mission fillers 17 completed 50 Diamond 18 stood 19 total in a Way 20 Pride 22 Tennis Arthur 24 Canadian player 25 whole Ness 29 new prefix 30 Abate 31 society Page Worpe 32 involved 34 Ollie s partner 35 Church service 36 Salon special ties defect 51 Pup s cry Down 1 Tarzan s pal 2 give the axe 3 Trade Center 4 1929 event 5 doily stuff 6 Formi Cary resident 7 slap stick prop _ 8 sports official 9 song subject 10"sans" opposite 11 make Coffee 16 news paper Section solution time 27 Inin. Yesterday s answer 4-11 19 Indiana Jones prop 20 heredity unit 21 paired beasts 22 Kitty additions 23 poker Type 25 Moray and Conger 26 plea 27 cowboys or indians 28 longings 30 deceitful one 33 stupefied 34 prognosticator 36 nonsense 37 ancient censor 38 Bond s Alma mater 39 Rotunda Topper 40 Long Way 42 North pole worker 43 Goose egg 44 Mauna 45 Cut Short 12 Tif 20 24 2t 3t 37 4t 46 21 38 18 39 16 33 35 13 30 25 42 47 50 22 43 23 40 19 36 14 17 34 26 31 48 51 10 27 44 11 28 45 4-11 Hubert .and7ho5e.Are. Good my a it s 5�� herb.hi5 a get 15145. 7haj5 about ri6ht.bloopp&ssufte. 52qover.3o.goop, 600p. \. Where s a she left me with your x her Lousy salad Mother and a Stern Trupy lecture on the importance f dieting it 5 Normal for. Azqm&5. P&tt1 m5llou. Aha tsp fral. A Ray we its puke All right phone and they re pi6ging outset Luis s pizza a rapist film from his smuggling pays. �1986 King features Syndicate. Inc world 20 over3015 goop
