European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 19, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday november 19, 1937 columns Carl Rowan Cut social Security increase education funds crash has pushed president r Cagan and the leaders of Congress Inlo a budget cutting reve nue raising conference in which every thing is on i table except social Securi  this one exception shows a laudable concern for the Well being of America s older citizens. But i ask whether when a nation s future is at stake 3 society should give higher priority to is 75-year-Olds than ii docs to its 5-Ycar-Olds. J think the conferees should operate on the premise that everything is on the table except Federal support for Cauca  the Stock Market crash did t occur simply because the Reagan administration and the Congress ran up a trillion dollars Worth of red Ink Over the last Sis years. The Wall Street disaster also re heels International Trade deficits that indicate the . Has lost its ability to com Pete and is now at a great disadvantage in world markets. Slashing spending and raising taxes to reduce the budget deficit is easy compared with doing i he things Nec Essary to make this country competitive again in world markets. One thing absolutely necessary is pro Viding Good educations for All of Ameri Ca s children. David t. Carns chairman of the Xerox corp., spoke an unpalatable truth when he said Public schools have put the United slates at a terrible competitive disadvantage he notes that. The Public schools Are the suppliers of inc wort Force but they re suppliers with a 50 percent defect rate. A fourth of our kids drop out an other fourth graduate barely Able to read their own diplomas Kearns claimed thai unless our Educa Tion system is changed drastically Busi Nesses will have to hire a million people a year who can t read write or count and then spend s2s billion a year teach Ellen Goodman ing them Basic skills. The Xerox chairman was talking about in let japanese prime Minuter Nakasone was talking about when he said the . Cannot compete because it has too Many Black and hispanics who Are not properly educated. Carns deplored the great american practice of dumping disadvantages children into dead end vocational or general  the budget cutters ought to listen to Kearns when he urges washing ton to spend More on research and the education of the disadvantaged. He wants the Federal government to double Losio billion or si2 billion a year the Money it spends on head Start and re medial education programs for the underprivileged. The Reagan administration has tried in Cut funds for such programs. My Calendar has run loan age where i m Linding a vested interest in programs for the aged. But t still cannot justify huge outlays to keep alive the terminally ill. I still cannot Sec taking a school lunch away from a child so someone 65 years old and Rich can collect a social Security Check. Easing today s Stock Market Cri Sis is important but the conferees Here must know this is trifling compared with their mandate to protect America s future. New la amp Ica soul die lie doctors poorly suited to be aids Counselor not Long ago on one of those talk shows that litter daytime television 1 watched an aids Counselor demonstrate inc use of a condom by applying it to a banana. The Man looked distraught. The talk show hostess looked embarrassed. The banana looked absurd the condom was to put it bluntly a bad role Model. The Only thing that an audience could have Learned from this Public service Vignette was not to have sex with an unprotected banana. 11 was an extraordinary moment of High comedy in the his of this tragic disease. But it was by no Means the ily educational misfit. Consider the decision by the new York City Board of education to defend school personnel against aids. How they Are buying 1.5 million Dis Posable Lair gloves to protect themselves from a Daen students in the entire school system who Are Lunt Ifird As carriers of the virus. It is almost As absurd a match As the banana and he condom. Now Sec have a much More modest indeed a thoroughly Well meant mismatch. Surgeon general c. A i Reid Koop one of inc sanest men and the five mar head of the anti ads brigade has asked physic ans to become the retail purveyors of aids information. In an editorial in the journal of the american Ltd Cal association he tells doctors to overcome their own reticence and advise patients How to guard against ads. My mural and religious background has nude it difficult for me. As it May be for you to discuss sexual issues in Public he writes. But the alternative to frankness he notes May be death. In the editorial he goes on to explicitly recommend that doctors encourage and teach the use of Tatco con Doms with a spermicide for patients who arc not cer Tain their partners Are free of the infection. All of this must be applauded. But i n and myself sceptical about giving doctors the role As sen Educa tors let alone sexual disease educators i am even More uneasy with the emerging pattern of handing Over aids education to the authorities. At the risk of generalization doctors Are notoriously poor communicators. They arc often rushed and often As inarticulate As their handwriting is illegible the average patient has trouble getting a straight Story about a hernia. Until recently doctors had Little More training in human sexuality than a Reader s digest subscriber. They be had As Koop admits a history of reticence in dealing with sex. Few physicians know which patients arc sexually Active furthermore physicians by definition Only Sec people when they Are patients. They Are unlikely to come Inlo Contact with the most vulnerable portion of our healthy Papula Ign the Oung. Maybe with pop s encouragement he front line medical comm univ will join the fight. Bui i am Wor ried that the rest of us delude ourselves with the comforting notion that we can leave the epidemic up to them the officialdom of doctors and teachers and Gater Mem agencies. As someone living in a College town Boston. 1 am aware i hat aids has barely pierced the conscious Ness of the younger generation. It is there As an anxiety but it has hardly begun to change behaviour particularly among the younger males. In my Small and unscientific Sample of parents i have encountered few fathers who have told heir sons More than to be careful out  i know Only one who gave his son not just the condoms but the accompanying lecture. For the most pan the Young Are still More worried about appearances awkwardness than about the risks of aids la is difficult for them to talk to each other about disease about monogamy about testing and protecting to take sex so dead seriously. We can t wait around for the annual checkup to impart these messages. Let the surgeon general enlist his troops. But Day to Day person to person talking about aids is a Job for civilians. The Battery of educators journalists and Public health officials Are crucial for leadership and backup. But number one among the civilians Are parents. We arc Usi Plain drafted Inlo Ghisone. This is not a crisis to be left to the experts.  s advice 10 the doctors is Good advice for parents talk frankly. About risks. About tests. About the use and limits of condoms. In the aids Era of cautious courtship anything but Frank ail jul ural and open talk is. As they say bananas