European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 1, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday thursday january 1/2, 1992 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Tom . Should put cold War funds into environment editors note Tom Wicker is retiring. This is his last regular Coltin. The end of the soviet Union and the resignation of Mikhail s. Gorbachev though at least a momentary gain for Freedom and democracy Are sad events. The fall of a giant state owing largely to its own human flaws has the Quality of tragedy. And a great leaders peaceful surrender of Power again demonstrated the vision that distinguished him As few others of his time. President Bush paid the proper tribute when he said that Gorbachev had been a responsible for one of the most important developments of this Century a the revolutionary transformation of a totalitarian dictatorship and the liberation of his people from its smothering  Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev a other successors have yet to show themselves capable of achievement on such a scale. They and we might Well keep in mind Benjamin Franklin a reply to a woman who asked what the founding fathers of the United states had created at Philadelphia in 1787 a a Republic if you can keep  More immediately the transformation of the soviet Union into the Commonwealth of Independent states leaves Washington the necessity to exercise in a new world a More visionary leadership than it provided the West during the cold War. Military and political confrontation needs to be replaced by a More demanding diplomacy on numerous economic and environmental complexities. These May be less apocalyptic than a nuclear Exchange but Are More threatening to peace and stability. Even the survival of some or All Peoples is at risk in the great environmental issues the world has Only begun to face a like global warming or deforestation a and on which the United states has failed so far to display the kind of foresight and courage for which Bush rightly praised Gorbachev. For the soviet unions political and economic systems Gorbachev recognized the inevitable and acted on it not always wisely but with great goals constantly m mind. For the equally difficult problems of the worlds debased and deteriorating environment Bush disputes the predictable and acts As if he and his country need take no responsibility for the future a though the world needs to restrain its use of Fossil fuels and emission of Carbon dioxide Bush proposes Oil drilling in the Arctic National wildlife Refuge holds Back from higher Auto mileage requirements and shrinks from a Petroleum tax that would reduce Auto usage and greenhouse gases and raise needed revenues. A though global population growth still strains natural resources and exceeds the worlds ability to provide jobs and decent living standards a in latin America and the Caribbean 44 percent of the labor Force is unemployed or underemployed a the Bush administration owing to its fear of anti abortion forces refuses to contribute to the . Population fund or to support Domestic or foreign family planning programs. A Many nations Are substituting Mili tary expenditures for sustainable development. The United states also gives High priority to anti missile defences against ill defined future threats. In these areas As vital to the global future As a strategic arms treaty the administration not Only abdicates leadership a by its own policies or Lack of them a it provides instead a bad example to a world that now must look first to Washington for vision encouragement and help. Bush has not even agreed to attend the so called a Earth Summit in Rio de Jan Iero a . Conference on environment and development to be held in june. In Sharp contrast both Japan and Europe Are pushing to use the a Earth Summit to set global targets a to limit for instance emissions of warming gases like Carbon dioxide in which the United states leads the world. Even with a 30 percent Cut in Carbon dioxide emissions by 2005, the . Still would exceed the average of most european nations. But at least until the departure of John h. Sununu As White House chief of staff the administration did not even approve the concept of global warming a while a Tny authorities fear the world already May be too late in trying to reverse it. Such quiescence is unworthy of a great nation the last superpower the Leader of the free world in its a Long Twilight struggle against despotism. As the United states did not hesitate to spend its resources to prevail in the cold War it needs now to go Forward As boldly to Lead a longer More desperate struggle to save the planet and Rescue the human race from itself. C Tho now York Elmo George will 7below the surface America is coming of age Rome a subway was not built in a Day. Excavators frequently found antiquities a an ancient Bath a Popes Toothbrush a and archaeologists swarmed in to sift and sort. Intuition says America is too Young to have Urban archaeology. A swarm of students and archaeologists wearing sweatshirts jeans and some of the Damp Clay in which they Are carefully digging says otherwise. They Are doing a Salvage archaeology at a construction site on Manhattan slower East Side in an 18th-Century graveyard built Over Long ago. More than 90 bodies have been found All buried with their Heads to the West so they will face the Savior when he comes from the East on judgment Day. Before the cemetery was closed in 1790 it was a burial ground for Blacks and a potters Field. About 1,500 american pos were held by the British nearby most of them from the Battle of Long Island and perhaps 800 died of disease. The skeletons Are disproportionately of women infants and children which suggests the distribution of the hazards of 18th-Century life. From the evidence of Teeth and Bones forensic archaeologists can learn much about life Back then concerning nutrition and common traumas. Among the thousands of human remains that May be Here perhaps Are those of the Blacks executed for various a a conspiracies a executed by burning at the stake or hanged and left to rot in Public. A few blocks away another construction site is Rich with remnants of the most Savage Side of the 19th-Century City. Beginning around 1820, five Points was a dark Mecca perhaps the worlds most notorious slum attracting the curious by the stench of its reputation. When Lincoln came to the City in 1860 to deliver his Cooper Institute address he asked to see two things Plymouth Church in Brooklyn where Henry Ward Beecher delivered anti slavery sermons and five Points. Charles Dickens had considered it at least As repellent As Oliver twists London. Five Points was among the places Jacob Riis wrote about in the Book whose title put a phrase in the american language How the other half lives. For years police rarely ventured into five Points and Only in Force showing a prudent regard for the famous gangs the shirt tails Roach guard plug ugliest and dead rabbits. These gangs and the unorganized rabble of five Points fuelled the riots of july 1863. They began As draft riots became race riots then turned to pillaging the Rich. Regular army units fought often House to House to restore order. At least 2,000 new yorkers were killed. Two comparisons forty three died in the Detroit riot of 1967. Thirteen of an Drew Jackson a soldiers were killed at the Battle of new Orleans in 1815. Eventually the problem of five Points was solved the Way America often cures its slums by building Over it. One of the great 19th-Century buildings in the area is the Tweed court House which another National tradition became the Mother of All Cost overruns. It was supposed to Cost $250,000. It Cost at least 30 times that a not counting the 50,000 brooms and 23 acres of carpets ordered for the building from politically Correct Broom and carpet makers. From the plug ugliest to the Tweed ring the evolution of the neighbourhood was from violent to government crime. As 1991 sags to a close with a mood of depression in the nation a Salvage archaeology can serve americans sense of perspective. As new York City a life today shows at every turn society a evolving sense of decency has a Long Way to go. But it has been worse. Furthermore such archaeology gives to us in our no longer quite so new world the useful sense we get when we first set foot in the old world How Many footsteps have fallen Here How heavy and dense our history is and How Large and swarming and stirring is the Story of which All Orus Are but Small passing parts. C Washington Post Watt sri group