Editorials

...law expressly forbids contributions to U.S...

...Most citizens know that in a nation truly at war, the war gets the full attention and support of its president...

...As President Jimmy Carter has said, if he and other observers can certify in February that the election had been honest and fair throughout, then the successful candidates will be the legitimate leaders of Nicaragua, and "this would almost ensure...an improvement in relations bet ween the U. S. and Nicaragua...

...Declaring a war is not to be confused with waging one...

...What help will they need in order to learn...

...A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE In early August, Nicaragua's Sandinista government and twenty opposition parties reached an accord aimed at bringing about free and fair elections in the country next February 25...

...They don't...

...Can the U.S...

...for us to reclaim addicts...

...For years after detoxification, a child born of a mother addicted to crack bears signs of serious emotional underdevelopment-an inability to concentrate and relate to other people-similar to mild autism...

...The NED has distributed $110 million over five years to more than forty countries...

...It's all over the place....There's so much money in it...

...At its real-world worst, Bush's "comprehensive," four-pronged strategy is so imbalanced and grossly underfunded that it leaves the nation in doubt as to the president's competence and seriousness...

...Within the next year or two, hundreds of thousands of such children will walk through the doors of the first grade...

...Does it matter...

...As a result the well-being of our nation's youngest and oldest citizens improved...

...It proposed to finance the opposition's campaign with U.S...

...Or the reverse: loss of a job, loss of a home, then addiction...

...In June, however, Vice-President Dan Quayle had set the tone for the Bush administration by labeling the upcoming election a "sham...

...The satisfactions of daily work are learned only by experience...

...It's the problem of the chicken and the egg: which comes first...

...The National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 10 percent of them abuse drugs and/or alcohol...

...The total promises to be staggering...

...While they offer fewer curricular choices than the public schools, they provide a strong environment "which encourages students of all social backgrounds to pursue an academic program of study...

...But we need a president willing to lead a genuine effort and a citizenry ready to do some soul-searching...

...The federal government could provide alternatives by creating public works jobs, modeled on the successful Job Corps, and entice private industry to invest in skills training...

...Can the schools provide it...

...We are the targets, instead of the drug traffickers...

...That's an objective we could all vote for...

...The war on poverty, waged by a controversial president, was a real war, partially won...

...Bush's plan offers token foreign aid, but does nothing to help farmers move away from coca production...

...A majority of New York Democrats decided that Dinkins's demeanor, mingling strength with gentleness, and his reconciling message might bring balm to a city that prides itself on being cosmopolitan and tolerant, though often enough it fails those values when it comes to race, class, and ethnicity...

...So far his efforts look like a skirmish, not a war, on drugs...

...And until recently the administration seemed to be working to make his prediction come true...

...Bush rightly puts money launderers in the same verminous class with drug lords, pushers, and addicts, but his plan doesn't really restrict or control the dollars now flowing to dealers and growers...

...Some three million Americans are homeless...

...Drug-addicted parents, drug-infested schools, and drug-drenched neighborhoods create a negative context that must be redressed by those who live there, by schools and churches, and by the government...

...U.S...

...David Dinkins is not yet mayor of New York, and may never be...

...Agency for International Development, and in doing so to adhere to the stipulations of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council...

...We think there is...

...At its political best, the president's first nationally televised speech-with its touching true story about the crack-house world of six-year-old Dooney and with its dollop of empathy for the poor-is a nice try...

...Most of us recognize that the drug industry is already warring against us and our society, and it is winning...

...In September, Nicaragua's fractious opposition parties put Humpty-Dumpty together by nominating a single candidate for president, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, and choosing Virgilio Godoy Reyes as its vice-presidential candidate...

...Catholic schools stress academic courses, require more homework, and have higher expectations of their students...

...Nonprofit Day Top Village in New York charges $30 a day-that's $10,000 a year-for those able to pay...

...But it is specifically forbidden to contribute money for partisan politicking...

...Of Bush's new drug money $322 million is set aside for treatment...

...would try to influence the vote and decided it was in Nicaragua's best interest to make that support as overt as possible...

...Columnist Pete Hamill, who called the Bush plan a "ghastly joke...on us," has calculated that the additional money proposed for national drug education would amount to only $37 per student per year-if every cent of it were spent in New York City alone...

...Addiction, job loss, crime, and inability to live at home and to pay the rent...

...What does that large-sounding sum amount to in human terms...

...If the entire sum were spent on the 1.2 million Americans already addicted, but who can't now get help, the plan would allot $268 per addict per year...

...That law will divide equally-among all parties or coalitions fielding candidates-half of the public funds collected to pay for electoral campaigns...

...Preventive drug education means an effective appeal to young people...

...Soon we will be compelled to tabulate what drug-induced handicaps like these cost in terms of lost labor and civic participation, social dislocation, and hard dollars...

...Half of the money collected this way will go directly to the party stipulated, while the other half will be placed in a general fund set up to cover election costs...

...Still, legitimate work offers its own satisfactions, forms of self-esteem and social relationships, that are attractive compared to the daily threat of danger, imprisonment, and death that stalks the drug subculture...

...ET CETERA THERE IS A BALM IN...

...The meager Bush figure assumes existing treatment centers have the space and staff to handle a huge new influx without additional aid...

...are experiencing what Colombian journalist Maria Jimena Duzan has said of her own country: "Everything is upside down...

...The accord also invites international observers to monitor the election campaign, and even allows for foreign money to be donated to participating parties as long as it is done through official channels...

...Too many Americans, willing to work, are no longer able to find unskilled jobs at living wages...

...That's a record, but it's a pittance when compared with the recent $ 100 billion savings and loan bailout...

...And how did he know...

...Some 300,000 infants are born each year with traces of illegal drugs in their blood...

...But black New York Democrats, who too often have given up on electoral politics, also went to the polls in large numbers encouraged by the unprecedented unity of black political leaders...

...Is there any way- short of capitulating to the increasing pressures for legalization of cocaine, heroin, and (you name it...

...He also needs to look deeper at the problems of communities hardest hit by drugs-and everything else: poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, and an undereducated, unskilled labor force...

...This same credibility test applies to churches, schools, and community groups...

...Furthermore, there is less of a disparity between the reading achievement of white and minority students than in the public schools...

...The report, "National Assessment of Educational Progress Proficiency in Reading: 1985-1986," emphasizes the strengths that contribute to Catholic schools students' achievements and that could be applied to other systems...

...fight a war on drugs and win...

...Yet when one child in five lives in poverty, how can he or she be expected to develop a sound sense of right and wrong, a sense of personal priorities and long-term goals, when it is so clear that the very government declaring zero tolerance for drugs has a high tolerance for homelessness and destitution...

...Fortunately, saner heads prevailed...

...the other half will be divided according to the proportion of the vote a party received in the previous election...

...Much has been made of the white vote for Dinkins...

...He offers money for prisons, courts, and law enforcement, but the emphasis on punishment misses the heart of the "demand" problem: why do so many Americans abuse drugs...

...Whatever its drawbacks, pushing drugs provides employment and is a rational occupational choice for poor youth...

...Evidently, Nicaragua concluded the U.S...

...The conduct of the election will prove as important as its outcome...

...During the Johnson administration an authentic, though not fully adequate, war on poverty, was waged...

...Police officers, social workers, convicted drug sellers, doctors, and people on the streets express the same doubts as the crack-addicted prosti-tute from the Bronx, who said of the president's approach to drug abuse: "He can't take it away...

...Passenger: "Just remember, we're not all bad...

...Recent studies show that crack is especially harmful...

...dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a nongovernmental institution funded by the U.S...

...But it is families and communities that provide the context for a child's attitudes toward self and toward others...

...And, of that total, he is asking only $716 million in new money to combat drugs...

...Nobody, including the Sandinistas, quarrels with the view that the February election must be closely monitored...

...But who was the contestant...

...Not only are drug-related deaths, violence, crimes, and diseases on the increase across the U.S., but the number of infants born addicted is rising with frightening rapidity...

...True, entry-level jobs cannot provide the luxuries flaunted by drug dealers making thousands of dollars a week...

...We in the U.S...

...Bush's punitive proposals won't help them...

...Drug education-including health information and moral common sense-is vital to prevention...

...Instead, it now proposes to funnel campaign funds through the U.S...

...the contestant...

...The accord provides access to the media for all parties, ends the military draft from September until after the election, and underwrites a new campaign finance law...

...Congress to promote democratic institutions...

...President Bush proposes an $8 billion drug budget for 1990...

...THE ANSWER IS We're told that a contestant on the September 19 telecast of "Jeopardy," the ABC quiz show, was asked to identify "a biweekly Catholic magazine whose title means the common good," and gave the right answer...

...The illicit drug industry feeds upon economic inequities in the U.S., in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru...

...he got 30 percent...

...Hundreds of thousands of homeless, drug-addicted adults need expensive, prolonged, live-in treatment...

...It is these higher expectations that seem to challenge and stimulate the students...

...His treatment allocations won't cover their needs...

...Bush could begin by thinking enough of his "war" to finance the battle plans...

...Today, an immensely popular George Bush faces a more intractable enemy...

...Nicaragua is the only country in Central America to allow such foreign funding in its elections...

...elections from abroad...

...Nonetheless, it's permissible to take nonpartisan pleasure in Dinkins's victory in the Democratic primary on September 12...

...The Bush proposal would have required a legislative waiver...

...While government cannot change the will of individuals bent on self-destruction, it can offer, and at times mandate, treatment for the many who long to be free of their craving...

...That should rouse the government both to rectify such inequities here and to assist the coca-producing governments with their own drug wars...

...An infusion of federal money wisely allocated can effect substantial change...

...Under pressure from Congress last month, the administration scrapped its plan to use the NED to fund particular parties in Nicaragua...

...Some of the balm is already working, to judge by this exchange between a black cab driver and his white passenger: Driver: "I can't believe all of those whites voted for Dinkins...

...And how did he know...

...HIGHER EXPECTATIONS A report just published by the National Catholic Educational Association comparing reading achievement in Catholic and public schools concludes that at the third, seventh, and eleventh grade levels, Catholic school students are better readers than their public school counterparts...