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Column
By
Mark Beardsley
The Commerce News
November 29, 2000
No Room For Political
Debate On Thanksgiving
The annual Beardsley trip to Florida for the Thanksgiving family
reunion went off as well as could be expected. No one had to
summon the police and a considerable amount of gluttony was accomplished.
No one ate any chads, and the turkeys that were the center of
attention Thanksgiving were neither Republican nor Democrat.
Unless I am mistaken, the whole affair came off without any heated
political arguments, no small thing with 35 people involved,
including one who could have cast an absentee ballot.
The traffic on the way down was horrendous. What was uncertain
was how much of it was holiday traffic and how much of it was
people flocking into the state to protest, vote or litigate in
the recent-but-still-ongoing election.
The traffic on Interstate 75 peaked just above Wildwood, which
is where the Florida Turnpike heads off, separating those heading
to Miami and West Palm Beach from people traveling to Tampa-St.
Petersburg. I noticed a lot of Bush-Cheney stickers on the same
vehicles as stickers reading "Gun control is hitting what
you aim at," but no one waved any guns our way.
My holiday exposure to the election soap opera was limited to
newspaper headlines and radio blurbs shortly before changing
the station. We drove 520 miles to enjoy family, leaving political
interests back home with the dog and the two cockatiels, none
of whom appear interested in who will next occupy the White House.
The more pressing issue was who would pass the gravy, wash the
dishes or turn out at the post-Thanksgiving evening party and
the Friday Gathering of the Family at Kelly's Restaurant.
Politics came up only in the context of humor. There was a certain
false lamentation about the lack of chads to eat for dinner,
for example. Otherwise, our interest was in catching up with
each other.
Maybe that's an indicator of why our extended family has managed
to stay on speaking terms. Individually, we have our marginally
functional members, one or two who might even be considered normal,
and a wide array of characters and personalities that contribute
to lively discussions whenever two or more are gathered.
Over the 45 or more Thanksgivings I can remember, we have had
no feuds, no long-lived hurt feelings, no family divisions over
politics, religion, economics or status. My generation
the cousins all get along, at least through the hours at
which we must. We communicate by email from Dunedin, FL, to Titusville,
FL, St. Louis, MO, Seattle, WA, Tallahassee, FL, to North Carolina,
Wyoming and to a village in Italy.
The Florida Thanksgiving celebrations sprang from my mother's
family. The four children and their spouses would return to my
grandmother's each year, and when she passed on, to my house.
With the death of my father, the event moved to the local Presbyterian
Church.
Of the four children and their spouses, only three survive. Two
of those attended. Of the 14 grandchildren, 12 made it. Nine
of the 10 great-grandchildren attended.
It was a good holiday, another reminder of the importance of
family. Politics be damned.
Editorial
The Jackson Herald
November 29, 2000
Raise driving
age to 17
Gov. Roy Barnes said this week he is considering a proposal to
raise the driving age in Georgia to 17 during the upcoming legislative
session.
We believe that the driving age should be raised to 17 and encourage
Gov. Barnes to pursue that goal.
In an ideal world, parents would regulate their children's use
of a car. Limits would be set and parents would control the car
keys.
In the last 25 years, however, that parental oversight has declined
while at the same time, more cars are on the roads, making driving
even more dangerous.
Those who argue against raising the driving age generally complain
that they're tired of playing chauffeur for busy teenagers, or
that teenagers need a way to get to after school jobs.
But those are minor problems compared to the life-and-death decisions
teenagers make behind the wheel of a car. Driving is a privilege,
not a right. Careless teenagers risk not only their lives, but
also the lives of all of us.
Some have said that schools need to offer more driver education.
But that is only part of the picture. No amount of driver education
will make up for parents who give cars to immature teenagers
with no oversight. Whatever its merits, more education won't
make mature drivers out of immature kids.
The only way to protect the safety of our roads is for the upcoming
General Assembly to raise, with no exceptions, the driving age
to 17.
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Jackson County Opinion Index |
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Column
By
Mike Buffington
The Jackson Herald
November 29, 2000
Getting 'gored'
gore (gor) - 1. to pierce with a spear,
horn or tusk, 2. a bloody mess, 3. (-ed) to use the system in
a manner so as to manipulate the outcome of an event to one's
own favor.
Mr. Webster will no doubt be adding the third
definition from above to his next dictionary edition. To be "gored"
will take on a new meaning in American English now that vice
president Al Gore has challenged his election loss in the courts.
No matter what the outcome, Gore's move to litigate this election
further opens a Pandora's Box for all future elections. Next
time, we may see demands to recount every district in the nation.
Compared to this, the old system of setting disputes via a gentleman's
duel doesn't seem quite as crazy.
***
Does anyone besides me see the irony of Gore's claim that Republican
protesters "intimidated" Miami election officials?
If Democrats protest, it's the "voice of the people."
If Republicans protest, it's "intimidation" or "mob
rule."
Al, you've been reading too much George Orwell. The political
discourse from your party has lost all meaning.
***
Don't you just love how Gore's defenders talk about states' rights
and that the U.S. Supreme Court shouldn't interfere with state
election officials?
Would those same people favor doing away with the Voting Rights
Act that allows federal officials to oversee elections in the
South?
Here's one example: For an election official in the South to
change a place of polling, say to a larger facility, it requires
a ream of paperwork to the U.S. Justice Department and that department's
approval before such a change could be made.
You can't have it both ways, guys. If the Supreme Court shouldn't
interfere, then neither should the Justice Department.
***
Here's a solution for the judge in Florida to consider: Use a
divining rod over the disputed ballots. Since some in Florida
wish to divine the "will" of the voters by looking
at dimpled ballots, let's just wave a special stick over the
ballot boxes and see which way it points. If it points left,
the Democrats win. If it points right, the Republicans win. If
it points straight ahead, you'll know someone put Viagra in the
ballot box.
***
AJC columnist Cynthia Tucker should take off her racially biased
blinders. Last week, Tucker vilified Florida secretary of state
Katherine Harris, who is white, for her role in the election
there. Consider the following from that column:
Harris is "the poster girl for blind ambition..."
She was "meticulously coifed in a slightly longer version
of GOP helmet hair... wearing a designer suit..."
She "bore the air of entitlement that comes from being born
rich."
"Harris had already shown that she has brass, ah, knuckles."
"Girlfriend has a game plan with her own ambitions at the
center."
"She likes power."
"Czarina."
Had a white newspaper columnist written a description of a black
public official in such a tone, there would be charges of racism
floating through the community. That Tucker continuously writes
about the state and nation in such a manner is a disgrace to
the AJC and to all of those, black and white, who fought for
a color-blind society 35 years ago.
Tucker's anti-Harris diatribe was another example of getting
"gored."
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald.
Editorials
The Commerce News
November 29, 2000
Jackson Needs
County-Wide Recycling Program
Athens-Clarke, Madison, Barrow, Banks, Hall and Gwinnett counties
each have one, but Jackson does not.
What is the missing item? It's a county recycling program.
Recycling got pretty popular a decade ago when the state ordered
local communities to reduce the amount of material they put into
landfills, but it never quite caught on in Jackson County. The
county tried recycling, only to find that there was no market
for its plastic and glass, and visitors to the county landfill
were startled to see truckloads of glass or plastic just dumped
into the trenches.
Commerce used to have a program operated at the high school for
recycling newsprint, aluminum cans, plastic and glass. Frailties
of the marketplace eliminated plastic and glass. Then, officials
decided that there wasn't enough money in recycling newsprint,
so that aspect ended.
Today, inmates at the Jackson County Correctional Institute remove
newsprint, corrugated cardboard and light metals as trash passes
through the county transfer station, but it isn't easy for the
conscientious citizen to be a good steward by recycling.
Meanwhile, our schools teach children the value of recycling
and the children understand. A recent essay contest sponsored
by Jackson County Community Outreach about what could be done
to improve the community produced a number of recommendations
that a recycling program be started.
Our five new county commissioners would be wise to listen to
the concerns of those children. If all of the surrounding counties
can have the state Clean and Beautiful program, surely Jackson
can muster the funding to do the same. While it is true that
there is little direct payback of the cost invested, most citizens
are aware of the need and would be likely to support a program
that makes good stewardship a county policy. The payback comes
over time as the need for landfill space is reduced.
The new county commissioners should also make implementation
of the long-delayed composting program at JCCI a top priority.
It was a project of deposed warden Joe Dalton, but the Georgia
Environmental Protection Division is dragging its feet in awarding
a permit. The project would take food wastes from the county
jail, prison and schools and compost it with paper. The result
would be less waste going into a landfill and the improvement
of county land through the addition of compost to the soil.
The focus of virtually every aspect of government right now is
on managing growth. Uniform, efficient and environmentally sound
practices of recycling and composting will be all the more important
as the population of Jackson County swells in coming years. We
hear a lot of talk about preserving greenspace. Reducing the
amount of trash we generate which must be buried somewhere
is a necessary part of preserving the character of this
county.
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