About Barrow journal. (Winder, Ga.) 2008-2016 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2016)
PAGE 4A BARROW JOURNAL WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2016 Opinions “Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ” ~ Henry Ward Beecher - Downtown gridlock, Winder style It’s well before 7 on a Friday morning and the downtown Winder gridlock is in full force. As one pulls up to an intersection, vehicle after vehicle rolls through. Every so often an 18-wheeler rumbles by, or tries to. It’s not daylight yet, and the line of headlights never stop. Where they are all coming from or going to it’s hard to say. One thing is for certain: they all seem ingly need to go through the downtown Winder area. For those who don’t live in Winder or drive through on a regular basis, the traffic situation here (nightmare is a more accurate description) can’t truly be understood or appreciated. Most respond with something along the lines of, “It can’t be that bad...can it?” or “You have to be exaggerating.” Unfortunately, it’s probably an under statement if anything in describing just how bad it is. It’s something one notices after only one attempt to get through downtown. While city officials deserve some praise for making certain areas in downtown more appealing to look at, the traffic situation has only gotten worse with each passing year. We’ve had numerous mayors and numerous city council members in my time as a resident locally so the finger can’t be pointed at one individual. One previous mayor and I engaged in a back and forth Letter to the Editor battle well before this newspaper made its debut as the one-time city official didn’t really believe the traffic was as bad as I was making it out to be. Another former mayor flat out told me once that “we don’t have a traffic problem in downtown Winder despite the fact you keep saying it.” This former mayor hated this newspaper so I chalked his comments up to not liking us more than anything. I could have said the sky is blue or up is the opposite of down and he would disagree just because of who my employer was. Our current mayor has never contended (that I know of) that we don’t have some traffic issues that need to be addressed, but some current council members don’t like the fact that I continue to talk about the issue and have told me as much. I realize that the Winder City Council is limited, to a degree, in what can be done but there are avenues which can and should be explored. Denials aside, traffic in downtown Winder has reached critical mass. It’s not about being impa tient and not liking having to wait for the red light to change three times before being able to get through an intersection. It’s not about not having left turn lanes or lights at most intersections. It’s not about the train traveling at a snail’s pace or, at times, coming to a complete stop. It’s actually about safety and if nothing continues to be done, then we are going to see more accidents or worse as the months and years pass. The reason? When your road system is still set up the same as it was seven decades ago, then you can’t expect it to be able to handle the amount of traffic it currently has. • • • A reader sent an interesting email concerning a recent column in which I commented on being amazed at how many people are arrested locally during a week’s time. The reader commented that not all of the arrests were “legitimate" and that many of the charges are often dismissed outright. That claim is certainly correct and one that I have always thought about when we list arrests. Let’s be clear on this point: just because a person is arrested doesn’t mean that he or she is ever convicted of any crime in a court of law. It only means that a law enforcement officer at that time decided to arrest someone. As the reader said, many times the charges are dismissed, often before it ever even goes before a judge or jury. There are often times that arrests which we print seem, on the surface at least, to be questionable and a waste of law enforcement’s time. Personally, I’ve always felt that any con senting activity between adults or any activity undertaken by anyone that does not physically harm anyone else is not a crime and should not be something law enforcement needs to be involved with. All it takes is a quick search on YouTube to see any number of people being arrest ed (and I’m not talking specifically about local arrests) for things which, quite frankly, really are not arrestable offenses. For example, did you know at certain places in Washington, D.C. it is illegal to dance? I’m not kidding. It’s an absurd law and clearly no one can be physically harmed or robbed of private property from this activity. Many people hold dem- ostrations against this law and they are arrested, often with such physical force that you would think they must have just committed armed robbery or assault. Other times, there are people arrested for preaching from the Bible. Yes, you read that correct. A preacher on a side walk reading from the Bible can be seen placed in handcuffs and put inside a police car and taken away. And one of my favorites has to be in some cities where it is illegal to feed the homeless. Police actually show up and arrest people who are simply trying to help a person down on their luck for whatever the reason may be. While I don’t ever recall anyone being arrested locally for dancing or preaching or feeding the homeless, there are many arrest reports which make little sense in terms of why an arrest was ultimately made. There are those who will tell you law enforcement is a business (as the emailer did) and if you don’t keep the jails full then the amount of money alloted to local departments might not continue to be offered up from city or county officials. One interesting place to our north is Keene, New Hampshire where many people fight against arrests for what they term “victimless crimes.” These activists are more than willing to be arrested and go to court for things which most concur should not be arrestable offenses. If a judge decides to empose a fine, the defen- dent will often refuse to pay it and tell the judge to send them to jail instead. To me, that’s somewhat of a steep price but it cer tainly makes a point about questionable arrests for victimless crimes. Chris Bridges is editor of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him at cbridges@barrowjournal. com. Lawmakers keep fighting the Civil War tom crawford You may have the impression that the Civil War ended sometime around 1865, after the Confederate armies stacked their weapons, the soldiers returned to their homes, and the southern states were re admitted back into the Union. It would be entirely reasonable to think that, but in some areas of the Georgia capitol it would also be a big mistake. Today, more than 150 years after Robert E. Lee worked out surrender terms with U.S. Grant at Appomattox, battles continue to rage between some of our state legislators over the late unpleasantness and how it should be remembered. In Georgia and all over the South, we’re still having squabbles over the display of the Confederate bat tle emblem and whether statues of Confederate generals and leaders have a rightful place in any public area. The “general” in this latest conflict is a balding, retired history teacher, state Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson), who has often displayed his fondness for the “lost cause” of the Confederate States of America. During his 12 years in the House, Benton has made numerous speeches about historical figures of the Civil War. “I think what they tried to do was very noble,” he told one reporter in a typi cal comment. He also objected to the removal two years ago of the statue of Tom Watson, a notorious white supremacist and anti-semite, from the front of the capi tol building. “You can’t pick and choose what history you’re going to remember or you’ll lose a whole bunch of your past,” Benton said at the time. “Watson was a racist and anti-Semite, but he was also probably the most powerful politician in Georgia for 25 years.” Benton’s sympathies for the Confederacy and its associated causes have never been a secret to the capitol crowd. But he now finds himself in the middle of a raging controversy for restating his well-worn opinions in several media interviews last week. In the interviews, Benton reiterated his belief that the Ku Klux Klan “was not so much a racist thing but a vigi lante thing to keep law and order... It made a lot of peo ple straighten up. I’m not say ing what they did was right. It’s just the way things were.” Benton also claimed that the Civil War “was not fought over slavery,” an assertion that is not held by most seri ous historians who’ve written about that conflict. Benton’s words aggravated a legisla tive conflict that has been going on this session with state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), a black Democrat. Fort has introduced a bill that would prohibit the designation of any state holidays honoring the Confederacy. He and other black lawmakers have said it’s time the state stopped paying tribute to the Confederacy at Stone Mountain Park. Benton introduced a bill that would require the reinstatement of Robert E. Lee’s birthday and Confederate Memorial Day as state holidays. He sponsored another measure that would preserve the Confederate memorials at Stone Mountain Park. Benton compared Fort to a Muslim terrorist: “That’s no better than what ISIS is doing, destroying museums and monuments.” Fort replied: “I’m not going to respond to anyone who’s an apologist for the Klan and for slavery.” As a practical matter, neither Benton’s bills nor Fort’s bill is likely to pass or even make it to the floor for debate. But their heated exchanges got the war started again. Nikema Williams, first vice chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, accused Benton of “spewing the kind of half witted hatred that divides. Benton should be ashamed and his party should denounce him.” Better Georgia, a progressive organi zation, called for House Speaker David Ralston to remove Benton from his post as a committee chairman. “His defense of the KKK ignores a grave and dark history of violence and rac ism in Georgia,” Executive Director Bryan Long said. Ralston has tried to downplay the matter as just another disagreement of the kind you often see between legis lators. When asked if there were any plans to remove Benton as a chairman or change any of his committee assign ments, Ralston’s spokesman replied: “No changes.” Similarly, I doubt there will be any changes in the level of hostilities among lawmakers. We’ve kept on fight ing the Civil War for 150 years - why stop now? Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet news ser vice at gareport.com that reports on state government and politics. He can be reached at tcrawford@gareport. com. Keeping meaningful memories I recently read through a journal I began keep ing as a child. Most of the entries are general ram- blings about school, books, recipes and movies. Some are poems, or sketches, or short stories. Some are clever, most are readable, and all of them are embarrassing. I’ve tried to keep a journal for most of my life. Keeping a handwritten journal helps me prioritize my thoughts, because I put more care into it than I would in something written on the Internet. I like to look back through the years and compare my writing style and viewpoints. It helps me recall the details of impor tant days and reconnect with the thoughts of my younger self. And it gives me a good laugh. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go through the journal entries of my ancestors, reading their thoughts and opinions about the world. I’d like to learn their priorities and what they thought was worth being written down and remembered. I’d like to know their beliefs and to hear their voices in my mind as I read their words. I don’t have access to many written records from my ancestors, but I do have a collection of old pictures. Most were taken on a porch with family and children all around the yard. Some were posed, some candid, and most of the faces had smiles. These are my ancestors. This is the only way I know them and remember them. It’s not just the people in the picture that help me connect with my family. Sure, I can point out familiar faces; I can recognize the eyes and smiles of my younger grandparents and other family members in the pictures. But what better describes my family is the chosen subject of the picture...the people. When I look through saved pictures - the ones that someone thought were worth keeping - people are a constant. Someone in the past valued my family members enough to both take their picture and to save the picture and pass it down through the generations. Today, most of us have access to a camera at all times. Whether we carry one with us, or use the camera installed in our phones, we have an increased ability to take pictures that past gen erations did not have. We can visually document the details of our day easier than we ever could before. And access to digital photography and social media has increased our ability to share those pictures and to create an online scrapbook of memories. We can also record and share our thoughts and our journal entries online through social media and blogs. I sometimes take this for granted. Since I have this seemingly unlimited ability to share my world online, I don’t put as much care into my words as I do when writing in my journal. Similarly, I don’t take as much care when taking pictures with a digital camera as I would if I were relying on film. I wind up taking pictures of food and flowers instead of family and friends. And I wind up writing about nonsense online instead of preserving the memories that mean the most. Our words and pictures will remain online after we are gone, giving our ancestors something to look back on. We’ll leave behind well-docu mented online accounts of our memories with small details of our every day lives. These online scrapbooks and journals will reflect our lives and priorities and contribute to the future memory of us. Hopefully, we can use them to preserve the memories that mean the most. Alex Pace is a reporter for the Barrow Journal. She can be reached at apace@barrowjournal. com. Barrow Journal Winder, Barrow County, Ga. www.BarrowJournal.com Mike Buffington... Co-Publisher POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Scott Buffington.. Co-Publisher The Barrow Journal 77 East May Street Winder, Georgia 30680 Chris Bridges Editor Published 52 times per year by Jessica Brown.... Photographer Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. Susan Treadwell Reporter Periodicals postage paid at Winder, Georgia 30680 (USPS 025-132) Alex Pace Reporter Email: news@barrowjournal.com Sharon Hogan.... Reporter Phone: 770-867-NEWS (6397) Fax: 678-425-1435 Member SUBSCRIPTIONS: Georgia Press Association National Newspaper Association $25.00/yr.
