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4A SATURDAY, JULY 8, 2006 If Houston ;Mome if Wc\z 4)mnrmu OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans Managing Editor Editor Emeritus Photo ID law to get first test Georgia’s controversial Voter ID law will get its first test in the primary elections later this month and, regardless of the effectiveness of the law, critics will not be mollified. The need for a Voter ID law exists. Anyone going to the polls to vote should be able to provide photo identification. People do not seem to object when required to show a photo ID to cash checks, purchase alco holic beverages, use credit cards and many other purposes. But, for some reason, many people com- plain if they are going to be required to have a photo ID to vote. It is an inconsistency that we find hard to compre hend. Driver’s licenses are used in most instances for iden tification. Many people do not have driver’s licenses. The state has taken care of that. Anyone needing a photo identification card can receive one free of charge. The most ridiculous argument against photo ID cards is that this is a form of poll tax. It isn’t. Poll taxes were charged decades ago for a person to vote. The poll tax was outlawed and discontinued a long, long time ago. Claiming that requiring a photo ID to vote is a poll tax is just a red herring from people who have another agenda. Voting is important in our country. Leaving loop holes at the polling places that make it possible for people to vote without proving who they are does not make sense. Secretary of State Cathy Cox, who opposes the voter ID law says that thousands of people will be unable to vote in the primaries because they do not have photo IDs. If so, it is their fault. Early this year the state sent a bus around the state offering free photo identi fication cards and the response was pathetic. Many who would not go to the effort to ask for a free photo ID probably will cry foul when they are turned away at the polls on election day. Opponents are in a good position to attack this law as unworkable, unfair and discriminatory. Already black leaders are claiming that the law discriminates against their race. The law haa been approved by the civil rights divi sion of the Justice Department. It is being challenged in federal court. If the law had been discriminatory against blacks the liberals in the civil rights division of the Justice Department would have struck it down. We hope that it survives the challenges that are sure to come. It is a good, sensible law. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Lack of new tax concern I have seen very little in local papers concerning the new tax assessments in Houston County. If your property values increased by up to 75 percent as some of ours did, a 1/2 mill decrease which the county commissioners and school board seems to be proud of is nothing. If I’m not mistaken the County Commissioners increased the mill age rate by 1/2 mill last year. Taxpayers look at your last year’s tax bills and compare it to the ones you receive this fall. Don’t get upset. You will see an increase. Mark my word. You, the Houston County taxpayers have until Monday to file an appeal. Go to www.houstoncountyga.com and click on Tax Assessor (map guide). Put in your last name or address to see the value placed on different property. And of particular importance to south Houston Countians is you will find land similar to yours having the same value placed on your land even though you may live on a dirt road, may not have access to county water or fire hydrants and your tract may have low land or little road frontage. All these factors should affect the land values. Remember most of the new tax assessments were probably done on a computer in an airconditioned office. Don’t wait until next December to complain. It will be too late and rest assured your tax bills are going up. I read with interest the story in the paper about how Twiggs County received a grant and applied for a no interest loan to provide decent drinking water to the taxpayers and fire hydrants for fire protection. We have the same drinking water problems in Houston County. Twiggs County’s Commission Chairman brags about the four-laneing of State Highway 96 by 2010. It’s costing Houston County taxpayers sl9 million of local SPLOST funds to get this done just from highway 41 to Bonaire. We are probably the only county along State Highway 96 having to pay with local tax dollars. And now the Houston County Commissioners want to use local tax dollars to buy radios for the State Patrol. This is a state expense. Wow, how great it is to have all these powerful local politicians in Atlanta. Oh how I wish we still had some good independent investigative reporters. Thank you Macon Telegraph for keeping Bibb Countians informed about the new tax assessments. Tom Thornton, Kathleen Claiming that requiring a photo ID to vote is a poll tax Is Just a red herring from people who have another agenda. High taxes is a relative term Taxes are high in Houston County, some say. By our standards they are high, perhaps. But when you look about a hundred miles north of here you can learn what high taxes really are. The Atlanta Journal- Constitution reported last Sunday that taxes on a 1,500 square foot home in the Poncy-Highlands part of Atlanta is more than SB,OOO. Think we could stomach that? We have received our assessment notices and enough homes have been increased in value for tax purposes enough that the tax assessors are busy hearing the complaints. In reality, we are fortu nate that our city and county officials (as well as board of education) are not as waste ful or money hungry as some people accuse them of being. I realize that, in the eyes of some people, it is blasphemy to say anything good about the way elected officials spend our tax money, but, in m opinion, they have kept the lid on better than most urban areas where there is growth. I don’t like to pay taxes. But I know that I must to help pay for services that we FLIGHT IF ‘SOME CONSRES6MEM MAD BE&-N ABOARD.' NO ONE \e <ao\M<3c r EV/e: we MEED TO FORM A '*\ Life lessons from the playing field By RANDY HICKS President of Georgia Family Council National Fatherhood Initiative recently pointed out the valu able role sports can play in the relationships between fathers and their children. It got me thinking: what are some of the lessons that my love of sports has added to my life, and how can I use sports to add value to the lives of my sons and daugh ters? Our children need to understand that there is value in winning the right way, honestly, through hard work and teamwork. And they can also learn a great deal from losing, even though they played by the rules. These lessons will apply as they go further in sports, in their academic careers and in their future professions. Playing for team is bet ter than playing for self. The story is told of a col lege running back who used to brag about his ability, as though he was good enough to succeed without the rest of the team. In practice one day, coaches told the offen sive line to stop blocking for a few plays. On each ensuing play, the running back was immediately hammered for a loss. The “star” learned his lesson and never failed to give credit to his linemen for his success. The sacrifice bunt in base ball is a great illustration of what a mature adult does - gives up his own glory so his teammate can advance. In real life, the responsible adult pursues the common good in family, workplace and community above his own personal interests. Winning at all costs is too costly. Foy Evans Columnist foyevarisl9@cox.net expect and demand. Being a senior citizen, I hear the complaints of some older people who do not believe that it is right to tax them to pay to send other people’s children to school. I am not in that group. I remember that someone paid taxes to send my son to school. The group of people who really feel the hurt when it comes to the cost of educa tion are parents who send their children to private schools. They pay the same taxes as parents with chil dren in public schools and then must pay tuition at pri vate schools, too. I have not heard any of them complain and, if they did, I’m sure the answer would be that they always can send their children to the public schools. Sometimes it may seem An unhealthy obsession with winning and achieving personal glory can actually cause harm, to the individual and to the team. For exam ple, the career numbers and reputations of professional baseball placers like Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro have likely been permanent ly tainted by alleged steroid use. Through sports, our chil dren can learn that winning through illegitimate means is not winning at all; though you may appear victorious, both your Conscience and reputation may suffer big time losses. Success ill life requires that we learn to live with the disappointing deci sions of others. Everyone who has watched or played a sport has been frustrated by bad calls against them or their tedm. In sports, as a competitor, you have to forget about the bad call and move oh or you fail to focus on the task at hand. In addition, most of us who have played competitive sports have had to live with a coaching decision that rel egated us to a role we did not prefer or, worse, to the bench. This is life. We don’t always get what we want. In the workplace, someone might get a promotion that we thought we deserved. A boss may say something that feels demeaning or needless ly critical, the point is, the only thing we typically have control over is our response to the bad tall or decision. The athlete has to move on and continue to play the game and contribute to the team effort. We would do well to teach our children not to get caught up in the momentary frus tration or disappointment of someone else’s actions, but WufwsT ''9HB that the tax structure is unfair, A few counties have adopt ed a policy of freezing the value of homes for tax pur poses at the price paid by the occupant until the occupant sells. Then the valuation for tax purposes will become the new sale price. This has not been tested in court and may not hold up. Such a policy is being suggested by Commisioner Jay Walker for Houston County. We have not heard from other commissioners. While present homeowners might like to have the value of their homes frozen for tax purposes, I wonder if in the long run it would turn out to be popular. Some homes may be on the tax books at their actual value, but I suspect that most would sell for more. If actual to focus on their responsibil ity and their needed contri bution from this point for ward. Success doesn’t always come easily. Becoming proficient at anything, whether shoot ing a free throw or writing a book report or making a sales presentation, requires perseverance, practice and hard work. Shooting an extra 100 free throws after prac tice can pay off in the game. Practicing how to speak well publicly, either for a class or a workplace presentation can payoff in better grades or higher sales numbers. The life lessons that can be learned from sports are more numerous than I could lay out in this column. You probably can come up with many yourself. But one other potential benefit war rants attention here: it’s academic. Are you concerned about your child’s academic per formance or interests? Look for ways to use your child’s interests in sports to stir educational achievement. When I was young, sports stirred my interest in his tory and geography, and, to a lesser degree, math. The first biography I ever read was From Ghetto to Glory by Bob Gibson, the Hall of Fame pitcher who played for the St. Louis Cardinals. Through that book I learned about race relations in the 1950 s and 60s, and about Gibson’s (and other African American players’) struggle to overcome racism. Along those same lines, through sports I learned about Jackie Robinson, the Cairo, Georgia native and first African-American to play major league baseball, and Branch Rickey, the Dodger general manager THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL sales prices when houses are sold become the norm for tax purposes there could be a backlash. Meanwhile, we may or may not like the amount we will be paying in property taxes this year, but we’re better off than residents of larger cities and their suburbs. Take the time to compare and you will agree. * * * John Rosemond wrote something recently that is worth repeating: “If you want peace, don’t have a child, get a dog.” * * * Summer’s almost gone. School starts in only a month. * * * Two incidents the past weekend make you wonder about people. A boat crashed into a pontoon boat at Lake Sinclair, killing one man. Despite cries for help, the person operating the boat that was at fault sped away into the night. Elsewhere, a boy took a teenage girl to ride on an ATV They crashed. He took the injured girl back to a home where he had picked her up and left her. When she was discovered she was near death and she died. How can any human act in such inhu mane ways? who signed him. In reading about Robinson and Rickey, I learned about the charac ter, vision and perseverance needed to bring about sig nificant change. I learned where to place World War II and the Korean War on a timeline because I wanted to know why Ted Williams missed so many baseball seasons in the prime of his career. (Answer: He fought in both those wars.) I also learned a fair amount about geography from sports -1 wanted to know where St. Louis was, where Minnesota was, where Washington, DC was. I wanted to know why there were teams called the Senators (they played in the nation’s capitol), Dodgers (residents of Brooklyn were known for dodging trolleys), Twins (they played in the Twin Cities) and Lakers (they originally played in Minnesota, the land of 1,000 lakes). Look for the teachable moments, but don’t become a lecturer. Sports is one of the great, fun things in life. Whether watching a game with your child, or return ing home from an event in which he or she participat ed, look for a way to impart wisdom and encouragement. But make sure your son or daughter enjoys the experi ence as a bonding time with you. You don’t want them to recall the worst part of their sports career as “the 20-minutes in the car with dad after the game.” Georgia Family Council is a non-profit organization that works to strengthen and defend the family in Georgia by impacting communities, shaping laws and influenc ing culture. For more infor mation, go to www.georgia family.org (770) 242-0001, gregg@gafam.org.