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4A TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2006 ifiuusimt OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Managing Editor Fish fry is big success Sonny’s fish fry Saturday was a big success. More than 2,000 turned out for the event and provided our governor with the kind of support he deserves from the home folks. Promoters of the fish fry wisely kept the price low enough that average citi zens could afford to attend. An indication of the importance of the event, which is in its third year, was the presence of so many statewide and regional Republican candidates who made sure to attend and be seen, as well as heard. It is obvious by the way that Sonny Perdue responds to the crowd, as well as the way they respond to him, that this is an event he relishes. Knowingthat the home folks are sol idly behind him certain ly must give him a lift. Other events on behalf of the governor are held throughout the year in Houston County, where the well heeled can con tribute substantially to his campaign. The fish fry is just a good old-fash ioned political gathering where the gen eral public can be a part of Sonny’s cam paign. And there was no doubt at the fish fry that they were solidly behind him in his campaign for reelection. The Middle East quagmire The United States and France got together and crafted a resolution to offer the UN in the hope it can bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution may be adopted, but there is little chance it will result in a cease-fire anytime soon. Israel clearly understands that any thing less than total defeat of Hezbollah will be a victory for the terrorists, as their leader has proclaimed. Lebanon doesn’t like the resolution, either. So if it is adopted it probably will be like so many United Nations resolu tions, a lot of noble sounding words of no importance or impact. No one can predict where the fighting in the Middle East will lead. Already in the past 30 years there have been sev eral “lasting peace” agreements between Israel and its enemies. The peace has lasted only until someone wanted to start shooting or blowing people up again. The present conflict may end in another proclamation of “lasting peace”, but real ists know that there never will be such a thing in the volatile Middle East. Meanwhile, there is Iraq, which seem ingly has been put on the back burner. Two United States generals told a con gressional committee that civil war is breaking out in Iraq, which should pro vide fodder for the anti-war activists who want to cut and run. The whole Middle East situation is a real cause for concern and so far an honorable end is not in sight. Send your Letters to the Editor to: The Houston Home Journal P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus It is obvious by the way that Sonny Perdue responds to the crowd, as well as the way they respond to him, that this is an event he relishes. Knowing that the home (oiks are solidly behind him certainly must give him amt. Turning elections into lotteries Arizona is considering turning elections into lotteries. The plan calls for everyone who votes receiving a chance to win $1 million. That’s a sure way to get people to vote. Why would you want people to vote if they go to the polls only for a chance to win a lottery? ■ ■■ The Air Force has decided to keep a two-star general at each of the Air Logistics Centers, after all. It only goes to show how sound logic can carry the day, if it is backed up by a powerful United States Senator named Orin Hatch. ■ ■■ I met a woman a few days ago who was looking forward to her husband’s return home from Iraq Saturday. He is completing his fourth tour of duty in Iraq and, after some additional train ing in the States, he expects to be sent back there again. Did someone say we must be running short of combat ready personnel? ■ ■■ While Centerville is making plans for a unique downtown, someone might Figure a way to get the garbage trucks and maintenance equipment storage area off its main street - Houston Lake Road. It’s a real eyesore. ©2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, WC Watching the Theater of Jihad Welcome to the marquee perfor mance of “Qana: The Fraud and the Furious,” brought to you by the Acting Guild of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. The drama unfolded over the week end with mob scenes across the Muslim world, ostensibly - ostensibly - in response to civilian deaths in Qana, Lebanon. Angry Muslims from Beirut to Gaza to Lahore set fire to American and Israeli flags. They burned effigies of Western leaders. They raised their voices in chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” The nervous nellies sitting in the world’s balcony seats exclaimed that the tragedy in Qana will make the Muslims hate us more. But if the uproar over the accident in Qana - an Israeli exception to the Hezbollah rule - sounds like a tired old re-run to you, well, it is. This ongoing production utilizes the same talented field of Jew-haters and West-haters and flag-burners and machete-wielders who brought you worldwide months of manufactured rage over the Mohammed cartoons, crazed riots in Nigeria over the Miss World pageant, sharia-approved mur ders in Somalia of World Cup soc cer fans, the fictional Jenin “mas sacre,” the fable of Mohammed al- Dura, and ululating protests over the corrupting influences of “The Satanic Verses,” Theo van Gogh, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s, the sacrilegious Burger King ice-cream swirl, Valentine’s Day and Piglet from “Winnie the Pooh.” The truth about Muslim outrage over Qana is that it’s not really about the tragic deaths at Qana - just like the Mohammed cartoon jihad was not really about the cartoons. It’s a pre text for much grander goals to defeat OPINION Columnist SBj foyevansl9@cox.net BUk- .SI How many of you remember when Warner Robins had such a hard time persuading people to move here? Do you remember the sign that Ed Bayer (Warner Robins Supply) erected on Highway 247 for base workers to read on their home? It said: “If You Lived Here You Would Already Be Home.” Now people are coming by the thousands to Warner Robins and Houston County seeking a better place to live. ■ ■■ I see grandparents come into a res taurant early in the morning with a grandchild and grinning. It might be interesting to see them late in the day. Smiles might have turned into grimac es after a full day of trying to keep up. One grandmother told me. “I just can’t wait for my grandchildren to arrive and I can’t wait for their parents to pick them up.” Michelle Columnist malkm@comcast.net the infidels -- be they Israeli, Danish, Dutch or American. Remember: Muslim riots over the Mohammed cartoons printed by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper last fall were manufactured amid attempts to bully Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. Iran blamed Israel for the cartoons in a speech marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Now, the Qana jihad, gleefully stoked by Iran, is unfolding amid mount ing UN Security Council pressure on Tehran to suspend its nuclear pro gram. What better way to distract from Hezbollah’s atrocities and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s annihilate-the-Jews plans than to start screaming about Israel’s “war crimes” and Western crimes against humanity? As we watch Hezbollah’s horrible parade of dead children in Qana replay endlessly on television, here is a sugges tion for all the intrepid American jour nalists gallivanting with Hezbollah’s handlers in the region: Perhaps you could put down the figurative hookah pipes, take off your sympathy hajibs and find out the identity of the green helmeted guy holding up baby corpses in Qana as props for your sensational, page-one pictures. Is he just an ordinary bystander? HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL Now that Perry city officials have realized that they better get busy annexing as much land as they can their city limits soon will resemble those of Warner Robins. It is grow or get left behind and, apparently, Perry’s city officials don’t want to be victims of the stampede. ■ ■■ It would be good if all city and county zoning and engineering could be han dled through central offices. Codes are not the same now and it would be good to have one code for all developments in the county. There are some good and bad fea tures in all four zoning and building codes now in existence. Engineering from one office would be beneficial if applications were handled efficiently and speedily. If it takes more people than today, find a way to pay for the extra costs through some kind of fees. It would be worth' it to developers and builders. ■ ■■ I believe that newspapers and tele vision perform a good public service when they provide pictures of crimi nals and suspects. Otherwise, how can the public respond when told to report to law enforcement officers if one of the suspects is sighted? ■ ■■ ■ ■■ A rescuer who just happened to be in the same place 10 years ago, traipsing around with dead children’s bodies to exploit an accidental Israeli bombing prompted by terrorists hiding behind civilians? A civilian volunteer or a pro paganda producer? To his credit, MSNBC reporter Richard Engel picked up on a ques tion the blogosphere has been asking since the toddler corpse-paraders in Qana took center stage: Where were all the men? His reporting under scores Hezbollah’s evil m.o. - embed ding themselves in civilian populations to force exactly the kind of tragic error from Israel that appears to have occurred at Qana. “[W]e went house to house in trying to figure out where all the young men were. It seems that some of them were fighters, some of them were Hezbollah members that were out - this according to Hezbollah people who didn’t want to be inter viewed but we convinced them to talk to us.” To the photographer-stenographers who were herded to the scene eight hours after the strike, why is it that the bodies of the children were already in a state of rigor mortis? How to explain the sparkling clean pacifier clipped onto a dust-covered toddler carried around by the friendly corpse parader? And why were the women and children kept in the building for so long? Questions abound. Answers are as scarce as men in that Qana build ing. “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare wrote. The journalists of our age have chosen their costumes: court jesters in the Theater of Jihad. Michelle Malkin is author of the new book “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.” Her e-mail address is malkin @comcast. net.