Newspaper Page Text
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♦ SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2006
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OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans
Managing Editor Editor Emeritus
Yes, Virginia, this will end
Residents along South Houston
Lake Road aren’t convinced the
widening and paving project will
ever be completed.
It is a Georgia DOT project and,
despite the desire of the Houston County
Commissioners to help complete it, their
hands are tied.
It probably will qualify as one of the
worst managed projects the Georgia
DOT has ever handled.
When we were told several years ago
that this road would be widened and
paved most Houston Countians were
thrilled.
Now, after
years of incon
veni e n c e
and prom
ises, they
are baffled,
outraged and
disgusted.
The con
tractor start
ed the proj
ect, then
went away
for many
months with
out touching
it.
When work
ers show up
it appears to
be a token work force. Obviously, no one
connected with the Houston Lake Road
project feels any urgency to complete it
and provide relief for motorists who use
the road and for families who live on it.
The DOT has promised that the
project between Russell Parkway and
Cohen Walker Drive will be completed
by December. You can’t fault motorists
who use this road for asking “which
December”, since they have heard so
many unkept promises in the past.
Root causes for the long, drawn out
project go all the way back to the sign
ing of the contract by DOT with the road
contractor. As in all such contracts, there
was a penalty clause for not finishing it
by the deadline, but clearly the penalty
was not large enough to convince the
contractor that he should stay on the job
here until completion, rather than tak
ing his crew somewhere else.
No explanations or excuses will satisfy
the thousands of motorists who have
endured the inconvenience for such a
long time.
The best we can expect out of this
disaster is that the Georgia DOT learned
a lesson, which is that they should make
the penalty for failure to complete a
job on time so large that no contractor
would consider abandoning it.
We are looking forward to completion
of the road widening project, whenever
that is. We hope that it is December of
this year, as promised. We will not count
on it until we see it.
Worth repeating
“This reporter approaches the matter with rather fresh
memories of friends in Austria, Germany and Italy who
either died or went into exile because they refused to
admit the right of their government to determine what
they should say, read, write or think.... Movies should
be judged by what appears on the screen, newspapers
by what appears in print and radio by what comes out
of the loudspeaker. The personal beliefs of the individu
als involved would not seem to be a legitimate field of
inquiry. When bankers, or oil or railroad men are hauled
before a congressional committee, it is not customary to
question them about their beliefs.”
Edward R. Murrow, 1908-1965
Journalist
Send your Letters to the Editor to:
The Houston Home Journal
P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or
Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
The DOT has
promised that the
project between Russell
Parkway and Cohen
Walker Drive will be
completed by December.
You can't fault
motorists who use this
road for asking "which
December", since they
have heard so many
nnkept promises in the
past.
Bodyguards, celebrities shouldn't mix
Why are celebrities permitted
to hire gun-carrying hoodlums
as bodyguards, who do not
hesitate to rough up anyone who gets
in their way?
Cynthia McKinney’s thugs roughed
up reporters and photographers follow
ing her defeat. Most celebrities have
several bodyguards with them. They
act as if they have the right to abuse
ordinary citizens, and they get away
with it.
You or I could not (even if we wanted
to) surround ourselves with hoodlums
with a license to run roughshod over
the general public.
Law enforcement should not contin
ue to turn a blind eye to the tactics of
these bodyguards. Celebrities, includ
ing an obnoxious member of Congress’,
should be forced to abide by the same
rules that apply to the average citizen.
Celebrity does not deserve a special sta
tus at the expense of average people.
■ ■■
John Rocker made a remark that was
considered “racist” and they drummed
him out of baseball. Andrew Young did
the same thing and the very people who
attacked Rocker are rushing to excuse
Young’s action. Double standard?
■ ■■
Can anyone explain* why every time
I drop a coin or small object it winds
up under a chair, desk or piece of fur
niture? Do you have the same misfor
tune?
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Conservative women are consumers, too
Dear High Fashion Cosmetics
Manufacturers:
I want you to know that I
am a conservative woman who shares
something in common with your mil
lions of treasured liberal female con
sumers: the need for a quality skin
care regimen. Perhaps this comes as a
shock to you, but conservative women
also suffer chapped lips, rough elbows,
undereye circles and ragged cuticles.
(I speak with Absolute Authority on
this.) The quest for a good moistur
izer transcends partisan politics. Our
money is green, like everyone else’s.
Oh, and we have feelings, too.
So when corporate boneheads in
your industry (such as the ones at
MAC Cosmetics) hire left-wing celeb
rities (such as offend-a-holic Sandra
Bernhard) to hawk lip-plumping prod
ucts by hurling epithets at us (such as
“little freaked out, intimidated, fright
ened, right-wing Republican thin
lipped (expletive)”), we are not just
going to roll over like tubes of mascara
across a make-up counter.
There was a time when you could get
away with snubbing us so gratuitously
a time before the Internet and the
blogosphere and You Tube existed. No
more. When the gals at The Cotillion
(cotillion.mu.nu), a consortium of
conservative women bloggers, orga
nized an online protest against MAC’s
anti-Republican advertising mockery,
the company realized a simple truth:
Politicizing beauty potions may be
good for a few snickers in the board
room - but it’s plain bad business in
Middle America.
Last Thursday, MAC ended the tem
pest in a gloss pot by issuing an apol
ogy:
“Thank you for taking the time to
contact M.A.C. The Plushglass Sandra
Bernhard video on the MAC website
has gotten enormous reaction. Sandra
Foy
Evans
Columnist
foyevansl9@cox.net
■ ■■
How can anyone believe that profes
sional baseball and basketball play
ers are worth the multi-million dollar
salaries they are paid? They don’t even
have to perform to a certain level of
competency to receive their pay. I like
the way professional golfers are paid,
which is in direct relation to their
performance on the golf course. Play
badly, get no pay for the week. Play
great, receive a big check.
Baseball and basketball pros receive
many times the amount earned by pro
golfers each year and many of them
dog it because they can.
■ ■■
Last year city and county water
departments didn’t do very well finan
cially because of a year of above aver
age rainfall.
This year their pockets must be bulg
ing as a result of the unusually long
hot weather and below normal rain
fall. I cringe when I see my water bill,
which this year far exceeds anything I
have paid in the past.
LfcCfc Of INTELLIGENCE
Michelle
Malkin
Columnist
malkin@comcast.net
is a provocateur and this is why MAC
has worked with her. In monitoring
these reactions, we realized there was
one sentence that was offending some
of our customers, which was not what
this video was intended to do. We edit
ed out the one offending sentence out
of respect to some of our customers.
The MAC philosophy is about embrac
ing and welcoming everyone and cele
brating difference - ALL RACES, ALL
SEXES, ALL AGES is our credo. We
appreciate your interest in M.A.C and
hope we have the opportunity to serve
you in the near future.”
Fine. I won’t toss my must
have MAC lip conditioner - unless
the Transportation Security
Administration forces me to at the
airport, that is. But let this be a lesson
learned, beauty barons.
Your customers are not just
“Desperate Housewives” cast members
and unhinged friends of Madonna. It’s
not nice to bite the manicured hands
of conservative women who feed you.
Take it from a big-mouthed Fox News
Channel contributor who buys lip gloss
by the barrel. If you truly “respect” all
of your customers, you won’t go out
of your way to pay sneering “provo
cateurs” to antagonize a substantial
portion of them in the first place.
The bottom line is that enhancing the
bottom line should be your top prior
ity, not enhancing your popularity in
Hollywood.
Note, by the way, how reflexively
B * «
IHb| Warn
HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
■ ■■
With officials telling us that water
will become a precious commodity in a
few years and a form of rationing going
on now, how long will it be before all
of our manicured, well-watered lawns
will become a thing of the past? The
day surely will come when we will not
be permitted to “waste” water just to
make our yards more attractive.
■ ■■
Anyone who doubts that water will
be scarce in years to come, and much
more expensive, too, should consider
that some of the most savvy investors
in this country are sinking billions of
dollars into projects that will produce
water in the future.
■ ■■
When is a gated community not real
ly a gated community? When there are
no security guards at the gates.
■ ■■
Here’s a statistic that should interest
many readers: 35 percent of the people
who use personal ads to meet and date
are already married. Well, well.
■ ■■
Do you rely on a dictionary to be sure
your spelling is correct? A report says
that in Webster’s 1998 dictionary 318
entries were spelled incorrectly. Can’t
we count on anyone?
hypersensitive the corporate world can
be to certain politically correct seg
ments of their consumer base versus
others. Remember when Burger King
withdrew a product line of ice-cream
desserts based on a single complaint
by a British Muslim who claimed he
was offended by the swirly cone design
on the container lid because he said it
resembled the Arabic inscription for
Allah?
And remember when athletic foot
wear company Nike caved in to the
Council on American-Islamic Relations
over its nutty claim that one of the
company’s sneakers had a design on
the heel allegedly resembling, yes, the
Arabic inscription for Allah? CAIR
mau-maued Nike into building three
playgrounds for Islamic communities
in the U.S. to atone for the claimed
insult - in addition to apologizing for
any unintentional offense, agreeing to
a global recall of all products carrying
the design and introducing sensitivity
training for Nike designers.
Can you imagine how much more
militant the offended Muslim response
would have been if Burger King and
Nike had gone out of their way - as
MAC did - to hire someone to deliber
ately provoke a significant portion of
their customer base? Imagine riots and
burning buildings and fatwas. It’s easy
if you try.
Conservative women, for their part,
will deal with their figurative fat lips
at the hands of MAC and mouthy
Sandra Bernhard without threaten
ing boycotts or issuing death threats.
No need to withdraw “Plushglass” or
build us playgrounds. A free MAC lip
pencil should heal the pain just fine.
I’ll take mine in Cranberry.
Michelle Malkin is author of the new
book “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals
Gone Wild.” Her e-mail address is
malkin@comcast. net.