Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

4A ♦ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006 Moulton HJmmutl OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Managing Editor Building Georgia's behavioral health care system Editor’s note: The following is a guest editorial by B.J. Walker, commissioner for the Georgia Department of Human Resources There’s probably not a family in Georgia that has not been affect ed by mental illness. That’s why the Department of Human Resources has worked so hard over the past few years to build a comprehensive system of ser vices. Across the state, we re-distributed the funding so that every area gets their fair share. We responded to the need for a single point of entry, so that people could easily find ser vices by hav ing one state wide number to call (800- 715-4225). And we are making sure that all of the money appro- priated for children and adolescents is actually spent on them. These are all sig nificant improvements, but sometimes it feels like renovating a house while you are living in it. We’re by no means finished, but a new foundation is in place that will last for years to come. Any time you build a house, it is critical to stay in touch with the homeowners, and for us, that would be consumers and their families. Therefore, over the next month, we will be meeting with them at forums organized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and we’ll be asking: What are the strengths of our mental health system and how can we build on them? We already know some things: Georgia’s state operated mental health hospitals score better today on key national mea sures than in previous years. We are seeing reductions in medication errors, the use of seclusion and restraint, as well as deaths, abuse, and injuries. Not only have we improved we’re in line with or better than the national average on many measures. We know that our efforts to build com munity-based services are getting results. There has been a steady increase, of about 10 percent, in the number of people receiv ing services in their communities. In addition, local crisis stabilization pro grams are keeping people from having long hospital stays, sometimes far from home. For adults, we have increased our capacity to deal with crises and emergen cies by 34 percent since 2004. For children, we built Georgia’s first crisis stabilization program in Savannah, allowing us to close an expensive hospital unit and invest the SI.2M savings in more community-based services for children and teens. This year, DHR will add four crisis stabilization pro grams so that every region of the state will be served. The result will be fewer children having long hospital stays and more services close to the loving arms of their families and communities. We all know that crises in the lives of people who are mentally ill often result in them going to jail or prison. Earlier this year, NAMI announced their partnership with us to train 20 percent of all frontline law enforcement officers on effective ways to identify and deal with people with men tal illness. It is the right work and will make a world of difference when there is someone trained in every law enforcement agency statewide. Mental health services in Georgia are improving. We at DHR are looking for opportunities to build on these results. There are still many unanswered ques tions. Our conversations around the state should help us find those answers. Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus The result will be fewer children hsvlng long hospital stays and more services close to the loving arms of their families and communities. Selling a false sense of reality? A family is riding around in an SUV Mom and Dad are in the front seat with son and daughter in the back. They are all smiling and talking. They stop at a roadside farm stand and at the beach where Mom takes a picture of Dad with the kids and the dog. A voice-over says, “More than 500 miles on a tank of gas.” Then the SUV pulls up to an apart ment/townhouse complex and Dad gets out with his duffle bag. As he kneels down and hugs a child in each arm, he looks up at Mom, waiting in the driver’s seat with the car running, and he says to her, “Thanks for inviting me this weekend.” She gives him a sad half-smile and a nod and replies, “Sure.” Dad tells the kids goodbye and “see you next week” and they wave to him as they run and get back in the car with mom. The last shot we see is the back of the son’s head as he waves goodbye to Dad who is left standing on the street waving back. And then the final voice-over: “Bold moves. They happen every day.” This is the new commercial for the Ford Freestyle Crossover. A commer cial that left me and many other view ers with a strange, unsettled feeling. It felt creepy, actually. The ad has even sparked quite a discussion in the advertising industry with websites and blogs dedicating much space and many comments trying to make sense of it. What exactly is Ford trying to com municate? Who is the target audi ence? Surely the message isn’t, “Get this car. It’s big enough to accomodate your ex and all of your collective bag gage,” or “Five hundred miles on a tank of gas—which will come in handy during all the driving you’ll be doing to fulfill shared custody agreements.” And certainly the ad isn’t targeting divorced dads with, “You had to be invited in order to spend this outing with your kids and when it’s all over, you get dropped off in the driveway, like a child, while Mom drives away with the car and the family.” Is it targeting divorced moms by por traying the woman as magnanimous yet in control, heralding her “bold ness” at inviting the ex along? I have to ask: is this really the kind of “bold move” that “happens everyday?” I don’t know a single divorced couple or 1 I I I • •• ;■' »’ •jl]| -"V * •' ' ‘• ?r ": ! .q Z' You think the Governor\ ( has seen the new J 'v State S. A. T. rankings? J (( . V Winning now more important than governing Candidates seem more intent on winning than on governing. Chances for improvement before the November elections are slimmer than Calista Flockhart’s shad ow, too. Let’s go to the details: In yet another chance to exercise our democratic mus cles, we have once again set the bar embarrassingly low. No, Mr. Smith does not need to go to Washington, but we can do better. Winning now takes precedence over governing, giving an eerie reality to Bill McKay, Robert Redford’s movie character in “The Candidate,” who, after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, turns to his political consultant and asks “What do we do now?” The distinction is important, the question more real than it should be. Winning an election today often requires a different skill set than devel oping sound public policy, writing rea sonable laws or providing strong lead ership. Although lately lurching toward some semblance of political debate but still mostly obsessed with the other guy, Nebraska’s well-documented Ricketts/ Nelson throwdown comes to mind. The win-now-what-do-we-do-later philosophy is widespread, however, maybe even chronic. According to factcheck.org., many states have had the dubious good for tune to host nasty, expensive and often distorted political races. For example, in Nevada, where some called the campaign “the ugliest prima ry no one is watching,” two Democrats running for Congress decided accuracy in advertising was simply not a prior- OPINION child of divorce who can relate to the experience played in the commercial. It may happen for some, but this is not the divorce story most people have. Then it hits me. I understand why the ad feels creepy, weird and unset tling to me. It’s because of my own experience with the “divorce drop off.” Like most kids from divorced families, I was the subject of the all-too-famil iar handoff. In the commercial, just before dropping off Dad, we catch a moment where the son is looking out the window and his face shows appre hension, maybe worry. And that’s the reality. I never saw my divorced parents fight. They did a great job of not talk ing negatively about each other to me. And they managed to be perfectly civil, even cordial when they had occasion to be in each other’s presence. Even so, I never felt the broken ness of my family situation more than during those brief moments when my parents were together, only to sepa rate again as soon as the handoff was made. In those moments, I was more acutely aware that things weren’t as they should be. It was awkward. Any happiness or normality on display felt forced. In fact, for the entire day lead ing up to the drop off, I’d be sick to my stomach, nervous and after the trans action was complete, just before we resumed our “normal” divorced family lives, I would sob—safely out of sight of either parent of course. And so the commercial makes me uneasy. Because of the kids. Now, of course parents who are divorced must make the effort to co-parent in a way that is best for the kids given the cir cumstances. But forget the parents for a minute. What about the children in the ad who are getting a taste of what life might be like if their family was intact. In the midst of all the fun and togeth erness, is there hope brewing that ity. In Georgia, Ralph Reed didn’t let the facts get in the way of a solid bid for lieutenant governor. Ohio has been blessed with a “distortion and insinu ation” debate over just who is tougher on terror. Speaking of which, within hours of British agents foiling a plot to bomb U.S.-bound planes from London, politi cians were playing the election-year soft-on-terror card. The Dems generally questioned the administration’s balking at spend ing on airport security in this coun try; the GOP wanted the world to know that it was the tougher party on “Islamofascists.” In a highly unusual cameo perfor mance that crossed party lines, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed Ned Lamont’s victory over Joe Leiberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary for Senate would encourage “al-Qaida types.” He offered no evidence as to how he knew this. Yes, it might be politics as usual - a sad state and an argument I find a complete capitulation, taking a dive like a crooked boxer with a large chit. If we accept that lies, innuendo and nonsense underpin the process by which we choose leaders of the free world, it’s a laydown. Jamie Self Columnist Georgia Family Council George Ayoub Columnist Morris News Service Mom and Dad could still work it out? (Most of us had such fantasies even without our parents taking us on vaca tion together.) What about the kids who, when all is said and done, must live with the fact that while their par ents can figure out how to get along and be happy for a weekend “for the sake of the kids,” a weekend is where it stops? I can’t help but feel a sense of waste, of loss, at the thought of a couple who can learn to work together and be happy for several days but don’t see the possibility of stringing those sev eral days together with several more. I ache over the scene of these parents who recognize that their kids need a family, they need their Dad and their Mom, enough to make the sacrifices and compromises necessary to give them that—but only for a short time after which the family must separate all over again. Ford’s general marketing manager, John Felice, said the ad is meant to be a “celebration of family.” A manag ing director for a corporate identity consulting company reviewed the ad saying, “Divorce is so common that I don’t think people view it as sad and depressing anymore.” % I disagree. Some divorces may be necessary (although I am prepared to argue far fewer than actually occur). But the common occurrence of divorce makes it no less sad than the far more common occurrence of death. Perhaps it is a “bold move” for Ford to try to sell SUVs using an ad that leaves so many viewers feeling as unsettled as I was. Perhaps we can be bold enough to acknowledge, without apology, the con sequences of divorce for kids. Perhaps it would be an even bolder move, one that certainly does not happen every day, if parents could learn to work together to be about the things that are best for their kids while they are married rather than afterward. Georgia Family Council is a non-prof it organization that works to strength en and defend the family in Georgia by impacting communities, shaping laws and influencing culture. For more information, go to www.georguafamily. org, (770) 242-0001 or jamir@gafam. org. And if it’s just politics, the results are clear, too: Rarely do more than half of us participate at the ballot box. Hundreds of local and state races go uncontested. That ought to tell us something. We also have accepted that nothing gets accomplished in Congress during an election year. We do this for three reasons. One, incumbents need time to cam paign. Two, an election year is now about 16-17 months. Three, an expan sive voting record in an election year doesn’t always square with 30-seconds of soft-focus syrup about values or tor tured logic about an opponent. Meanwhile, real problems remain. Nor does a candidate’s approval of a political ad magically confer veracity, accuracy or common sense. More often, “I approve this ad” makes me question someone’s judgment. Here’s a tagline you’ll never see: “I’m Ken Candidate, and I approve this ad ... OK, you can obviously see it is shot through with innuendo and half truths, but it does have stunning pro duction values and catchy music. My handlers tell me this is the way to go. I wanted to talk about Social Security, the minimum wage and the future of the Middle East. But they insisted vot ers will buy it if we show the other guy wearing a flowered shirt in 1969 and call him soft on terrorism, soft on ille gal immigration and soft in the head. I know it’s a stretch. Sorry. “Anyway ... vote for me? Please?” No way, Pal. I’m voting for Bill McKay. He can see the forest. Reach George Ayoub at george. ayoub@morris.com. 4^^ HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL