Newspaper Page Text
♦ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2006
4A
Mouettm Gaily .ijuurtuxl
OPINION
Daniel Foy Evans
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans
Managing Editor Editor Emeritus
. An idea worth promoting
Gov. Sonny Perdue announced Monday
an initiative to place a graduation •
coach in each of Georgia’s 450 mid
dle schools by fall 2007.
State Superintendent of Schools Kathy
Cox almost immediately issued a statement
supporting the move.
“The governor clearly understands that
middle school is a crucial time in a child’s
education,” she said, “and wants to provide
the support and the resources that students
need to stay on the track toward graduation
and success. As we continue to raise expec
tations for all of Georgia’s children, middle
school graduation coaches will help build
those crucial
relationships
that keep stu
dents engaged
and on the
right path.
As superin
tendent, an
educator for
15 years and
the mother of
a middle school student, I think this is a
great idea.”
We couldn’t agree more, and in fact, this
may be a better link to helping our children
than his earlier incentive in establishing
graduation coaches in high school.
Our children at this age are either poised
on the brink of transitioning to becoming a
teen or are embroiled right in the middle of
it. There are so many distractions - drugs,
attraction to the opposite sex and on and
on. At this age they are literally bombarded
from every angle, every known direction
- peer pressure is off the chart.
Sometimes it gets the best of them, which
is where a graduation coach can come in
(among the many other possibilities). He or
she can intercede, keep him or her on the
right track or get him or her back on the
right track and make a phenomenal differ
ence in the end ... in the present tense and
for their future.
Letter to the editor
Freezing value is fair way
Foy Evans’ column in the Saturday paper contained a
reference to property tax re-assessments and their impact
upon the lives of our older and low-income citizens. He ref
erenced a stabilization of property values for tax purposes.
Several Georgia governments do provide such a mecha
nism to control property taxes.
Indeed, freezing a property’s value until it is resold is
only logical and fair to all citizens. Once a property sells,
the new owner pays taxes based on the sales price. The
sales price reflects the true value of any property.
Where such tax freezes have been imple
mented, controls are in place to ensure that the
reported sales price is the actual sales price.
The state does require a re-assessment to reflect the
“current market value” of property affected by the price
freeze.
In this case, local governments are required to hold two
sets of books: One for the tax freeze value and one for the
state’s “market value”.
, The reason for this is that the state
receives a .25 mill tax on all real estate.
The current method of re-assessing a property’s value
and then taxing at the new value is immoral and reflects
a tax on unrealized profit.
The property owner has received noth
ing of value and is being taxed for it.
Our county commissioners have, at one time or another
mentioned a tax freeze and impact fees; however, they
have never placed the matter on the agenda for action,
much less discussion.
The only way to provide tax relief for Houston
County residents is to pursue impact fees imposed
upon new development, increase building permit costs,
and/or implement a county-wide tax freeze. Until
we change the composition of the current board of
county commissioners I believe that nothing will ever
be accomplished to move beyond our current status.
Fortunately, we have a county commissioner, Jay Walker,
who is being opposed by Maurice Braswell in the Nov. 7
General Election.
David E. Wittenberg,
Kathleen
Send your Letters to the Editor to:
The Houston Home Journal
P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or
Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
Wecouttftagreemore.and
infact,ttiis.naybeabetter
Rnhtoreacbingourcbldren
thanhisearlierincentivein
establishing graduation
coaches in high school.
Parents need to keep an eye on their kids
« "■"know where your 15-year-old
I daughter goes every Thursday
JLat 4 p.m. I know who she goes
with and I know what she orders there.
I have her cell phone number, I know
her full name, and I know she’s cute.
I’ve seen her in a bikini.”
“I know there’s a father of a student
in this school suffering from depression.
I know your daughter is very concerned
about you, and I know the medication
you’re taking. I know your first and
last name. And while I’m glad you’re
getting help, I doubt that you are aware
that 100 million people have access to
this personal information.”
No, these are not the words of the
Amazing Kreskin, trying to dazzle a
crowd with mind-readingtricks. Instead,
an expert in the online behavior of kids
spoke these words at a recent seminar
conducted by Georgia Family Council
as part of a program called Play it Safe:
A Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety. It
might help parents to understand why
kids are drawn to personal content
generation sites such as MySpace in
droves. We believe it’s because they
feel independent and grown up there
since they are uncensored by adults.
They are free to try out adult conver
sation, using language and discussing
mature subject matter, including sexual
exploits, in a way most parents would
not condone. In this environment, teens
(and pre-teens) love to express all their
thoughts, emotions and their creativity
- as though they were before a cyber
counseling panel of 100 million people.
That’s one of this technology’s prob
lems. MySpace and similar sites create a
culture in which kids feel free to divulge
too much information - the kind of
information that can either embarrass
them and their families, and the kind
that can get them molested or killed.
I know that sounds melodramatic,
but even the major television networks
have spent a great deal of time recently
exposing the exploits of cyber-predators
who patrol the Internet looking for kids
who are vulnerable to their advances.
The threat is real.
But the fact remains that most par
ents don’t have any idea what their kids
actually do online. Nor do they under
stand the content kids are exposed
to. In just a click or two after logging
in, young kids can encounter loads of
"Hone.y, gas prices are down! Quick, go buy us an SUV!"
Pill popping experience lasts all night long
One pill makes you larger,
And one pill makes you
small.
And the ones that mother gives you,
Don’t do anything at all.
“White Rabbit,” Jefferson
Airplane
OK, now I get it. Right ... non
drowsy.
The definition came to me about 3:30
a.m. I was wide awake (still), my legs
the previous five hours moving like a
“Chorus Line” audition, the tips of my
fingers delivering enough energy to
power a GE Soft White three-way.
Spending a night jumpier than a Jack
Abramoff golfing buddy in a grand-jury
room seriously cuts into sleep.
Like all of it.
The Sandman had taken me out of
his Rolodex - apparently too much
twitching.
Exasperated, I got up at 5:15 a.m.
to exercise, hardly an hour’s shuteye
under my belt. Sixty minutes later,
on a stationary bike at the YMCA, my
heart rate climbed over 100 percent
capacity, surely the product of psue
doephedrine sulfate or loratadine or
both, rather than the required effort
on my part.
Like growing old, timing and balanc
ing my drugs can be tough.
My one-tab congestion relief experi
ment from hell came after a sinus and
allergy slap upside (and inside) my
head. When my sinuses misbehave, I
usually score some Tylenol and suffer
(rarely in silence) or pound down a
couple weeks’ worth of an antibiotic,
the theory being a load of clarithomy-
OPINION
pornography and other sexual content,
profanity, hatred (racial or random),
and attitudes both subtle and overt
that can begin to erode at a visitor’s
sensibilities.
So, what’s a parent to do? We offer
several suggestions in our Play it Safe
seminar and its accompanying guide
(available on our website at www.geor
giafamily.org. The first step is to find
out where your kids are going when
they are online. Ask them to take you to
their MySpace account, and the major
ity of teens have one. If they refuse,
you may have a problem. They may
already be involved in online behav
ior you would not condone. And even
if they agree, many kids have set up
“shadow pages” - sanitized versions of
their real pages, just in case a parent
comes looking.
After severed of our seminars, parents
have come to us to say, “We have asked
our son (or daughter) to let us see his
MySpace page, to give us his password.
He won’t do it. What should we do?” My
first reaction is: “I don’t understand
the problem. Who bought the com
puter? Who owns the house where the
computer is stored, and who pays for
the Internet connection? Who feeds and
clothes the child?”
“We do,” the parents answer. “But
we’re just not sure how he would take it
if we push harder to get him to give us
his password. He may just refuse again;
then what do we do?”
“It sounds like he has something to
hide, doesn’t it?” I reply. They nod.
Then I ask, “What does he enjoy?”
After a confused look passes between
mom and dad, they smile sheepishly
and say, “He really likes the computer.”
“Take it away,” I say. To which their
eyes grow large in unison.
“Really?” mom says.
“If he won’t allow you to take simple
steps to protect him, to parent him, to
guide him, then you need to take more
cin a day keeps the sinus infections
away.
Wednesday, however, I decided to
give an over-the-counter remedy a try,
consulting with a pharmacist and pro
ducing the proper photo ID to buy the
stuff. If I’m going to be up all night, I
want to be legal. Somewhere between
1:30 and 2 a.m., I realized it’s good to
read the package.
That’s where I discovered that the
medicine could cause nervousness, diz
ziness and sleeplessness.
Chances are good I was dizzy but just
too nervous and wide awake to notice.
The box also revealed a secondary
issue, a concern - let me be gentle
here - that has to do with men my age
drinking a tumbler of water directly
before bedtime. Yeesh! Wide awake and
now this.
It helps to pay attention, too.
The pharmacist suggested an early
morning dosing, lest it interfere with
my sleep.
Interfere, we 11... OK, but all night?
Deciding to heal myself, I downed
the little sucker about 1 p.m., staring
blankly at the box, which screamed in
large red type, “24 Hour.”
Go figure.
r~ r
H lp
Greg
Hunter
Columnist
Georgia Family Council
George
Ayoub
Columnist
Morris News Service
HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
drastic measures to let him know you
are serious - and that you are still the
parents.”
Once parents have access to their
kid’s password on MySpace and other
sites, and if they determine that they
will allow their kids to continue to
have such accounts, we strongly urge
families to adopt an Internet Behavior
Agreement. This document is created
by parents and kids together. They
must sit down and write up their stan
dards for acceptable practices online,
including the following:
Where, when and how long may the
child access the Internet? Only in your
home? Only when parents are in the
house? For one hour a day? More?
What kind of content is allowed?
Perhaps you want to choose a few sites
at first that are acceptable, then build
from there if your child proves respon
sible. What kind of content is not
allowed? You must be very clear with
this. One of our experts told the story
of a mom who said to her son, “I don’t
want you looking at pictures of naked
women.” And she would remind him of
that requirement regularly. This compli
ant child obeyed his mom... and took to
looking at pictures of naked men. Kids
need to know your standards and they
need to know why. Tell them how you
want to protect them from the damage
and scars left by addiction to pornog
raphy, which, according to one report,
effects the human brain much like drug
addiction, and is often harder to break.
With drugs, the user has to acquire the
substance and administer it in a loca
tion where he won’t be caught. With
porn, the “drug” is already stored in the
mind, with immediate access allowed by
the power of human memory.
These are just the first three points in
the Internet Behavior Agreement that
we recommend parents write with their
kids. Next week in this column, we’ll
share a few more recommendations
for the Internet Behavior Agreement,
along with some other alarming infor
mation and statistics about what kids
are doing online. Our purpose in this
is to help parents become more aware
and better equipped to prepare the next
generation of husbands, wives and par
ents in our state.
To order your copy of the. Play it Safe
guide, go to www.georgiafamily.org.
Maybe it’s my physical infirmities
firing my imagination, but it seems the
older I get, the more pills I swallow. On
the face of it, that would make sense.
I wonder why, however, as the num
ber of pills I need to pop goes up, the
point size of the type explaining their
potential problems goes down.
On television, drug manufacturers,
surely concerned about lawsuits from
sleep-deprived lunatics, announce a
medicine’s potential side effects, occa
sionally a lengthy exercise or at least
long enough to give you pause before
knocking one back.
The white pill with the numbers on
it had some staying power, too. My
regular large cup of coffee Thursday
morning, its caffeinated properties
obvious to the undrugged, was simply
redundant in my system.
True to its packaging, my psuedo
ephedrine-loratadine buzz began to
diminish in its 25th hour, a crash and
burn I both longed for and dreaded.
Of course, if I took another ...
OK, who am I kidding? Next, I’ll be
setting my alarm for a quarter past
vampire.
Besides, while the all-nighter king
did dry out my sinuses and restore a
semblance of normal breathing, I think
I’ve learned a valuable lesson.
And if I didn’t, I’m sure there is
something I can take for it.
George Ayoub is senior writer at The
Grand Island (Neb.) Independent. His e
mail is george.ayoub@theindependent.
com. Read his blog, “A Shoe on the
Freeway, ” at www.theindependent.com/
george