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4A ♦ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006 Houston ©aili? .journal OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Managing Editor Honoring Herman Ragin The history of public education in Houston County is a long one, and - truth be told - was not always what it should have been. Starting with small community schools and academies for some, and little or no opportunity for others, the system has grown and changed, making progress with the times and weathering many changes. The latest of the challenges is rapid growth. Earlier challenges included coming to terms with the fundamental unfairness of unequal educational opportunity. In that respect, we all owe a debt of grati tude to those who prevailed as educators regardless of the hand they were dealt, and brought us forward. There are many heroes in this his tory. Herman C. Ragin Sr. is one who stands out. A native of Houston County, who graduated from the Perry Training School in 1945. In those days, the school was near the loca tion where Ace Hardware now stands, under the firm leadership of Principal A.D. Redmond. Herman Ragin gives his principal much credit for his later success and his prepared ness when he went on to attend college on an athletic scholarship and earned both his bachelor’s degree and a masters in educa tion administration. He returned home in the early 1950 s to become the head football and basketball coach and athletic director, science, biol ogy and physics at the Houston County Training School, which was still in its old location with A.D. Redmond at the helm. Speaking of the football team, the Indians, Ragin says, “We didn’t lose many games and we got to the playoffs yearly.” He also worked with others to construct a field to play on. Later, Ragin went on to be principal of Kings Chapel Elementary School, where he served until his retirment in 1980. He influenced and encouraged many young people over the years, setting high standards, and setting an example of char acter and dignity. Many in the community will be pleased to learn that Herman C. Ragin, Sr. will be honored in January at a special ceremony. The old Perry Elementary School Complex adjoining the Board of Education building on Main Street will be named the Herman Ragin Center. It is an honor richly deserved. HOW TO SUBMIT LETTERS We encourage readers to submit letters to the editor. Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include the writer's name, address and telephone number. All letters printed in The Daily Journal will appear with the writer’s name and hometown - we do not publish anonymous letters. The news paper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. Letter writers are asked to submit no more than one letter per person per week. We cannot guarantee that a letter will be printed on a specific date. The Daily Journal prefers that letters be typed. Letters to the editor are published in the order they are received as space permits. There are three ways to submit a letter to the editor: E-mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to The Houston Daily Journal at P.O. Box 1910, Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at 1210 Washington St. in Perry - between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus Starting with small community schools and academies lor some, and little or no opportunity lor others, the system has grown and changed, making progress with the times and weathering many changes. The latest of the challenges is rapid growth. Earlier challenges included coming to terms with the fundamental unfairness of unequal educational opportunity. An easy promise to keep Lots of promises I’ve made have been difficult to keep. Sometimes they are easy. Such is the case with the article I wrote for the Nov. 3 edition of this paper. I promised to give my readers the results of my election picks. Let me report to you, with some pride, that, assuming Jim Marshall’s apparent victory is upheld, I scored 100 percent. Daddy would be proud. But, he would also point out to me that I wrote my own test, and that it wasn’t that hard of an exam. Let’s see. In the governor’s race, I picked Sonny Perdue to win. Unfortunately, for me I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and I wrote “. . . he squeaks through with 50 percent plus”. What Sonny did to Mark Taylor. I wouldn’t exactly call “squeaking through”. I picked Casey Cagle to defeat Jim Martin, Thurbert Baker to “wax” Perry McGuire, Karen Handel to defeat Gail Buckner (thank goodness!), and with Larry O’Neal. Johnny Floyd and Jay Walker to win. That’s seven rather easy races to call. In other words, on my own test, I “fixed it” so that I would, at a minimum, get 70 percent or a low C. Less than that and Cohen could really be rough. Still, pride necessitates that I write of my other three picks. Jim Marshall over Mac Collins. I called it a “squeaker” and indeed it was, or is. I wrote that Carol Hunstein would defeat "what’s his name”. Actually, his name was Wiggins and Justice Hunstein won, despite literally millions of dollars from outside our state being used against her. And what about Tommy Irvin’s AT A CMANGE 1M rateT ifi WWWri r I 62006 CREATORS SYNDICATE. INC t ( u t —«_■ ' ' ’ t*-* James Baker, the Desert Storm legacy Iraqis haven’t forgotten the after math of Desert Storm. With Saddam’s troops forced to retreat from Kuwait, Shia Arabs through out southern Iraq rose up against Saddam’s tyranny. Kurds in the north also rebelled. Many Sunnis in Baghdad anticipated the end of Saddam’s “Tikiriti” despotism. Numerous Iraqis tell me post-Desert Storm they antici pated liberation. Instead, they got a dose of so-called Realpolitik - mass murder and a return to dictatorship. In 1991, Saddam did not fall. His Republican Guards attacked the Shia towns and massacred their inhabit ants. At least 50,000 Iraqis were mur dered by Saddam’s defeated army. In April 2003, America toppled Saddam. This aftermath promised something better than tyranny and mass murder. Still, many Iraqis doubt ed America’s commitment to sticking with them through the trials of escap ing a terrible past and building a better future. Pundits can point to Vietnam and Somalia as American bug-outs (al- Qaeda alludes to both), but the failure to act after Desert Storm - the failure to act in the face of mass murder - is by far the most pertinent to Iraqis. An Iraqi cultural adviser I worked with in 2004 insisted Iraqi doubts about long-haul American commit ment were an immense political prob lem. He was a Shia, and he himself vacillated between pessimism and opti mism. During one late-night discus sion (we were standing in front of a shower-trailer), the personal anguish of 1991 was particularly evident. But he was upbeat the day he returned from a week-long visit with his brother in southern Iraq. ’“They think you (America) may stay this time,” he told me. What the translator meant was “stay long enough.” America never intended OPINION Larry Walker Columnist lwalkef@whgb-lawcom big victory against Gary Black? I said Johnny’s margin would be “thin”. In fact, it was a ‘Beginner’s Jenny Craig Margin’-fat. I did so well picking, I would like to continue. Can’t leave well enough alone. Biggest Winner: Houston County. Had Mark Taylor been elected Governor, he would have tried to pun ish our county. I know. He tried to do that, through me, several years ago and several times when Sonny switched parties and was a Republican State Senator. Biggest Surprise: Tommy Irvin carried Houston County with 52 per cent of the vote. Who would have believed Tommy would carry this Republican County, and with all the vocal and active help that Gary Black had? Not me, and not many, if any. Biggest Factor Before This Election: Casey Cagle’s defeat of Ralph Reed in the primary. Had Reed won, Sonny would have had a very “big load” to carry in the general election. More importantly, he would have had four years of turmoil if Reed had won, and as Reed tried to position himself Austin Bay Columnist Creators Syndicate to stay. America’s post-9/11 strategy has been to help foster nation-states where the consent of the governed creates legitimacy and where terrorists are prosecuted, not promoted. In an essay I wrote for the Dec. 9, 2002, issue of The Weekly Standard, I outlined the rough path to that “end state” in Iraq: “Pity Gen. Tommy Franks or, for that matter, any American military commander tasked with overseeing a post-Saddam Baghdad. For in that amorphous, dicey phase the Pentagon calls ‘war termination’ ... U.S. and allied forces liberating Iraq will attempt - more or less simultaneously - to end combat operations, cork pub lic passions, disarm Iraqi battalions, bury the dead, generate electricity, pump potable water, bring law out of embittering lawlessness, empty jails of political prisoners, pack jails with criminals, turn armed partisans into peaceful citizens, re-arm local cops who were once enemy infantry, shoot terrorists, thwart chiselers, carpetbag gers and black-marketeers, fix sewers, feed refugees, patch potholes and get trash trucks rolling, and accomplish all this under the lidless gaze of Peter Jennings and Al-Jazeera.” In summer 2003, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority weren’t prepared to handle the situa tion that marathon sentence describes. Ei% imtk ~ Ti |§jt d*','' fig / KS§ HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL to run for Georgia’s Governor in 2010. In other words, Reed would have been trying to help Reed and not Sonny. Second Biggest Factor Before This Election: Cathy Cox’s defeat at the hands of Mark Taylor. Cox would have been a more formidable opponent for Sonny than was Taylor. I do not think she would have won, but she would have been stronger. So, Sonny got two breaks: Cagle’s defeat of Reed and Taylor’s defeat of Cox. Biggest Failed Attempt: The Democrat’s efforts to paint Perdue as a crook. Taylor should have spent all the time and money he did on attacking Sonny’s integrity by telling Georgians what he intended to do, if elected. Those who know Sonny, know that he is a man of great integrity. Biggest Commonality Of All Voters: Sickness with negative cam paigning. The most frequent refrain: “I’m glad it’s over”. Can the mud slinging get any worse? ■ ■■ I made another prediction in my Nov. 10 column. Shall I quote it? Yes, I will. “The Dawgs will upset either the Tigers or the Jackets . . .” Pretty good, eh? Let me change it: “The Dawgs will upset both the Tigers and the Jackets”. Have I gone too far? Next week: Favorite books of favor ite people. Email me your choice(s), and I will consider using you and yours in my next column. However, by mid-2004 the U.S. military had hammered out a sound security and recovery plan. The campaign plan met guidelines promulgated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546. This resolution is no top-secret document - it’s on the U.N. website. “Phased withdrawal” of coalition forces has always been the goal. The issue is a realistic “when.” The Iraqi government confronts extraordinary challenges. Are there rotten Iraqi military units? Yes - but there are also some very good ones. Do Iran and Syria support terrorists and militias? Yes. The dictators want the world to conclude that democracy is culturally and politically alien to the Middle East. They want the world to conclude, like British and French imperialists did in 1919, that Arabs can’t handle democracy. But despite the public stumbles and bloody learning curve, Maliki’s govern ment says otherwise. Enter the James Baker and Lee Hamilton-led Iraq Study Group. It’s my bet that it will produce nothing original in terms of strategic and oper ational thinking. It may well produce a set of policy recommendations palat able to Democrats and Republicans - in other words, consensus political cover that allows the sober and wise to continue to support Iraq’s war for freedom and modernity. James Baker was secretary of state in 1991, when the Iraqi people were consigned to the depredations of their tyrant. Baker needs to remember that, if he - an old master of Realpolitik - counsels a policy that leads to any thing less than victory. To find out more about Austin Bay, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.