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♦ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2006
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OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
President
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Group Marketing
Don Moncrief
Managing Editor
Football greatness
We hope not to jinx anybody but we
in Houston County stand on the
threshold of doing something spe
cial.
One game, one win is all that separates
three of our schools, three of our football
teams from going to the Georgia Dome and
playing in the state semifinals there.
Northside, Warner Robins and Houston
County will all do it if they can win this
weekend.
If it happens, and of course we hope it will,
this may be the first time in the history of
the state three teams from the same county
have appeared,
or will appear
in high school
football’s big
gest arena.
Even
Valdosta and
Lowndes, with
tons of state
trophies and
region cham
pionship ban
ners between
them, won’t be
able to match
an accom
plish m e n t
of this scale.
(Although to
be fair, if they
had three
schools in the same area - and didn’t always
play in the same region - they probably
could.)
That speaks loads to the quality of the
coaches and players, along with the pro
grams they have established here.
So on Friday, we say: Here’s to the Demons,
Bears and Eagles. Houston County is behind
you and wishing you the best of luck.
Go get 'em!
Letter to the Edttor
Greed wins with fees
Your recent (Houston Daily Journal) editorial
about SPLOSTs and impact fees and what is nec
essary in Houston County to maintain our public
schools was misleading. Impact fees are not designed
to be the sole source of taxation for our county gov
ernment. They should be implemented to supplement
our SPLOSTs. It’s not either or! It’s both together.
Other county governments in Georgia and Florida use
impact fees successfully. Why shouldn’t new home owners
help pay for the required infrastructure they create? To
say that these new fees might deter growth is ridiculous!
Developers and new homeowners are not paying their
fair share of the costs of new schools and roads, et cetera.
No one really believes that all these developers are going
to refuse to create new subdivisions because of impact
fees. Developers will just pass these new costs of fees on
to the new buyers of homes. With 100,000 new vehicles
on our county roads in the next few years because of our
new residents we must smell the roses before it’s too
late!
Your editorial refuses to accept the realities of impact
fees and sounds like something our local chamber of com
merce would say! This is all about fairness versus greed.
Greed is winning!
Frank W. Gadbois, Warner Robins
Worth Repeating
“It’s not only what you do in politics. It’s what you
appear to do.”
John McCain 111
U. S. Senator (Republican, AZ)
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Audrey Evans
Vice President
Marketing I Advertising
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
Even Valdosta and
Lowndes, with tons
of state trophies and
region championship
banners between them,
won't be able to match
an accomplishment of
this scale. (Although
to be fair, if they had
three schools in the
same area - and didn't
always play in the same
region - they probably
could.)
Odd name can turn you Into a joke
Last week I wrote an entreaty to
expectant parents to think care
fully before choosing baby names
so that their kids won’t come back one
day with swords, like conflicted charac
ters in a Shakespearean tragedy.
People do some crazy things when
they’re trying to decide what to call
Junior. Either they don’t care, or else
they just realize passing along gosh
awful names will be the last time they
have any control over their kids.
Some folks hit it just right when they
name their babies, though. As proof, I
give you Donald Duck’s nephews.
Those three ducklings, whom you
can tell apart only by the colors of their
clothes, have tame names when taken
separately but become works of art
when lumped together: Huey, Dewey
and Louie.
You’ll notice that although Huey,
Dewey and Louie are all spelled differ
ently, they rhyme. (There’s an expres
sion in grammar for such words - sight,
cite and site, for instance - but let’s not
spoil the moment with rules.)
In the human world (sort of), certain
names are odd enough to make their
holders stand out in a crowd.
Do you think Madonna, Cher and
"Oh, this one definitely goes on the nice list
...he does all his shopping locally!"
%
Thankful I can't hear the teen buzz
From across the Thanksgiving
family feast, a family member
asked me if I had heard of “the
teen buzz ringtone?”
“No, thank you,” I replied. “But
I’ll have some more of that chocolate
delight.”
They asked again among the holiday
clatter. “Have you heard of the teen
buzz ringtone? People over 30 can’t
hear it.”
“You’re kidding me,” I responded. “It
takes you 30 minutes to do the People
magazine crossword? Thank you for
making me feel brilliant. Now, if you’ll
get out of my sight, I’ll also feel thin.”
“No,” they said, maybe adding
“dummy.” I don’t know. I couldn’t
hear them. “Have you heard about this
ringtone that people over the age of 30
can’t hear?”
“What? Feeble or ancient cans smear?
What does that mean?”
Finally, in the quiet of the outdoors, I
was able to converse, and listen, freely.
They were telling me about a popu
lar ringtone, called the teen buzz, or
mosquito, ringtone, that folks over 30
apparently can’t hear.
Last year, a British inventor, Howard
Stapleton, came up with a high-fre
quency buzzer to be used by London
shopkeepers to keep teens from loi-
OPINION
Glynn
Moore
Columnist
Morris News Service
Shakira would have become known
outside their own villages if they had
been named Betty, Jane and Maria?
They might have had to use their
entire names like the rest of us or else
make up monikers the way Bono, Sting
and Prince did.
It’s too bad that we can’t get celebri
ties to toe the baby-name line before
deciding to reproduce. In recent years,
they have churned out children who
will have to live with their parents’
questionable decisions to name them
Seven Sirius, Puma, Zowie, Peaches
Honeyblossom, Suri, Apple and Moxie
Crime Fighter. Those poor babies.
Some names are just right. Singer
Jimmy Buffett used to call his type of
music “gulf and western” (like country
and western, see, but from Florida
instead of Nashville).
Len
Robbins
Columnist
airpub@planttel.net
tering at night. The product, called
The Mosquito, could only be heard by
young people because of a condition
called presbycusis, also called aging
ear. According to scientists (apparently,
ones in high school), when people turn
20, they start losing their ability to
hear these high frequencies. By 30,
they can’t hear the pitch of the “mos
quito ringtone.”
Teens, being teens, have hijacked
this technology for their own purposes.
What are their purposes? No adults
really know. They can’t hear it. But
apparently, kids are using this ring
tone on their phones for some type
of hijinks. I can’t imagine how, and I
really don’t want to know.
So, after hearing some of this, I
decided I needed to check it out for
myself.
I went home, plopped down in front
of the computer, and called my 7-year-
jtyi
HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
He was playing with the name of
a communications conglomerate often
seen as movies began: “A Gulf Western
Company.” Perfect.
Another good play on words was used
by Ford Motor Co. many decades ago.
A two-door model was called the
Tudor, a stately name. The four-door
model? Fordor, of course. Tudor/two
door, Fordor/four-door.
Some people want to rename every
sports team until they have wiped out
every Indian, Brave, Colonel, Rebel
and Warrior, not to mention anything
from the animal kingdom (too cruel) or
any team with “Fighting” in its name
(too violent), or “Devil” (too devilish)
or - well, you get the picture.
Personally, I’d like to disband teams
whose names don’t imply that their
massive, screaming, energized players
are out there to win. Heat, for instance,
and Magic and Jazz. Moreover, all
teams should be returned to the city
where their names began. Grizzlies in
Memphis? Lakers in Los Angeles? The
aforementioned Jazz in Utah instead
of New Orleans? Please.
The name says it all.
Reach Glynn Moore at glynn.
moore@morris.com.
old daughter to my side. I then called
up mosquitoringtones.com and pressed
the button to unleash the mysterious
ringtone.
“Can you hear it?”, I asked my
daughter.
“Sure,” she said. “Can you?”
I turned my head, pointing my
youngest ear in the direction of the
computer.
“Yes, yes, yes, I do!”, I exclaimed. “It
sounds just like a train. And it’s get
ting louder!”
“No, Dad, that’s the train a few
blocks away,” she sighed. “This sounds
a whole lot higher. It sort of hurts your
ears.”
We tried it a few more times. Actually,
11. Once, my ears did detect what I
thought to be a high-pitched squeal.
But that could have just been my
sons fighting unsupervised in the liv
ing room. We’ll never know.
So, now you know the teen buzz. I
am in the process of purchasing this
kid-unfriendly tone and plan to install
it in an intercom system throughout
the house. I’ll turn it up full blast in
my bedroom for disturbance-free nap
ping.
Let the kids have their fun and
games with their teen buzz tone. Aging
ear has its advantages.