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4A ♦ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2006 Muustmt flatly -Ummtai OPINION Daniel F. Evans President Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Group Marketing Don Moncrief Managing Editor Shop Houston County first There are only 27 shopping I 1 days left until Christmas. VJr Yes, it’s that time of year again. The mne when merchant shops are filled to the brim with holiday shoppers. Over the past handful of years, internet professionals (and some maybe not so pro fessional using the same delivery system) have tried - and to a certain extent suc ceeded - in making it oh so convenient to shop on line. The Home Shopping Network has made it its livelihood for a number of years, pedal ing merchandise on TV and just 20 minutes north, Macon has ... well to be honest, a great selection of shops. But, so does Houston County and that’s our challenge to you this shop- ping year: Try Houston County first. We’re asking everybody to shop our home town/your hometown before looking else where. Our bet is you won’t find a better selection and you can and will find anything you’re after. You’ll save on gas. You’ll save on postage. And, more importantly, you’ll put money back into the community where it in turn can only make us stronger. Just be quick because now there are only 26 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes, 14 seconds ... and counting ... until Christmas. Letter to the Ejhtor Who adjusts the lights? Who is responsible for adjusting the traffic lights in downtown Perry? Drive downtown at 12:30 p.m. or at 5:30 p.m. during the week and you will see a small traf fic jam. The erratic lights are the cause of this problem. Washington Street is the worst of all streets. Four-way stop signs would be quicker and safer. These downtown traffic lights have never worked cor rectly. When they are adjusted, the adjustments only work for a short time. Is the equipment substandard? Are the technicians making the adjustments, qualifed? An unrelated item is the new Hwy. 41/Meeting Street design. The dual stop signs at the Main Street intersec tion are an accident waiting to happen. The lanes are also too narrow. Try turning right onto Meeting Street from Main Street, when a vehicle is in the Meeting Street left turn lane. A much simpler design would be safer. Greg Carroll, Perry Worth Repeating “In the Plymouth Colony there were a series of tasks that had to be performed every day for the survival and benefit of the community. The workload was shared by all citizens. One Christmas some of the younger men decided not to work on religious grounds believing that their religious interpretation forbad work on Christmas. They were excused, but soon the Governor discovered that all the young men in question were playing and sporting in the street. It is against my conscience that you should play whilst others were at work: and that if you had any devotion to the day, you should show it at home in the exercises of religion, and not in the streets with pasttime and frolicks.” William Bradford, 1590-1657 Pilgrim Father & Governor of Plymouth Colony 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. Audrey Evans Vice President Marketing!Advertising Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus You'll save on gas. You'll save on postage. And, more importantly, you'll put money back Into the community where It In turn can only make us stronger. Salary increase is worth it Public response to the proposal to increase the salary of the mayor of Warner Robins to SIOO,OOO a year has been surprisingly mild. In a community where there is out rage over a small increase in taxes, it is enlightening to see acceptance of doubling the mayor’s salary by most of the people I have talked with as “long overdue.” The most frequent comment I have heard is, “The job is worth it.” And I agree. The mayor of Warner Robins is the chief executive officer. He runs the city on a day to day basis. It is a full time job. The pay never has been commen surate with what the mayor has to do. Mayor Donald Walker, who would benefit from the increase in pay if he wins another term in office, was the sole member of the governing body to vote against asking the legislature to increase the mayor’s pay. He said that he is serving to “give back” to a com munity that has been good to him and his family. When I became mayor of Warner Robins 30 years ago the pay was $19,500 a year. It was low for a full time executive, but I sought the office because I wanted to continue to be involved in a city that I had been privileged to see grow up since 1948. City managers in nearby cities earn SIOO,OOO or more. Warner Robins’ mayor fulfills all the responsibilities of a city manager and also must carry out all the political responsibilities of a mayor. One reservation that I have had in the past with regard to a high salary for a mayor is that the office might wind up being filled by someone "Every year my wife decides not to be wasteful, and I always get a waist-full of turkey sandwiches!" Looking at Iraq's war of perception In 1980, Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke wrote a story titled “Jimmy’s World,” the startling tale of an 8-year-old “third-generation her oin addict” living in Washington, D.C. Cooke’s expose’ captured several volatile issues in one tear-drenched package. “Jimmy’s World” had drugs, race, poverty, “fast money and the good life.” In 1981, Cooke won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Fine and dandy - except she should have won the Pulitzer for fiction. “Jimmy’s World” was a complete crock. Little Heroin Jimmy didn’t exist. The Washington Post, its pub lisher, Donald Graham, and Cooke’s editor, Bob Woodward, were all duly embarrassed when Cooke’s fraud was exposed. Her Pulitzer was withdrawn. Woodward (of Watergate fame) admitted he failed to confirm the story. “I believed it; we published it,” Woodward said. In 1973, The National News Council was created to serve as an “indepen dent forum” for encouraging respon sible journalism and investigating allegations of press misconduct. My mentor, Norman Isaacs (a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor), served as coun cil chairman for five years. Major press organizations -- especially The New York Times - dismissed the National News Council as superfluous, arguing it had a “chilling effect” on aggres sive reporting. The council published a OPINION who wanted it for the money, someone whose background and experience did not qualify him for the job. However, it is about time for Warner Robins to make it worthwhile for indi viduals with good incomes to seek the office of mayor. It should pay enough to attract men or women with manage rial, as well as political, skills. It can be up to the voters to decide if candidates are qualified or unqualified and which candidates will be worth the price being offered for their services. ■ ■■ Who can you trust with your tax money? Certainly not the people respon sible for running the Guantanamo Bay military detention center. This story will blow your mind. A prisoner needs a heart catherization. He is seeking a court order for treat ment in the U.S. or Pakistan. So far not so bad, though not great. But here’s where our tax dollars go astray. The military has prepared for his catherization at the detention center. To be prepared for any con tingency, the military has spent more than $400,000 flying in a 24-member team of cardiac specialists. Imagine that. More than $400,000 to be sure the thorough study of Cooke’s debacle an examination that was ignored by the great press powers. Shortly thereafter, in 1983, the council shut down, due to lack of support. We now move from Jimmy’s World to Capt. Jamil Hussein. Now, if I were “writing hot” - writing for sensational effect -1 would have led with the alleged Jamil’s blazing claim: that six Iraqi Sunnis were dragged from a mosque in Baghdad last week, doused with kerosene and burned to death by a Shia mob. Four mosques were also (allegedly) burned. The Associated Press ran the dous ing story on Nov. 24, and the story was repeated worldwide. (I read it online in the International Herald Tribune, a publication owned by The New York Times.) Sensational, “headline-generating” elements absolutely jam the story: gruesome savagery, mob action, chaos in Iraq. The AP identified “Police Captain Jamil Hussein” as its source for the pig - mb,- Foy Evans Columnist loyevansl9ocox.net Kt ■ * ™ BL> M Austin Bay Columnist Creators Syndiccate HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL prisoner gets the best of care. How can anyone say this is sensible? Who’s in charge of the asylum? I’m afraid I would not trust the peo ple in charge of the military detention center at Gitmo with any of my money. Oh yes, it is your money and mine that they are throwing away, already. ■ ■■ The popularity of gift cards is grow ing. I have received some in the past and they have come in handy at some of my favorite restaurants. There is something everyone pur chasing a gift card should remember, and those who receive them should, too. Businesses that sell gift cards get 100 percent of the value of the cards. However, some businesses arrogantly reduce the value of gift cards as time goes by. A SIOO gift card from most businesses can be used for SIOO of gifts any time. Some businesses reduce the value of gift cards by a certain percent age as the months pass after they are bought. They still keep all the money they received for the cards. Some com panies even have an expiration date for the use of gift cards. So the purchaser and receiver should be aware of this possibility. The simple solution to this problem is never to purchase a gift card from a business that does not guarantee the card is worth 100 percent of the purchase price, without reservations. I’m fortunate. I never have received a gift card that caused any problem. I have friends who have not been so lucky. story, with a second source identified as “a Sunni elder.” On Nov. 25, the press office of Multi- National Corps-Iraq (MNCI) published press release No. 20061125-09 (see mnf-iraq.com). The MNCI stated that investigation showed only one mosque had been attacked and found no evi dence to support the story of the six immolated Sunnis. The U.S.-based Website Flopping Aces (floppingaces.net) has published an email from MNCI to the AP that states “no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi police spokes person.” The email also addresses the story of the Sunnis being burned alive: “... neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. ... We can tell you definitively that the pri mary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an Ministry of the Interior employee.” The letter is attributed to U.S. Navy Lt. Michael Dean. I contacted CENTCOM’s Baghdad press office and received an email con firming that Hussein is not a police man nor does he work for Iraq’s MOI. Flopping Aces noted that the AP has quoted “Jamil Hussein” in at least eight stories since April 2006. So who is Jamil? At this point we really don’t know. The AP hasn’t provided definitive See BAY,page 6A