Newspaper Page Text
♦ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2007
4A
Muustini flatly .IJuimtal
OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
President
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Group Marketing
Don Moncrief
Managing Editor
Guest Edttorial
NAMI-Central Georgia needs
your support
Kristina Simms,
Mental health advocate, Perry
This is an appeal on behalf of NAMI-
Central Georgia, located in Warner
Robins, but serving central Georgia.
NAMI-CG is a grassroots-organized facility
serving the mentally ill, founded in 1984 by
a group of concerned parents. It has helped
countless mentally ill people in Houston,
Peach, Crawford and other counties.
The campus is a 7.5 acre plot located at the
intersection of
Elberta Road
and Story
Road. It con
tains a state
licensed resi
dence, three
greenhouses
and a work
shop. You may
have driven
past the loca
tion and not
known any
thing about
its history and
purpose.
At this time,
NAMI-CG
needs your
help. The
agency needs more supporting members
and more volunteers.
Your support is needed, even if you can
not attend every monthly meeting. Your
volunteer support and financial support is
welcomed. The organization gladly accepts
donations of usable furniture, appliances,
and even automobiles. As some of you
know, I have long been a mental health
advocate. My 45-year old daughter has had
schizophrenia for many years, and lives at
a wonderful home called New Hope Center,
at 100 Story Road in Warner Robins. New
Hope Center is owned an operated by a
dedicated non-profit 501c3 organization,
NAMI-Central Ga, Inc., the local chapter of
National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI
advocates for the mentally ill, provides
residential care and even helps the mentally
ill by part-time work opportunities, like
working in the greenhouses. It also pro
vides much-needed social and community
activities. NAMI-Central Ga, a United Way
agency, also offers friendly understanding
and support for families of the mentally ill,
through monthly meetings and classes such
as the acclaimed Family-to-Family course, a
free educational program. The agency also
needs to enlist additional highly motivated
board members. Call Executive Director
Pearlie Tackett at 328-0508 if you are inter
ested in serving.
At this time when mental health is very
much in the news because of the break
down of public services, agencies like NAMI
become even more important than ever.
Right now NAMI-CG is at risk of losing a
long-held contract with RAFB for picking
up litter on the base.
If this happens, a number of our clients
will be out of work. Please help NAMI-CG
help others by becoming a member today.
Call 328-0508, speak to Ellem Hampton,
office manager, and membership informa
tion will be sent to you. Use the same
number if you have something to donate or
simply want to make a contribution.
Letteb to toe Editor
Oaky Woods blame game
Did Gov. Sonny Perdue decline to purchase
Oaky Woods for the state of Georgia because
cf a tight budget or was it for personal gain?
Out of one side of his mouth he says that the state budget
was too tight. Out of the other side comes the brag that
Georgia has a large surplus. Something smells here. Does
the governor have a problem with the truth or is he just a
skilled politician out trying to feather his own nest?
Walter Huckeba, Perry
Audrey Evans
Vice President
Marketing I Advertising
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
The campus is a 7.5
acre plot located at
the intersection of
Elberta Road and Story
Road. It contains a
state-licensed
residence, three
greenhouses and a
workshop. You may
have driven past the
location and not known
anything about Rs
history and purpose.
Many issues and events have local impact
A lot is going on as we enter the
shortest month of the year.
Here’s my take on some of
the issues and events affecting us in
Houston County:
■ Centerville’s mayor and council
are dead serious about dealing with
signs in the city. They are tackling
the problem before it gets out of hand
with an ordinance that will have teeth.
One commendable action is a decision
not to issue permits for billboards
in Centerville. When 1 was mayor of
Warner Robins about 25 years ago
we had a moratorium on permits for
billboards. Somehow in the interven
ing years the problem has gotten out
of hand.
■ Payday lenders may have enough
clout in the Georgia Legislature to get a
recently enacted ban on their outland
ish interest rates rescinded. Military
personnel and civilians least able to
afford their interest rates are the vic
tims. They need protection. I have
been told that our Representatives will
use their votes to protect victims of
payday lending.
■ Hospitals are required to receive
certificates of need to add patient beds
and other facilities, including operat
ing rooms. Some doctors are asking
the Legislature to do away with this
policy, claiming that it would create
more competition and lower prices.
Hospitals, on the whole, oppose remov
ing the certificate-of-need require
ment. They contend, and rightfully so,
that privately owned surgery centers
would siphon off business from hospi-
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A CBS story "Too Important to Ignore"
Let us contemplate some wisdom
from a media ethics expert
quoted by The New York Times
this week:
“To most journalists, the notion
of anonymous reporters relying on
anonymous sources is a red flag. ‘lf
you want to talk about a business
model that is designed to manufacture
mischief in large volume, that would be
it, ’ said Ralph Whitehead Jr., a professor
of journalism at the University of
Massachusetts.”
No, he wasn’t talking about the
Associated Press’ sand the Washington
Post’s and the Los Angeles Times’
and the New York Times’) anonymous
stringers relying on unnamed and
unreliable sources reporting (or rather,
rumor-mongering) on the war in Iraq.
No, he wasn’t talking about the
anonymous reporter identified only as
“an Iraqi employee of The New York
Times from Najaf” in three stories
just this week, which quoted various
unnamed Iraqi clerics, residents and
officials.
No, Professor Whitehead was
talking about the swiftly and widely
discredited InsightMag.com story
about Sen. Barack Obama, D-111.,
attending a madrassa as a child. Fox
News Channel (for which I am a
contributor - see, transparency’s not
so hard) took a pounding for picking up
the inaccurate story. The liberal media
pile-on continues despite the network’s
immediate acknowledgement of error in
repeating the false charges and despite
the fact that Fox didn’t originate the
story.
Unlike, say, CBS News, Dan Rather
and the faked National Guard memos.
Meanwhile, CBS News has another
potential controversy on its hands
involving unnamed sources that
Professor Whitehead and The New York
Times won’t get around to flogging.
On the left-wing Media Channel.
OPIMION
tals and would not result in less expen
sive procedures. One thing is certain:
If this policy is abandoned Houston
Healthcare will find itself with finan
cial problems as privately owned sur
gery centers cherry pick their patients.
End result: Taxpayers could be called
on to fork over hundreds of thousands
of dollars a year to pay for indigent
care patients whose costs the hospitals
no longer would be able to absorb.
■ School vouchers for disabled stu
dents to attend private schools sounds
like a good idea to many people. A bill
in the Legislature would give parents
$9,000 each school year to be used
to pay for these disabled students to
attend private schools. It could be the
first leak in the dam and eventually
lead to vouchers for other students,
something that would be a disaster
for public schools. Legislators should
think long and hard before they go
down this road.
■ A friend who is a land developer
complained to me that the Houston
County Development Authority is
about to run out of land to lure indus
tries to our county and, according to
this developer, they are not acquiring
more land. Realistically, ours never
Foy
Evans
Columnist
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Michelle
Malkin
Columnist
malkin@comcast.net
org website, supporters of CBS chief
foreign correspondent Lara Logan
published a mass e-mail she had sent
out asking for “help.” She had filed
a report on recent Iraqi and U.S.
troop action along Baghdad’s Haifa
Street, but complained that it “only
appeared on our CBS website and
was not aired on CBS. It is a story
that is largely being ignored.” The
report featured a masked “Haifa Street
resident” who “blamed the fighting
on the U.S.” A CBS spokesman told
BroadcastingCable.com that the story,
which included footage of sprawled
corpses of men in Iraqi Army uniforms,
had been deemed “too graphic for an
evening news audience.”
This didn’t mollify the correspondent
turned-activist, who asked her friends
to send CBS a message that her piece
wasn’t “too gruesome to air, but rather
too important to ignore.” Logan has
done much good work on the ground
in Iraq, but her extra-curricular
lobbying was a bit much even for some
of her colleagues. “I think anything
that happens internally should stay
internal,” the network’s spokesman
told BroadcastingCable.com.
What does deserve external airing,
however, are Logan’s glaring omissions
from her online piece. Nibras Kazimi, a
Hudson Institute scholar and blogger at
Talisman Gate (talismangate.blogspot.
com), took a close look at Logan’s Jan.
18 report and recognized the grainy
corpse footage “obtained by CBS.” He
says it matched an eight-minute video
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HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
will be a real industrial county. Bibb
County has the land, the money, the
location and the connections to be the
leader in Middle Georgia. One good
thought: I rode up Interstate 75 a few
days ago and it looks like Bibb County
has big plans for the area around the
new Sara Lee distribution center. I’ll
wager that a large number of people
who wind up working in that area will
prefer to drive 10 or 15 minutes to
work from homes in Houston County.
Nothing is going to stop growth in
Houston County in the near future. We
have too much to offer.
■ President Bush has issued a stern
warning to Iran. They must be quaking
in their boots.
■ Sen. Joe Biden, when announcing
that he will be a candidate for President
of the United States, complimented one
of his opponents Sen. Barak Obama.
One attribute he attributed to Obama
was that he is “articulate”, which he is.
Obama took offense. This reminds me
of the Warner Robins city councilman
who was seeking reelection many years
ago. The local newspaper referred to
him as the “incumbent”. The council
man charged into the newspaper and
angrily told reporters to “never call me
by that name again.”
■ If the Legislature does go through
with the proposal to give parents $9,000
a year to enroll their handicapped chil
dren in private schools, the private
schools better beware. If they accept
government money they will lose their
autonomy and be subjected to govern
ment intervention.
published online Jan. 7 by an al Qaeda
propaganda arm under the title “Some
of the Casualties of the Heretics in
Haifa Street After Sunday’s Fighting,
January 7, 2007, in Baghdad.” Indeed,
many of the video images (available
here http://alphabetcity.blogspot.
com/2007/01/video-battle-for-haifa
street-too.html) are identical.
At the time, Kazimi notes, “the
Iraqi military claimed that some of
its soldiers were cornered on Haifa
Street and killed after running out
of ammunition. This incident set off
the subsequent battles there. Al-Qaeda
also released written statements at the
time taking credit for the initial phase
of fighting. . . . The footage ‘obtained
by CBS’ is identical to that put out
by Al-Qaeda. But Logan makes no
mention of Al-Qaeda’s video and does
not address the implication that the
footage she used was off an Al-Qaeda
video. And if it’s not off the Al-Qaeda
video, then how did she get footage
identical to the one used by Al-Qaeda?
This needs to be explained.”
But “the most damning indication
of journalistic incompetence,” Kazimi
blogs, is that “Logan makes no mention
about the affiliation of these insurgents
fighting on Haifa Street. Not even
the slightest mention is made that al
Qaeda is taking credit for the fighting
there. On the contrary, the audience
is treated to a blanket accusation by
an anonymous civilian (wearing a
headdress in the insurgent manner)
denouncing the Americans and the
destruction they’ve brought to bear on
Haifa Street.”
Was Logan a willing tool or an
ignorant fool? Either way, the story is
- as she says herself -- “too important
to ignore.”
Michelle Malkin is author of
“Unhinged: Exposing Liberals
Gone Wild.” Her e-mail address is
writemalkin@gmail.com.