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♦ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
4A
Daniel F. Evans
President
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans
Vice President
Letters to the editor
Curb road rage with these tips
The incidence of road rage is at an all-time high, but
take a drive through Warner Robins/Centerville/
Houston County and it probably wouldn’t be too hard to
understand why. I drive only four miles to work in the morn
ing, but every single day I see more than one potentially
disastrous driving decision in those four miles.
I feel like I’d be doing my fellow residents a service if
I took this time to remind everyone of a few very impor
tant laws and conventions that would make the roads in
Houston County a safer place.
1. Blinkers are an invaluable resource. All vehicles come
equipped with them. It requires almost no effort to flip it
either right or left to indicate to other people which direction
you are going to go.
2. Stop signs mean stop. They do not mean hesitate,
keep rolling, or yield. This is hot only for the safety of oth
ers, but the safety of yourself and your passengers. If you
roll right through it in front of oncoming traffic on a 55 mph
road, you are endangering a lot of lives.
3. Four way stops are not as hard as everyone thinks
they are. What makes them dangerous is that no one
knows what to do. Here’s the summary of a four way stop:
First in, first out. In the event of a tie, the right-most person
goes first. I have seen more extended fingers at four way
stops in Houston County than probably in my entire life
prior, and usually by the person who was in the wrong.
4. The most common offense pertains to something we
will have to deal with as the City of Warner Robins and
Houston County struggle to keep up with the unforeseen,
massive growth: the lack of left turn lanes and left turn
arrows. The classic example would be Margie Drive at
Watson Boulevard. This intersection sees a lot of traffic,
and it’s going to see more with the influx of new busi
nesses in the immediate area. If you are waiting in line
to go straight, but there are cars in front of you trying to
turn left, you have no choice but to wait. Be patient. Deal
with the fact that the person in front of you is not going
the same way as you. If you go around them, you will
prevent the opposing left turning car from turning by your
See RAGE, page §A
What would you do knowing this?
What would you do if you, or someone you know
has at least one child in the public school system
and you learned that there is a board policy that states,
“Certificated and professional staff of the school system is
encouraged to seek improvement of the educational pro
gram of the schools through all appropriate means, includ
ing carefully designed experimental programs.”
However, you know that that No Child Left Behind is very
clear in its four basic education reform principals, and No. 4
being: “An emphasis on teaching methods that have been
proven to work.”
After that, what if you read a policy that stated, “The cur
riculum is designed to meet the minimum requirements of
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the
State Board of Education,” but you know “the day to day
management and operation of schools are left up to the
local school superintendents and boards of education by
virtue of the Constitution of Georgia, Article VIII.”
Furthermore, what would you do if you knew the mini
mum requirements of No Child Left Behind and the Georgia
DOE (excluding high school) simply mandates that third,
fifth and eighth graders pass the reading and math portions
of the CRCT to be promoted, but you also know that local
flexibility and power can take the appropriate steps and
promote the student anyway?
See KNOWING, page §A
The dollar has collapsed, so have we
Lately, I’ve been thinking and I’ve been thinking that I’m
feeling a lot like Chicken Little (“The sky is falling”).
Maybe some of our readers can ease my worried mind.
I feel we are witnessing the demise of the American
economic system. Don’t fall for the old line that the stock
market is doing fine so all is well. First, understand that a
bunch of the market is invested internationally. Second,
and this is extremely important, the American dollar is
collapsing around the world. Today the Canadian dollar is
valued equal to the U.S. dollar. It hasn’t been on par with
our dollar in over 30 years. Nations around the world that
used to hold American dollars in reserve are replacing it
with the Euro.
Economists will argue that a weak American dollar is
wonderful because that makes our goods cheaper on the
world market. Why should that matter to them as they
See DOLLAR, page $A
HOW TO SUBMIT:
There are three ways to submit a letter to the editor: E-mail it
to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to Houston Home Journal
at 1210 Washington St., Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at the
same location between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through
Friday. Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include
the writer’s name, address and telephone number (the last two
not printed). The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject
letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity.
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
Don Moncrief
Managing Editor
A future of higher taxes?
I don’ know if you have been paying
attention to what the Democratic
candidates for president of the
United States are saying, but you
should and, in my case, I am frightened
by what I am hearing.
Forget about Iraq. When you peel the
political posturing from what Hillary,
the frontrunner, is saying, she would
not throw in the towel. Barak Hussein
Obama talks like he would.
My real concern is the promise of
much higher taxes, which could plunge
the economy into recession, while tak
ing money from productive wage earn
ers and transferring it to those who do
not produce.
This is basically the only real dif
ference between the Democrat and
Republican parties. Republicans
believe that when you lower taxes it
creates jobs and boosts the economy.
Democrats don’t seem to see any tax
increase they do not like. And both
parties spend money shamelessly like
drunken sailors.
Congress is ready to roll back
President Bush’s tax cuts and add
some more just as soon as they can get
a president who will join them. Rep.
Charlie Rangell, who writes tax bills,
has said he wants to raise taxes now
but can’t muster enough votes to over
ride a presidential veto.
These thoughts are foremost on my
"I'm all for it... as long as it doesn't fall on us!"
We interrupt this program ...
Now a good one for sotting TV viewing Maries
After a summer of reruns, the
TV shows we know and love,
those we hate, and those we
love but should hate will all be quickly
filling time slots throughout the eve
nings in our week. For many of us the
sight of our favorite onscreen doctor,
crime fighter, or “survivor” is in some
ways a return to entertainment nor
malcy.
But let’s go ahead and acknowledge
something. We have a love-hate rela
tionship with television. For those of
us who are parents, the tension can be
particularly acute as we sift through
the many viewing options for our fami
lies.
The new season presents us parents
with an opportunity to make decisions
about what kind of influence we will
allow the small screen to have in our
home.
For those of us with children at
home, now is a good time to think
about the television habits our fam
ily will adopt and what boundaries
we will set. And now is a good time to
take proactive steps. Because before we
know it, a pattern will be set. Nights
will turn into weeks and weeks into
months and before long another season
will have passed without a chance for
us to change television’s influence in
our home.
Let’s be brutally honest - the televi
sion is not our friend. (I had a high
school football coach who called it the
Foy
Evans
Columnist
foyevansl9@cox.net
"You and I do not have a
voice in decisions
concerning taxation. Kite
can express our
dissatisfaction. But who
listens?"
mind at this time, because it was only a
few days ago that all of us who pay our
income taxes quarterly, instead of hav
ing them withheld, just emptied our
checkbooks with another payment.
You don’t feel the pain when taxes
are withheld and, usually, you get a
refund each April. You feel the pain
acutely when you have to come up with
lump payments every three months
and, often, find you still owe some
Randy
Hicks
Columnist
Georgia Family Council
“one-eyed idiot.”) I’m not necessarily
saying it’s the enemy, but it is certainly
not something we can trust to reinforce
what we believe to be true and right.
Sure, there’s a lot of programming that
is benign, even positive, that the whole
family can enjoy. But often times these
aren’t the shows that our children (and
their friends) are drawn to. And these
shows certainly don’t dominate prime
time network programming.
Television is a business. Studios
are competing for viewers, and will
do whatever they can to rope them
in. Unfortunately, this often means
increasing the amount of sexual, violent
and offensive content. It sometimes
seems like a game of one-upmanship,
where programs test the boundaries,
pushing the envelope to set themselves
apart to be just a little edgier than
the show next door. What results are
ever more objectionable content, and
an increasing need for parents to be
cautious.
I saw a headline in the Christian
Science Monitor a few weeks ago that
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HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
more April 15. Income taxes would
be much lower if everyone had to pay
quarterly, instead of having something
withheld every payday.
A few years ago our country was in
a recession. Tax cuts got the economy
rolling. Things look pretty good now.
The problem with sub-prime loans on
housing is temporary and affects only
a small percentage of homeowners. It
will subside. Help seems to be on the
way.
To hear members of congress and
presidential candidates tell it, all they
want to do is stick it to wealthy tax
payers for everyone else’s benefit. The
middle class must face higher taxes to
pay for spending that is being prom
ised.
There just aren’t enough rich people
to pay that much in taxes, even if the
government took everything they earn.
The middle class will have to pay into
the government so that their money
can be transferred to a class of people
who pay little or no taxes. It is called
wealth transfer and, though we have
a lot of it now, the future could bring
much more. Socialist leaning politi
cians see no reason that those who cre
ate wealth should have any more than
those who do not work at all.
There is a grassroots movement afoot
for a “Fair Tax”, which is a federal
See EVANS, page $A
caught my attention: “This fall’s TV
season is rated X: Shows are diving
beneath bedroom sheets as porn goes
mainstream and programs try to com
pete for attention.” The article stated,
“A quick look at the new fall season
reveals that the overall TV landscape
is about to get a whole lot sexier and
more explicit... the sex is getting rawer
and the camera ever closer.”
No subtlety here.
A report released this month by the
Parents Television Council analyzed
the family hour of broadcast TV (8-9
p.m.) and found that “children watch
ing television during the first hour of
prime time are assaulted by violence,
profanity or sexual content once every
3.5 minutes of non-commercial air
time.” I’d mention PTC’s list of what
viewers are exposed to during the fam
ily hour, but it may make you blush.
Meanwhile, we’ve all seen the news
reports. Studies have linked too much
time in front of the tube with obesity
and lower performance at school. Little
ones who watch lots of television may
be more likely to bully other children.
A study by the American Academy of
Pediatrics even found that watching
a lot of sexual content on television
is a predictor of early sexual activity
among adolescents.
Do I think that every child who
watches too much TV will be fat,
stupid, mean and promiscuous? No,
See HICKS, page fA