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}MI pip W3m HU HIIL MBS 9B ♦ 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 BELIEF Y )/ie voice* ccf/i /tic/ic r/ c////('/ ('//( r BfW- », fPI Kl Jf 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