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4 • The Red ard Slack • T^esGay. Marcn 13. 199C
OPINIONS
—
The Red & Black
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Charlene Smith Editor-irvChief
Amy Bellew 'Managing Editor
Robert Todd/Opinions Editor
Legislative review
This year's legislative session provided Georgia
taxpayers with a mixed bag of bills. From drugs and
drug testing to child protection to public schools, here : s
a review of what came out of the Capitol.
Passed the legislature.
• A bill which would provide stricter regulation of
•.rate school and would put trade school regulation
-nder the Georgia Student Finance Committee. It’s
about time For too long these schools have ripped off
too many people.
• Construction funding at Georgia Institute of
Technology, Georgia State University, Georgia
Southern University, Dekalb College, Southern
Institute of Technology. A good start, but this state
needs to be committed to education. Besides, they left
off the state’s flagship institution.
• Larger raises to experienced teachers with a 1
percent raise to starting teachers and an increase of up
to 5 percent in the fourth and sixth years. Another
positive move, but much more is needed. Thanks to Lt.
Gov Zell Miller for spearheading the budget revision of
Gov. Harris’ original.
• A bill that expels fraternities and sororities
: involved in selling or promoting the use of illegal drugs
i passed, along with another bill that suspends a student
i for a felony drug conviction. Why not give the courts
more authority to deal with drug-related crime and
leave university judicial programs alone?
• Random drug testing for state employees and
public officials. Drug testing where the safety of
\ individuals isn’t involved is unneccesary and an
invasion of privacy.
• Drug testing of police and corrections officers.
Obviously, the safety factor legitimizes testing of these
i individuals.
• A bill that would make people injured at work
‘ ineligible for workman’s compensation if drug use
i caused the injury. Take drugs and you take your
| chances Get injured on the job because of it and you’re
out of luck.
• A bill that would allow doctors and dentists to
order AIDS tests without patients’ consent. Bad idea,
would make worse law. If you’re going to do this, test
everyone as standard practice (just like temperature
and blood presure) and also require doctors and
dentists to treat patients whether the test is positive or
negative.
• A series of child protection laws, including
requiring various professionals (doctors, teachers,
social workers, etc.) to report suspected child abuse.
Well done to all who worked on and supported these
efforts.
Didn’t pass the Legislature.
• A bill restricting people under 18 from getting a
driver’s license without a high school diploma.
Common sense prevailed.
• A bill which would have banned the sale of
military-style assault weapons in Georgia. In spite of
strong support from almost every law enforcement
agency in the state, this failed to pass. Come out of the
dark ages, please.
• A bill which would have legalized sodomy
between consenting adults. Again, come out of the dark
ages and while you’re at it, get out of our bedrooms.
• Several bills aimed at restricting or prohibiting
the use of public funds or facilities to perform
abortions. Again, common sense prevailed.
• A bill which would have increased annual
expense allowance for most House and Senate
members from $4,800 to $5,800. They make too much
already. If anything, cut that out of the budget and give
it to teachers in a pay raise.
STAFF
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■ QUOTABLE
"I tnink there s been a lot of unplanned spending where people
were just gven money without thinking about the future.” —
Freshman Sen. Hotly Thomas on depleted Student Association
funds.
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Where’s all my money going, anyway?
A government that slurps up a considerable
amount of wage earners’ paychecks and spends
it on whatever it wants can hardly be called a
democracy. With tax return deadline just one
short month away, I am forced to re-evaluate
the role of the Internal Revenue Service in my
life and just how much money I am going to do
nate to the government this year.
When I compare “gross amount" on my pay-
check to what I get from Tillie the Teller, I sort
of think the gross amount isn’t so gross. I don’t
even know what the government is buying with
that money, but it’s probably something I
wouldn’t spend a wooden nickel on.
The government behaves like a parent who
believes the child isn’t competent enough to
spend his own money.
“Sorry, darling, I know what’s best for you,
and you really don’t know how this system
works, so just give mommy the money OR I’LL
THROW YOU IN THE SLAMMER!”
Actually, I have no problem with contrib
uting a portion of my salary to the U.S. govern
ment. Taxing is the fairest and most
appropriate way to support an institution that
guarantees my rights as a citizen and promises
me a democratic system. I give them money,
they give me democracy.
However, I think Tm getting shortchanged.
There are many government programs that I
don’t support, and I wince because whether I
like it or not, financially, Tm supporting those
programs.
Mollie
Batts
I want a checklist on my tax returns titled
“Things Your Money Could Possibly Be Spent
On," under which will be a long list of names
such as “Education,” “Welfare,” “Defense,”
"Enivironmental Protection,” “Forestry,”
“AIDS Research," “Unemployment," ‘Transpor
tation,” “Foreign Aid,” etc. Then, because I am
sending in a check made out to the Internal
Revenue Service (service?) HI send them a
breakdown of where I want my money to go.
“Defense” is one area that wouldn’t see too
many of my tax dollars.
A flyer distributed by Pax Christi USA is
called “What Does Our Money Buy?” It reads:
“The United States spent $1.14 trillion on the
military from 1984 to 1987. For one trillion dol
lars you could build a $75,000 house, place it on
$5,000 worth of land, furnish it with $10,000
worth of furniture, put a $10,000 car in the ga
rage and give all this to every family in Kansas,
Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado and
Iowa.
“Having done this, you would still have
enough left to build a $10 million hospital and a
$10 million library in each of the 250 cities and
towns throughout the six-state region. After
having done that, you would still have enough
money left to build 500 schools at $10 million
each for the communities in the region, and
after having done that you would still have
enough left from the original trillion to put
aside, at 10 percent annual interest, a sum of
money that would pay for a salary of $25,000
per year for an army of 10,000 nurses, the same
salary- for an army of 10,000 teachers, and an
annual cash allowance of $5,000 for each and
every family throughout the six-state region,
not just for a year, BUT FOREVER’”
Some say, “Oh come on — the general public
isn’t smart enough to decide how to allocate
their tax money.”
Well, then let there be an option on the tax
return form: “Check here if you agree to let the
government spend your hard-earned money for
you. Skip sections F,G,H, and I, and go on to
sections J, K, and L. ”
Tm more than happy to pull my own share in
this country, but which rope I pull should be up
to me.
Mollie Batts is a columnist for The Red and
Black.
UGA resolution unwarranted
■ FORUM
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and Black's offices at 123 N. Jackon St. Athens. Ga.
As does the rest of the Univer
sity, we too mourn the passing of
UGA IV. He served the University
with spirit and pride for nine years
and will be sorely missed by his
owners, fans, students and alumni.
It is a shame, however, that the
Georgia House of Representatives
feels that it must write a resolution
to acknowledge the passing of UGA
IV when the rest of us are doing
the same thing with far less fan
fare. We don’t feel that our tax dol
lars and votes are to be squandered
on redundant expressions of
sorrow. Other schools in the Uni
versity system don’t receive such
dubious honors for their mascots;
why should we? During the last
two days of the 1990 session the
legislators’ time could be better
spent in finding a way to allocate
funds to the University system to
provide higher salaries, financing
building projects (such as the For
estry department’s 20-year wait for
an annex), etc. We believe the
memory of UGA IV would be
served better by such actions
rather than the passing of a resolu
tion.
Goodbye UGA IV “...we hardly
knew ye"; Representatives Poug,
Kingston and Stevens...we wish we
didn’t.
Karen Proulx
graduate student, microbiology
Marties Eldridge
technician, microbiology
Profile well done
Many kudos to Marla Edwards
for her profile on Hogai Nassery.
She givee an interesting account of
Nassery’s fascinating experiences.
I have been fortunate enough to
meet and get to know Nassery. Be
fore I read this article, I knew little
about her earlier life and out-
standing accomplishments. Having
met her before reading the article,
I can say that not only is she one of
the campus’ most potent activists,
she is also one of its finest people.
Many students around here could
learn a lesson from her example.
Awareness coupled with sincerity
and compassion is rare these days;
obviously, however, it still exists.
Clay Jones
freshman, political science
Reasons press limited
In response to Richard Stenger’s
column (March 2), I find that he is
obviously not a,student of history
or military thinking. He has pre
sented three ideas which I fail to
see the point of as one complete
idea. However, I agree with his last
two points on Noriega being a
puppet of the U.S. and that the
press constantly harped on his per
sonal features instead of making
valid points. It is the first point
that I am absolutely astounded at.
Stenger says, ‘The army re
stricted journalists to areas far
from combat during the invasion.”
Doesn’t he believe that the army
had a reason for this? First off, the
whole idea of allowing the regular
press in the combat zone is a rela
tively new idea, dating back only to
the last years of WWII.
Think about what would happen
if there weren’t some restrictions
placed on the footage shown to the
American public* For example, a
soldier and his Ratoon are in the
thick of battle with the platoon
losing. The soldier dies; the whole
episode is on film and is shown on
national TV; the soldier’s mom is
watching that day and sees combat
footage, a lot of dead people, in
cluding her son. Not a very
pleasant thing for someone’s mom
to see.
In conclusion, the military has
reasons for what they do; some
times people don’t agree with them
but they are the ones we depend on
every day for our national security.
RJ. Bryant
sophomore, history
Gabriel lacks credibility
I feel compelled to address some
of the statements made by Hazar
Gabriel in her column on World
Jewry Month. Her lack of docu
mentation destroys her credibility
as a spokesperson for this issue. In
particular, her sources for several
facts against Israel consisted of
nameless people including “one
black South African,” and of
material in which instances such
as the sale of weapons to Ethiopia
was merely “suspected.”
Furthermore, Gabriel failed to
mention that the reason why we
are re-planting trees in Israel is be
cause Palestinian arsonists con
tinue to destroy them. Finally, our
attempts at peace and reconcilia
tion with people such as Gabriel
are thwarted by her bitter accusa
tions which are made merely to
shock readers without prior knowl
edge of the issues. Is tnis the true
path to peace?
Ronette J. Bloom
sophomore, political science
Cawthon missing point
While I take and applaud Wil
liam Cawthon’s main point that
America “doesn’t stand apart from
world currents” and ought to profit
from the lessons of the lately liber-
ated Eastern Europeans, his bug
bears, leftist academicians and the
pink media, are weak springboards
from which to launch his assaults
on our collective American compla
cence. As an unapologetic liberal
from way back, I haven’t run into
any fellow academics or media
types defending Stalin’s mass mur
ders for some time now.
Despite being tainted as a
bleeding-heart leftist fuzzy, I can’t
bring myself to think more kindly
of nasty Communist regimes than
of nasty fanatic ones. If Cawthon
sees liberals making more noise
about right-wing oppression than
other types, perhaps it is because
the U.S. Government has a history
of active support of right-wing re
gimes. We all agree in deploring
the excesses of the communist left,
but I am equally upset about the
hypocrisy of my own government.
As Cawthon suggests, double
standards should be shunned — by
the media, by academics, by ev
eryone on the left or the right.
Thomas Rils
associate professor, school of music
Recruitment deceptive
Hogai Nassery stated in her
March 8 column, “our country’s
armed forces resort to tactics that
border on deception” to get people
to enlist.
I can tell you from experience
that she is incorrect. Recruitment
tactics don’t border on deception;
they are blatantly deceptive.
My recruiter assured me my one
demand of being stationed in West
Germany would be granted if I
would sign on the dotted line. I be
lieved him. My entire enlistment
was spent stateside.
Being the blind leftist that I am,
I forgave the lies and excelled as a
soldier. I graduated first in my
class at the drill sargeant school; I
won medals for achievement, I
even earned a nifty good conduct
ribbon when I was honorably dis
charged.
I didn’t reenlist because I didn’t
believe a word of the things they
said to get me to stay.
Steven Sacco
senior, criminal Justice