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6
Thursday, October u. aoio 1 Thb Red a Black
DmM BwiMtt | Editor In Chief edttor@randb.oom
Cany VNii | Managing Editor me@randb.com
Caartwy Halbroab | Opinions Editor opink>ns@randb.oom
Corruption wins
for Nathan Deal
Calling all conserva
tives:
Can someone
please, anywhere, anyone,
explain the appeal of
Nathan Deal?
Head like a bruised
tomato, with eyes like
dash marks and a grossly
receding hairline. Deal
may look like an over
grown county dentist
coming off a three-day
bender —but so what?
After all, he’s facing
Roy Barnes, a man long
since rumored to be dead.
Yet his judgment!
Sure, Barnes got boot
ed from office; and sure he
looks half-asleep, all
drawling and squinty
eyed.
But when’s the last
time you read this head
line: “Reopened bankrupt
cy could expose Barnes to
more debt”?
The dichotomy comes
too easily.
Roy Barnes is probably
a corpse (who can walk!
and talk! and run for polit
ical office!), but he’s not a
crook.
Briefly, though, some
back-story: at least part of
Deal's millions that evapo
rated did so in loans given
to his daughter and her
husband to fund a busi
ness venture.
Choosing to support his
family, the former con
gressman found himself
between little money and
none at all.
It’s a situation unques
tionably made more awk
ward by Deal's public sta
tus his notoriety com
pounds his bad luck.
And in that way. at
least part of the
Republican's personal
financial reality is under
standable. relatable.
Yet the Other millions'
“I don’t shy away from
hard questions,” Deal once
said, justifying his own
now-abandoned quest
for President Obama’s
“authentic” birth certifi
cate.
Really, Nathan?
Well here’s a hard one
for you: how can the elec
torate be expected to
trust you to manage their
money, in everything from
education to highway
maintenance to arts pro
grams in public schools,
when you’ve so recently so
poorly managed your
own?
Better, here’s some
thing tougher: how can
anyone put stock in a man
spotlighted as one of the
“15 Most Corrupt
Members of Congress” by
soundlffe
fl find it pretty rich that the cherub-faced, bow
tied nanny-statists of SO A— who spend hours
every year at Tate polluting our surroundings with
blaring music while cornering and pestering us
into voting for their buddies would seek to ban smok
ing because it “infringes on the rights of others.”
f Would it KILL the Stadium music managers to
let “In the Air Tonight” play through to the drum
solo? Why else does anyone listen to that song?
fWhy does SGA, who almost no one voted for,
think it can ban smoking for everyone students,
faculty, staff and visitors?
fThey should really ditch those souvenir cups at
the games. The smell of them is unbearable and
god-awful. Can’t even enjoy a refreshing drink
these days...
fill stop smoking on campus when people in
SGA stop acting like fools. Get a life ... and pass
me a lighter.
fWhen did the Georgia Aquarium open up an
Athens branch? Oh, wait that’s just Stegeman's
“new facade." Millions of dollars and no beluga
whales?
fTo those people who run me over at Snelllng
when I’m filling up cereal can you not wait 30
seconds for me to do my job?
flf you had enough time to straighten your hair
in the morning, you should have enough time to
put on pants.
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jfW Carlson
Crewsmostcorrupt.org?
By all audiovisual
account, across a score of
impromptu Interviews and
backyard rallies broadcast
online. Deal comes across,
well, amenable. His per
sonality doesn’t stupefy.
But it arouses curiosity
—and perhaps suspicion.
Why is someone so
quaint so frill of baggage?
And why’d he try, per
haps quaintly if also with
great effort, to act as
though all that baggage
had grown legs and taken
a long walk off a short
cliff?
Theories crop up in
droves: he did it to secure
the hotly-contested pri
mary against Karen
Handel (duh); he did it to
prevent the conservative
base from grouping him
together with fellow
bogged-down candidate
John Oxendlne (duh);
and, maybe most subtly
but also most tellingly, he
didn’t want to be branded
a liar —a manipulator —a
conniver.
... A la his former
favored national political
target, slippery ol’ Obama.
Do I begrudge him his
hypocrisy, his poorly
thought-out decisions and
decisions to cover-up
those decisions?
No.
Deal is clearly out of his
depth, humming along to
a tune he doesn’t recog
nize, working all angles
toward the center looking
for a hold.
But just because I don’t
begrudge him, though,
doesn’t mean I don’t also
have a healthy dose of so
over-it.
When Nov. 2 rolls
around, out my driver’s
license will go as my hand
darts for that electronic
ballot.
As it hovers over the
screen, the question will
invariably arise again:
Barnes or Deal?
The guy who lost his
grip on the state’s support
or the guy who lost his
hold on his family’s financ
es?
I’m voting with my wal
let.
Who do you think I’ll
click?
Adam Carlson is a
sophomore from Hiram
majoring in magazines
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Opinions
Braveheart can end with an arrest
There was nothing malicious
about my actions the night I
got tossed around by a gang
of Athens-Clarke County Police.
Saturday night on Jackson
Street, I was in a great mood.
Georgia had Just earned a much
needed victory over Tennessee.
I had just run into Jason Rawe,
a fellow University student and a
buddy of mine. Out of joy at seeing
an old friend, I broke out into the
monologue I used for my high
school Drama final, the
“Braveheart” speech the same
speech I used to deliver in front of
the fire at camp-outs.
People were laughing. My point
ing fingers were teamed with a
Scottish accent and an emotionally
charged performance: “Yes, I’ve
huurd, he kills men by tha hund
dreds and if he were here, he’d con
sume tha Anglish with fireballs
from his eyes, and bolts of lightning
from his arse!”
I was killing it.
I was smiling when I “hit” the
girl walking down the street.
I hit her so hard she didn’t even
stick around to talk to the police.
“She walked away before I could
identify her,” according to Officer
Basinger’s police report.
Give me a break.
I turned around to look for
Rawe’s approval, and instead I saw
a look of horror right before I got
shoved from behind.
A cop grabbed me. He refused to
Fbcus on testing stunts public education
Most of us consider
education a good
thing.
But if education is to
be a meaningful and
worthwhile endeavor, we
must actively make it so.
Students, parents and
teachers could leam from
this counterintuitive con
cept.
Though a large majori
ty of the populace wants
to make education worth
while and meaningful, our
attempts to do so have
been abysmal.
Allow me to share a
few of my experiences
regarding our “dearly
beloved” institution of
public education.
During my short stint
of student teaching in the
public school system, I
have witnessed firsthand
the failings of our schools.
I wish I could fully
articulate the amount of
outright frustration and
disillusionment that has
arisen from my experienc
es.
What was most sur
prising?
More than half of my
llth-grade students were
deficient at reading and
writing.
To make matters
worse, a handful of them
were doing so at an ele
mentary school level.
How is it possible that
such students advance to
Our Staff
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Barone
tell me what I had done, and why I
was being detained. So, like any
body else about to go to jail with
out doing anything illegal, I kept
asking, “What did I do?” This must
be what the cops meant by “repeti
tive conversation” in the report.
Somehow, Basinger declared I
was intoxicated without giving
me a Breathalyzer or issuing any
field sobriety tests. The police
report states, "I made contact with
the offender who was intoxicated
(glassy eyes, odor of alcoholic bev
erage from breath, repetitive con
versation).”
I’m 24 years old it isn’t illegal
for me to have beer on my breath.
And if I was so intoxicated, why
did it take four cops to slam me to
the pavement?
Speaking of the pavement, when
the cop on top of me got his zip-tie
handy, he transferred his knee onto
my cheek to keep my face down.
He then dragged my right hand out
from under my belly, scraping off
the skin from my thumb, almost
breaking it, while two other police
men held me down.
I might be biased, but that
seems like excessive force.
Another cop had the nerve to
P Charlie
Meador
the next grade?
There are a number of
answers to this distress
ing question.
For one, I beUeve many
schools that are strug
gling will oftentimes
inflate their numbers for
various reasons by
passing students at any
cost and to avoid being
punished.
Asa result, students
move up a grade and
leam just enough to get
by.
Even students who do
weU at school are not nec
essarily learning to the
fullest extent.
In a society infatuated
with numbers and test
scores memorization,
not innovation many
schools reel an intense
pressure to do whatever
it takes to perform and
achieve.
I do not blame student
motivation or perfor
mance for these feelings.
I’m holding the struc
ture of schooling and cul
ture of testing responsi
ble.
Our common assump
tions about school— a
belief in tracking or
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grouping based on ability
and our confidence in
standardized test scores
are known as the gram
mar of schooling.
And they have dictated
our educational policies
and practices for many
years.
But educational phi
losophers such as John
Dewey and Alfred
Whitehead have argued
that the failings of our
society have stemmed
from our misunderstand
ing of the purpose of edu
cation.
Is our goal to produce
students with high-stan
dardized test scores, or is
our goal to cultivate a
collection of independent
thinkers that are capable
of successfully function
ing in society —and even
improving it?
Many have compared
the modem day institu
tion of school to a factory,
with more of a focus on
efficiency than student
learning.
An example of this
that hits cloqe to home is
the Atlanta cheating
scandal. Pressures to
pass high-stakes tests
mandated by the state
and to make Adequate
Yearly Progress under
the No Child Left Behind
program have been coun
terproductive.
Instead of setting a
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break off a piece of some nasty
curbside weed growing nearby, and
began tickling my ear with it. All I
could do was speak to him through
eye contact
“Come on, man.”
Rawe told me later he wished he
had a camera, and that he asked
the police if he could get me to ver
bally give him somebody’s number
for him to call.
“If you don’t quit talking to me,
you're gonna go with him,” one offi
cer threatened Rawe, “Then, you
won’t need that number.”
What would that charge be?
Asking too many questions after 10
p.m.?
The Athens-Clarke County
Police Department needs to get off
the sidewalk and start worrying
about the real criminals. They give
out so many public intoxication
and underage consumption tickets
a weekend, they are missing
probably —a hundred DUIs.
They took me to Jail without
telling me why. From what I can
gather, it was for being loud in pub
lic.
If you ask me, I think Officer
Basinger should take a seat in one
of journalism professor John
Soloski's lectures.
Maybe there he’d leam some
thing about the First Amendment.
Michael Barone is a junior
from Stone Mountain
majoring in magazines
“standard of excellence,”
this culture of testing has
created a system that is
more concerned with
achieving just enough to
pass the test.
This leads to rote
memorization and regur
gitation of facts rather
than cultivating literate,
thoughtful and indepen
dently-thinking individu
als.
Yes, there need to be
standards. But it’s gone
too far.
We need to put a halt
to our obsession with
testing, standards and
numbers.
I do not profess to be
any kind of expert in my
field, but if our society
desires to truly make edu
cation a good thing, we
must have a clear mission
in mind.
For those of you who
survived the public school
system, take a moment to
reflect on your education.
Did you leam at your
fullest?
Were you challenged to
think for yourself?
Most importantly, was
school all it could have
been for you?
If not, then ask your
self why.
Charlie Meador is a
grad student from
Valdosta majoring in
social studies education
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