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IMWmGIOGIAWmiOAY OCTOMB*
4
Editaßia
□men
Recruiting Black
Staff Members
After reporting in one of our summer issues that West
Georgia had employed only three black staff persons, we
are pleased to see that Dean Bruce Lyon now has four
blacks in student services, bringing to five the total of
blacks in professional staff positions.
While this addition represents an improvement in West
Georgia’s minority hiring situation, congratulations are
premature, as minorities in general still make up too small
a part of West Georgia’s professional staff.
The standard administration claim that it’s too difficult to
recruit black staff persons to a rural Georgia college
doesn’t cut much light in face of minority employment at
rural all-black colleges. If people can be attracted to Fort
Valley to teach and work, surely they can be attracted to
Carrollton, almost a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
Indeed, Lyon’s success at recruiting blacks to West
Georgia indicates that they can be brought here, through
active recruitment with sufficient incentives.
When Lyon’s record has been matched by the other
divisions of West Georgia, then there will be cause for
congratulations, and congratulations will be extended.
Instructor Evaluation
Near the end of the quarter you will be filling out in
structor-course evaluations. But, this time it should be
easier and more effective with specific questions instead of
the vague, subjective questions that were on the old forms.
Vice President John Lewis says that the questionnaire
will be used on a trial basis for three quarters. We feel that
it does a more than adequate job in evaluating the in
structor and course.
All you have to do is answer the questions honestly.
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EDITOR (iff <# wS\ MANACiINi; EDITOR
Robin Stacy IX UK J J KU k> Wt,,Ulfr **'
New* Editor Volt I* cecum
BtiMinfKK Manager Rirk JoltttMon
Eratnrr Editor Drbra Newell
Sport* Editor Bill Pennington
Entertainment Editor Wayne Aider*on
< o| Editor Debbie God bee
Alan Kuykendall
Photographer* Jeff llendrirk*. I red l.edhetter.
Tliomti* Bolton
Editorial Frank Gregor*k>
Secretary Catherine Grouch
Reporter* Hieky IVttit. Don Ro*e
Th# Wost Georgian is published weekly except dur
ing final exams and vacations in Carrollton, Georgia
by the students of West Georgia College. Subscrip
tions are available at $3.50 a year. Ad rates are avail
able upon request.
Opinions expressed in signed articles ore those of
the author. Unsigned editorials are those of the ma
jority of the staff members on the editorial board. In
neither instance are they to be taken as representing
those of the student body at large, the faculty, the
staff or the administration of this college.
Box 1005 Phone 834-1366-67
Debra Newell
Shopping's Not All Bad
It has changed a lot since I used to follow my
daddy to the little store up the road and while he
talked to the store owner, climb on him cajoling,
“Daddy, I want this!” Still, grocery stores are
interesting places, quite like hospitals with every
kind of individual coming in at one time or
another.
One morning while working at a convenience
store, I was drinking coffee and wondering, “Is
there life after a night like last night?” when a
scraggly old gentleman shuffled in the door
looking as if his night had been worse than mine.
He announced his presence with a growl,
“Ain’t nobody in the world as sick as I am
today!”
I did not argue.
His emaciated frame was clothed in tattered
overalls which, as my daddy says, would have
stood up on their own had he taken them off. He
did not seem very steady on his feet as he
wandered through the store mumbling. He had
no teeth and a white crew cut.
I asked, “Can I help you find something?”
“Y’all aint got what I want!” he proclaimed.
“What is it you need?” I asked automatically.
"Y’all aint got it,” he said with finality, and I
assumed with no regrets he would be on his way.
Instead he threw a handful of change at me and
ordered, “You count that up.”
“But sir,” I said.
“You count that up,” he repeated and went
lumbering over to the beer case. He removed two
cases of beer. Although he lacked a few cents
having enough to cover his purchase I decided
Frank Gregorsky
Democrats Getting Wise
We are a month away from Congressional
elections and people all over the country are
getting ready to focus intently on the world
series. Unless you’re an ostrich or a confirmed
cynic, politics ought to be baseball as the most
important game in town.
All the more so this year. It is not widely
known that we are in the midst of one of the
greatest political role reversals in American
two-party history.
It used to be Democrats who were most con
cerned with pumping up the economy to fight
unemployment. It used to be Republicans who
were obsessed with balancing
the budget to hold down inflation.
Although the change by the parties on how to
manage the American economy has not been.
Nearly every Republican candidate for a
House or Senate seat anywhere in the nation
supports the Kemp-Roth bill, which would cut
federal income taxes 11 percent a year for three
years. Since the rates would be cut for every
group and class, both supply and demand
(business and consumers) stand to gain.
A large majority of these candidates’
Democratic counterparts oppose Kemp-Roth,
citing the fear of roaring inflation brought on by
the initial surge in the budget deficit wrought by
lowered tax rates.
Why the role switch? Republicans are sick of
losing. Reviewing the JFK-LBJ tax cut of 1964,
they found it to be good politics. It also con
founded skeptics by bringing in more revenue
from a widened tax base, but at lower rates.
Democrats are engaging in a backhanded
defense to keep the federal budget from being
slashed, which they feel is a certainty if less
money starts to come in. But how will they deal
with the tax revolt?
Democrats have never been (except few the
McGovern interlude of 1972) politically suicidal.
It would have been better for us if more of them
had. Their strategy for the next year or two is to
implement a modified Jerry Brown.
Governor Brown was predicting disaster in
May if Proposition 13 passed. In June, Califor
nians okayed it 2-to-l. In August, Brown (and the
state) were living comfortably with the at
tendant 42 percent drop in property tax intake.
He even proposed a billion-dollar cut in state
not to quibble, figuring the difference would be
money well spent on my part
After I checked him out, he pulled up his filthy
tee shirt from his overalls to show a long hideous
scar on his abdomen. As I cringed, he said, “I
been shot.”
Having been well trained, I smiled and said
“Thank you and come back.”
I groaned. It was only seven a m.
Asa shopper I often feel like lam playing
grown up,” especially when I have trouble
reaching the bottom of my buggy at the check
out counter.
I have often had attendants, with acne, braces,
and something vaguely resembling moustaches,
refuse to give me cards for their sweepstakes on
the grounds that I am not 18 and look at me with
doubt when I offer a college I.D. as iden
tification.
Some of your more experienced shoppers
bearing buggies overladen with fruits,
vegetables, and meats can be fierce as they
zoom around the aisles.
I have often feared for my welfare as I, with
my buggy of diet soft drinks and granola bars,
happened to be in the path of one of these people.
They obviously have no time for dawdling and do
not much appreciate bodies parked in the way to
examine merchandise.
Despite its hazards, shopping is not all bad,
especially since I cannot afford to do it
frequently. At any rate, I should have plenty of
material to write my novel from and be ready for
anything after a few months of this.
income taxes! Almost half of California’s voters
now think he was a tax-cutter all along. The
more Brown changes, the more people think he
stays the same.
Most Democrats lack Jerry Brown’s ability to
get from A to B in something shorter than a
straight line, but they will put an end to
Republican hopes of seizing the economic issues
from them in 1960, even if they have to adopt
quasi- Republican economics in the process.
Kemp-Roth will never become law. Even if the
Republicans elect 50 new Congressmen next
month, and pass it in January, Carter will veto
ihe measure. The veto will be sustained.
Republicans delude themselves by thinking
Carter will be afraid to veto a 33 percent tax cut
already okayed by Congress. In January of 1979,
Carter won’t be afraid. Between then and
renomination time in 1980, he will give the public
selected cuts and exemptions enough to defuse
the tax revolt, or at least make it seem bipar
tisan.
Carta- can certainly do in 18 months what
Brown did in 18 days.
Kemp-Roth, however, is much more than its
doubters would have us believe. It is not a
gimmick. It has already served as a catalyst for
a Congressional rethinking of tax policy. The
next 20 years of tax breaks must go mainly to
productive elements if his nation is to fully
employ its work force.
Hard as it is for some to accept, poor people
don’t create jobs, perfect machinery, and
reinvest profits. Millions of lower-income people
have been taken off the tax rolls since 1989. In
1965, even a person with a SSOO income paid 16
percent of it to Washington. No so today.
Removing the responsibility of low-income
Americans to help maintain the government was
a misguided humanitarian gesture. Today, the
“richest” 50 percent of the people pay 94 percent
of the total tax bill. The most productive people
are givoi a proportional pittance for the services
the least productive people expect them to
provide.
The Republicans have made the case that the
economic system has reached the end of that
particular rope. Having helped to get us there,
the Democrats will not now allow themselves to
be hung by it.