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OpEd Remember the joys of the season As the season of Christmas begins to approach and we get caught up in the millions cf obliga tions and commitments, we hear these words over and over: “I remember when Christmas was not so commercial!” Perhaps, the phrase you will hear more often this year will be “everything costs so much”. Or you may say, “I can not believe everything that is avail able for children to put on their lists.” ■ Not like all people in my gener ation, I am aware of the Barney fashions, Pocahontas, Power Rangers, and other “latest in enter tairiftfifcnt” toys. I am aware of the computerized games, videos, and even some for young adults. So, I am not as surprised with lists. However, the number of toys that most children already have makes me ask an even more important question: “Where are you going to put another sleigh full of toys and Saint Nicholas too!” I like to recall Christmas Past when there was a doll for the girls, cowboy boots and a six gun for the boys, oranges, nuts, and a bucket of hard candy. It may surprise most children today if they received this little amount, but to us, these gifts were so special we cherished them for months after Christmas passed. There was no trips to Walmart and K-Mart a few days later to pur chase a “surprise if you are good”. After a few moments of Christmas Past when memories of special times with family, special events of new babies in the family and the selection of or making a special gift is recalled, we hurry along to Christmas Present. This brings up a very important ques tion too. What will be important to you this year? Will it be the num LETTERS from 12A ty Uyit exists in every home in Forsyth County? In the home a real event could be stumbled upon if Mom»s and Dad’s door has no lock on it# Oh! What a moral threat! I think# our Commissioners should require locks on these doors, don’t you? What a sad story! Every life form has'some way of multiplying itself. Animals have sex to reproduce them selves. Humans have sex to, do the same; but also to relieve stress, to expitss and satisfy the emotions of care-and of being cared for, etc. Human sexuality contrasts with aniinal sexualities in that it is natu rally -a private act. However, the inclination to be curious about our basit-anatomical differences begins at afrearly age. It is obvious that children are interested in how they areiflade and what their distinctive anatomy means for their future. This moral fear of the effect of adaks’ behavior upon our children is mis-placed. It can create morbidity in children. Their curiosity is their health and a moral inhibition that forbids its natural development is harmful to them. What gives us the greatest con trol over our sexual instincts? An honest and on-going confrontation with and intellectual grasp of who we are, of course! Our library should contain all kinds of ideas and infor mation. This availability gives us the potential to get acquainted with our selvesand to obtain some psycholog ical immunity against a morbid out look. I thought we elected commis sioned to handle the county’s busi ness.-Do we need them as moral dic tators? Bill Callaway Cumming, Ga. / 7 ' Writer supports county’s library stand DEAR EDITOR, It is the opinion of this ordinary citizen of Forsyth County that it is £Julianne Boling ber of gifts you have to buy? Will it be the number of ‘affairs’ you have to attend? Will it be the shop ping that you must do and the number of people on your list? Will your question be: ‘how much more can 1 put on my credit card?” December is a rash, rush, rush month. It is filled with events that will make your life special and meaningful. There are concerts by the Cumming Chorale, special music presentations in churches that are yours just for attending, programs at schools, live nativity scenes and pageants, and parties to celebrate the season. Your only question should be “where do I go from here”. The choices are yours and the spirit of the season begins this week. Don’t miss out. So, there is Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future, and all should concern us. The past is gone but well worth remembering for special times, special people, and special reasons. Christmas Present is here and we will be called upon to do the extras to make family and friends happy and let them know their efforts to provide music, dramas, and gifts are appreciated and that we enjoy them. And remember Christmas Future by making the present one special for you and everyone you love just in case this is the one we want to recall as “the best one we have ever had!” time that we step back and take a look at our county and some of our so called problems. It is my opinion that there is a sophistication race going on in our county. First, we have many new people moving into our county because they think it is a good place to live, but they must prove to the local people how sophisticated they are by sup porting all the issues that go contrary to the principals that make our coun ty a good place to live. Secondly, some of our local citi zens, in an effort to prove that they are just as sophisticated as the new comers, are joining in on the criti cism of our elected officials and our church people’s support of decency. To name a few, Mr. Phill Bettis, Mr. Walker Bramblett, Mr. Lynwood Jordan, and Mr. Bob White, all of whom cry censorship when we attempt to keep our library material decent for our children to use. It is my opinion that if the writers of our constitution had known how the First Amendment would have been abused and twisted to protect everything from nudity to pornogra phy as a freedom of expression, they would have omitted it. Our county commissioners are on the hotseat now for having tried to correct this situation. I have from time to time been critical of the com missioners on some of their deci sions, but on this issue I wish to extend my support and appreciation for standing up to a very liberal press and to Mr. Bob White’s Friends of the Library, which consist of approx imately .005% of the citizens of Forsyth County. If we happen to lose our associa tion with Gwinnett County Libraries, we, according to them, will lose 600,000 books and materials and have only 100,000 plus left, but if I have the proper information, Gwinnett has nine branches which, if you use simple math, comes to approximately 66,000 per branch as compared to 100,000 plus. That doesn’t sound like much of a loss to me. Ethics & Reliqion The pre-eminent Rabbi Schindler retires Rabbi Alexander Schindler, 70, President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations for 22 years, retires next week. Henry Kissinger calls him “a preeminent figure of conscience and leader ship.” As the outspoken leader of “Reform” Judaism, Schindler foiged unprecedented answers for a painful problem the rapidly growing rate of Jews marrying Gentiles. Since 1985, Jews are as likely to marry non-Jews as Jews. Christmas trees will be in two thirds of intermarried homes; 90 percent of their children will inter marry. In 1978, Schindler said, “We have one of two choices. We can do what our forebears did read them out of the Jewish fold, mourning them. Or we can try to bring them back into the communi ty in hope the non-Jewish partner will convert to Judaism, or to make sure the children will be reared as Jews. We chose the latter.” He also changed a 2,000 year rule declaring one Jewish only if one’s mother is Jewish. If the father is Jewish, but the mother is not, the child had to be converted to be a Jew! “That doesn’t make any sense. Both should have equal weight.” Schindler argued. Both steps were hotly contest SHIPPfrom 12A onto Sam Nunn’s seat. Cleland is the only Democrat daring enough so far to offer for the Senate in 1996. —The city of Atlanta for Billy Payne and the 1996 Olympics. Without the Games and all that will come with them, the capital’s outlook would be bleak. —The Georgia lottery and thousands of HOPE scholars for the millions of suckers who keep playing the impossible odds. Their dreams of getting something for nearly nothing keep the numbers games going and tuition paid for students in colleges and trade Our tax dollars have built and paid for our library, and I feel we should have control of it without any help or interference from outside. It is time that we, the people, get involved with the affairs in our coun ty, encourage our elected officials if you approve of their actions, and yell like the splinter groups do if you dis approve. Clay Jones Cumming, Ga. Print the photos in question DEAR EDITOR, Your editorial insisting that chil dren of any age should be able to see anything the Library Board deems worthy of being in the library causes me to wonder why you don’t just go ahead and publish the pictures that our commissioners find so objection able. You describe the pictures as being “what some call ‘sexually explicit”, which implies to me that most people would not agree that they are sexually explicit. Please publish them so that we all can decide for ourselves whether or not our commissioners are being unrea sonable. If you do not, then please explain to all of us why you will not print them. Censorship occurs when a gov ernment does not allow the distribu tion of certain materials. No one has banned any of these materials. Anyone can go into a book store and purchase them. However, when tax payers money is spent, the taxpayers do have a right to say how it is spent. What is so wrong with having an adults only room? I ask you not to censor these pictures, but print them so we can decide whether they should be available to children. I wonder if the Romans had these debates while their empire was decaying from within? Think about it. P. K. Totten Gainesville, Ga. ed. Neither halted the trend of intermarriage. But Reform syna gogues gained so many mixed fam ilies that more than a tenth of them now are 30+ percent intermarried. And UAHC congregations soared from 400 to nearly 900 dur ing Schindler’s tenure, making it Judaism’s fastest-growing branch. He has been less successful in contesting Israel’s refusal to allow Reform (or Conservative) rabbis marry, divorce, convert or bury Jews without the participation of an orthodox rabbi. Only 5 percent of Israelis are religious Zionists and 8 percent ultra Orthodox yet they wield disproportionate power in the Knesset. In the wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a religious zealot, why doesn’t the Labor Party want to encourage the growth of moderate/liberal Jewish syna gogues? Needing Orthodox votes in the Knesset, Peres agreed not to change the status quo. However, UAHC has created 25 Reform congregations in Israel, 10 of which are run by Israeli-born rabbis, trained at a Reform semi nary. A Religious Action Center has won a few modest cases at the Israeli Supreme Court. A founda tion exists for future growth. Schindler denounced Rabin’s policy to “break bones” of schools across the state. —State Chief Justice Bob Benham for his good friends in the Georgia Bar. They have raised more than SIOO,OOO for his re election campaign an unheard of sum for a judicial race. —Linda Schrenko for the state Board of Education. The appointive board’s spendthrift THE FORSYTH COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS’ LIBRARY ISSUE There may be some misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners’ issue with the Library Board. * * i The issue is the library system that insists on open access by children to photographs of nude people engaged in various sex acts, as in the book, WOMAN’S BODY. The Board of Commissioners is convinced that most Forsyth County Citizens do not want sexually explicit photographs freely available to children in the Forsyth County Library. After months of consideration and discussion, the Library Board continues to insist that the book, WOMAN’S BODY, be openly available to children in the Forsyth County Library. The Board of Commissioners’ issue IS NOT : - Censorship in the sense of removing books from the Library or restricting adult use of books in the Library. (The United States Constitution does not guarantee access by children to all published materials.) - A desire by the Board to split the Forsyth County Library from the Gwinnett-Forsyth Regional Library system. (The recent action by the Gwinnett County Library Board to sever its relationship with the Forsyth County Library was reportedly based on rationale (studies?), supposediy showing an imbalance of funding between Gwinnett County and Forsyth County. The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners has never seen those studies. Nor was the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners told of the imbalance before the Gwinnett Library Board kicked the Forsyth County Library out of the long standing Gwinnett-Forsyth Regional Library systenj. As of November 17,1995, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners had still not been officially notified of the funding imbalance nor seen the studies to prove it.) - Criticism of the Forsyth County Library staff, facility, operations or service to the community. (The Board of Commissioners is proud of the Library and recognizes the Library and its services to the community to be excellent.) OorMftli (bounty J3oarA Of Oonunisiioneri Paid for by The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners. FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, Novambar 26,1«5 Palestinians during the intifada, but later praised his “tremendous trans formation” into seeking peace at great personal risk. Son of a Yiddish poet who wor shiped in Munich’s first synagogue to be firebombed by the Nazis, Schindler came to the U.S. at age 12. At 18 he enlisted in the U. S. Army as a ski trooper, earning the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for wounds and bravery. Beloved for his warmth and oratorical skills, Schindler says the driving power of his life has been “ahavat yisrael,” a love for all fel low Jews except Israel’s “tri umphalists” who “presume to know whose prayers are and are not acceptable,” extremists “who still deify land over life and sanc tion the murder of peacemakers.” He argues that Jewishness should be defined “not as exclusive but as exemplary, not as closed but open, not as rejecting but as all embracing and compassionate. A land whose bloody paths trace back to the barbed-wire fences of Auschwitz, should not erect barbed-wire boundaries of its own” in ruling over Palestinians. His most profound criticism is that “We Reform Jews are entirely too lax in our practices. Having expense accounts have made school Supt. Schrenko’s stumbling performance in public office look splendid by comparison. —Environmentalists for the Garden Club of Georgia, which has fought vigorously and some times alone to stop the visual pol lution along our highways. McManus - 3 asserted our automony, insisting on our right to choose, too many choose nothing at all.” Schindler rejects a Judaism that is “minimalism, a legacy bequeathed only to children, a for mal affiliation” by Jews who attend services only on High Holy Days. Rather, he sees his faith as “an actual life path” transformed by the synagogue, “the regenerative soil of Jewish life...where heaven and earth kiss.” In his final speech, he will urge Jews to “make patience and humili ty your first spiritual discipline, for it was not with a literate, Jewish proud people that God made a covenant at Sinai. It was with freed slaves, addicts of the flesh pots of Egypt, too frightened to receive God’s message directly, ‘lest we die.’” Jews should order a tape or transcript (212 249-0100). —Georgia citizens for Sam Nunn. He has been a model U.S. senator. Bill Shipp is editor of Bill. ■ Shipp’s Georgia, a weekly newsletter on government and business. He can be reached at.fi O. Box 440755, Kennesaw, GA 30144 or by calling (770) 422- 2543. PAGE 13A