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OpEd '■■■" I- I. !■■■■—L- ~, Letter policy ~ The Forsyth County News welcomes your opinions on issues of public concern. Letters must be signed and include full address and a daytime and evening phone number for verification. Names and home towns of letter writers will be included for publication without exception. Telephone numbers will not be published. Letters should be limited to 350 words and may be edited or condensed. The same writer or group may only submit one letter per month for consideration. Letters must be submitted by noon Wednesday for Sunday publication. We do not publish poetry or blanket letters and generally do not publish letters con cerning consumer complaints. Unsigned or incorrectly identified letters will be withheld. Mail letters to the Forsyth County News. P.O. Box 210. Cumming, GA 30028, hand deliver to 302 Veterans Memorial Blvd., fax to (770) 889-6017 or email to editor@forsythnews.com. / n h c 1997 \ \ H Bucchmo Republicans enabling House’s pork addiction WASHINGTON Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte. N.C., a conservative star of the famous Republican con gressional class of 1994. has just about had it with the way the world works on Capitol Hill. "It makes you not want to be here. It just makes you want to leave." she told me Friday morning before the House passed the "highway" bill by a veto-proof margin of 357 to 65. What infuriates her is the money provided by this bill that does not have a thing to do with highways. Myrick went before the closed-door House Republican Conference last week to spell out this outrage. The response was icy silence. Even conservatives who have railed at President Bush for moving left on educa tion and Medicare did not want to hear her. They are infuriated when Myrick compares their bipartisan finagling for pork with the machinations of Dennis Kozlowski. The highway bill marks the absolute ter mination of the Gingrich Revolution ushered in by the 1994 Republican sweep. In the face of President Bush's repeated veto threats. Republicans are determined to pass a bill filled with earmarked spending for individual members of Congress. The 1982 highway bill contained only 10 earmarks. The 1991 bill, the last highway bill passed under Democratic leadership, con tained 538 such projects. But the addiction for pork has grown so large that the current bill contains at least 3,193 earmarks. The addiction is bipartisan, thanks to the policy of the House’s reigning king of pork. While House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young has packed the bill with money for his state of Alaska, he makes sure Democrats are allocated their share of money for roads and other goodies in order to build a bipartisan majority on the floor. Young is careful to fund the pet project of Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, the Transportation Committee's senior Democrat. The bill establishes Oberstar's proposed Safe Routes to School program, earmarking $1 billion to enable and encourage children to walk and bicycle to school. Here are a few of the earmarked non highway projects (along with their congres sional beneficiaries): • Construction of "Renaissance Square" in Rochester, N.Y., including a performing arts center. $7 million. Rep. Louise Slaughter, a highly partisan liberal Democrat. • Renovation of a historic depot and bus Emotion rules despite technology One hundred billion —a num ber that is almost impossible to visualize and beyond conceptual ization for most of us (despite the fact that it is trivialized when economists discuss the U.S. gross domestic product or politicians argue about our national debt). To put it in perspective, if we turned the clock back by that number of seconds, we would still have 500 years to wait before the founding of Rome. If we counted noses, the number would represent a population 15 times greater than exists on our world. If we traveled by space ship for that number of miles, we would be 30 times further from the earth than Pluto, the most distant plan et. But perhaps most impressive of all. 100 billion is the figure most often ascribed to the number of neural cells in the human brain. The human brain is an incredi ble "device." Despite all our advances in computer technology, children easily perform many tasks that modern-day computers cannot come close to matching. The best computers can only approximate skills that we take for granted, like language and pattern recognition. And for computers, other everyday experi ences involving emotion and intu ition lie well in the realm of sci ence fantasy. Today's computers are very different from a human mind. They are electronic devices which process data within established pathways in the form of binary bits. A single bit registers only two states: it carries a signal (on) or it doesn't (off). However, bits can be combined to permit com puters to recognize additional states. Two bits can be linked to register 0-0, 0-1. 1-0 or 1-1 (where "0" is "off" and "1" is "on”). We can increase the capa bility of computers to handle more complex tasks by increasing the number of bits that are linked, the storage area and the speed at which access takes place. And we normally connect computers to other devices by electrical or mechanical linkages. Robert Novak member of the House and a fierce Democratic battler. • A new parking building in Oak Lawn. 111. $4 million. Rep. William Lipinski, an ll term Democrat. • A series of improvements for the Blue Ridge Music Center in Galax. Va. $2.5 mil lion. Rep. Rick Boucher, an I I-term Democrat. Despite repeated threats of a presidential veto, the House Republican leadership actu ally added a billion dollars to the bill last week. It was not necessary to gain additional votes on the floor, but odds and ends had to be fixed. For example. Chairman Young had pun ished freshman Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave for opposing his proposed gas tax increase by eliminating all money for her Colorado district. Because a rising conserva tive could not be treated that way. money for her roads was restored. The final version made sure that no congressman was left behind. Only 58 Republicans (and six Democrats) joined Myrick in voting no Friday. She is not opposed to spending money for roads, within reason. It's the non-highway money that bothers her. "Why are we paying for all of this stuff?" Myrick asked me (using a more vivid word than "stuff"). "It's just the way you get along here." That so serious a conservative as Sue Myrick feels she would like to quit shows how much the climate has changed on Capitol Hill since she and other bright-eyed new Republican House members were sent there by the 1994 election. I wrote 10 years ago that Republicans, taking control for the first time in 40 years, faced a test. Metaphorically, would they close the executive washroom or just change the locks? It was almost immediately evident that they would take the latter course. Now, it's becoming clear the erstwhile Republican reformers are also super-sizing what they once condemned. Robert Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist and a television commentator. station in Jessup. Ga. $l mil lion. Rep. Jack Kingston, a leading Republican conserva tive. • Improvement of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Mich. $1.5 million. Rep. John Dingell, the senior Mel 1 Copen . «*i The human brain, on the other hand, is an electro-chemical device which processes informa tion through many (and often multiple) paths, and in ways that are much more complex than sim ple on/off modes. The efficiency and functioning of the brain is dependent not only on its physi cal construct, but on oxygen and other chemicals that blood sup plies to it and by a host of signals generated by various body organs. And the brain is linked to input (e.g. eyes) and output sys tems (e.g. muscles) by very intri cate systems. Given the incredibly complex design and the variability of inputs, it's really a wonder that our brains function at all. Even more incredibly, the entire "blue print" is contained in a few organ ic cells that unite and eventually grow to become a person. One of the most intriguing dif ferences relates to our ability to exercise control. In theory, the full capabilities of a computer are available to the designer/opera tor/programmer. Not so to the owner of a human brain. It seems to have "a mind of its own." Let's look at this question of "output management." First, there are many areas over which we normally have direct control and full decision making authority. We can decide when to raise our arms, take a step, write or express our con scious thoughts. We can decide what TV show to watch and can program our brains to learn and remember (at least for a while). Then there are areas where management seems to be shared." We can blink our eyes or take a breath when we wish, but there is also an "auto” mode which normally takes care of this function for us. We can control tgj zlinenaui m '#7s/ X -’■k. WEEK ||oni(‘WWk Forsvth CountvNews • Tour Homrto** Paper Simr Location! Location! Location! Offering “Prime Advertising Acreage” (his Special Section! Chance to Reach Your Target t and Support the 400 North Area Board of Realtors ‘hi JdysjJ BrotWHWMB • realtors/agents • MORTGAGE BROKERS • CLOSING ATTORNEYS • GENERAL CONTRACTORS • BUILDERS • BUUNNG MATHUAL SUPPUBIS • PLUMBERS • ELECTRICIANS • LANDSCAPES • ROOFERS • FURNITURE STORES • HOME ACCESSORIES • LAWN CARE EQUIPMENT • Much, Much Morel ection Publishes April 18, 2004 in the Forsyth CountvNews and April 21, 2004 in the Dawson Community News SSEJffikhSR Contact your Ad Representative Now to reserve your space. 770-887-3126 Bl FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Wednaaday, April 7 2004 - some of our feelings, but others seem to develop in an independ ent manner. We only exercise partial control. We learned long ago that we can indirectly force our bodies to deviate from their anormala states by the food we eat, the exercise we do, etc. But these control the way our body reacts to stimuli, rather than an ability to will our brains to behave in a certain manner. For some time we have known that Yoga and various other forms of meditation provide some degree of control over blood pres sure, heartbeat and breathing rates. But now we are beginning to learn that brain wave patterns are associated with certain feel ings. activities and physiological states and that some of these pat terns can be altered with appro priate practice. Perhaps the most challenging area is the third those func tions which seem to be beyond "human” intervention. They operate on their own. The immune system determines when to martial its armies to fight an invader weaponry that we nei ther consciously create nor acti vate. Things happen within our bodies, good and bad, over which we have no control. Cancers form, as cells start to mutate or are attacked by aforeigna ele ments. and today we are unable to do very much to consciously con trol what is taking place within an enormous frustration when it occurs within our own bodies or those of loved ones. Modern medicine may try to influence what happens via external inter vention (drugs, surgery, electrical stimulation and the like often on a trail and error basis) but the body basically does its own thing and we have difficulty accessing the "computer console" to deter mine what is happening and, of greater importance, how to alter or stop it. Other things go on within our brains over which we have little control. Try to influence dreams, for example. Why do we dream in the first place, or why do we even sleep? Despite all the advances of medical science over the last millennia, we still know little about many of these processes that not only keep us alive, but that contribute to the way we experience the world around us. Great sums are being spent on developing drugs and procedures for external intervention. Clearly this must continue. More recent ly, genetic research has come to the forefront in an effort to under stand the building blocks that determine the shape and function of our "computers" and their "attachments." But we also need to concentrate on learning how to run our own "computers" how to shift from "non-controlled" to "shared control" to "fully-con trolled" status so that we can take charge of what is happening to us. Some day, as scientists contin ue to experiment, we are likely to see computers that are literally grown in test tubes rather than constructed from tiny bits of sili con and other materials. Much of what we learn may be inter changeable as computers and human processes converge. It's a scary concept, but one which also holds enormous potential for improving and prolonging the quality of life. But, like issues surrounding genetic engineering, many ethical questions will have to be addressed. Despite the enormous advances in science and technology, today's world probably doesn't function much differently than it did thou sands of years ago. Emotionality often outweighs rationality. Perhaps, if we knew more about how the mind truly works we would better understand how to put things into better balance. Dr. Melvyn Copen of Cumming is an educator and businessman who has worked and lived in many foreign countries and provides consulting services for businesses and organizations throughout the world. His col umn appears every other Wednesday. Please share your comments with him via email at mel copen@hotmail.com. PAGE 11A