About The Georgia post. (Knoxville, Crawford County, Ga.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 2013)
PAGE 4 - THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013 Opinions expressed by writers on this page are their own and not necessarily those of The Georgia Post CODE OF ETHICS: Seek Truth & Report It - Minimize Harm - Act Independently - Be Accountable. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. - Thomas Jefferson Inequalities And Justice Miscarriages Ah now, where to begin. Let’s take the death of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmer man’s acquittal. I know, I know, you’re probably sick to death of this story no matter where you stand on the merits or demerits of the trial and its outcome. Mr. Zimmerman was tried by a jury of his peers and acquitted. Perhaps Zimmerman was charged incorrectly. Perhaps rul ings made from the bench were in error. Perhaps the defense counsel or prosecutors did a poor job. Perhaps the jury instruc tions were faulty. There are lots and lots of perhapses to be had. The bottom line, though is that there were only two people who actually know for certain what happened that night and one of them is dead. Subsequent federal prosecu tion of Mr. Zimmerman scares the heck out of me. It’s a slippery slope filled with the potholes of double jeopardy and mob rule. Do I think Mr. Zimmerman should have gotten away with murder or, at a very minimum, manslaughter without any penalty? Oh H-double hockey sticks no! To my mind Mr. Zimmeran’s failed application for the police academy, his pursuit of Tray von after having been told not to do so and his use of a gun rather than only the telephone as a member of a neighborhood watch group painted a pretty clear picture of someone who defined young black men as a threat. But, hey, I wasn’t on the jury. There are foundational concepts of a jury of peers and reasonable doubt must not be di luted or ignored. Miscarriages of justice occur. No judicial system can escape them. Correcting the causes is the productive way to deal with them. Marches are nice, but let’s keep our eyes on what laws are passed and how they will affect the lives of those who are sup posed to be served by them. If your child is bom male and black there are some extra-spe cial lessons he must understand at a very early age. He must understand that the world views him with suspicion first and foremost. That he will gener ally not be given the benefit of a doubt and that his pigmentation subjects him to an inordinately higher percentage of arrest and incarceration. It’s a kind of a life long terroristic threat. Much has been made of Presi dent’s Obama’s statement, “It could have been me.” It brought to mind for me a conversation I had with my father’s wife some years ago. I was rather ticked off at her when I learned that she would make a pretzel out of her schedule in to prevent my 14 year-old brother from taking the fairly short walk from school to Of This & That Trenesia Y. Stubbs Columnist email: trenesui@pstel.net home each day. We lived in a well-to-do gated community. He attended a nationally ranked charter school. And so on with all of the ways I thought it made it safe for him to walk home. Why the heck was she coddling him? Let him learn to become independent and be responsible for himself. These were the points I was trying to drive home to her. There was a long pause on the phone; so long, in fact, that I had to ask if she was still there. She said (and I’m paraphras ing here), “Trenesia, you know that it is never safe for a black man to walk around in an area that is thought to be the refuge of whites. There aren’t any vis ible whites only signs, but you know they are there and he’s just enough of a target to get him killed.” I hadn’t thought about that. She must always consider it. I think it’s possible for non blacks to really get a grip on something so far removed from their experiences. My neighbor’s white son in Miami got a taste of the same thing in reverse when he drove a co-worker home one night. His co-worker was black and lived in a predominantly black and poor neighborhood. They were pulled over by the police without probable cause. When Teddy pointed that out to the officer he and his co-worker were ordered out of the car and roughly handled. When Teddy would not give them permission to search the car the cop told him he didn’t belong in that neighborhood at that time of night. Several ad ditional police cars arrived as he was being interrogated from the cage of the back seat. He spent a night in jail because he asserted his rights. He didn’t know and wouldn’t listen to his co-worker on how to handle the situation— shut up. Teddy spent a night in jail because his outrage blinded him. He didn’t understand. Policemen were supposed to be the good guys. You know, upholding the law and everything. We’d talked about the racial divides, but there was no way he could really get it until he got that tiny taste of racial inequality. Roxie s First Vacation Trip There is no doubt that our furbaby Roxie, is one spoiled dog. We were so afraid of her being distraught if we were gone for a couple of days we decided to take her to the beach with us. She loves water, even plays in the rain so we thought she would enjoy playing on the beach as well. There are very few beaches where you can take your dog but there is one in Panama City designated as a dog beach. Roxie was not too sure about crossing the street with all the traffic that was whiz zing by but we maneuvered quite well. There were already a few dogs on the beach with their owners, mainly smaller ones so she eagerly trotted down to the edge of the water on leash. She smelled the sand and tasted the salt water and then a big wave scared her. After that she was not too impressed and refused to go into the water in spite of our coaxing and showing her the water was harmless. There was one German Shepard whose owner had taught him to jump the waves when she gave the signal. It was quite impressive to watch. I was hoping Roxie would catch on but that did not happen. We decided to try it again the next day to see if it made a difference. It didn’t. In fact, she would not go down to the water at all. Instead she sat next to the beach mat and proceeded to throw sand on the mat as she dug a hole in which she could lie down and keep cool. Every so oftens she would move over a little and dig another hole which sent sand flying everywhere again. Okay, we gave it a good try but Roxie just was not that impressed with the beach. She did seem to enjoy our tak ing her for a walk daily though she still is not all that fond of a leash. She minds pretty well, though, which does help. Riding to and from she was great and it did not make her sick to eat as we drove down the road either. I am not sure she understood we were on vacation but she did know something was going on out of the ordinary. She was glad to get back home and back into her routine. As she loves to run around the yard ninety to nothing, that was one of the first things she did after ar riving home. I guess riding and camping was a little too restrictive to her free spirit. David and I did say we would take her with us again though because overall she was very well behaved and she does not do well without her humans. While many of the other dogs nearby were barking away she would not bark if we told her not to do so. She is not one of those dogs you can put a hat on, or dress up and sometimes even her collar seems to aggravate her and we have to accept that fact. Sometimes I really wish she would just let me put a pair of sunglasses or a hat on her though. She has her Pay at a Time Victoria ’’Vicky” Simmons vsimmonsS4@gmail.com own personality and lots of it. She was actually named after Roxie on Army Wives, who we thought also had a good personality. We weren’t think ing ’’strong” personality at the time! Our fiuhabies provide com fort, laughter and companion- ship.They provide us with entertainment at times and ask nothing more in return than we feed and take care of them. I do not understand people who let their animals run wild including into the yards of oth er people or who just abandon them. Owning an animal is a responsiblity and should be taken seriously. Wishing you a very blessed week. YOUR COMPLAINTS ARP WASTING GOVERNMENT TIME ANt> MONEY! BUREAU OF TAXPAYER CONCERNS THAT'S FAIR-TH' GOVER'MENT TAKES WAY TOO MUCH OFMYTIME AN'MOST Posture and Economy of Movement When we have a better economy of movement, “it makes the things we have to do in daily living easier.” And when we can balance our weight properly, it can make our weight or whatever addi tional weight we are carrying lighter and it will not be as fatiguing throughout our day and will keep from aging our bodies as rapidly. This applies to “using proper technique in exercises as well.” In close proximity of our center of gravity, our strength and support goes up, but the further away from this that we get with whatever we’re lifting or carrying, “the weaker our support system gets.” Example: if you hold a gallon jug of water close to your body, it feels light, but if you hold it out at arms length it will feel very heavy and you will tire rapidly “holding it like this.” This would get especially tiring if you had to walk a distance holding this gallon jug in this extended position, however if you held it against your body, the load would seem much lighter. Next try extending your arm out in front of you and walking a distance, eventu ally your arms would feel like they’re supporting a load of bricks compared to when they are hanging along your sides and close to your center of gravity. I’m simply using the above example to show how fatiguing it can be if our body parts are not positioned to make the most of our center of gravity and instead are positioned away from it putting pressure on the back and causing unnecessary compression. Over a period of time this will cause wear and tear much like carrying a load of bricks on one side of a pickup bed, “eventually it could cause a degenerative condition on that side or at the least a herniated tire”. Exercise can help strength en our posture, but we also need to address something else that we do not hear much of and that’s “muscular bal ance.” This is fairly easy to keep in balance by making so an even amount of exercise is distributed between pulling and pushing exercises. We see this imbalance oft times in someone who puts primary focus on exercises for chest and abs which will eventually pull the shoulders forward because of the amount of muscle on the front side vs the back side. A good way to check to see if there is an im balance in strength is to see if you can pull the same amount of weight that you can push. We can keep ourselves aligned with our center of gravity and improve our posture by keeping our head level with our ear lobes lined up with our shoulders and our shoulders lined up with our hips. “This will help with standing or sitting posture and will position us much stronger against whatever weight we carry whether our own bodyweight or additional weight we have to carry. When we keep bad posture, Your Health by Wade Yoder Master Trainer & Fitness Nutrition Specialist we can expect it to eventually accumulate into degenerative disks, knee and hip problems and at the least miserable bone, joint and spinal condi tions! “If we can lighten the load we carry 30%, (by keep ing good posture) would it not be worth it, if we were 30% less tired at the end of the day and have 30% less wear and tear on our skeletal structure?” This can help us have a much better power and economy of movement in our youth and our Golden Years as well... is published every week by Crawford Publishing, LLC. Our Staff Floyd Buford - President Victoria ’’Vicky” Simmons - GM/Publisher vsimmons54@gmail.com or byronbuzz@pstel.net Renee Goggins - Layout/Graphic Design Susan Gamto - Freelance Reporter Robbie Robertson - Distribution Carey Lee - Sports Photography Trenesia Y. Stubbs, Charles Cook, Denisia Stallings, Student Assistant Nancy Gibbs, Billy Powell, Angie Carr, Jeff Cook, Wade Yoder, Dan Gatlyn, James Earnhardt, Robert Tharpe, Rev. James Snyder, Spencer Price - Contributing Columnists Our Policies Deadlines are Noon on Friday prior to issue. The comments featured on the opinion pages are the sole creations of the writers, they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Post management. Letters to the editor must be signed and include a telephone number. We do edit grammar, spelling and punctuation when necessary. Libelous, slanderous or profane letters will not be published. We only accept three letters from the same person on the same subject and letters should be less than 250 words. Liability for errors in advertising will not exceed space occupied by error. OFFICE HOURS: Monday 9 am. - 5 p.m.; Tuesday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Wednesday 10:00 a.m. - 3 p.m.; Thursday Closed ; Friday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Office is closed on weekends. 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