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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2009
Named the best weekly editorial page in the nation for 2007, 2008
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
our views
One Solitary
Life
An Annual Christmas Message
From The Jackson Herald
T HE IMAGERY of the
Christ Child being born
in a stable beneath a
bright star surrounded by both
learned Wise Men and humble
shepherds is one of the most
powerful pictures in human
history. Humble by birth, He
became a shepherd of men,
a king of kings and the light of
humankind.
Yet, for all His impact on this
world, little is known about the
man we call Jesus. Relative to
others of his era, his known words
are few. And virtually nothing is
known of His childhood after the
birth in Bethlehem.
Many of Jesus’ parables revolve
around the common things He
observed. It’s easy to imagine
that those well-known stories
may have come from the things
he saw as a child.
Perhaps it is by design that we
know so little about His child
hood. But what we know of His
later life was destined to change
the world.
One unknown writer said it
best:
He was bom in an obscure vil
lage.
He worked in a carpenter shop
until he was 30.
He then became an itinerant
preacher.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned
a house.
He didn’t go to college.
He had no credentials but him
self.
He was only 33 when the pub
lic turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to enemies
and went through the mockery of
a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between
two thieves.
While he was dying, his execu
tioners gambled for his cloth
ing, the only property he had on
earth.
He was laid in a borrowed
grave.
Twenty centuries have come
and gone, and today he is the cen
tral figure of the human race.
All the armies that ever marched,
all the navies that ever sailed, all
the parliaments that ever sat, and
all the kings that ever reigned
have not affected the life of man
on this earth as much as that One
Solitary Life.
The Jackson Herald
Founded 1875 • The Official Legal
Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher &
Advertising Manager
News Department
Angela Gary Associate Editor
Jana Adams Mitcham Features Editor
Brandon Reed Sports Editor
Kerri Testement Reporter
Sharon Hogan Reporter
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letters
It’s challenging times for school boards
Dear Editor,
Much time and space has been devoted to criticiz
ing the Jackson County Board of Education in your
publication in recent weeks. 1 would like to offer a few
observations about this issue.
First, I know a couple of members of the Jackson
BOE. They are fine people whom, I believe, have the
best interest of the students at heart. Perhaps they
have made decisions that others would have made dif
ferently, but I don’t doubt why they have made them.
These are challenging times for any school board. I
try to keep that in mind as the BOE makes decisions
affecting the county’s students.
Second, there may be some simpler answers as to
why the costs are higher for students in the county
system. For one thing, there are more students in the
county system than in the local city systems. More
students means more money being spent to educate
them. Also, because there are more students in the
county system, there are many more buildings to
maintain in the county system than in the local city
systems. It stands to reason that more buildings to
maintain would result in spending more money in
the upkeep of those buildings. I know these are not
the only reasons why costs are higher in the county
system, but they are worth thinking about.
We are fortunate to live in a county with three good
school systems. While it is easy to criticize board
members and school officials for the challenging
times we are experiencing, I think our time would be
better spent working together to find solutions to the
issue we face. We also need to continue to highlight
the strengths of our local school systems as we strive
to improve areas of weakness.
Sincerely,
Mike Thompson
Jefferson
(Editor’s Note: You are correct, we do have three
good school systems. However, it is the duty of any
good newspaper to hold public officials accountable
when they make decisions which result in financial
problems for a government agency. The poor con
dition of the county school system’s finances is not
simply the result of outside forces, it is the result of
decisions by local elected officials. We make no apolo
gies for pointing that out.)
"Don't worry, Ralston...
you'll soon come to
appreciate what we've
done for you!"
GOP hopes the scandals go away
THIS HAS not been a happy holiday season for
Republicans who hold the reins of power at Georgia’s
capitol. One after another, embarrassing scandals
have thrown a harsh light on the ethical shortcomings
of the state’s political leaders.
The divorced wife of House
Speaker Glenn Richardson
went on TV and confirmed
that, yes, those rumors you
had heard for the past three
years were true. The speaker
had a “full-out affair” with an
Atlanta Gas Light lobbyist while
he was sponsoring legislation
that would benefit the gas com
pany.
It didn’t take long for pres
sure from within the House
Republican ranks to force
Richardson to step down as
speaker. The second in command, Speaker Pro
Tern Mark Burkhalter, at first indicated he would
step up and serve as a long-term replacement for
Richardson.
Three days after saying that, Burkhalter abruptly told
his colleagues he had “changed his mind” and wasn’t
going to run for speaker after all.
Shortly after Burkhalter’s exit, a Carrollton newspa
per and an Atlanta TV station revealed that Rep. Mark
Butler (R-Carrollton) had an affair that lasted more
than two years with a woman who worked as a lobby
ist for the University of West Georgia.
When Butler learned that his girlfriend’s job had
been eliminated, he got on the phone with a univer
sity official and warned him that he “had ticked off a
whole political party” by dismissing the lobbyist. (In
fairness to Butler, he was unmarried during his rela
tionship with the university lobbyist.)
An Atlanta TV station then aired a sizzling report
about Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, the
Republican frontrunner for governor, attending the
2007 and 2008 Oscar award ceremonies in Hollywood
while an Atlanta doctor paid the expenses.
Oxendine’s expenses on those junkets included a
room at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, limousine service,
and meals at restaurants like Spago’s. The Atlanta
doctor who picked up the tab for the trips, by the way,
had also asked Oxendine’s insurance department to
help him in a dispute with a health insurance com
pany.
After all of that bad publicity, which Democrats will
mention at every opportunity during the 2010 election
campaigns, you had to figure that at some point the
Republicans would catch a break. That may have
happened last week when House Republicans held a
caucus to nominate the replacement for Richardson
as speaker.
The two leading contenders for the position both
had some personal baggage in their backgrounds.
Rep. Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire), while he was the
real estate attorney for Gov. Sonny Perdue, was deeply
involved in the passage of legislation in 2005 that gave
Perdue a $100,000 tax break on some earlier property
dealings. When that bill was up for its final vote in
the House, O’Neal didn’t bother to tell legislators that
the measure had been amended in committee to give
Perdue that tax break.
Rep. David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) had some major
tax problems of his own a few years ago caused by an
embezzling employee in his law firm. Ralston ordered
a forensic audit of his books and then paid the govern
ment the delinquent taxes he owed.
Faced with a choice between O’Neal and Ralston,
House Republicans picked Ralston to be the new
speaker.
“It’s a change message,” Ralston said after the vote.
“It’s not business as usual anymore, and I think people
will appreciate that.”
Ralston said he will make some changes in House
rules and committee assignments that may slow
down, even if they don’t stop entirely, the parade of
scandalous events.
He even went so far as to say: “We going to have
to put the lobbyists and the special interests in the
background.”
If Ralston is serious, that could mean an end
to many of the freebies that legislators have been
receiving from lobbyists, such as expensive trips to
exotic locales or nights on the town during General
Assembly sessions. For those of us who’ve been
observing the behavior of this crowd over the past five
years, that would truly be a drastic change.
Shortly after Ralston was nominated to be the next
speaker of the House, the old speaker, Richardson,
was seen running away from the capitol building with
a TV reporter and camera crew in hot pursuit. That
was a very appropriate symbol of the changes that
took place last week.
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact's
Georgia Report. He can be reached at tcrawford@
capitolimpact.net.
The first gift
of Christmas
was a child
T HERE ARE dozens of smil
ing faces in this week’s news
paper, faces which mute the
cynics and renew the faithless.
Each Christmas, this newspaper
compiles photos of area children in a
special section. It is a Christmas card
to our readers signed by the hundreds
in whose
hands rest
all of our
dreams.
Where but
in the eyes
of a child
can you see
both the
past — little
Tommy has
granddad’s
eyes, sister
Suzie has
her mother’s
hair — and
the future —
Blake wants to
be a fireman, Jane a doctor.
Tomorrow is a memory of today by
the children, youngsters whose inno
cence is our joy, whose faces light up
our homes and whose wonder keeps
tradition alive.
Many cultures believe that it is the old
who keep traditions, who pass down the
wisdom of years and the touchstones
of life. But it is the young who are the
torchbearers. Without a new generation
to teach, traditions mean very little.
It is that faith in the future and our
collective desire to pass the cultural
torch which makes Christmas a special
season. It is a season of faith, not only
of religion, but also in our humanity.
Even with the kitsch and commercialism
being blared around us, the fundamental
desire for “peace on earth, good will to
men” rings through. Our social conven
tions may sometimes be shallow, but
somehow generation after generation
will touch the core of the Christmas
spirit and be renewed.
For some, it is a season of mixed
emotions. Amid all the gaiety, there
are the memories of friends and family
who are gone. The music, the smell of
a Christmas tree and the annual nesting
of families bring back the bittersweet
thoughts.
For others, it will be the last Christmas
together. There are those who face the
inevitable end and even having lived a
good and long life is little consolation to
the families who will miss them.
But in the faces of their offspring, of
the great-grandchildren who laugh and
play around them, is the faith that pulls
life forward. Without the laughter of
children, there would be an emptiness
in their wake.
And so, the torch is passed and the
traditions continue, someday to be
in the hands of those who now play
around the Christmas tree and peek up
the chimney.
The past and the future come together
at Christmas — the memories of our own
childhoods mixed with the new memo
ries now being formed by our children.
They will someday look back at this spe
cial time and smile just as we do at our
own childhood memories.
And someday our children’s children
will tug at the Christmas tree ornaments
and be amazed by the shimmering
Christmas lights along city streets.
They will sing in church plays and
perform in school concerts.
They will sit on Santa’s knee and
promise to be good so they can get that
new bike.
They will look at the nativity set and
rearrange the pieces, always making a
special place for the Baby Jesus.
They will want to watch the tape of
Rudolph until they know every line by
heart.
They will ask 1,000 questions about
the sleigh and reindeer.
They will leave milk and cookies
because Santa’s sure to be hungry.
They will check the stockings every
day, just in case.
They will eat too much candy and be
happy about it.
They will hope.
They will dream.
And they, too, will someday know that
the first gift of Christmas was a child.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson
Herald. This is his annual Christmas column.
He can be reached at mike@mainstreet-
news.com
mike
buffington