Newspaper Page Text
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017
THE JACKSON HERALD
PAGE 7A
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost
omnipotent. ” - Henry Ward Beecher ~
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
After the meltdown
As an NFL linebacker for the
Chicago Bears, Jerrell Freeman
was accustomed to performing
acts of heroism on the playing
field, but you may have
seen on national media
where he was quite a
hero in the airport at
Austin, Texas, recently.
He was eating his
lunch about to catch
a flight for his team’s
training camp, back in
July.
A man seated across
the room was obviously
in distress and a woman
trying to give him aid
wasn’t having any luck.
Freeman ran over and
snatched the man up
from behind. He had never per
formed the Heimlich maneuver,
but with a couple of hard jerks he
dislodged the food from the guy’s
throat and in a few seconds the
man was breathing normally.
The local attorney whose life
had just been saved was extreme
ly grateful. After the customary
“selfie.” a hug and a handshake.
Freeman left the food court to
board his flight. The lawyer sat
back down and proceeded to finish
his sandwich.
That must have been some
awfully good brisket.
* * *
A story about my late mother’s
Bulldog last week prompted an
acquaintance of mine to tell me
about an incident involving a Jack
Russell Terrier. He knew a guy
that had one of these dogs that
accompanied him everywhere he
went. The man (a farmer) thought
so much of it he put a wooden box
on the fender of his tractor so the
dog could ride with him on the
machine. The two were insepa
rable.
My friend Ron told someone
about this who had recently lost
his wife. The man decided that he
needed a dog like this for compan
ionship. He wasn’t discouraged
when he found out that a pure
bred Jack Russell was going to
cost him about $800. The breeder
cautioned him about how hyperac
tive they were. He also told him
to keep the dog restrained until
it got accustomed to its new sur
roundings.
For several weeks, the man
would not let the dog leave the
house unless it was on a leash. He
finally decided he would let the dog
go out on the deck unrestrained,
but he blocked-off the
opening with a piece
of plywood so the dog
could not run down the
steps.
When he opened the
back door it ran to the
makeshift gate and
never slowed down.
It hopped over it and
disappeared into the
countryside. The fel
low went all over the
area looking for the dog
and even put up signs
offering a reward. But
it has now been several
months and as far as we know, the
poor guy has not seen his com
panion since the day it jumped-off
his deck.
We inherited my mother’s dog
when she passed away and lost it
and our own beloved pet of many
years in the same month in 2013,
due to old age. I buried the two
dogs a few feet apart by the fence
in our back yard.
I mean no disrespect for my dear
mother, but somehow when she
passed away her dentures wound
up in a sandwich bag inside our
house, where they remained for
several months. One day, my wife
handed me the bag and said “I
don’t care what you do with these
but they’re not going to stay on top
of our refrigerator any longer.”
You can’t recycle dentures like
you can reuse frames for glass
es, but somehow I just couldn’t
throw them in the trash. I decided
I would bury them in the back
yard between the two dogs. As I
walked away from the interment,
I couldn’t help but think about
someone grading out for a factory
or warehouse in that spot many
years from now. I could visualize
the men coming across the skeletal
remains of the dogs and the human
teeth and the project being shut
down for a crime scene investiga
tion. Rambling on.
* * *
I was in the 11th grade in high
school in southwest Atlanta when
Solicitor General Floyd Hoard
lost his life when his car got
dynamited. The Atlanta-Journal
Constitution had a picture of the
mangled wreckage of what had
been a brand new Ford Galaxy, on
the front page. I didn’t even know
where Jackson County or Jeffer
son was at that time. I had never
even passed through the place.
But I do remember the cold chill
that ran down my spine. I thought
to myself “Damn, those people in
that place don’t play around.”
Since I moved here in the early
1980s. I have heard scores of peo
ple talk about that horrific event
and it is amazing how many differ
ent versions there are of the same
story. But the common thread
among all the different ideologies
is that one way or the other. Jack-
son and some surrounding coun
ties were about to be rid of their
bootlegging, car theft and other
thriving criminal activities. It is
an awful tragedy that Floyd Hoard
had to give his life to jump-start
this house-cleaning.
In my research for these remarks,
I came across the fact that when
(then) Governor Lester Maddox
sent in the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation, they were instructed
to have no interaction with local
authorities in the investigation of
the murder. The (undated) account
I read claimed that Jackson is still
the only county in the State of
Georgia that the GBI can enter
and investigate anything at will,
without notifying local authorities.
Another fact I found interesting
is that Floyd Hoard was born and
raised in Fayette County, a coun
ty that adjoins Clayton County,
where I grew up.
* * *
Trying to end on a lighter note,
I thought I would pass on a few
“Fumblerules” by William Safire.
These are suggestions to writers
as to how they can improve their
writing skills:
•Don’t use no double negatives.
•Avoid commas, that are not
necessary.
•Never use a long word, when a
diminutive word will do.
•Proofread carefully to see if
you any words out.
•I can’t make these dots stop
coming, but thanks for reading.
Mike Rector is a local contrac
tor. Send comments to mikerec-
tor405@gmail.com or 405 Wash
ington Pkwy., Jefferson, GA.
mike
rector
PARIS, France - The mood in
the City of Lights is never ambiva
lent—it is always festive and elec
tric. It is difficult not to enjoy
oneself in the capital of
France where food and
wine are never without
compatibility. Hard
to have a bad experi
ence here, based on one
man’s exposure.
However, there are
the many who castigate
the French, citing arro
gance as justification for
finding fault. Methinks
it has to do with the fact
that there is a sophis
tication which has an
overt expression of contempt for
the American tourist who saunters
up to a Frenchman and initiates
conversion with, “Hey, you speak
English?”
Over the years, there have been
many landings here, a statement
spoken with appreciation. In all
those years, I have never had one
single bad experience. If I am to
enjoy an evening in your home,
good footing with the host begins
with good manners and politeness.
You never tire of a walk along the
Seine where monuments abound
including one to Thomas Jeffer
son, the author of the Declaration
of Independence. This time of the
year, the queues are extended but
returning to the Louvre, the most
visited museum in the world, and
smiling at the Mona Lisa again—
is an encore to be treasured.
The Eiffel tower, the Arc de Tri-
omphe and Musee D’Orsay, still
hold sway with visitors from the
Meg Vuillet
world’s four corners, but you can
walk out of your hotel go right
or left, walk a couple of blocks
and happen upon a brassiere for
an impromptu lunch and,
or dinner that leaves the
senses charged and ful
filled. This is what is
noteworthy about Paris
traditionally. Sidewalk
cafes and street scenes—
professional women,
smartly dressed, casual
ly pedaling bicycles or
darting and sauntering
about on motor bikes for
their next commitment;
pedestrians thronging the
avenues and side streets,
a housewife walking briskly with
an armload of French bread.
Two hour lunches seem to
always be in progress, often start
ing before noon. Redundancy in
Paris remains fraught with magical
moments. Did I say how good
the wine is?
Suddenly, it is early evening
and a familiar face welcomes us
into her real estate office. Meg
Gibson Vuillet, who grew up in
Athens, did as so many do—when
she and her husband, Nicolas,
became empty nesters (there are
four kids). There was an urge
to expel boredom. Real estate
in Paris brings about an expo
sure to upscale clientele, which
means you are interacting with the
sophisticated, accomplished and
cultured. “Life in France,” she
says, “is always fascinating.”
Friends back home come to see
her. She is happy to show off her
adopted city. She is happy to
connect them to the Eiffel Tower
when it is all lit up at night—noth
ing could be more spectacular—
the countless museums, the Tuile-
ries Gardens and an off street cafe
which only locals know about.
She can be a tour guide, she can
be a hostess; she loves the French
food tradition and she likes to
cook. She enjoys company and
has adjusted the Parisian lifestyle
of parties which begin at 8:30 p.m.
and end at midnight.
Developing an affinity for good
taste and sophistication was easy
to come by in that her parents
George and Patti Gibson were
imbued with cultural leanings.
Although her parents have passed
away, she still returns to Athens
and Atlanta to see family (a broth
er and a sister) and friends. She
is happy to have grown up in a uni
versity town which helped make
easier the transition of settling in
an international city.
After majoring in early child
hood education at Clemson, Meg
enrolled in the Gemological Insti
tute of America, then located at
Santa Monica, Ca., which is where
she met Nicolas who is an expert
in antique jewelry.
Her life as an expatriate has
been rewarding and fulfilling. She
puts in long hours, catches the
Metro and goes home to organize
dinner. Many working women in
many places in the world do that-
-but their cultural options pale to
that of Meg’s when the sun sets.
Loran Smith is a columnist for
Mainstreet Newspapers. He is the
co-host of the University of Geor
gia football tailgate show.
loran
smith
The news just keeps
getting worse about
Plant Vogtle
By Tom Crawford
When it comes to the nuclear reactors Georgia Power has
been trying to build at Plant Vogtle, there never seems to be any
good news - just a steady stream of ever-worsening bad news.
The latest wave of negative news hit last week in the form
of disclosures by top executives of the Southern Co., the
Atlanta-based holding company that owns Georgia Power and
several other utilities.
They confirmed that the total cost of the Vogtle project, if it
were ever to be actually completed, will be at least $25 billion,
but it could potentially reach as high as $27 billion.
That final cost range of $25 billion to $27 billion is nearly
double the $14 billion that Georgia Power estimated the proj
ect would cost when it first proposed it to the Public Service
Commission back in 2008.
Georgia Power is responsible for 45.7 percent of that cost,
with the remainder divided up among the other project part
ners: Oglethorpe Power (30 percent), MEAG Power, (22.7
percent) and Dalton Utilities (1.6 percent).
As we have noted in this space many times before, these cost
increases will inevitably be passed along to the customers of
these utilities in the form of higher monthly power bills much
higher monthly bills
But wait, there’s more: Southern Co. revealed that the ser
vice date for the Unit 3 reactor has been pushed back to the
period between February 2021 and March 2022, while the
Unit 4 reactor won’t start operating until sometime between
February 2022 and March 2023.
When the project was initially authorized by the PSC, Geor
gia Power said Unit 3 would be operating by 2016 and Unit 4
by 2017. That means the project is now at least five to six years
behind schedule.
There is one faint bit of optimism for the Vogtle partners.
Westinghouse, the primary contractor on the project, was
forced into bankruptcy in March because of the cost overruns.
Southern Co. has now assumed management responsibility for
completing the reactors.
Toshiba, the parent company of Westinghouse, has said it
will pay the Vogtle partners $3.68 billion because of the bank
ruptcy, an amount that would be deducted from the current
cost estimate of $25 billion. That would seem to be some good
news among all the bad.
However, Toshiba is on increasingly shaky financial ground
itself and could eventually end up filing for bankruptcy as
well - which puts the future of that $3.68 billion payment very
much in doubt.
The PSC's public interest advocacy staff has already sug
gested that Georgia Power’s shareholders should have to eat
the cost if Toshiba skips out on that $3.68 billion payment. The
staffers said in a recent filing: "the risk of non-collection of the
Toshiba Parental Guarantee is appropriately on the company,
not ratepayers.”
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an intervening
party in the Vogtle case, filed a similar recommendation with
the PSC.
That recommendation set off a nuclear reaction from Geor
gia Power’s chief attorney, Kevin Greene. He fired off a sternly
worded letter to the PSC demanding that the commissioners
reject the recommendation - a move that would, of course,
enable the utility to pass off that possible loss of funds to the
ratepayers.
“Approving such recommendations will have far reaching
adverse impacts upon the Vogtle Project, the Company, and all
customers,” Greene complained.
In the same week that all this bad news came crashing down
in Georgia, two South Carolina utilities made the difficult
decision to kill a nuclear project that was similar to Vogtle in
some significant ways.
The South Carolina venture involved the construction by
Westinghouse of two reactors that are identical in design to
the reactors at Vogtle - and like Vogtle, the project had nearly
doubled its original construction budget.
Southern Co. will soon be faced with the same decision.
Company officials say they will tell the PSC by the end of
August whether they are going to cancel the Vogtle project or
continue with construction.
But even pulling the plug on Vogtle would not be cheap
“If a decision is made to cancel the project, we have estimat
ed Georgia Power’s cancellation cost at approximately $400
million,” Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning said.
That cost would also be passed along to ratepayers, just in
case you were wondering.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia Report, an internet
news service at gareport.com that reports on state government
and politics. He can be reached at tcrawford@gareport.com.
The Jackson Herald
Founded 1875
Merged with The Commerce News 2017
The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Herman Buffington, Publisher 1965-2005
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher & Advertising Manager
Angela Gary Associate Editor Features
Alex Pace Braselton News Editor
Ron Bridgeman Reporter
Ben Munro Sports Editor
Charles Phelps Sports Reporter
Wesleigh Sagon Photographer/Features
MEMBER
• Georgia Press Association
• National Newspaper Association
• Inland Press Association
• International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors
Postmaster: Send Address Changes To:
MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.
PO Box 908
Jefferson, Georgia 30549-0908
Web Site: www.JacksonHeraldTODAY.com
Email: mike@mainstreetnews.com
Voice: 706.367.5233
Fax: 706.621.4117 (news)
Periodical Postage paid at
Jefferson, GA 30549 (SCED 271980)
Yearly Subscriptions: $25.00