Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4A
January 7. 2009
^Reporter
Opinion
Declare among the nations,
and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not;
Jeremiah 50:2
OUR VIEW
Hoping we were wrong
OK, so it is possible that we were wrong.
This newspaper has taken the position in the past that the
county missed an opportunity to compromise with Bibb
County and resolve the festering county line conflict. It
seemed to us that demanding an air-tight, legal resolution to
the dispute over the Bibb-Monroe County line was unwise.
We thought it would lead to an expensive and contentious
process, frightening away developers from south Monroe and
angering a governor trying to move offices to Forsyth.
Besides, the effort seemed futile as the actual location of the
line was thought to have disappeared with the Torrentine
Ferry in the 1800s. It’s a position we shared with the Monroe
County Grand Jury, which also recommended a compromise,
to wit: Using the line as it’s currently recognized by both
counties and making it the law.
Nevertheless, commissioners voted to insist the governor
appoint a surveyor. Alas, the surveyor last week put out
granite markers that seem to move the line 1,000 feet to the
southeast, giving Monroe County back from Bibb its rightful
territory established in 1822. The final outcome isn’t known.
But the Bibb County chairman who threatened a lawsuit
over the surveyor’s findings (before the surveyor even start
ed) was voted out. There are still many unanswered ques
tions. And the process will costs county taxpayers at least
$173,000. But if the county line issue is resolved this year to
Monroe County’s favor at minimal costs, we will no longer
tease commissioner Mike Bilderback for exploring for ante
bellum ferries on the Ocmulgee River. Rather, we’ll perhaps
have to say ole Mike had it right. Pride be damned, we hope
that’s what happens. We shall see.
KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR
Name: Melissa Dunn
Herndon
Age: 24
Education: B.S. in Child
& Family Development
Family: Jeffrey Herndon
(husband)
Where you worship:
Forsyth United
Methodist Church
Your Job:
Assistant director
at Bright
Beginnings
Enriched Early
Learning Center
What was your
first job?
Babysitting
Your passion:
Helping others
Your favorite posses
sion: Sanford—our bassett
hound
Favorite movie: “Dirty
Dancing”
Favorite book: Anything
by Nicholas Sparks or James
Patterson
What kind of car do you
drive and what was your
first car? I drive a Jeep
Liberty now but my first car
was a Volkswagon Jetta.
Your hometown: Forsyth
Something you are con
sidering: Finishing gradu
ate school
Words you live by: God
never puts more on you at
one time than you can han
dle.
Something you can’t
live without: My family
The thing you are most
proud of: The relationships
I have with my amazing
friends and family.
What keeps you awake
at night? Nothing!
I sleep really good!
What’s your
favorite website?
Facebook
If you could
start your life
over, what would
you change?
Nothing—I am very
happy with my life!
What food could
you eat every day?
Chocolate
Name something people
don’t know about you: I
have done a lot of travelling.
In fact, I have had the
opportunity to visit 33 of the
48 U.S. Continental states.
What’s the best thing
about living in Monroe
Co? Small town atmosphere.
I love knowing that every
where you turn there is a
dependable person.
If you could change one
thing about Monroe
County, what would it
be? I would have gas prices
comparable to everywhere
else!
DUNN
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, president
Robert M. Williams Jr., vice president
Cheryl S. Williams, secretary-treasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840)
On the Porch
Will you be
E ven self-reliant
dairy farmers like
Monroe County
commissioner Jim
Peters can’t resist.
“I figure maybe we can get
us some of that stimulus
money,” Peters said of
the giant spending
spree that President
elect Barack Obama
is proposing. Peters
wants some “pork” to
help the comity
restore the Plant
Purcale water treat
ment facility.
Fresh off
spending bil
lions to bail out
the financial
and automobile industries,
Congress isn’t like a drunken
sailor. It’s like a drunken
sailor who woke up after his
binge only to discover he had
a winning lottery ticket.
Nevermind that the nation
al debt is as at a record high.
We’ll let the grandkids worry
about it when the note comes
due.
Fortunately, our local gov
ernments are more responsi
ble. Mayor Tye Howard, with
help from city clerk/adminis
trator/zoning officer/manag
er/public information officer
Janice Hall, has cobbled
together what appears to be
a bare-bones budget. As
Howard says, they’re only
doing what families do when
times get tight. You count the
pennies, especially
when it belongs to
someone else, i.e.
the taxpayer.
The comity seems
to have done the
same thing. And to
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s
credit, the
state is cut
ting costs to
avoid hik
ing the
already enormous tax
burden we bear. While New
York’s governor proposes hik
ing taxes on everything from
iPods to movie tickets to
cover its budget shortfall,
Georgia leaders appear to be
merely restraining their
appetite for bigger “pro
grams.” Good for us.
As a nation founded in part
as a protest against excessive
taxation, it’s surprising we
forget how harmful high
taxes are to economic growth
and jobs. After almost two
years as a business owner, I
my stimuli?
have learned how challeng
ing (and exciting) it is to run
a successful enterprise. Given
the difficulties, I am con
vinced we need to do a lot
more to encourage business
ownership. That means cut
ting taxes (our corporate tax
is one of the highest in the
world) and eliminating the
endless hoops the federal
government sets up for busi
ness to jump through.
If we don’t lessen the bur
den, more and more
Americans will naturally say:
Why the heck should I bother
to start a company and cre
ate jobs? It’s more hassle
than it’s worth. Do you think
that attitude will grow us out
of recession?
And it also leads to think
ing like this: Frank Nicastro,
who represents Connecticut's
79th assembly district, is ask
ing that state’s government
to do something to salvage
his hometown daily newspa
per, The Bristol Press. The
paper’s publisher is in danger
of being crushed under mil
lions of dollars in debt, and
can't afford to keep the paper
open. Hmmm, do you reckon
Obama would shove a few C
notes in his stimulus package
for the Reporter?
Well, actually, hometown
weekly newspapers, which
stay closest to their readers
and advertisers, are in much
better shape than dailies.
Besides, I wouldn’t want a
government bailout. Who
would trust a newspaper that
owed its existence to the gov
ernment? That’s what you
get when the State runs the
media in places like Cuba,
China and other un-free
nations.
No, this newspaper will
continue to count on our
faithful readers and advertis
ers to be our stimuli. Your
support, dear friends, gives
us the independence and
freedom to tell the truth —
you liberate us from having
to tow the party fine.
I think that our editorial
independence is one of the
reasons that the Reporter
has grown so much in 2008.
With the economy, this year
may be a little more chal
lenging. But with your sup
port, we pledge to serve you
better in 2009, and hope
you’ll resolve to make us your
weekly companion once
again throughout the year.
Guest Column
So you want some good news?
Y f)u have probably
seen a lot of doom
and gloom this
week. Those year-
end video and
photo montages, year-in-
review summaries, and "a
look back" reflections are
inevitably gloomy even in
boom times. That's likely to
be especially true in 2008, a
year that, admittedly, wasn't
particularly filled with hope
(Barack Obama's campaign
promises aside).
I recently heard a conser
vative talk show
host bemoan the
"lack of God in
our society" as
reason for,
among other
things, the recent
"Santa shooting
massacre" in
Covina,
California. The
left, meanwhile,
is pointing to the
financial melt
down as indica
tive of a different
kind of moral
failing—the
unbridled greed
they associate
with free enterprise.
Truth is, they're both
wrong. The last 12 months
may prove not to be the
most fondly recalled in
recent American history, but
things aren't all that bad.
Most social indicators are
still moving in the right
direction. In general, our
standard of living continues
to improve. Advances in
technology are helping us
beat the diseases most likely
to kill us; giving us more
leisure time; making us
more comfortable; giving us
more convenience; and with
the Internet, putting much
of the world—quite literal
ly—at our fingertips.
So here's the good news:
• Crime rates are still
falling. Violent crime in
America has been in a
freefall since the early
1990s, despite a slight uptick
in 2005 and 2006.
Economists, criminologists,
and sociologists can't conclu
sively say why. Explanations
range from the 1990s eco
nomic boom to changes in
crime-fighting strategy to
the legalization of abortion
By Radley
Balko
to reductions in childhood
exposure to lead. Whatever
the reason, long-term trends
show crime is down across
the board.
• Sex crimes are down,
too. It’s been feared that the
widespread availability of
pornography and the "main-
streaming" of sex may effect
an epidemic of sexual vio
lence. It doesn’t appear to
have happened. Incidence of
rape in America has been in
swift decline for 20 years. In
2006, it hit its lowest point
since the gov
ernment started
keeping statis
tics. Crimes
against children
have also been
in decline. Both
trends have
taken place
over a period in
which there has
been less social
stigma attached
to being the vic
tim of a sex
crime—mean
ing we're seeing
fewer rapes,
even as rapes
are more likely
to be reported. More inter
estingly, they've also taken
place alongside the rise of
the Internet, the medium
that has done more than
any other to mainstream
and provide easy access to
pornography, gambling, and
a host of other vices.
Somehow, society has man
aged to stay afloat.
Our allegedly sexualized
culture hasn't had much
effect in other areas, either.
• The divorce rate is at
its lowest point in four
decades. This is in part
because people are waiting
longer to get married. More
women in the workforce
means more women are
waiting to get married. And
they are getting married for
the right reasons, not merely
for financial security. It's
hard to argue that society is
worse off with strong mar
riages, even if that means
fewer marriages over all.
• Life expectancy is up.
In June, the Centers for
Disease Control
announced that in 2006
(the latest year for which
data is available),
Americans once again set
a record for life
expectancy. Men, women,
blacks, whites—all can
expect to live longer today
than at any point in
American history.
Discrepancies in the average
age of death between ethnic
groups are narrowing, too.
All of those things we're told
need heavy regulation
because they're potentially
killing us—obesity, alcohol,
coffee, sodium, pollution,
stress, cell phones—aren't
doing a very good job.
• We're beating our
biggest killers. The same
CDC report noted that mor
tality rates for eight of the
10 leading causes of death in
America dropped in 2006. In
fact, deaths from the two
biggest killers—cancer and
heart disease—have been in
decline for a decade. Deaths
from the third leading cause
of death, stroke, are also
down.
A generation ago, a cancer
diagnosis was a death sen
tence. No more. In
November the National
Cancer Institute announced
that for six years, both inci
dence of and deaths from
cancer have been in decline,
the first time that's hap
pened since the organization
began issuing its report. The
drops were consistent
among both sexes and across
all ethnic groups, with the
exception of American
Indians, for whom incidence
and deaths largely remained
stable. In 1962, the 5-year
survival rates for five of the
10 leading causes of child
hood cancer were 10 percent
or lower. Today, the survivial
rates for all 10 are at least
55 percent, and six are
above 80 percent.
• The kids are all right.
Despite the periodic out
break of moral panic over
violent videogames,
MySpace, "rainbow parties,"
and dirty lyrics in rap music,
America's kids are getting
along just fine. Teen preg
nancy was up slightly in
2006 (again, the latest year
for which data is available),
but that's after a 15-year
decline to historic lows—
again over the very period
during which critics say our
culture is overly sexualized.
Since 1991, fewer teens are
having sex, fewer are having
sex with multiple partners,
and more are using condoms
when they do engage in
intercourse. The abortion
rate is also at its lowest
point in 30 years.
Beginning in 1994, juvenile
crime dropped dramatically
for a decade. By 2004, juve
nile crime was at its lowest
point in a quarter century.
The numbers edged up
slightly in 2005 and 2006,
but juvenile violent crime is
still 40 percent lower than it
was in 1994. The juvenile
murder rate is a whopping
73 percent below its high in
1993.
• We have more leisure
time. Americans work on
average eight fewer hours
than we did in the 1960s.
Believe it or not, lower-
income Americans are actu
ally more likely to spend
time at leisure and less time
on the job than their wealth
ier counterparts, suggesting
that when we do work long
hours, it's more likely to be
because we want to than
because we have to. We also
seem to be enjoying our
selves more. We're spending
more money per person on
recreation. And the toys we
do have (high-definition tele
visions, iPods, computers,
sound systems) are immea
surably more fun than they
were generations ago.
Doom and gloomers have
been predicting the downfall
of American society for gen
erations. The last 20 or so
years in particular have
seen incredible advances in
technology that have given
us a wealth of new choices,
exponentially enhancing our
personal and economic free
dom. The worrywarts fret
that our society can't handle
that sort of freedom—that
prosperity and unlimited
choices coupled with the
absence of need will spell
our ruin.
This year's headlines aside,
we seem to be handling it all
pretty well.
Radley Balko of
Alexandria, Va. is a senior
editor at Reason magazine. A
version of this article origi
nally appeared at
FoxNews.com.