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PAGE 4A • THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2007 mion Editorial Views Time Now To Plan To Deal With Next Drought While various groups try to determine exactly who should be held accountable for the current drought, it really is time to start planning for how we will deal with future dry spells. This drought is reaching his toric proportions, but the next drought won't have to be this severe to be damaging. Without a doubt, the General Assembly and the Environmental Protection Division will mandate certain changes regarding future water usage. Local governments should start figuring out steps they can take that are not limited to but could include discus sion of the following steps: • conservation rates. These are already in effect in many localities. Basically, the rates accelerate as usage increases to encourage less usage. • the elimination of irrigation meters. Encouraging people to water lawns and landscapes has been a marketing tool in the past. Today, the emphasis should be on conserving water rather than usage. •the requirement of water-efficient commodes, faucets and showerheads, not just in new buildings, but retrofitted into every building that has water service. •regulation of private wells or ponds. •year-round limitations on non-essential usage of water, from watering landscapes to washing cars. •more careful consideration of potential busi nesses and industries that use significant amounts of water. •limitations on pools and fountains. •limiting new developments to conserve water. These may seem like reasonable steps during a time of drought, but they will not be politically advisable once the current crisis is past, when the reservoirs are full and no drought is imminent. The challenge will be to devise rules that are not draconian but which will enable Georgians to better manage water usage. One of the criticisms of the Metro Atlanta area, for example, is that rules requiring high-efficiency fau cets, showerheads and commodes were beaten back by developers and real estate companies who saw them as detrimental to their businesses. Yet those are exactly the kinds of steps that should be taken. Local governments must get creative. Are there tax incentives to entice people to retrofit their houses or their rental properties? Cannot a public relations campaign be devised to encourage citizens to adapt practices that require less water? Is there an incentive program similar to what Commerce has done to promote the purchase of gas water heaters that could encourage the conversion to more effi cient water usage? Can a program be developed to help residents determine when a line or appliance has developed a leak, to educate people about plants and grasses that use less water or to demonstrate gar dening and landscape practices that conserve water? At the same time, officials and citizens must under stand that water conservation has a cost. It might be reflected in new rates, in the cost of retrofitting homes and offices with the latest commodes and faucets, or in reduced growth, but it will reach every one. So too, will the benefits as measured in lower per capita usage and greater security in the face of subsequent droughts. The current drought has dem onstrated our water resource weaknesses. Now is the time to begin these discussions. If officials wait until the drought has eased, citizens will lose interest, and the opportunity for dramatic improvements in water usage will be lost. It's time for water companies to quit looking at water only as a revenue source and start viewing it as a critical natural resource. Finding new sources of water and building new storage (reservoirs) are important, but our best defense against the next drought is to cut per capita water usage permanently. We can't get started soon enough. Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached by e-mail at mark@main- streetnews.com. The Commerce News ESTABLISHED IN 1875 USPS 125-320 1672 South Broad Street Commerce, Georgia 30529 MIKE BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher MARK BEARDSFEY Editor/General Manager BRANDON REED Sports Editor TERESA MARSHAFF Office Manager MERRIFF BAGWEFF Cartoonist THE COMMERCE NEWS is the legal organ of the city of Commerce and is published every Wednesday by MainStreet Newspapers Inc. Periodical postage paid at Commerce, Georgia 30529. Subscription Rates Per Year: Jackson, Banks and Madison Counties $19.75; State of Georgia $38.85; out-of-state $44.50. Most rates discounted $2 for senior citizens. POSTMASTER send address changes to THE COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson, GA 30549. Is it possible Sir, that just this ONE TIME, you made a mistake and ended the wrong drought? Are You Sure We’re Alone? I've never been much for costumes. Actually, that's an understatement; the truth is, I'd pay good money to get out of wearing one. I'm that woman whose wig keeps slip ping, and whose feet keep tripping over the hem of a costume that fit perfectly just a week earlier. I'm the one who ends up looking so piti ful that people aren't sure whether I'm in costume, or just weird enough to have come to the grocery store in my bathrobe. So to say that I dread Halloween would be another understatement. I start worry ing about it in late July — to no avail, of course. It arrives anyway. And the funny thing is, I'm half glad, because I've always loved the basic idea of it: All Hallow's Eve, when the spirits of the dear departed (and perhaps — who knows? — the not-so-dear departed) walk abroad for a few hours before slipping back to their final rest ing place just as All Saints' Day dawns. A superstition, of course — echoed in many cultures. Perhaps it's one of the many ways we humans twist and turn in our efforts to make friends with what we per sonify sometimes as the Grim Reaper, whom the poet E.E. Cummings addressed as A Few Facts, A Lot Of Gossip 2 BY SUSAN HARPER "Mister Death." ("Ah, here it is at last," Henry James is said to have said on his deathbed: "the Distinguished Thing.") Maybe some of us have the urge to tweak that distinguished nose a bit, like naughty chil dren, and then run away. Halloween's the perfect night for that. I love all the traditions: the witch on her broomstick, the ghosts on the fence posts, the carved pumpkins lighting people's porches (a connection to the harvest and the cycle of death and rebirth even in the vegetable kingdom). It takes centuries of history to impart this kind of resonance. It also takes Mister Death, so of course my favorite part of the observance is All Saints' Day itself. That, for me, is when those we've loved and lost rise up — in memory, anyway. I seem to feel them all around me like the "great cloud of witnesses" referred to in the book of Hebrews: Miss Fannie Henry, a tiny woman but a great lover of life, and the maker of the world's best rum cake; Gerald Jordan, our "Voice of the Tigers" for so many years, and also a quietly tireless worker for civic bet terment; Annie Mae Cochran, whose steady presence, funny stories, and profound wisdom were just part of her legacy to the library and the com munity. My Aunt Mera. Her husband, Horace, gone these many years. My diminutive and clever Great Aunt Emily Jane, who rescued her Middle Georgia town from the specter of bankruptcy after the Great Depression by driving around in a horse-drawn carriage and collecting taxes, "just whatever you can pay" — and who is best remembered now for her hats! And of course, my grand mother. I weep my way through the All Saints' Day service at the church every year, mopping at my face, furtively stuffing the wet Kleenexes into my purse, aware that the tears are tears of gratitude for the gift of having known these souls, these saints, and for the great heart (and humor) of their creator. Susan Harper is director of the Commerce Public Library. So Much For ‘Honor System’ On Halloween night, I con ducted a small experiment at my home. Discovery is usually the consequence of experimen tation, with the results being positive, negative or at least hopeful. Since I am a person who thinks of a glass as being half full, I view the results of the experiment as being hope ful, if not completely positive. Knowing that I was not going to be home Halloween night, but not wanting to disappoint the children who regularly have come trick or treating from the time they were car ried to the door and are now escorting younger siblings, I decided to test the "Honor System" of treating the trick sters. Historically, an average of 40 kids has come to the door, so I filled a large, sturdy box with 48 bags of chips, nachos and cheese doodles. I placed the box on a small table inside the railing of the front porch, turned on the porch light, and attached a sign on the box with read: "Honor System. Take one Views In Rotation BY CLAIRE GAUS bag per person, please, Happy Halloween." The result of my experiment was made evident with the simultaneous arrival of a car load of kiddies, myself, and my discovery that not only were the 48 bags of goodies gone, but the box and sign were gone also. The carload of kiddies was sympathetic, and promised to return for their treats next year. Do I feel foolish for having conducted this experiment? Not at all. I was hopeful that honesty would prevail that night as I do any night or day, but I am not so naive as to think that I, nor anyone else, am exempt from another per son's avarice. I learned the next day that several families had come to the box while it was still stocked, so the culprits were later arrivals. What was in the box I had intended to give away in the first place, so the theft was not against me, but from the culprits' own con temporaries, and in some way, themselves. The incident was one which might discourage some people from providing treats in coming years, thus depriving innocent children and the malefactors from the traditional begging for treats, but the tradition of the holiday will continue with the usual brigades of goblins and ghouls being welcome at my door to be rewarded for no trickery. I pray the culprit tricksters of this year were unaccompanied "tweens" and not children escorted by parents exhibiting negative behavior models. Please Turn To Page 5A It's Gospel According To Mark BY MARK BEARDSLEY Screenwriters’ Strike? Will We Be Able To Tell? I'm crushed, as are you no doubt, that the nation's screenwriters are on strike, although I'd have never noticed by watching TV. When you have 54 channels of cable and there's nothing to watch, you're sort of sur prised to find out that the screenwrit ers haven't always been on strike. Granted, I am totally out of the loop on TV. Aside from a little sports, a few old movies and reports of breaking news of worldwide import, I don't see a lot of TV. I'm the only person in North America who's never watched an episode of "Survivor." (My only other claim to fame is I'm the only male in North America who does not have a cell phone, but that's a different topic.) I learned of this development, sec ond only to reports of more terrorist attacks and Hillary's latest presiden tial statements in importance, on National Public Radio. The first thing to go, said NPR, will be late-night shows like the Letterman Show. Well, I never lost sleep over that one either. That's kind of like being a cactus and finding out there's a drought at hand. So what? But, I realize some people actually watch a lot of TV, and you people are going to have to put up with re-runs of CSI Miami and Hannah Montana or learn to converse once again with other souls who share your abode. I'm not sure if this will be a blessing to the American family, or whether we'll see a sharp uptick in domestic violence should viewers, with no fresh nonsense to watch, attempt to wean themselves from the tube dur ing Prime Time. It's frustrating enough when you can barely see Channel 2 or 5 on your cable. Shoot, I could get those better back in the last Ice Age when we had an antenna than I do now. If there was something good to watch on TV, I'd be very unhappy about not being able to see it on those two Atlanta channels. Now, there is not even a concern that I might miss something. TV is a powerful medium, but it's evolved into a source of mostly- mindless entertainment. There are good shows out there, important and inspiring stories being broadcast, but most writers write for the market, and, sadly, the market prefers low brow comedy, mindless violence and "reality" shows that bear no relation to reality. Today, even the news is being scripted to match the prefer ences of the audience. Maybe the news writers will go on strike next. ++++ On the serious side, I owe Bob Williams, candidate for the city council seat from Ward 4, an apol ogy. When I wrote the biographical data on each candidate, I completely left his out. His photo was there, but not a word about him. It was an awful oversight; I was sure that I'd written his biography, but when I finally found my origi nal story, I'd never even typed it. Williams deserved better than that, and I apologize for the screw-up. All candidates deserve equal coverage, and he didn't get it, thanks to my error. No excuses: I blew it. Next time there's an election, I'll run the biographical material in an earlier edition — so if there are errors or omissions there will be time to correct them before the vote. Mark Beardsley is editor of The Commerce News. He can be reached at mark@main- streetnews.com.