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PAGE 4A • THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2007
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Editorial Views
Speaker’s Visit Left A
Bad Taste About HR 900
The overriding impression Speaker of the House
Glenn Richardson left on his Commerce audience
last Thursday was that he is an arrogant and rude
politician who doesn't care what anyone else thinks
about his controversial tax scheme. Considering
that he wants to change the entire structure of local
school and government funding, his rude treatment
of his audience and his decision to take but three
questions after a 30-minute slide show promoting
House Resolution 900 were insulting to his audience
and to his host, Kiwanian Keith Ariail.
The most galling part of Richardson's proposal
is his declaration that spending by Georgia school
boards has gotten out of hand. School taxes have
risen, and Richardson is one of the reasons. Every
year, the General Assembly funds a smaller percent
age of the overall cost of educating a student than it
did the previous year. Its total outlay for education
continues to rise, but the state continues to reduce
its commitment to the education of children. For
Richardson to participate in that revenue shift and
then berate boards of education because they had to
increase taxes to make up the difference is a study in
hypocrisy and arrogance.
Georgia schools cannot refuse to educate children
when state funding is cut. They remain bound by per
sonnel contracts, they must provide classroom space
under guidelines set by the General Assembly, they
have no choice but to operate school buses regardless
of the cost of fuel, and they must meet every other
mandate the state (or federal) government creates but
does not fund. Of course local taxes go up!
When the legislature breaks the law — which it
has done every year by not funding education to
the level required by the Quality Basic Education
Act — local taxpayers have to make up the difference.
When Gov. Sonny Perdue made his "austerity" cuts,
those school systems without adequate reserves had
to increase taxes. When a school system encounters
500 more students one year than the last, it cannot
enlarge classes, it must provide more rooms and
more teachers or risk losing accreditation.
Richardson's selling point is the elimination of that
late-in-year property tax bill, particularly for those
with substantial amounts of property — the wealthy,
business and industry. To do that, he proposes more
sales tax — a 62 percent increase in the rate and the
elimination of all current exemptions — for grocer
ies, medication, doctor's visits, professional and
personal services. The poor and working class who
have little property to be taxed would no longer
pay property taxes, but they would be nickeled and
dimed to death every time they spent money for
groceries, medication, doctors' or attorneys' fees,
funerals or any other necessity of life. Even then, the
state would determine how much money your local
school board or county commissioners could spend
to provide the level of service voters say they want.
And that is the worst aspect. The General Assembly
will dole out the revenue to Georgia's cities, counties
and schools, but members like Richardson will not
be accountable if there isn't enough money to pro
vide basic services. The General Assembly is already
being sued by a number of school systems — includ
ing Commerce's — for failure to provide the legally
required level of funding for education. Now it wants
to totally control not just the funding of schools, but
the funding of every city and county government in
Georgia with a tax that hits the poor and working
class the hardest.
There is nothing inherently evil about changing
the state's method of taxation, but any plan to do
so should be an honest attempt to create equity,
rather than a raw grab for increased state power at the
expense of the working class. Rep. Richardson's plan
— and his character — fall well short of the mark.
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 BEARDSLEY Editor/General Manager
BRANDON REED Sports Editor
TERESA MARSHALL Office Manager
MERRILL BAGWELL 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.
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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.
The Spirit Of Christmas Past
Last Sunday was commu
nion Sunday at the Methodist
church, and as the congrega
tion took communion, the
choir sang some of the old
English carols that to me are
so hauntingly beautiful and
even mysterious, as if they
bear in their eerie and solemn
harmonies all the weight and
import of the past. I was sit
ting there in the pew with
my parents, being prayerful,
I guess you could say, when I
was assailed by the memory of
a Christmas past, and went fly
ing back in time, like Scrooge
in "A Christmas Carol," to the
Christmas of 1964.
I'd spent the previous year
going to college in Scotland,
but had contrived to get home
for Christmas and surprise my
parents. In 1964, they returned
the favor. They knew I missed
my Scottish friends and espe
cially my Scottish boyfriend,
Robin, and since I had missed
Christmas in Scotland the
year before, that was their gift
to me: a round-trip ticket to
Edinburgh for Christmas week.
I recall nothing of the flight.
The first thing I remember is
arriving at the flat I had shared
with other foreign students for
part of the year before; Robin
and several of his university
friends had leased it when we
moved out, so it was a bit like
coming home. The key was on
the lintel, and I let myself in
A Few
Facts, A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
BY SUSAN HARPER
and was sitting at the kitchen
table when one of Robin's flat
mates came back from class.
"Oh, hullo, Sarah," he said
absently, sorting through his
mail. I'd been gone half a year,
of course, but was I that forget
table? "Hi, Danny," I answered,
in my inescapably American
accent, and then he was stam
mering apologies, covered in
confusion, and I understood:
Robin had a new girlfriend.
The shock was terrific. Why
had Robin said nothing in
his letters? And what could I
do? On a student's budget, I
couldn't afford to flounce off.
My flight home was a week
away. Robin's family — whom
I'd never met — expected me.
By the time he came in, I
think maybe I'd grown up a
little, just sitting there at the
kitchen table. I looked up at
him but didn't move, and
he knew that something was
amiss. Danny said, "Cat's out
of the bag, I'm afraid, old
man," and I watched Robin
cover the same mental territory
I had. There was no decent
escape route for either of us.
Robin's family welcomed me
warmly into their small home
and simple village life. We went
for walks on the hills above the
ocean, our eyes stinging from
the cold wind; we ate porridge
for breakfast, winter vegetables
from the garden for lunch, and
squirrel stew for supper; and
on Christmas Eve we split up
and ran around to the shops
to buy a few small gifts, try
ing not to run into each other.
I felt as if I had taken up
residence in a Currier & Ives
painting. At night Robin's sister
and I shared secrets and talked
into the darkness, and then lay
quietly, listening to their father
play "Once in Royal David's
City" on his cello.
I had one of the loveliest
Christmases of my life that
year, and when it was over I got
on a train back to Edinburgh,
alone, and never saw Robin or
his family again. But they have
lived in my heart from that day
to this, and grateful memories
of them, and of my parents'
generosity, well up in me
whenever I hear that fine old
carol. I was given the gift of
Christmas itself, and perhaps
there's no better gift.
Susan Harper is director of the
Commerce Public Library.
The Zen Of Noodles
This Thanksgiving, as
we have done for every
Thanksgiving I can remember,
we had homemade noodles.
Prometheus gave us fire,
Newton gave us calculus,
but my grandmother gave us
noodles, and I would rate her
the highest. And not only are
they delicious, the philosophy
of noodles holds the secret of
contentment.
Noodle-making is a two-day
affair and a two-person job.
You start by mixing up a batch
of dough (made of ordinary
dough-stuff, I believe) into two
tennis-ball size blobs. Each one
has to be rolled out into a very
thin sheet, about 15 by 15. The
paterfamilias has to do that
part; that is the man's job. It is
like making ice-cream: you do
it until you can't do it any lon
ger and then it is ready.
Then the Mom rolls up each
sheet into a little tube and cuts
across the tube about a million
times to cut out the individual
noodles. (This step teaches you
Views
In
Rotation
BY WILLIS COOK
attention to detail, and also
patience.) When all the noo
dles are cut, each one has to be
unrolled. So, at the end of an
hour of the most tedious work
imaginable, you have a platter
of long, loose noodles.
The noodles have to dry, so
normally the above steps are
a day ahead of time. It used
to be that the traditional dry
ing place was on top of the
refrigerator, but our refrigera
tor blows the hot air out the
bottom so my wife dries the
noodles in the oven with the
light on. (Besides, years ago
when the noodles were on the
refrigerator, the cat discovered
them and thought she was
in cat-heaven. Fortunately I
was the one to find her there
and quietly put her out and
smoothed out the trampled
noodles. I didn't tell anyone
until Thanksgiving dinner was
over.)
The next step encompasses
the great secret of noodles: one
batch of them is boiled and
one batch butter-fried. The
boiled ones are just noodles,
but the fried ones are to die
for. There is nothing like
crunchy fried noodles drip
ping with butter. Every year
we asked our Mom to fry the
whole batch and every year she
refused, but she agreed to fry
more than she boiled. Since
the fried ones are so good it
seems like they would be bet
ter all fried, but that is not so. I
guess the boiled ones, by being
so bland, make the fried ones
that much better. This is the
Please Turn To Page 5A
It's Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
Going ‘Green’
Not Necessarily
A Simple Matter
I decided to decrease my footprint.
No, I'm not planning surgery to
reduce my size 13 clodhoppers to
a more reasonable 11. I thought I
should be the good steward and do
what I can to reduce my "carbon
footprint" in regard to global warm
ing. It's the "in" thing now.
You know the drill. Get the best
mileage from your car, recycle what
you can, conserve electricity and
water. Live cheaply, you might say. I'd
say, frugally — do your part to use a
little less of the world's resources.
Philosophically, those things are
right up my ally. I've talked about
(but not yet acted upon) acquiring
a rain barrel. We cut our household
water usage down to 2,600 gallons
last month. I turn off lights when I
leave the room. My garden is (was)
pretty much organic. I recycle news
papers.
Alas, it's not that simple.
Take recycling newspapers. At some
point, the recycling bin is full to
overflowing, and the Plant Manager
of the Beardsley household issues an
order. "Get rid of the papers."
So, I bundle them up and take them
to the recycling bin at Lanier Tech on
South Broad Street.
Unfortunately, the drive to Lanier
Tech creates more greenhouse gases
than I save through recycling. I'm
losing ground — unless I drop the
newspapers there on the way to
somewhere else.
I've made three trips to look at rain
barrels. Given that the capacity of the
barrels runs from 50 to 65 gallons,
my contribution to the preservation
of the city reservoir — assuming I
eventually acquire a barrel — is lim
ited to probably 500 gallons at the
most over the next growing season.
The trade-off in emissions, not to
mention the water used to refine oil
into gasoline for finding the barrel is
not going to win me the Nobel Prize
for conservation. I could build my
own, but the savings in raw materials
from recycling an existing container
is more than offset by the ugliness of
a 55-gallon drum on the back patio.
Paper or plastic? Is the saving of
our forests in using plastic instead
of paper bags negated by amount
of Iranian oil used to make a plastic
bag? Does it take more water to make
a paper bag or plastic? Personally, I
have to factor in the satisfaction of
knowing that paper will at least rot,
but you get the idea.
In business, systems are analyzed to
see if they're cost-effective. If I apply
that to my personal stewardship, the
need for adjustments is apparent.
Let the newspapers pile up until I'm
heading toward the recycling bin
anyway. Refuse bags when possible,
make efficiency a paramount criteri
on when buying appliances, vehicles,
light bulbs or plumbing fixtures,
mulch all plants ... there are a mil
lion tiny ways to be a little less inef
ficient and either a little less wasteful
of the earth's resources or a tad less
of a contributor toward global warm
ing or reservoir depletion.
Being a good steward is a process
that requires patience, practice and a
philosophical commitment. It hap
pens incrementally; a change of habit
here, a little effort there and maybe
even some inconvenience.
It all starts with wanting to be a
good steward, but it takes a lot more
effort than you'd think.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The Commerce
News. He can be reached at mark@main-
streetnews.com.