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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 13. 2008 mion Editorial Views 1-Size-Fits-All Approach To Drought Doesn’t Work Commerce is having a tough time managing its water during the drought, but it's not so much the water itself as the way the Environmental Protection Division and the governor are micro- managing the state's water systems. Even at the worst (so far) part of a historic drought, Commerce's water supply withstood the test. There was sufficient water in its reservoir to meet the needs of the city and to supplement those of Jackson County, Jefferson, Maysville and Banks County. Nonetheless, Commerce was lumped among the 61 counties who were declared to be at level four for water restrictions and later ordered to trim sales by 10 percent over last year. Basically, it was required to take emergency measures for an emergency to which it was not directly related. Prudence at the time dictated caution, but circumstances since have verified that the city's water system was and is secure. They also suggest that handling Commerce as though it were party to the harder hit areas is not appropriate. For the first two months, the city has been unable to meet the 10 percent reduction required by the governor, falling an insignificant 20,000 gallons per day short. There is no word yet as to what, if any, penalty will be assessed, but that possibility looms. Now, the governor may have offered a reduction in the water restrictions, but if the city is forced to meet the 10 percent cut, it can't follow suit locally. What is the proper response? Commerce officials plan to petition the EPD to have the 21-county Savannah River Basin removed from the areas to which level four restrictions have been imposed from on high. Until that happens, the city must humor the governor as if its basin and its water supply were severely affected by the drought or suffer the consequences. Ironically, the governor signed the new water management plan under which water manage ment decisions would be made basin by basin. In this drought, the governor, EPD and even the General Assembly have succumbed to the temptation to manage the crisis from Atlanta with very little input from the water suppliers who have to deal with the problems. It may be safe to assume that in the next drought those groups will again be quick to adopt a one-size- fits-all response to the drought once the shores of lakes Allatoona and Lanier begin to recede. Local governments realize that there are times when the state must step in and act decisively. The governor, General Assembly and EPD should recognize that one size seldom fits all and be prepared to make adjustments when that is the case. While it makes sense for the city to imple ment water-saving policies as a general principle, it is counterproductive to make Commerce implement emergency measures where there is no emergency — just because there really is an emergency in nearby jurisdictions. Central to the problem is the attitude in Atlanta that the state government knows what's best for everyone. While giving lip service to "smaller government" and "local control," the power of the state offers too tempting a tool to politicians and bureaucrats who seek simple solutions where there are none. The drought is widespread, to be sure, but it is worse in some places than others, and the arbitrary declaration that North Georgia requires its own set of rules and regulations to cope is an overly simplistic view of the drought and has damaging conse quences. 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 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. Subscription Rates Per Year: Jackson, Banks and Madison counties, $19.75; State of Georgia, $38.85; out-of-state, $44.50. Most rates dis counted $2 for senior citizens. POSTMASTER send address changes to THE COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson, GA 30549. Honest, Frank, there are NO monsters in your closet. It’s just noise from the next room where Mommy and I are watching the latest presidential debate.. Going Down The Up Escalator When I lived in Charleston, back in a previous lifetime, I was fascinated to notice that each of the prominent homes had a cast-iron symbol attached to its foundation and clearly visible — but the sym bols weren't all alike. I was even more fascinated to learn that each symbol represented a fire company. Back in Charleston's early days, if your house caught on fire, you didn't call the Fire Department. There wasn't one. You sent word to your fire company, to which you had been making monthly or year ly payments. And if you hadn't been with them long enough, you paid the difference to cover their costs in putting out your fire, plus something for their general overhead. Of course, none of the fire companies could manage to be really well equipped, because none of them had enough money coming in to stay up with the latest developments in early 19th-century firefight ing equipment. So fire was a real source of terror in old Charleston. Now, in "modern-day America," illness is a source of abject fear, because it can strike in an instant, its costs can mount rapidly, and insurance companies into which you A Few Facts, A Lot Of Gossip 2 BY SUSAN HARPER have been paying for years can — unlike the old Charleston fire companies — decide to drop you from their rolls. You may be too ill to work, but you are not too ill to be foreclosed upon, bankrupted, and even forced out onto the street. If you can find me another indus trialized nation that does this to its citizens, I will buy your lunch at Longhorn's. What's so crazy about all this is that it's unnecessary. All we have to do is pool our resourc es. That's how we put out fires. It's how we maintain librar ies, build roads, get water and battle crime. In fact, it's how we do lots of things. So why do we not take care of our health this way? I hear people say that they don't want the government making decisions about their health care. Evidently they're happier when an insur ance company makes them. Whereas in Britain, for exam ple, you choose your own doc tor and he or she works with you to make the decisions that are best for your health. British doctors feel sorry for their American colleagues, who have to tell patients things like, "I'm sorry, but your insurance won't cover the MRI you need." The British GDP (gross domestic product) is poised to overtake Germany's as Britain becomes the strongest economy in Europe. Could this be at least partly because the British have money to spend? Here in modern America, where we pay twice as much as they do for health care, we're so strapped that the govern ment has to send us money in the mail just to pump up the economy. I think they're about to vote to send me $600. Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a bit peculiar? And I'm not supposed to use it to pay off that hospital bill I put on MasterCard. I'm supposed to run out and buy stuff. Who knows? I may have to spend it all at Longhorn's, buying y'all lunch! But hey, it would be quite a party, wouldn't it? And so good for the country, too. Susan Harper is director of the Commerce Public Library. A Candy Bar And A Legacy Buttery, sweet and musky, the taste of good chocolate is at once soothing and exciting. It is earthy and refined, substan tial and fleeting. But the experience of choco late is not just about taste. It is also about feel. First there's the soft snap as it yields to the teeth. Then the solid pieces dis solve into satisfying syrup. The thick liquid clings gently to the tongue, melting over the taste buds to deliver intense and then fading shades of flavor. Few sensual experiences can compare with eating chocolate. Yes, Saint Valentine's hysteri cal joke on all men and their wallets is tomorrow. Personally, I believe it is more honored in the breach than the obser vance, and there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, if there's a day in the calendar when I'm supposed to tell my wife that I love her, surely my words mean less, not more, on that day than any other. Real sentiments are unprompted, and more meaningful for being unexpected. Research shows many gifts are moti vated by a confused mixture of obligation and self-interest. I resent the commodification of affection that Valentine's Day represents, the expectation of spending large amounts of money to prove your love. It's not only unnecessary to buy my wife a teddy bear clutch ing a heart to prove my affec tion; it would also trivialize my feelings. If my feelings are genuine, no amount of roses and cards will make them more real than they already are. And if they're not real, no amount of chocolate will disguise it. Ironically, consumerism has turned a day that's meant to celebrate love into a day that has cheapened love. So be hon est, and say what you feel in words, not in scarlet plush. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I have to call Gift Works at the Joy Shoppe and make certain that the present I ordered last week will be ready for pick up tomorrow after noon. Anyway, the real reason I began writing about chocolate is because my grandmother recently gave me a book by Pulitzer prize-winning author, Michael D'Antonio, entitled "Hershey." It is a story not just about chocolate, but a young man growing of age during the rapid expansion of the American industrial complex. Milton Hershey's experi ences as the son of a well-to- do and devoutly conservative Mennonite mother and a wildly irresponsible father pro vide an exciting and absorbing account of one of America's Please Turn To Page 5A It’s Gospel According To Mark BY MARK BEARDSLEY Fine Dining: A Bowl Of Eels, Or Fried Rats? The waiter brought my entree, a bowl of what appeared to be some thing the contestants of "Survivor" might be required to eat. At least it was cooked. We were at a Chinese restaurant in New York City's Chinatown that Steven had recommended. I chose sauteed eel, though what possessed me is unknown. The Chinese will cook, eat and sell any creature they can catch, but I figured an eel is just another fish, so what the hey. What I got was a bowl of maybe 30 3-inch whole eels. Someone else ordered sauteed squid, but the rest of the main dishes were from food groups I recognized. I'd could say I enjoyed the eels, but I'd be lying. Still, when in Rome, do as the Romans, and Chinatown is as close to China as I'll ever get. Let's just say, I was looking for a new experience. The others ate their share, but when the meal was over, not all of the eels had been consumed. The other Chinatown experience was a tour of a small park so Steven could demonstrate the huge rat prob lem in the area. He'd written a story for a reporting class at Columbia University on the infestation of rats, which is citywide, but in three days in New York I'd seen none. Sure enough, the park was riddled with rat burrows and as we walked, we saw eight or 10 scurrying about. (Two weeks after we left, The Wall Street Journal published a story about the growth of rat as a food among Asians. Rat: the other other white meat.) Barbara and I joined my sister, Laurel, and her husband, Larry, who grew up in New York, for the trip — which also allowed us to see Steven. Larry provided guide service and local history. We hit the usual tour ist spots, took in a Broadway show ("Mama Mia" — third row, no less. Impressed?) and walked endlessly in weather that never got above 36 degrees. The good thing about a big city is that you can eat what you want because you walk it all off. The first thing you notice on a crowded street is that there are no obese people. OK, that's the second thing; the first is that everybody's dressed in black, like a tribute to Johnny Cash. To wear a dark blue jacket — as I did — is to mark yourself as a tourist and a potential easy touch for street ven dors selling everything from pirated DVDs to scarves. Everywhere you went you saw scores of 20-something and 30-some- thing professionals drinking, dining and shopping, drawn by the jobs, social opportunities and the excite ment of being at the financial and business center of the world. Today immigrants don't come through Ellis Island. They arrive via the Rio Grande, occupy the lower rungs of the workforce, serving meals to afflu ent young Americans and working toward the American Dream. New York City is a fascinating melt ing pot of class and culture. As the cliche goes, it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind going back for another visit. There must be 100,000 restaurants I didn't get to try. I'll pass on the eels, but maybe I'll be ready to sample fried rat. Then again, maybe not. Mark Beardsley is editor of The Commerce News. He can be reached at mark@mainstreetnews. com.