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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 27. 2008
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Editorial Views
Ordinance Will Need
Willingness To Enforce
The Commerce Planning Commission and the
Commerce City Council have agreed that the city
needs a new sign ordinance. The city has subse
quently agreed to spend several thousand dollars to
have an expert write the new ordinance.
That is appropriate. The city's ordinance is out
dated and, most likely unenforceable.
Part of the problem may well have been the way
the ordinance was written, but the greater issue was
that the city council granted variances at the drop of
the hat.
Basically, the ordinance draws a line, the crossing
of which is a violation. Every time the city council
approves a variance — whether recommended by the
planning commission or not — that line is moved
and the new location becomes law. Essentially, the
city has made its own law unenforceable because it
lacked the discipline to enforce it as it was written
and voted into law.
Those actions made it necessary to draft a new
ordinance, but unless the city council suddenly
acquires the fortitude to enforce the new ordinance,
the same thing will happen again, and a few years
down the road another request for a few more thou
sand dollars will be made for another version.
Commerce is well known for passing ordinances
it has no intention of enforcing. During 2007, it
banned skateboards and bicycles from downtown
sidewalks, and it mandated smoke detectors for every
bedroom in every residential structure. Neither
has been or will be enforced. But since new signs
require permits, an automatic enforcement mecha
nism exists. The city can deny the permit, citing the
ordinance, and officials do just that. All the business
owner has to do, however, is request a variance.
Typically, variances are for minor changes, but the
city council approved one in which the applicant
requested more than double the square footage
allowed under the ordinance.
A sign ordinance is a work in progress, changing as
circumstances dictate and new challenges arise, but
aside from adding new restrictions for new matters,
the evolution is toward allowing more latitude. An
ordinance only gets weaker as it ages, because most
every change reduces the effectiveness of the law.
So, the city can hire a consultant and draft and
enact a new sign ordinance, but if it's going to grant
every variance that is requested there's no point in
spending the money. Unless the city is prepared to
enforce the new sign ordinance with a high degree
of rigidity, why go through the whole exercise?
Students, Teachers
Deserving Of That Praise
On Monday night, the Jackson County Area
Chamber of Commerce honored the STAR students
and teachers and the teachers of the year for all three
school systems.
The amount of talent at that annual award recep
tion is always phenomenal. The best high school
students and the most motivated teachers from all
three systems — an all-star team one might say — are
gathered under one roof just once a year.
For those who attend — and they are few outside
of the school personnel and families of the students
— it is inspiring to see what the STAR students
have accomplished, to hear how their STAR teachers
inspired them and to hear just how deserving those
teachers of the year really are.
There are wonderfully bright and motivated stu
dents in this county, and dedicated and inspiring
teachers. We congratulate our STARs and teachers of
the year for being the very best we have.
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.
I had a dream last night that
the price of something actually
went down.
Trouble
Drugs Can
There's hardly a day when
I forget to be thankful that I
live in the age of antibiotics.
Imagine facing a kidney infec
tion or severe bronchitis with
nothing to take but burdock
leaves, or a slimy green tinc
ture of lungwort. Yeckh!
I do wonder if I'll reminisce
about antibiotics someday;
they seem threatened with
extinction — supposedly from
overuse, although in my per
sonal opinion it's farmers and
ranchers who are overusing
them. Who ever dreamed we'd
be hunting in the grocery store
for eggs that were antibiotic-
free? Still, these miracle drugs
are more and more being
overwhelmed by the things
they're supposed to vanquish,
and they may go the way of
the dodo. I imagine telling my
great-great-grandchildren wist
fully, from some grim sickbed,
"(Sigh) We used to have pills
for this, back in the old days."
And boy, do we have pills.
When it was announced that
the gifted young actor Heath
Ledger, who died from an acci
dental overdose, was taking
six prescription drugs plus an
over-the-counter medication,
more than a few people of
my acquaintance said mildly,
"Only six?"
To be fair, theirs were not the
A Few
Facts, A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
BY SUSAN HARPER
narcotics to which the glam
orous seem to succumb, but
the far more pedestrian blood
pressure, cholesterol, heart,
and allergy meds that keep the
rest of us alive and ticking. But
even those can be surprisingly
tricky. You can't take erythro
mycin if you're on coumadin.
You shouldn't take much vita
min C if you're on Lipitor. And
so on, and on. Pharmacists
seem to be able to carry all this
around in their heads and still
look like normal humans, but
who knows how?
My parents and I carry a list
of each other's medications,
and keep it updated, so that if
one of us should suddenly be
hospitalized, another of us can
hand over The List, and the
doctors will know what to keep
dosing us with — or, perhaps,
what's wrong with us. We try
to avoid the latter eventuality
by also keeping all of our doc
tors supplied with our updated
lists, so they don't unwittingly
set us on the path to self-
destruction. (Your cardiologist
may be brilliant, but he or she
has no way of intuiting what
new medication your otolaryn
gologist may have put you on.)
The Journal of the American
Medical Association announced
in 1998 that properly pre
scribed medication, taken
properly, was the fourth
leading cause of death in
the U.S. Three years ago Ray
Strand M.D. pointed out in
his sobering book "Death by
Prescription" that not only was
this still true, but that if you
add prescribed medications
that are not taken properly,
prescription drugs become the
third-leading cause of death.
In short, they're the cure that
can kill you. So a well-stocked
medicine cabinet is kind of
like a pet cobra — it has to be
treated with respect. And as
Dr. Strand advises, "Do not
have blind faith in the FDA,
the pharmaceutical industry,
the doctor, or the pharmacist.
You need to take some per
sonal responsibility to protect
yourself and your loved ones."
Amen.
Susan Harper is director of the
Commerce Public Library.
Avoid Cliches Like The Plague
One of the first rules of writ
ing is to avoid using cliches
at all costs. They must be
avoided like the plague. In the
first place a cliche is usually
as old as dirt, as opposed to
being as fresh as a daisy. In
addition, cliches are often as
clear as mud rather than hav
ing a quality that is as clear as
a bell.
Putting it in a nutshell, and
going up one side and down
the other, if a writer has some
thing to say, he/she should
just bite the bullet and spit it
out. There is no use in pussy
footing around the subject
even if it does throw filth on
the living and flowers on the
dead. Take this business of
politics. It's as plain as water
that if you lie down with dogs,
you'll come up with fleas.
Furthermore, if one candidate
starts mud-raking, muddy
ing up the water, there is no
middle ground left, and a can
of worms has been opened.
What to do then?
Once that can of worms has
been opened, not for all the
tea in China, nor any way on
Views
In ' A 1
TL. ^ I
Rotation
Jr j
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■ O
BY CLAIRE GAUS
God's green earth, can the
situation be nipped in the
bud. The only way to get rid
of what comes out is to put it
to bed with a shovel. Dishing
out dirt on one another is like
a bottomless pit in the bowels
of the earth. It is far past the
time for breaking new ground,
for bringing politics into the
sun, and in broad daylight.
There are far too many already
caked with mud. On the other
hand, rhetoric that comes out
of one mouth meant to be as
sweet as honey can taste as
sour as a green apple to the
one who hears it.
Holding out an olive branch
to the offended politician
is like closing the barn door
after the horse has run away.
The damage has been done,
and no amount of putting
chewing gum in the dam's
wall is going to hold back the
water. It is not just a drop in
the bucket, nor can ever be
just water under the bridge.
What's done is done. Watch
and wait to see whom ends
up all washed up. In the stone
cold-sober light of post elec
tion, we may have to pin a
rose to our nose, but never say
you were not warned.
Have I been talking to a
brick wall? I have no axe to
grind. I have tried to be as
plain as day while still practic
ing the first rule of writing.
Claire Gaus is a retired educa
tor and volunteers in the com
munity in a number of capaci
ties. She lives in Commerce.
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It's Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
The Easy Way
Out: Target
The Powerless
There's something about House
Bill 978 that summons images of
Nazis confiscating the property of
Jews prior to World War II. It would
let authorities confiscate the cars of
illegal immigrants stopped for traffic
violations.
That's an unfair comparison, of
course. The persecution of Jews was
unparallelled in its insidiousness. But
the confiscation of property of the
helpless bothers me.
The illegal immigration, largely
of Latinos, is a confounding and
complex issue. Like you, I want our
borders to be secure, but I also know
that without those illegal immigrants
a lot of the cheap goods and services
we take for granted would disappear.
So, how do we go from here?
Amazingly, this is an area where I
find President Bush to have the most
rational idea. Create a "guest worker"
program so we can get the workers
we need and young Latinos can get
the work they need — and then, if
necessary, take action against those
in the country illegally.
Until then, we're trying to have our
cake and eat it too. We want houses
built and our landscapes cared for
by cheap labor. We demand the low-
priced poultry and pork processed by
immigrants, many of whom are ille
gal. We expect our motel and hotel
rooms to be clean, our restaurants
well staffed, our garbage picked up
and all of the other bottom-rung jobs
filled by low-cost labor so as to keep
our standard of living high.
We covet what the illegal immi
grants give us — cheaper goods and
services — but we don't want to see
them, particularly in our schools
and hospitals and driving unlicensed
and uninsured (because they cannot
legally get licenses and insurance).
Illegal immigrants, like the power
less Jews of an earlier time, are attrac
tive targets on which to focus the
wrath of the electorate. Who's going
to defend the illegal? Yet they're here
by our invitation. Rich Americans
summon them with opportunity,
jobs paying more than they could
ever earn at home, and a chance for
better lives for their children. We
then harass them for working.
Instead of taking away their vehi
cles, confiscate the property of those
who bring them to America. When a
Mexican is found to be undocument
ed, take away his employer's car or
house or business. If we truly want to
cut illegal immigration, all we have
to do is attack the source — their
employers who knowingly hire them.
Instead of legislation designed to
make illegal immigrants' lives more
difficult and dangerous so they'll
leave, let's get to the root of the prob
lem — companies who hire them to
get by on the cheap. Put the CEOs
in jail or confiscate their assets when
they hire illegal immigrants. Those
jobs will dry up and the flow of
immigrants will drop to a trickle.
Beware. There will be consequences
for the American consumer of every
thing from hot dogs to new houses
until a legal means of bringing in
millions of immigrants is devised.
HB 978 is a cowardly bill that just
treats a symptom by harassing the
powerless. No one has the guts to go
after the rich and powerful who hire
illegal immigrants. It's always easier
and cheaper to target the poor and
powerless.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached at
mark@mainstreetnews. com.