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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS, WEDNESDAY. TUNE 3, 2009
mion
Editorial Views
Looking For Truth
In Reservoir Capacity
Judge Joe Booth has cleared the way for
Jackson County to proceed with its suit
against the group that owns the Bear Creek
Reservoir. If the county prevails and if
Jackson County's analysis is correct, mem
bers of the Upper Oconee Basin Water
Authority are in for a shock.
Jackson County filed suit because experts
it hired determined that the reservoir can
not produce as much water as has been
assumed. Jackson County wants an accurate
calculation so it can be properly reimbursed
when other member counties use its water
and so it can better plan for the future.
The intergovernmental agreement estab
lishing members' shares in the reservoir
clearly states that the yield of the reser
voir must be calculated anew following
any record-setting drought. Having (appar
ently) just exited such a drought, Jackson
is demanding that recalculation which it
expects will show a daily yield of less than
half of what has been previously sug
gested.
The "official yield" of the reservoir is 58
million gallons per day (mgd). Jackson's
consultants put that figure at 24 mgd.
The other three members of the Upper
Oconee Basin Water Authority adamantly
oppose any recalculation, and for good rea
son. Two of the other counties — Athens-
Clarke and Oconee — consistently use most,
all or more than their average daily allot
ment during the dry months. If those allot
ments are reduced by 55 percent, they'll
have to pay Jackson County when they
withdraw more than allowed under any
new measurement system. Barrow County
has signed contracts to sell water; if Jackson
County prevails, Barrow won't be able to
deliver.
Given the huge difference between the
two yield estimates, it is hard to imagine
that a judge or jury won't take the logical
course of action and bring in unbiased
experts who can deliver accurate numbers
to settle the issue. The other three coun
ties, particularly Athens-Clarke and Oconee,
filed the motion to dismiss not because
Jackson County's analysis is flawed, but
because they fear it may be correct.
Grant here a bias towards Jackson County,
but it really is in the best interest of all four
counties to know exactly how much water
they can expect to be able to take from
the lake during a drought. If the lake will
last 180 days, well and good, but if Jackson
County's consultant's figures happen to be
accurate, the regional water supply is more
like 73 days. Better to find that out now
than wait for the next drought to demon
strate it.
There are significant financial implica
tions if Jackson County prevails, but those
are nothing compared to the possibility of
entering the next severe drought under the
illusion that your water supply is twice as
big as it really is. All four counties need to
know how much water really is in the Bear
Creek Reservoir.
Somebody is wrong. It is in all parties'
interest to have an accurate measurement
of the capacity of the regional reservoir.
Hopefully, either the two parties will agree
on a third set of experts to do an unbiased
calculation, or the court will order it.
Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written
by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@
mainstreetnews. com
The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
USPS 125-320
1672 South Broad Street
Commerce, Georgia 30529
MIKE BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
SCOU BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
MARK BEARDSLEY..Editor/General Manager
JUSTIN POOLE 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 Jefferson, Georgia
30549.
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and Madison counties, $19.75; State of
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COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson. GA
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George likes to brag on President Obama just to
tick off our Republican neighbor.
My Life In The Movies
A couple of years
ago, my friend Deanna ^ Few
gave me an intriguing
Christmas present: a
six-month member
ship in Netflix. Let me
confess right off the
bat that I didn't really
know what it was. But
it involved getting
movies on DVD deliv
ered right to my door
(well, okay, my P.O. box), and all I had
to do was choose 'em. Since this was
a gift, it amounted to six months of
free movies. A no-brainer, right? For
a movie maniac like me, this was the
perfect gift.
I am embarrassed to admit that I
never watched a single Netflix DVD
that year. I never even sent for one.
Deanna called me, about four months
after Christmas, and said Netflix had
contacted her because they had never
heard from me. I had to acknowl
edge that this was true. I didn't have
Internet access at home; I couldn't use
my time at work to set up a Netflix
account or look up movies; I didn't
even seem to have time to watch mov
ies, outside of my weekly movie-buddy
expedition.
So had Deanna wasted her money?
Nope — Netflix let her take back her
gift to me, so she gave it to herself,
and enjoyed every film. And I made
note of what an interesting and inno
vative company this was.
Fast-forward to my (recent) retire
ment. In line with my vow to drag
myself into the 21st century, even if it
meant renting a crane for the purpose,
I bought a second-hand laptop and got
Windstream to set me up with wire
less Internet access.
Wahoo! Look out,
Google Earth!
And when Mother's
Day rolled around, I
arranged for my moth
er to have Netflix for a
year. Since she shares
my love of movies —
and in fact is entirely
responsible for it — I
figured she would let
me watch them with her. She would
tell me what she wanted to see, I
would place the order and retrieve the
DVDs from the post office, and she,
Dad and I would all enjoy "Mother's
movies."
And we are doing just that. So far
we've watched "Wait Until Dark,"
an Audrey Hepburn suspense flick;
"Smilla's Sense of Snow," about a
Greenlander whose weird and encyclo
pedic knowledge of snow helped her
solve the mystery of a child's murder;
two episodes of "Morse," a PBS detec
tive; and "Defending Your Life," a
Meryl Streep movie in which heaven
looks a whole lot like Las Vegas. And
tomorrow I'll be pulling "The Year of
Living Dangerously" out of my P.O.
box. I can't figure out how Netflix
turns these movies around so fast; it's
almost as if they have someone watch
ing the house.
My current research suggests that we
may never run out of movies we want
to see. It's a tough thing, knowing
that much pleasure lies ahead, but oh
well — someone has to live up to these
challenges!
Susan Harper is the former director of
the Commerce Public Library. She lives
in Commerce.
Facts t A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
/
BY SUSAN HARPER
GM Sells Debt, Not Cars
Viewpoints
In
Rotation
While washing my
wife's car this past
weekend and getting
my first sunburn of
the season I caught
myself feeling a sense
of longing and sad
ness. I started to recall
the numerous news
articles I read that
morning. General
Motors, one of the
most recognizable worldwide brands,
faces bankruptcy. GM, an American
giant whose health was once con
sidered synonymous with that of
the nation, had reached a point that
a decade ago was unthinkable. An
American ideal that survived the Great
Depression, world wars and energy
crises is our recession's most recent
and largest victim.
I couldn't help but think GM is
mostly to blame for its downfall.
There are always underlying influ
ences, but the change I see in GM and
the American business model over the
past few years cannot be ignored. GM
started getting out of the business of
selling cars and into the business of
selling debt. This change in its busi
ness model seems to have disrupted its
ability to provide a strong product at
a reasonable price. Numerous parallels
may be drawn between the GM model
and the current American economy.
Consider two items ...
Changing business model: As GM
BY HASCO CRAVER
took to selling auto
loans as its business
model, it became
the banks who pro
vided cars. They began
selling an increas
ingly worse product
in exchange for loan
obligations. A credit-
centered business
model meant that
the quality of the car
didn't matter because the car wasn't
the product, the loan was the product.
The old American auto industry that
depended on hard work was gone.
The new American auto industry was
nothing more than a scam wrapped
around a brand name. Unfortunately,
this problem is not unique to the auto
industry. The creditization of America
meant that most American companies
were in the business of selling debt to
consumers. Actual American industries
were increasingly outsourced. The
products grew shoddier and cheaper,
the profit margins grew higher and so
did the debt margins.
Consumer-first economy: The
American people came to think of
themselves as consumers, a word
that might be better applied to cows
grazing in the field. Not workers, not
citizens, but consumers. Credit rating
became a vital part of their identity,
more important than reputation,
Please Turn to Page 5A
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
A Reminder
Of The Hidden
Cost Of War
It's a story I'd meant to write
for years, but I never got around
to it until last week. Somebody
mentioned Hamburger Hill, the
famous battle of the Vietnam
Conflict, and I remembered
that Bill Wood served there.
In the process of interviewing
Wood, I was reminded (again)
of the effects combat has on
those who undergo it — aside
from the obvious. We know
about the deaths, the maimed,
the wounded, but only those
who experienced combat really
know what it entails.
The World War I veterans are
all but gone, the World War II
veterans are in their 80s and
90s, the Korean veterans are in
their 70s and the Vietnam veter
ans are in their 60s.
Their war experiences never go
away. Wood, a medic, saw and
dealt with the worst part — the
casualties, but not all casualties
were or are physical. We hear
about post-traumatic syndrome
— a psychological attempt to
deal with the demons less tan
gible than bullets or missiles.
There's a reason.
He's not alone nor unique in
his experience. Men served in
combat in World War II, Korea,
Vietnam and now Kuwait, Iraq
and Afghanistan. These men
(and now women) return and
resume normal lives, but many
carry lingering effects.
Seldom calculated in the cost
of war are the changes wrought
on those who wage it. The sol
dier in combat is forever altered
— some for the better, many for
worse. War is a watershed event
in the lives of those it touches,
but nowhere is that more so
than among those who manned
the front lines.
What is it like to be ambushed
on patrol, to see enemy rockets
being "walked" to your posi
tion? How would you internal
ize the stress of a 10-day battle
waged night and day? What
would it do to your psyche to
see buddies killed and to kill
other humans at close range? Is
anything normal after combat?
All across Jackson County —
and the rest of the nation — are
combat veterans of these con
flicts. They return to civilian
lives, but their war experiences
set them apart in ways the rest
of us can't understand.
Some are still fighting those
battles. It may be with night
mares, or through medical
challenges from war injuries,
or from exposure to chemicals
or illness. Perhaps some have
fallen to alcohol or drugs to
keep the memories at bay. No
one can calculate the cost of
their service over the course of
the rest of their lives.
The cost of defending our
freedom (a popular sanitized
term for war) must be mea
sured not just by the dead and
wounded, but also by the intan
gible effects on those who come
home from battle. For many,
that's when they pay the highest
price for their service to their
country. For some, a tour of
duty lasts forever.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached
at mark@mainstreetnews.com