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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS, WEDNESDAY. TANUARY 11, 2012
mion
Editorial Views
Not A Bad Idea To
Review Ordinances
The mini-debate among Commerce City
Council members about whether roofers should
have to buy permits and undergo inspections
of their work demonstrates two philosophies
about government regulation.
Mayor pro tern Keith Burchett is the outspo
ken proponent of dropping the requirement.
He believes it is an unnecessary burden to hom
eowners and contractors and inflates the cost of
re-roofing a house. Ward 5 councilman Johnny
Eubanks is the voice favoring regulation. He
believes that Commerce citizens — particularly
the elderly — need protection against incompe
tent or unscrupulous contractors.
Fortunately the city council voted Monday
night to table the issue. Nonetheless, it is good
for the city to look at its regulations to make
sure they're not unreasonably burdensome and
that they provide a service to the public. In this
case, Eubanks and Mayor Clark Hill have indi
cated that the first order of business is for the
city to review its process to make sure it does
not cause undo hardship to contractors or hom
eowners but provides protection against shoddy
work. Part of that is making sure all roofing
contractors are licensed and aware of the per
mitting process, and enforcing the ordinance
against violators, but a crucial part is to make
sure the inspections are done timely so that a
roofing crew is not left idle for hours awaiting
an inspector.
That is exactly the proper course of action.
Professional contractors should not mind the
permit fee, which is negligible in the face of the
cost of a new roof, and should welcome inspec
tions —but only if the process is convenient, the
city responds promptly and professionally, and
providing the ordinance is uniformly enforced
and provides real value.
That's a significant caveat. Commerce has a
checkered history of enforcing its ordinances
and the council would be well advised to review
all of its ordinances to see if they provide service
to the public and are uniformly and profession
ally applied. An ordinance to make sure new
roofs are properly installed provides an impor
tant protection for the vast majority of city resi
dents who know nothing about construction
— if the process is efficient and professional and
if those who ignore or violate the ordinance are
appropriately penalized.
The desirable result is to either have an ordi
nance that serves the public or to do away with
it altogether. If roof inspections do not have any
value, the city should eliminate the fee require
ment and forego inspections. If the majority of
the council sees a need for the inspections, it
needs to make sure its process serves the public
without unduly burdening roofers.
Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written
by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@
mainstreetnews. com
LETTERS POLICY
The Commerce News reserves space on
its opinion page for readers to express
their views on current issues. The News
welcomes comments in response to events
in the news and to editorials or columns
expressing opinions.
Send letters to: Letters to the Editor,
The Commerce News, 1672 S. Broad
St., Commerce, GA 30529 or email them
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Letters must be signed and have a phone
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general interest to the public.
The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
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MIKE BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
MARK BEARDSLEY. Editor
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Did you see a bill has been
introduced in the General
Assembly to make it illegal
to Photoshop someone’s
face on a photo of another
person’s nude body?
Now there’s an issue
that’s been worrying the
public for years.
My Starbucks Adventures
My sister discovered
Starbucks years ago.
In her business travels
throughout the coun
try, she found that the
green sign with its
twin-tailed mermaid
promised reliable
quality and friendly
faces everywhere she
went, and she began
telling us that all she
wanted for Christmas or her birthday
was a Starbucks gift card. And when
Commerce got its own Starbucks,
she began introducing all of us to
its many attractions. Our parents
grumbled disapprovingly about pay
ing two (or three, or five) dollars for
a coffee drink, but after a few double
chocolatey-chip frappuccinos they
stopped grumbling, and Starbucks
gradually became the destination of
choice when one of us needed a lift
or a special treat.
Speaking of which, one of my
sister's favorite discoveries was that
when she had the family dog with
her at the Starbucks drive-through
window, she would be offered a
"puppy-whip" treat for the dog. Soon
we all had to remember not to say
the word "Starbucks" in front of the
dog unless we were planning to take
her there right away, because she
would start leaping about and head
ing for the car. She even came to
recognize the Starbucks logo. Once,
when we stole off to Starbucks with
out her, she found the evidence and
confronted us with it, fishing one of
our Starbucks paper coffee-cups out
of the trash and laying it at our feet,
her eyes dark with reproach.
At some point, and without real
izing it, I became the same way. My
sister does a "Starbucks run" pretty
much immediately after opening her
eyes in the morning, and anyone else
who's up at that time gets to put in
their order. I reached the point where
A Few
Facts t A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
BY SUSAN HARPER
whenever I missed
this form of reveille,
I could be heard
saying, "What! You
went to Starbucks
✓ k already? And you
■ didn't bring me any-
thing?" Just like the
dog.
But my own adven
tures with Starbucks
didn't really begin
until our parents died. I had retired
to be able to spend more time with
them, and I felt suddenly cut adrift.
There was nowhere I was supposed to
be. I had plenty to do - two houses
to maintain, and all the paperwork of
loss and sorrow - but that was pretty
solitary work, and infused with sad
ness. I started going out to Starbucks
every day, where the lively, quirky,
highly individual staff members were
happy to trade quips and seemed to
take a personal interest in their cus
tomers.
At Christmas that first year, I took
a small gift to the manager, who had
been so much fun to get to know,
and was astonished to find that she
had one for me, too! She's now man
aging another Starbucks, and when I
happened by there not long ago, she
went behind the counter and made
my favorite drink from memory! (A
grande decaf sugar-free caramel soy
latte. Try remembering that for a year
and a half!)
Starbucks is named for the first
mate in "Moby Dick," and was sup
posed to evoke the feeling of adven
ture on the high seas. But for me it
has come to signify the warmth of
"Cheers," and the truth that we all
want someplace bright and clean to
go to, where the atmosphere is friend
ly and everybody knows our name.
Susan Harper is retired, lives in
Commerce and volunteers with the
Commerce Public Library and the
Jackson County Literacy Program.
As The Iraq War Ends
If you think about
it, war is a type of
cancer on the body of
mankind, a sickness
destroying from
within. It is a disease
of societies.
The causes for a
war may vary. It may
be justifiable. It may
not. But a bombed
family's home is
still bombed, whatever
the cause. And the effects of war
forever alter lives for anyone directly
touched. This is most commonly
a very harsh and sorrowful thing.
In war, an event of mass killing,
sadness and loss prevail. With any
death, somebody's baby, somebody's
brother is lost.
Even the victors bear a great
burden. Taking a life, for any
thoughtful person, is a mortar to
the old individual. It is a passing
through to another self, a kind of
recreation of identity. "I have killed,"
carries enormous weight, whether
In
The
Meantime
1 _ A
\ ^
BY ZACH MITCHAM
or not it's actually
acknowledged by the
person bearing that
weight.
Upon return, how
do you reconcile
that old you with
the new person
who was trained to
kill? You grow up
with one way of
living, then go off to
another land, live with
death up close, both yours and those
you fight, and then return to live
with us, the many millions ignorant
of that other worldly state.
And we have surely been ignorant
— willfully so. If there is a chief
characteristic to the decade of
American war in the Middle East, it
is the great detachment between the
wars and the public. I'm certainly
not exempt from this indictment
either. It's exhausting to worry about
war, to debate it, to watch the awful
See “Mitcham” on 5A
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
Ah, Those
New Year’s
Resolutions
I love New Year's resolutions.
Jan. 1 is a good time to look at
deficiencies and goals and figure
how to address them.
Still, I've made none this year.
It's not that there are no breach
es in the dike to be plugged nor
worthy efforts to be made in
2012. Quite the opposite. I have
plenty of ammunition for self-
improvement and there is no
shortage of undertakings worthy
of dedication.
Typically, by this time of year
I've written down 5-15 ideas
(I avoid the term "resolution"
because it has become synony
mous with failure) — basically
a to-do list where I see either
a need or an opportunity. It's
crafted from the comfort of my
recliner from which none of the
items on the list can be accom
plished and, like a congressio
nal resolution to cut spending,
requires no immediate action on
my part.
Additionally, the term "resolu
tion" does not fit most of my
scribblings. "Plant more Helda
pole beans," for example, may
improve my garden, but it's not
in the same league as "steal less
money from petty cash" for char
acter improvement.
I do look in the mirror regard
ing my work, my character,
my spiritual life, etc., but I try
to limit those items to a small
minority among the resolutions
so in the event that I look back
to see what I've actually done I
will not have a preponderance of
failure.
At the top of my list is always to
resolve to let no one else know
what I've resolved — with the
exception of that single resolu
tion. I am neither willing to
broadcast my shortcomings (lest
there be great acknowledgement
of same) nor publicly commit to
ameliorating them. Nor does any
one care about my goal of build
ing a more efficient compost pile
or my desire to avoid the passive
voice.
My annual recalibrations deal
heavily with minutia — yard or
garden projects, story or photo
ideas, the kind of materials I
read, steps to be more efficient
at work, items to acquire or con
fusion to resolve — manageable
projects whose completion, come
Dec. 31, will allow me at least an
illusion that I've been productive
in 2012.
Any progress made on the char
acter-related goals is just icing on
the cake.
The New Year's resolution has
value, even if it is soon forgotten.
It requires us to be self-critical, to
acknowledge and sometimes dis
cover weaknesses that we might
otherwise overlook or rationalize
away. It's the personal equivalent
of the annual business retreat or
government planning session, a
time to focus on what might be
over the next year.
I like the exercise, even if the
results are unspectacular.
By the way, none of my resolu
tions ever have to do with losing
weight. Some areas of my life
are under control, if only for the
moment.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached
at mark@mainstreetnews.com