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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS • THE COMMERCE NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2016
Editorial
Views
Black officers
a resource for
understanding
While it seems unlikely that the recent
spate of deaths of black males at the
hands of police is racially motivated —
police officers did not seek to kill their
victims — it appears highly probable
that race is often a deciding fatal factor.
Whether intentionally or not, it is hard
to argue that black males aren’t treated
differently by police.
One of the solutions is “community
policing,” where officers get to know
the individuals — not just arrestees or
suspects — in the neighborhoods they
patrol, where they know and can call
them by name and are known by name,
where they know the familial relation
ships, work patterns and roles in the
community. The problem with that solu
tion is that even when it is fully imple
mented, turnover in police departments
is so frequent that it’s hard to maintain
relationships.
Every police department in America
needs a better understanding of the per
spective of minority communities, black
males in particular, to understand how
they feel about police, how they believe
they’ve been treated in the past, what
they fear, and to understand the factors
that might turn a routine matter into a
fatal shooting during encounters with
police. And police have a wonderful
resource to begin that effort — minority
police officers.
Those men and women of color
know what their peers in the community
go through and how they think. They
know what it’s like to be profiled by race,
to be regarded with suspicion because
of their color, dress or where they live.
Most have been stopped for “driving
while black” and treated with disrespect,
suspicion, hostility and fear. They are
in the unique position in police forces
across the country to open the eyes and
minds of white police officers to the fact
that too often minorities are treated much
differently than Caucasians. They have
knowledge and personal experience that
white officers lack that is essential for
understanding the minority perspective.
Officers of color are also in a position
to lead their police departments’ efforts
to reach out to minorities, to begin build
ing bridges of mutual trust and respect
— to truly implement the concept of
community policing. Building trust does
not occur in 90 days or a year. It must
be sustained and ongoing, supported
by elected officials, a permanent part of
a department’s training and personality.
It will not succeed without a topdown
commitment to understanding the fears,
expectations and motivations of each
segment of the community.
Saying that police can rebuild trust
does not mean it will happen. The effort
must be sincere. It must involve reaching
out to the black community — not just to
leaders, but to young men and women,
even children. It must be done with a
commitment to treating all people with
respect and dignity at all times. And
there’s no better resource for undertak
ing that effort than the minority police
officers who know and understand both
their communities and their fellow offi
cers.
Unless otherwise noted, all editorials
are written by Mark Beardsley. He can
be reached at mark@mainstreetnews.
com.
The Commerce News
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Mark Beardsley. Editor
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The politics in the garden
It’s time for a garden update. Whereas I don’t
know anything for sure about where the pres
idential election is going, I have a pretty good
idea about the future of the garden.
It’s going a lot like the presidential campaigns
— not well at all.
Back in May, I brimmed with confidence as
transplants went in and seedlings emerged.
The tomato plants were the stars, but I had high
hopes for the pole beans, okra and eggplants,
based in part on the great results I had in winter
and early spring with kale and collard greens.
Success in the winter does not guarantee a
productive spring/summer.
The tomatoes are mediocre. Mediocrity is the
best anything is doing this year, and none of my
other crops have achieved that level.
The eggplants are the garden equivalent of
Ben Carson — reason for optimism early on, but
failing once the heat was on. They should prob
ably drop out to make room for something that
will grow. I’ve got four plants that have set a total
of two fruit. Clearly not a contender.
The green beans are more like Ted Cruz —
they hung in there for six or seven weeks, but
they constantly dashed my hopes. Some critter
was cutting them off about the time they started
to climb up the poles. I tried a variety of tricks to
stop it, from organic pesticides to diatomaceous
earth, thinking it was cutworms, then perhaps
a beetle. Finally one night I went out at about 11
with a flashlight and found the plants covered
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
By Mark Beardsley
with what turned out to be pillbugs. They contin
ue to be a problem. The DE had as little effect
on them as Donald Trump’s verbal blunders
have on his ratings.
The Bernie Sanders of my garden was the
red potatoes. I’d not actually planted them.
They were in compost I laid down in a new
section, yet they outperformed almost all the
other crops.
My Hillary Clinton plant has to be the zucchi
ni. One day it shows promise, but the next day I
see too much rotten fruit. I’ve lost a lot of faith in
its ability to be productive.
Then there are the butter beans. Bush beans,
I call them. Like Jeb, when they entered the
garden, they seemed like a sure thing, but they
faltered shortly after sprouting, unable to over
come the obstacles of the garden landscape.
So, what is the Donald Trump of my garden?
Crabgrass, of course. I didn’t plant it, it’s unwel
come and it’s annoying, but in spite of all my
efforts to hinder it, it is doing just fine. It doesn’t
need the environment other plants require —
regular water and well-drained soil—and it has
no regard for my desires or intentions. It’s an
outsider.
All in all, the 2016 growing season that
appeared to offer such wonderful prospects in
late April and early May is a disappointment. As
the summer wears on, it seems likely that my
disenchantment will grow in direct proportion
to the pressures of heat, insects and disease, all
of which peak at just about the time the Repub
licans meet in Cleveland and the Democrats
convene in Philadelphia.
Of course, the biggest problem with my gar
den is me. If the ground is not fertile for creating
healthy plants and the garden not tended for
a bountiful harvest, it’s likely because I’ve not
done the cultivating, nurturing and preventive
maintenance required for success. I’m reaping
the rewards of neglect—a substandard harvest
from a mediocre ground game, to stay with the
political theme. If I’ve created an environment
that favors crabgrass over vegetables, I’ve no
one to blame but myself.
One good thing—at least I can plow it all up
in the fall and start over.
Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Com
merce News. He lives in Commerce.
Confession of a litter-writer
Friends tell me that my texts are a bit
lengthy. Actually my super-kind friends are the
ones who put it that way; others are a bit more
emphatic. Some don’t read beyond the first
paragraph (yes, that’s right: my texts often have
paragraphs), so they miss vital information,
such as what time we’re meeting for dinner.
Clearly I’m the one who needs to change, if I
want to keep having friends - and dinners.
Emails from me evidently present the same
problem. I just didn’t know it was a problem
until one of my oldest and most candid friends
told me so, and added, “It’s okay, Sue. I’m
used to your sagas.”
Sagas? Ouch! I suppose the word hit home
because it was the perfect one to use. I do
think of life — my life; every person’s life - as
a narrative made up of many stories. I’m fas
cinated by those stories, and by the way one
leads to another until they add up to a lifetime.
To me, God is the Author, creating us and
endowing us with free will, so that we influ
ence our own outcome, like the characters in
my short stories.
My early life was lived among letter-writers.
There were no emails back then. There was
no such thing as texting. And the only tweets
came from the birds in the trees. To talk to
someone in another region, another state, or
another country involved making a long-dis
tance call or sending a telegram: prohibitively
expensive, and reserved for deaths, dire emer-
A Few
Facts, A
Lot of
Gossip II
By Susan Harper
gencies, or ultra-special occasions. To keep
in touch with friends and family who weren’t
nearby people had a now-quaint custom: they
wrote letters. And for my people, who were
writers anyway— journalists, novelists, adver
tising copy-writers — letter-writing was fun, a
chance to write something that no one would
edit.
My mother, a Commerce native, was miser
ably homesick when she went 17 miles away
to college, not to mention 850 miles away to
her married life in New York. For her, letters
from home were a lifeline. We kids grew up
watching her eagerly unfold the yellow “sec
ond sheets” on which her mother faithfully
reported the local and family goings-on each
week for 40 years. Our mom pounded out her
replies on an old Royal typewriter, sitting at
our kitchen table, which was made from a hol
low-core door. Those poundings, as resonant
as drumbeats, were integral to the rhythm of
our childhood.
Our dad maintained his own correspon
dence. He was a terrific letter-writer, even
more open-hearted on paper than in person,
so there were frequently surprises in his
hand-printed pages. And each December
there were Christmas letters to and from the
300 or so far-away friends with whom our par
ents exchanged holiday greetings.
To them, a short letter wasn’t a letter; it was
a note. If it was sent instead of a letter, it was
a disappointment, or a cause for concern: an
indication that something might be amiss — all
of which I must have absorbed, as children
do, right into my DNA. Short letters were
a letdown or worrisome. Long letters were
longed-for. And we were put on this earth to
live out our own stories and exchange them
with others.
So now here I am, the result of all this: a
relic from another era, littering the cyber-land
scape with sagas (like this one), and peering
eagerly into the mailbox every day, hoping to
see a hand-addressed envelope that doesn’t
have a window. Luckily I have these columns
to pour my stories into. I just can’t expect to
hear back.
Susan Harper is a retired editor, lecturer,
and local library director who currently serves
on the Jackson County and Piedmont Region
al library boards.
PokeWhat? Pokemon Go
I want to be the very best, like no one ever
was. To catch them is my real test, but this time
I’ll have to get off my butt to do so.
Pokemon Go is Nintendo’s newest incarna
tion of its signature turn-based animal violence
simulator. That’s right - the viral fad of the late
90s is back and better than ever, thanks to a
mobile interface that straddles the boundary
between the digital realm and reality. And like its
predecessors, Pokemon Go is creating a buzz
louder than an angry hive of Beedrill.
Unless you kept your head buried in the sand
like a Diglett throughout the entire 1990s (and
this week), you are probably well aware of the
Pokemon phenomena. But in case you need
a refresher, Pokemon (or Pocket Monsters in
Japan) was originally a 1996 release for the Nin
tendo Gameboy. The object of the game was to
catch as many of the 151 Pokemon as possible
in tiny orb shaped prisons, keep and raise them
to battle other trainers and gym leaders and to
eventually become the most powerful Pokemon
master in the known world.
Long may he reign.
Does Pokemon seem to simulate a pseudo
animal-fighting ring? Sort of. But that’s not the
point.
The point is to catch them all and that’s been
the point in each iteration of the cult sensation
that is Pokemon. There are countless Pokemon
video games, card games, television shows,
movies and more. But Pokemon Go is breaking
down boundaries - between old fans and new
Writers
In
Rotation
By Cameron Whitlock
enthusiasts, between hardcore gamers and
casual players, and between the digital realm
and reality.
To create Pokemon Go, Nintendo partnered
with Niantic, a company already at the forefront
of augmented reality and GPSbased games.
Niantic released its first AR game - Ingress - in
2012. Since then, it has evolved to host over 7
million (about 250,000 active long-term) games
that took on the task of finding augmented real
ity “portals” that were located at different points
of interest throughout the world.
Niantic and Nintendo used Ingress as a
blueprint, and combined its gameplay with the
brand recognition of Pokemon. In doing so, the
two companies created one of the most viral
videogame launches ever seen.
In many ways, Pokemon Go is the perfect
solution to the ageold dilemma of couch lock.
Gamers are encouraged to get outside and
explore - rather than sit lethargically with a
controller and a bag of Doritos. Users must walk
around to discover where Pokemon are hiding
in the real world. They also need to walk at
least two kilometers to hatch any eggs in their
possession. But walking around in circles won’t
cut it. Gamers need to visit real-world landmarks
that double as Pokestops (where in-game sup
plies are available) or gyms (where users can
challenge other Pokemon trainers). This aspect
of the game also promotes tourism and allows
gamers to take in tidbits of knowledge on histor
ical locations.
Even the Jackson Herald office is Pokestop!
But as with any new technologies, there are
downsides. Distracted users can endanger
themselves and others with their noses glued to
their phones. Already there have been reports
of gamers falling down cliffs or walking out into
traffic in pursuit of a desirable Pokemon. And
some petty criminals have taken advantage of
Pokestops - using the knowledge of locations
in which people are likely to gather for their ill
deeds.
Still in the grand scheme of things, the reve
lations and wide reach of augmented reality in
gaming could shape the future of the industry.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the lines
between video games and reality become more
and more blurred as technology advances.
Cameron Whitlock is a reporter for Main-
Street Newspapers. Originally from Banks
County, he lives in Athens.