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^ummeniille News
— The Official Organ of Chattooga ('(unity —
WINSTON E. ESPY PUBLISHER
DAVID T. ESPY JR GENERAL MANAGER
WILLIAM T. ESPY ADVERTISING MANAGER
TOM KIRWAN EDITOR
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Editorials
Secret Meetings Continue
The federal Sunshine law took effect
in March. Generally, the law specifies
that, with few exceptions, government
agencies must open their meetings to the
public.
There is evidence to suggest, how
ever. that many of the nearly 50 agencies
covered by the law are either skirting its
regulations or ignoring them outright.
Earlier this year a Common Cause
study found that 39 percent of the
meetings held by the government agen
cies covered by the law were closed to
the public; only 37 percent of the meet
ings were fully open.
A more recent study conducted by
Library of Congress researchers at the
request of Sen. Lawton Chiles (D.-Fla.),
shows that of more than 1,000 meetings
held by 32 agencies since the law took
effect, 527 were closed, either entirely
or partially, to the public. Additionally,
for only 193 of the secret meetings did
the agencies meet a requirement that
specific reasons be publicly cited if a
Christmas Tree Tips
Millions of Americans are now
buying Christmas trees. Many know very
little about them, or how to look for
value, freshness, etc.
Americans buy more Scotch pines
than anyting else, a bushy tree which
holds its needles well. Red and Norway
pines are also bought but are losing out
with growers because wet snow often
damages them. Eastern and western
white pines are also sold but many
growers feel firs are best, since they hold
their needles indoors longer. There are
balsam and douglas firs (the last not a
true fir), both popular.
The spruces hold their needles a
shorter time, though pretty. There is
Exercise: Key to Heart
A new and somewhat exhaustive
study has found that vigorous work or
sport, by men, is perhaps the best way to
guard against heart attacks. The new
study, of 17,000 men between the ages
of 35 and 75, discovered that light
exercise was not as beneficial as hard
physical work or vigorous sport-using
up to least 7.5 calories a minute.
This is perhaps the most solid indi
cation yet of the vital importance of
vigorous activity among men in pro
tecting the heart. The study, headed by a
Stanford University professor of
epidemiology, Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger
Jr., found that even those with high
blood pressure and other similar con-
Carter's First Year
A recent nation-wide poll by the
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR indi
cates that, while President Carter has had
his troubles with Congress in getting
legislative programs enacted, he is doing
all right politically.
The poll found that Carter has lost
support (as all the public opinion polls
have indicated) but tnat where he has
lost it-among blacks, Jews, ultra
liberals, he is in little danger that that
support will go to a Republican
opponent.
In other words, the support he has
lost has nowhere else to go—for Carter is
still closer to ,the demands of these
closed session is held. Twenty regulatory
agencies ignored the requirement.
Many of the agencies which fear
public inspection argue that their meet
ings are closed because their members
must discuss sensitive national security
or economic matters. One such agency is
the Federal Reserve Board, which held a
secret meeting in April to discuss how its
office furnishings should be designed.
Government agencies charged with
conducting the public’s business are
abusing the Sunshine law. Sen. Chiles has
summoned officials of some agencies to
testify on the matter.
For the public’s sake-and for the
sake of open government-Sen. Chiles
should demand and receive assurances
that further abuses of the law will not
occur. At the same time, he should
continue his efforts at policing agencies
to make sure they live up to the letter of
the law.
—Publishers’ Auxiliary
Norway spruce, white spruce (less popu
lar) and blue spruce, a very expensive
tree because it grows slowly.
In buying your tree, here are some
useful tips: 1. Bend a needle. If it breaks,
don’t buy. 2. Bounce the stump. If
needles fall, don’t buy. 3. Look at the
stump. If not moist or sticky, don’t buy.
4. Keep your tree green longer by
cutting an inch off the stump and keep
ing it in water or damp sand. Some add
sugar, aspirin, etc., to the water—accord
ing to pet theories.
And many today are buying trees
with soil balls, to be planted outdoors
after the holidays.
ditions benefitted from vigorous exercise
in their leisure time.
Indications are that a minimum of at
least three hours a week dedicated to
vigorous activity, or an expenditure of
some 2,000 calories or more, is usually
desirable. Such light sports as golf, boat
ing, etc., are not considered vigorous
sports. Tennis, as an example, is a vigo
rous sport.
If vigorous physical activity does
indeed protect the heart, as is indicated
in this study (reported to the American
Heart Association in Miami in late
November), the pattern of living of
American men is certain to be changed
in the future.
groups than is his Republican oppo
sition, generally speaking. And, even
more significantly, the poll showed
Carter had made significant progress
among moderates and independents, so
many of whom supported former Presi
dent Ford in last fall’s election.
Thus, the net effect of the Presi
dent’s first year in office, the MONITOR
poll indicates, is not bad from the politi
cal standpoint at all—for Mr. Carter. The
poll indicates the Republican Party’s
best chance for 1980 would be in nomi
nating a moderate Republican, rather
than a conservative. But the G.O.P. may
be moving in the opposite direction.
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TOM KIRWAN
Off the Newsdesk
Free, If Cold,
Show Available
During Winter
Chattooga winter skies, as in all
North Georgia, are usually pretty dreary
affairs. Low clouds seem to almost cling
to the earth, giving us earthlings an
obstructed view of the heavens. Blue
skies are rare indeed during the day;
about the only thing worth looking up
for is an occasional low-flying aircraft.
But what we miss during the day we
make up for at night. Perhaps some
meteorologist will some day explain to
me—why the cloudiest of days often
clears off into the clearest of nights.
What a nighttime feast we’ve had
lately, too. Many nights recently the
cosmic parade of stars, planets, satellites,
and meteors has been nothing short of
breathtaking.
Serious stargazers consider the
wintertime the best time to crane their
necks to the sky. The winter sky, indeed,
is crowded with constellations compared
to, say, the summer sky which is rela
tively dull.
But with the benefits of the clear
nights of winter come bitterly cold
temperatures which can put a wrinkle in
even the most avid stargazer’s hobby.
Despite the cold weather, though, a
well-bundled body can entertain himself
quite well in the cold night air. A good
lawn chair, a star map and a flashlight
are nice to have along, but are not
absolutely necessary to appreciate the
stars.
We tend to think of stars as stars:
once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them
all. But on closer scrutiny we find the
stars are of varying intensity and of
different colors. Some glimmer in red;
others emit a twinkling blue. Some
“stars” turn out to be not one star, but a
cluster.
One of the best tools of the star
gazer is a current almanac. The almanac
spells out the dates and times of such
A-
-- • litl
"CAN WE SEE WHERE YOU KEEP THE REO TAPE ?*
celestial “happenings” as lunar eclipses
and meteor showers.
Perhaps because of some confusion
with Haley’s Comet, which was last seen
in 1910, many folks think of meteor
showers as being relatively rare. In fact,
they are fairly common, occurring
nightly for several periods each year. The
only problem with most meteor showers
is that they don’t come at convenient
times: they are usually best visible to the
naked eye in the early morning hours,
just before daybreak.
The best things in life are free, they
say, and certainly one of the best free
things in life is turning our heads to the
heavens on a cool winter night to ponder
the universe in which we play such a
small role.
Best of the Press
SNOB RULE
A democracy is a country in which
everyone has an equal right to feel
superior to the other fellow.-Tribune,
Chicago
♦ ♦ ♦
BUT HONEST
A yawn is bad manners, but it’s an
honest opinion.-Record, Columbia,
S.C.
* ♦ ♦
ALL YEAR LONG
One of our present troubles seems to
be that too many adults, and not enough
children, believe in Santa Claus.—Times,
Marshalltown, la.
* * *
BUT IT HELPS
Money can’t buy love. .. . but it
sure can put you in a very strong
bargaining position.—Tribune, Chicago
♦ ♦ ♦
THE PROBLEM OF CENTS
Child to father-How can I learn the
value of a dollar when my allowance is
only 50 cents?-Sentinel, Philippines
♦ * *
COMRADES
Friends are people who dislike the
same neople.-Coast Guard Magazine
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Facing South I
:<
a syndicated column:' •$
voices of tradition £
in a changing region X
ST. MARTIN PARISH, La.-“I gave up wearing my
glasses while picking okra a long time ago,” laughs
56-year-old black farmer Benjamin Francis, noticing me
fussing with my sweat-covered glasses. Working the next
row over, Ben pauses to wipe his brow
and continues. “You have to bend
over too far to pick that okra. The
sweat runs down onto those glasses
and you can’t see a thing.” It is only
8:00 a.m., a July morning.
With his picking sack tied around
his waist and dragging on the ground,
Ben resumes picking while reassuring
his two youngest sons, ages 8 and 10,
that they will be finished before long.
“We start early—about 6:00-so we
can be out of the field before that sun burns us up. Most
times we pick twice a week. That ‘gumbo’—that’s what
we call okra in our French Creole-grows fast and we
have to pick it before it gets too long, or else it gets hard
and it’s no good. I have a lot of helpers today, so we’ll
finish early.”
By 10:30, the last sack of that morning’s^3,soo
pound harvest is on the old flatbed truck. Ben and his
12 helpers—all relatives: his five sons, some nieces and
nephews, his sister and her husband-pile on the truck
and drive back to his yard where the okra is weighed
and then dumped into large bins for delivery to the
nearby cannery. Throughout the day, okra farmers from
the area come to sell their okra to Ben, who buys it for
the cannery. Jokes and small talk mix with the serious
business of weighing, as farmers gather around the
scales, waiting to see how much they will earn from
today’s harvest.
“You know,” Ben explains, “the factory gives us
seven cents a pound for our okra. A can of the same
okra costs about five times that in the supermarket. Can
you believe that? Why doesn’t the farmer get more for
his okra? He’s producing the crop, doing the back
breaking work, and getting’most nothing. It hardly pays
to grow okra. That’s why so many small farmers around
have to quit. That kind of thing makes the farmer lose
his courage.”
Bom into a large share-cropping family, Ben
“bought two little mules and started farming full-time”
when he came home after World War 11. Over the years
he expanded his operations, purchasing 30 acres and
renting more farm land as he could get it. Presently,
besides his seven acres of okra, he and his sons plant 114
acres of sugar cane.
Despite his increasing acreage. Ben is one of the
smaller full-time farmers in the parish. The trend is—and
has been-get big or get out. “There are about 20
full-time black farmers in this parish now,” he estimates,
“and every year more give up.” Pointing beyond his
yard to large sugar cane and soybean fields, Ben con
tinues, “There used to be about 300 families living out
there, working that land. They’re just about all gone
now ... to Texas or California; some moved into towns
around here.
“I’ve been lucky to have this little okra business,”
he says, referring to the buying station. “1 get a small
commission—% cents a pound-for doing this buying,
but how, with rising costs and all the time me and my
boys have to put into this job, it hardly pays. I’ve been
buying okra for 15 years, but next year I might have to
stop.”
Ben will remain a farmer "until I close my eyes,”
but he’s not sure his sons will follow after him. “We
work hard, but each year we make less. My boys won’t
stay in that.”
Around 3:30, after Ben’s oldest son, Ben Jr., hauls
the last okra off to the cannery, Ben walks toward his
house for dinnder-his first meal since breakfast some
10 hours earlier. Halfway there, he surveys the farm
implements he has collected over the past 30 years.
Among the tractors, cane carts and other tools, lies his
rusting mule harness. “You know,” he laughs, “with the
price of gas being what it is, I think about those old
mules a lot these days. 1 miss them. Maybe one of these
days I’ll end up getting some mules again.”
-808 MAGUIRE
free lance
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