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The Summeruille News
The Official Legal Organ of Chattooga County, Georgia
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Our Opinion
School Discipline Needed
It was appalling to note in a newspaper
photo this past week that several male stu
dents at Chattooga High School were wear
ing caps inside a classroom.
Plus, an accompanying story reported
that a female student would not stand for Re
source Officer Jack Floyd until directly or
dered to do so by her teacher. It was later
learned that the teen kept her head buried in
a jacket on her desk during the entire class.
It was also later learned that Floyd had to
chide some chattering students while he was
speaking.
At the minimum, the wearing of
headwear inside the school building and
sleeping or failing to pay attention during
class are exceedingly poor manners.
At worst, the attitudes demonstrated by
such behavior are clues as to why the Chat
tooga County School System has yet to get a
handle on improving academics and consis
tently reducing its dropout rate.
As an allegory, New York City’s mayor
has demonstrated that getting “small-time”
criminals off the streets led to an overall re
duction in major crimes.
In no way are we comparing any of
CHS'’s students with New York’s criminals.
In fact, the majority of students at local
schools are well-behaved.
Rather, we are seeking to demonstrate
that the mayor’s strict action against “small
crimes” led to a significant change for the bet
ter in the “big picture.”
It is not courteous or respectful to
teachers or guest speakers for male students
to wear hats or caps inside any school build
ing. It isn’t proper for students to be allowed
to sleep or keep their heads on desktops dur
ing class. A lack of discipline is demonstrated
when students talk among themselves dur
ing class.
It is important that the Chattooga
County Board of Education, upon a recom
mendation by the school superintendent,
adopt stronger rules of courtesy, discipline
and respect. That policy must then be trans
mitted to all school principals to be passed
Rocker In Perspective
Pitcher John Rocker of the Atlanta
Braves is still regretting that he made con
troversial remarks about New York City in a
“Sports Illustrated” interview. Especially af
ter he has now been suspended for a month
this upcoming season.
His remarks included his concern that
riding on a New York subway is “like you're
riding through Beirut” next to a homosexual
with AIDS, a purple-haired kid, a criminal
released for the fourth time and an unwed
20-year-old mom with four children. He
ripped “foreigners” who can’t drive properly
or speak English.
Rocker also made unflattering com
ments about some of his teammates.
Most of the yelping about Rocker’s re
marks has come from the same bunch that
protested little if at all when a liberal actor
screamed on TV that a U.S. representative
and his family should be shot.
Nor did they say much, if anything,
when:
* Hank Aaron smashed a basket of
strawberries in a sportswriter’s face.
* Ted Turner, Braves’ owner, blasted
Christians as being weak-minded (maybe
that’s why Turner has said Rocker deserves a
second chance).
* President Clinton used a stereotypi
cal slur against the Irish.
* “The Rev.” Jesse Jackson called New
York City “Hymietown,” a vicious remark
against Jews.
* VP Al Gore referred to conservatives
as the “extra-chromosome right,” a sick slur
against those born with Down syndrome.
It isn’t as if Rocker:
* Had admitted cheating on his wife and
on to all teachers.
When teachers impose that system of
discipline in the classroom, they must be sup
ported 100 percent by the principal, superin
tendent and school board.
Committees or studies of the matter
aren’t needed. They would only muddy the is
sue, delay and dilute any measures that are
proposed.
At a minimum, a policy must require
male students to remove their headgear when
they enter a school facility and keep it off un
til they leave. No student should be allowed
to nap or place his or her head on a desk dur
ing class. Students must be forced to stop
“chatting” during class.
Students should be required to use cour
tesy titles such “sir” and “ma’am” to all ad
ministration and faculty members. They must
not be allowed to use responses such as
“nope,” “yeah,” “OK,” “huh?” and the like on
the school campus.
Other steps might be taken, such as not
allowing students to wear shirts, blouses or
T-shirts imprinted with any insignia, cartoon
or distracting words, whether “offensive” or
not. Apply it equally — no exceptions.
Shorts should be banned, no matter the
length of the garments.
Out-of-school suspension should be
eliminated. All that does is allow students to
wander around the area unsupervised.
All suspensions should be “in school”
where boot camp-style discipline and a strict
academic regimen are imposed. Make it tough
enough so students will not want to commit
acts that could result in their suspensions.
Discipline has gradually become too
loose, mainly because many parents haven’t
done their jobs and taught their children com
mon courtesies and manners.
While schools cannot — and shouldn’t
try to — correct all social problems, they can
require more classroom discipline than was
evident at CHS recently.
But will the superintendent and board
of education do what’s right?
That's the real question.
had a child out of wedlock, as has the Braves’
Chipper Jones;
* Tried to pick up a prostitute in Miami,
Fla., as did an Atlanta Falcon;
* Had possessed illicit drugs, such as
Ralph D. Abernathy III;
* Embezzled money from the state, as
did Abernathy; or
* Slit the throat of his ex-wife, as a jury’s
verdict stated in a civil court case against O.
J. Simpson.
On the other hand, had Rocker asserted
that the quest to keep Southern heritage alive
was racist, blasted those who say abstinence
could end AIDS, said criminals should be
treated gently and urged increased welfare
spending, he would be praised by the same
people who have condemned him.
Rocker just wasn'’t politically correct in
his comments. ;
Major League Baseball ordered Rocker
to undergo “psychological testing.”
That’s similar to what the Soviet Union
did to dissidents in the 1960 s because they
wouldn’t follow the “politically correct” Com
munist line.
Why aren’t hypocritical liberals “more
tolerant” and more willing to accept “diver
sity” of opinion — qualities they demand from
conservatives?
Rocker has apologized at least twice.
What do they want? A public beheading?
It wouldn’t be surprising if the “perpetu
ally offended” begin howling for the head of
Hank Williams Jr.
Remember Williams’ song about
whether he’d rather go to hell or New York
City when he died? Seems he indicated both
were about the same. 3
..l JUST WANT ortd A
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Joseph Perkins Steed Lo
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Linking Marriage
And The Income Gap
THE FIRST TIMEI heard Bill Clinton,
live and uncut, was in May 1992 at the annual
Jefferson-Jackson dinner hosted by Demo
crats in San Diego.
The Arkansas governor blamed Repub
lican economic policies of the preceding 12
years for creating the biggest gap between rich
an poor Americans in more than half a cen
tury.
“What the Republicans said was, ‘Give
us more inequality, and we’ll give you more
growth,” Clinton sneered. “It turned out to
be a fraud.”
So, here we are, eight years later, and
Clinton is completing the final year of his
presidency. And guess what? A new study by
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and
the Economic Policy Institute says that the gap
between rich and poor was “significantly
greater in the 1990 s than... during the 1980 s.”
Well, that’s quite shocking. After all,
Clinton has persistently claimed to have pre
sided over “the best economy in 30 years.”
And he trots out numbers to back his claim.
COME NEXT MONTH, the current
economic expansion will be the longest of the
post-war (that’s World War II for you Gen X
and younger readers) era. During this unprec
edented expansion, the economy has gener
ated more than 20 million new jobs and $2
trillion in additional economic output.
Yet, according to the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy
Institute, during the age of Clinton, the rich
have gotten richer, while the poor have re
mained in place.
“The report shows that, with few excep
tions, economic growth in the 50 states has
not been broadly shared,” said Jared
Bernstein, one the report’s co-authors.
“The strong economic growth in the U.S.
results from the contributions of people in all
walks of life, from laborers to corporate ex
ecutives,” he continued. “The fact that many
families are not sharing in the resulting pros
perity stands as our nation’s most serious eco
nomic problem.”
It’s kind of interesting that Bernstein
offered no criticism of Clinton’s economic
policies for the growing income disparity be
tween the nation’s most and least affluent.
For during the 1980 s, when Ronald
Reagan and George Bush were in the White
House, the Center on Budget and Policy Pri
orities and the Economic Pplicy Institute —
both left-of-center public policy organizations
— laid the blame for income inequality
squarely at the feet of the two Republicans.
But Reagan and Bush deserved no more
— Our Opinion —
Thanks, Everyone
Workers for all the utilities that serve
Chattooga County did a tremendous job re
storing service after the surprise Jan. 22 and
Jan. 23 ice storm.
: It was three to four days before almost
all power was restored. That was remarkable
considering the damage and the near round
the-clock shifts of utility crews.
We don’t appreciate the conveniences
that technology has brought us until they are
no longer available.
Too, we don’t appreciate emergency or
utility workers until they have to put their
lives on the line and work in below zero wind
chill conditions to restore public safety ac
cess, our heat, telephones, electricity and
cable TV as quickly as possible.
blame for income inequality during the 1980 s
than Clinton does for the widening gap be
tween rich and poor during the 19905. For this
trend actually started some 30 years ago.
IT HAS LITTLE to do with tax policy
— whether a president raises or cuts taxes. It
has little to do with welfare policy — whether
a president increases or decreases spending
on anti-poverty programs.
The reality is that the single biggest de
terminant of a family’s upward (or downward)
mobility is whether the family is headed by a
married couple. Indeed, one of every three
poor families in America is headed by an un
married parent. Conversely, only one out of
20 married-couple families are poor.
It happens that the ranks of one parent
families have dramatically increased over the
past three decades. And with two-parent fami
lies earning nearly three times the income of
one-parent families, it is little wonder that
there is a growing gap between families at the
top and bottom of the nation’s income scale.
So if the nation’s economic growth, its
prosperity, is to be more broadly shared, as
the Center for Budget Policy Priorities and the
Economic Policy Institute advocate, and as
every man seeking to succeed Clinton pro
fesses as one of his foremost goals, then it will
not be accomplished through economic policy,
but through social policy.
% % »
FOR THE problem of the poor is not
the availability of jobs, for the economy has
generated so many new jobs during the past
decade that anyone who can'’t find a job just
doesn’t want to work. And the problem isn’t
taxes because most poor folks don’t pay taxes,
and many actually receive checks from the
government in the form of the earned income
tax credit.
No, to close the income distribution gap,
the next president will have to have the cour
age to say that the path to upward mobility
for the nation’s least-well-off begins at the
marriage altar.
That’s not to disparage those who are
poor and unmarried not by choice, who would
like nothing more than to have a loving, sup
portive spouse to help them raise their chil
dren. Only to recognize that there is no gov
ernment program nearly as effective as mar
riage in helping a family escape or avoid pov
erty.
© 2000 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE
ASSN.
Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The
San Diego Union-Tribune.
On behalf of all Chattooga County, we
thank all the folks with the Georgia Power Co.,
North Georgia Electric Membership Corp.,
Alltel Communications Inc., Charter Commu
nications Co., the employees of Chattooga
County, Trion, Menlo, Summerville, Lyerly, all
police, the sheriff’s office, the 911 Center, Com
missioner Jim Parker, the state Department
of Transportation, volunteer fire department
members, rescue squad workers and Hays
State Prison inmate details.
We also owe Herbert Dodd, director of
the county’s Emergency Management Agency,
a tremendous thank you for all the exhaus
tive, unheralded behind-the-scenes work he
did for county residents.
God bless each of you.
°
Getting Older:
The Crock Of Ages
(Editor’s note: This column was originally published in
May 1995)
THERE HAVE been subtle signs. Small clues in recent
years have, in retrospect, foretold what is happening. An ex
ample — my son, Noah, tells his siblings, “Look at Dad! He’s
still wearing those ‘aviator’ sunglasses!”
“Sure, I'm wearing those ‘aviator’ sunglasses. They're
prescription shades and they're paid for. What’s noteworthy
about that?” I ask.
The cold reply comes, “Dad, don’t you know? Those
glasses are out of style. You're out of step with the times.” This
comment from someone who wears high-top tennis shoes with
shorts!
And so it is. I'm getting old! It’s like I went to sleep one
night and everything was fine. Everything worked like it was
supposed to and I was happy. Then, one morning, I woke up
and it occurred to me, I'm getting old. Old beyond my years.
It wasn'’t the fiftieth birthday last year. It wasn’t even the
invitation to join the American Association of Retired People
(AARP). The gray hair has never bothered me. Grecian For
mula 16 has no appeal to me.
No, it was more substantive than those things. The ear
liest clue I can recall was a few years ago when I was getting a
required physical exam. My doctor asked me to stop by the
hospital to get an electrocardiograph done at my convenience,
just a routine test. I found out the hospital lab was least busy
late in the evening so I decided to drop in at about 10 p.m. for
the EKG.
#* * »
A VERY attractive young woman was most attentive and
friendly to me, so much so that I found myself making a vain
attempt to hold in my ample gut just a bit. This delectable
young medical technician walked me down the long hospital
corridor to the EKG lab. She was holding my arm and talking
in such a friendly manner.
I was feeling pretty good about myself that I could be
attractive to such a pretty young thing. I said, “You surely are
being kind to me and I want you to know I appreciate your
attention.”
“Oh it’s my pleasure. I know I would want somebody to
be nice to my Daddy if he was having heart problems.” Her
reply made me relax the gut holding.
* % %
ANOTHER BOUT with reality came last night when
my deceptively young looking wife and I were eating a meal in
a restaurant. We actually asked for a doggy bag and took half
of our entrée’s home with us fully intending to eat it the next
day for lunch. I couldn’t do anything more “old” than that un
less it would be for me to wear those soft-soled tan loafer shoes
with socks to match the color of my pants.
Another sign, common to our friends as well, is the shar
ing of the drugstore reading glasses. Even though I own at
least eight pairs of the half glasses, it seems I'm always bor
rowing some to read menus. My forgetfulness with the glasses
is not such a problem since there is always someone in our
crowd who has the glasses.
Not that we need to read a menu that often. Another sign
of the aging process is a marked preference for Morrison’s
instead of Bennigan’s. You don't need glasses at Morrison’s.
You just point and grunt at the food and they give it to you.
An alternative to falling asleep in front of the television
is to go to a Wal-Mart store and walk around aimlessly, per
haps looking at the soft-soled bone tan loafers in the shoe de
partment.
A sure sign of maturation is a change in one’s politics. I
believe it was Sir Winston Churchill, (or perhaps it was Pee
Wee Herman), who said something like this, “If a man is nota
liberal in his youth, he has no heart. If a man is not a conser
vative in his later years, he has no brain.”
Perhaps the saddest sign for me came on Memorial Day.
A week earlier my nephew, Josh, had arranged a golf match
for the holiday. It was one of my favorite foursomes at one of
my favorite courses. They called me on the phone to ask,
“Where are you? It’s time for us to tee off right now!” I was
forty miles away at home enjoying another cup of coffee. I had
completely forgotten this most significant, important event.
* ® »
I’M NOT READY for a rocking chair yet but things are
definitely slipping. And I'm not complaining about aging. The
alternative is simply too permanent. But I must acknowledge
the verity of a sage statement uttered by my oh-so-wise wife
as we sat in Morrison’s discussing the laws of nature, which
presumably include aging. She said, “Nature can be, a mean
Mother!”
And I know that’s right. Now if I can find those glasses...
i (Mike Steed writes a syndicated column. His e-mail ad
ress is msteed @steedco.com)