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PAGE 4A
THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008
Editor: Angela Gary
Phone: 706-367-2490
E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com
Website: www.mainstreetnews.com
Opinions
“Where the press is free and every man
able to read, all is safe.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Teach children
to be thoughtful
C hildren are born thinking “me, me, me.”
They are quick to tell you what they want,
how much of it they want and when they
want it. Unless we start early teaching them that it
is better to give than to receive, they will likely con
tinue to have this attitude as they leave childhood
behind and become adults.
My 6-year-old nephew
recently went to a friend’s
birthday dinner with me. The
restaurant also had a gift shop
and he asked me if he could
get four glass eggs. I know
how he likes Easter eggs and
they didn’t cost much, so I
agreed.
I bought them and he
quickly handed them out
to the four people we were
having dinner with. I wasn’t
that surprised. I know how
he likes to give gifts to people. The four friends we
were with were surprised that he had picked out the
eggs for them and didn’t even get himself one.
On a recent trip to the grocery store with my
mother, Jake picked out an Easter basket. He didn’t
ask if she would get it for him. He asked if they
could get it for his baby brother. He didn’t even
pick out a basket for himself.
Jake was out of school for a few days recently
and we took him to Gatlinburg. He had some
money he had been saving. The first thing he said
was that he wanted to get me “some jewelry and a
purse.” He wouldn’t stop talking about it until he
found me a cat pin and pink purse. I don’t know
why he had jewelry and purses on his mind as a gift
for me. I guess he knows jewelry and purses are
two of my favorite things!
Since Jake was old enough to help, he has been
with me as I shopped for friends, wrapped gifts and
handed them out. He has also helped my mother
bake goodies and can food to give to her friends on
special occasions. He knows you don’t have to go
to the store and buy something in order for it to be
a gift.
Jakes gets such a joy out of giving gifts. It’s
something you don’t see a lot of from adults much
less from children. Children look at us as role mod
els and mock our behavior. If we get joy from being
thoughtful and giving, they will too. Fortunately,
Jake has been around people such as my mother
who love to give to others.
Be sure and involve children in taking time to
make thoughtful gestures for others. Whether it
is getting out the construction paper and crayons
and making cards or heading to the store to shop,
include them in these gestures. It will pay off in the
long run as they grow up into thoughtful, giving
adults.
angela
gary
Angela Gary is editor of The Banks County
News. E-mail comments about this column to
AngieEditor@aol.com.
The Banks County News
Founded 1968
The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga.
Mike Buffington. .
Scott Buffington . .
Angela Gary
Chris Bridges . . . .
Sharon Hogan. . . .
Anelia Chambers .
April Reese Sorrow
Co-Publisher
Co-Publisher /Ad. Manager
Editor
Sports Editor
Reporter
Receptionist
Church News
Phones (all 706 area code):
Angela Gary Phone 367-2490
Angela Gary Fax 367-9355
Homer Office Phone 677-3491
Homer Office Fax 677-3263
Sports Phone 367-2745
Sports Fax 367-9355
www.mainstreetnews.com
(SCED 547160)
Published weekly by MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.,
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Jefferson, Ga. 30549
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The Banks County News,
P.O. Box 920,
Homer, Ga. 30547
just doing c little surveying
State constitution needs a complete makeover
G eorgia needs a new constitu
tion. We haven’t adopted a
new one since 1983. Before
that, the Peach State regularly rolled
out new constitutions at the rate of one
about every 20 years since the Civil War.
Now, we have allowed our present
state constitution to approach its 25th
birthday without a single cry for a com
plete makeover. Friends, our state is des
perate for a fresh baseline for our laws.
Where should we start? How about
this? Expand the definition of the three
branches of government to four to
include executive, legislative, judicial
— and lobbying.
No group of people has a greater
effect on our lives at the federal and
state level than lobbyists — people
paid to twist arms, buy football tickets
and pick up tabs for steaks and booze to
affect legislation and policy.
Lobbyists are undoubtedly the smart
est people in the halls of the Gold
Dome. They have the ability to enact
legislation, block legislation and write
legislation. In this age of passive state
government, lobbyists call most of the
shots regarding policies on every topic.
So their roles should be officially rec
ognized — and regulated. (Oh, lordy,
don’t use that word “regulated” again,
please.)
To begin our research on expanding
the branches, let’s pick up a copy of
“Who Runs Georgia?” a modest tome
written by Calvin Kytle and James
Mackay after Georgia’s three-governor
fiasco of 1946. The Kyle-Mackay
answer then: the corporations. The broad
response has not changed, but the names
of the corporations are different.
The influence of corporate lobbyists
(and their bosses, of course) is every
where. Even when lobbyists step down
from their corporate posts, their influ
ence lives on and even grows. Take the
banks and bankers. Gov. Sonny Perdue
created two new six-figure positions
to run his New Georgia and turned the
posts over to bankers — chief oper-
ating officer, a
post occupied by
former Bank of
America exec Jim
Lientz, and chief
financial officer,
filled by Tommy
Hills, formerly of
Wachovia.
Perdue’s first
chief of staff was
Eric Tanenblatt,
who left lobby
ing powerhouse
McKenna Long & Aldridge to serve
Perdue, only to return to his old firm
a year later. Tanenblatt was replaced
by John Watson, a lobbyist, who was
replaced by Ed Holcombe, who had
retired after decades as a lobbyist for
Georgia Power.
And then there’s the legislative
branch, including House Speaker Glenn
Richardson’s infamous relationship with
an AGL lobbyist who just happened to
be advocating a massive pipeline requir
ing hundreds of millions of dollars in
underwriting by taxpayers. One-time
Richardson aide Sam Choate left the
speaker in October 2007 to become a
lobbyist. Today, Choate counts among
his lobbying clients a utility, a private
prison, a tobacco company and a drug
company.
To prove his piety and innocence on
lobbyist matters, Gov. Perdue stepped
off a helicopter one day and loudly pro
posed restrictions on legislators becom
ing lobbyists. A weakened version of the
“revolving door” bill ultimately passed,
but not before two of the governor’s
floor leaders and sponsors of the lobby
ists reform measure, Dan Lee and Bill
Stephens, beat the effective date and
became lobbyists. Both are lobbying
today, with a full stable of high-powered
clients.
Perdue’s legislation did not apply
to staff, maybe to protect Tanenblatt’s
future employment. A more likely expla
nation is that the legislation was drafted
by Perdue’s deputy counsel, Robert
Highsmith, who left the governor early
in the first term to return to his old law
firm — Holland & Knight, a lobbying/
law firm with offices in 22 cities and five
countries. Highsmith left as an associate
of the firm and returned a full partner
— a common practice in Washington.
His client list includes utilities, banks
and health-care companies. He is an
expert in campaign finance law (he was
Gov. Roy Barnes’s Republican appointee
to the State Ethics Commission), and
represents, among others, Lt. Gov. Casey
Cagle, Secretary of State Karen Handel,
the Senate Republican PAC, and Gov.
Perdue’s political action committee,
PerduePAC. Yes, he represents the very
same people he lobbies.
The winners in this morass are the
lobbyists, who make millions, the inter
ests they represent, who rake in billions,
and the politicians who hunt and fish
and go to football games and NASCAR
races on the lobbyists’ tab. The win
ners are bipartisan, though the party in
power wins bigger. Under Democrats
and Republicans, bankers run the bank
ing committees in the House and Senate,
and name the Banking Commissioner.
And other industries run other com
mittees — all under the guise of the
value of a citizen legislature. Valuable to
whom?
The real results of such an arrange
ment: The consumer gets the shaft.
There are many examples, the most
prominent of which is the gutting of
predatory lending laws in 2003, lead
ing to record foreclosures, and in a nice
twist of irony, the failure of a number of
sub-prime lenders. We wonder not about
the gutting in the first year of the Perdue
administration, but how Gov. Barnes was
able to pass the anti-predatory lending
legislation shortly before he left office.
You can reach Bill Shipp at P. O. Box
2520, Kennesaw, GA 30156, e-mail:
shipp1@bellsouth.net, or Web address:
billshipponline.com.
bill
shipp
Letters to the Editor policy given
The Banks County News has estab
lished a policy on printing Letters to
the Editor.
We must have an original copy of
all letters that are submitted to us for
publication.
Members of our staff will not type
out or hand-write letters for people
who stop by the office and ask them
to do so.
Letters to the Editor must also be
signed with the address and phone
number of the person who wrote
them.
The address and phone number
will be for our verification purposes
only and will not be printed unless
the writer requests it. Mail to,
The Banks County News, P.O. Box
920, Homer, Ga. 30547.
E-mailed letters will be accepted,
but we must have a contact phone
number and address. Letters that are
libelous will not be printed.
Letters may also be edited to
meet space requirements. Anyone
with questions on the policy
is asked to contact editor Angela
Gary at AngieEditor@aol.com or by
calling 706-367-2490.
News department contact numbers
Anyone with general story ideas,
complaints or comments about the
news department is asked to call edi
tor Angela Gary at 706-367-2490.
She can also be reached by e-mail
at AngieEditor@aol.com.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to the
county board of commissioners,
county government, county board of
education, Maysville City Council
and crime and courts is asked to
contact staff member Chris Bridges
at 706-367-2745 or by e-mail at
chris@mainstreetnews.com.
Bridges also is sports edi
tor of the paper and covers local
high school, middle school and
recreation sports.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to
Alto, Lula, Baldwin and Gillsville,
should contact Sharon Hogan at
706-367-5233 or by e-mail at
sharon@mainstreetnews.com.
Calls for information about the
church page should go to April
Reese Sorrow at 706-677-3491.
Church news may also be e-mailed to
asorrow@mainstreetnews.com.
The Banks County News web
site can also be accessed at
www.mainstreet.news.com.
Fun long since
taken out of
radio listening
T he news that two big-time coun
try music stations in Atlanta
fired a majority of their on-air
personalities last week really came as no
surprise.
In radio, these things happen all the
time. It seems regardless of how loyal a
fan base a DJ has, no one is safe from
the suits who run the station (many times
these suits are brought in from other mar
kets and really don’t have a clue about
what the listeners at their new station
really want.)
Perhaps the only legitimate surprise in
the firings at KICKS and the Eagle was
the release of Rhubard Jones, who seem
ingly had a lifetime
contract to be at
106.7 on the dial.
However, even
Jones, who is known
as much for his hon
esty and charitable
work as his on-air
deeds, was led to the
executioner’s cham
ber on Friday.
So much has
changed about the
Atlanta radio mar
ket in the past two
decades. There was a time when listening
to your favorite station (regardless of the
music it played) was like having a friend
with you. It seemed you knew the on-air
personalities. During this time, DJs still
had some freedom to speak for more than
a few seconds on the air. You could actu
ally call the station, talk with the on air DJ
and request a song. The DJ was actually in
the studio at the time and was not simply
a pre-recorded voice. My, how times —
and radio — have changed and all for the
worse.
I purposely tuned into the Eagle
Monday morning during the drive to work
forgoing my usual sports talk selection to
see if any mention was made of Rhubard’s
decades at the frequency. While I did not
listen for the entire show there was no
mention of him during the time I tuned in.
It was as if he never was there. When the
Eagle went to a commercial I flipped back
to my normal morning station and they
were actually talking about Rhubarb and
what he meant to Atlanta radio.
I don’t know the exact date Rhubarb
went on the air in Atlanta but I do remem
ber him as far back as 1986. As a teen
age then I remember working during the
summer and hearing the station (which
was called Y106 then) becoming an
establishment in the Atlanta market. As I
mentioned before, the on-air personalities
seemed to be having fun and in return you
made a point to listen.
Of course, Rhubard’s fellow DJs from
that time have all since moved on or been
fired. Suits decided to do away with the
moniker Y106 and give us the Eagle,
which was a mistake in my opinion. The
suits who made that decision have long
since left the crime scene, however, leav
ing destruction in their wake.
I should also mention that Steve
Mitchell was another casualty during the
execution at the Eagle last Friday. Mitchell
also has a long history in Atlanta radio as
he was part of the original Wake Up Crew
on 96 Rock back in the 1980s. Of course,
96 Rock is probably the ultimate example
of clueless radio suits killing a product
that had a history of loyal listeners dating
back decades. As a sidenote, don’t be sur
prised to see the Eagle give up its country
format as well. A new player in the game
debuted recently and since the same com
pany owns both the Eagle and KICKS,
I doubt they will continue to use both as
country signals.
Don’t be fooled into thinking those
who run radio stations of this size care
about what you and I think. They don’t.
I remember calling the front office at the
old Power 99 (I’m dating myself again)
when it was killed in the early 90s as 99X
made its debut. I found it ironic when so
many people were outraged that 99X was
executed in recent months, but I remember
another station had to be killed in order to
allow 99X to be born.
I doubt listening to radio will ever be as
much fun as it once was. That’s because
the personality has been taken away. To
me, you have to have more than a voice
speaking at the top and bottom of the hour
and playing music and commercials in
between. That’s radio for monkeys. The
last time I checked, I was not a monkey.
4 .!>
chris
bridges
Chris Bridges is a reporter for The
Banks County News. Contact him at
706-367-2745 or e-mail comments to
chris@mainstreetnews.com.