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PAGE 4A —THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 19, 2009
Opinions
Frankly
Speaking
frankgillispie671@msn.com
By Frank Gillispie
Don’t eliminate
Crawford W. Long
from hospital name
“No man is an island entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main,” is a famous quote from John Donne,
one of the most influential poets of the
Renaissance.
In this meditation Donne was saying that
when one person suffers a loss, we all lose.
We are all interconnected with each other
and with the history and culture of our soci
ety. That is why I quoted Donne. Georgia
has just suffered a damaging historical and
cultural loss. And because of that loss, we
are all losers.
Emory University announced Friday,
Feb. 13, that it has changed the name of
Emory Crawford Fong Hospital to Emory
University Hospital Midtown. The change
does a great disservice to Georgia’s history
and culture.
Dr. Crawford W. Long, a native of
Danielsville, was the first doctor to use
sulphuric ether as an anesthetic and was
the first doctor to use anesthesia during
surgery.
Dr. Long's discovery makes him one of
the great medical pioneers. The fact that
he is a native of Madison County, Georgia,
educated at the University of Georgia and
practiced medicine in Jefferson brings a
great deal of honor to our area. He is so
important to the history and culture of our
state that his statue is one of the two from
Georgia located in statutory hall at the
nation’s capitol. A duplicate of that statue
stands in the courthouse square in the center
of Danielsville.
Our state and region are already being
rapidly deprived of our history and culture
by the “politically correct” crowd. They
seem to be determined to wipe out all
memory of our history, and to deny our
unique culture and heritage. Those losses
are steadily depriving our state of its soul.
Soon our children will have no idea of who
their ancestors were or what contributions
they made to this nation. And every time
our history is forgotten, or our heritage is
denied, they become less knowledgeable of
who they are.
Soon, we will be a region of zombies. We
will be surrounded by people with no sense
of belonging. Their lives will be shallow
and meaningless. All they will know is to go
to work, spend money on foolishness, and
eventually die without leaving any part of
themselves for future generations.
We need to remember Dr. Crawford W.
Long. We need to know of his great con
tribution to medicine. Emory University
Hospital needs to remember that without
the pioneering efforts of men like Dr. Long,
they would not have the ability to serve the
medical needs of the area. Removing his
name from their facility is an affront to the
very service to which they are dedicated, the
best in medical service.
I hope that Emory University will receive
enough protests to cause them to change
their minds and keep the honored name of
Georgia’s most famous doctor on their hos
pital. If you agree, let them know.
Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison
County Journal His e-mail address isfrank-
gillispie671@msn.com. His website can be
accessed at http://frankgillispie.tripod.com/
The Madison
County Journal
(Merged with The Danielsville Monitor
and The Comer News, January 2006)
P.O. Box 658
Hwy. 29 South
Danielsville, Georgia 30633
Phone: 706-795-2567
Fax: 706-795-2765
Email: zach@mainstreetnews.com
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
Madison & surrounding counties $19.75/year
State of Georgia $38.85/year
Out-of-state $44.50/year
Military personnel with APO address $42.50/year
Senior rate $2 off all above rates
College student discount rate $2 off all above
rates
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
THE MADISON COUNTY JOURNAL
P.O. Box 658, Danielsville, GA 30633
A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.
What goes on our plates
We offer blind faith to those who
handle our food, putting our health
in the hands of strangers when we
purchase anything to eat. Short of
raising, harvesting and preparing
everything we eat, what else can
we do?
This is generally a fine arrange
ment. But most everybody can cite
harrowing exceptions to the rule. I
think of the evening I purchased a
hamburger with a bite already taken
out of it. I guess the fry cook was
hungrier than me.
Nevertheless, I’ve always felt a
certain control in assessing food risk.
If I don’t want a burger with a bite
taken out of it, I have a pretty good
idea of where those risks increase.
Likewise, I used to assume that
any food I picked off a shelf had
been inspected by a specific person
and that the product’s safety was
guaranteed. But now I can see that
there’s simply too much to inspect.
While I can feel a comfort in getting
reasonably decent stuff — because
I’m not getting sick all the time —
I recognize, too, that I can’t just
pretend there’s nothing to notice in
terms of food safety.
I think I’m pretty middle-of-the-
road on this kind of stuff. I’m not
going to freak out and avoid things
I’ve always eaten, but I’m going
to pay attention when red flags are
In the
Meantime
zach@
mainstreet
news.com
By Zach Mitcham
waved about certain items.
For instance, I love popcorn, but
if I want that nice butter taste. I’m
going to add real butter, not settling
for the artificial stuff. It simply tastes
better. Plus, workers in popcorn fac
tories have had some serious respi
ratory problems, called “popcorn
lung,” which is apparently linked
to breathing in large amounts of
the chemical diacetyl, which gives
popcorn its artificial butter flavor.
Maybe this could harm me, maybe
not. But I prefer just to avoid the
chemical. I simply look for a brand,
like Orville Redenbacher, that says
“no diacetyl added” somewhere on
the box.
Of course, these days, our food
safety focus is on peanuts. And
when I stick that knife in the jar of
peanut butter to put on my daugh
ter’s bread, I feel the stab of irrita
tion, recognizing that even snack
time isn’t immune from big-world
anxieties.
Hearing of baby mice crawling in
peanuts, of executives giving the go-
ahead to sell nuts that tested positive
for salmonella, makes me think of
“The Jungle,” that famous 103-year-
old novel about the meatpacking
industry that led to U.S. food safety
reform.
Of course, Sinclair sought to write
the labor movement’s “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” exposing the horrible work
ing conditions of Chicago meat-
packers. But when I learned about
this book in high school, I was no
different than most people — lack
ing empathy for the plight of far
away, forgotten strangers, yet very
interested in the tale of rancid meat.
After learning of “The Jungle,”
I was thankful that our nation had
taken a step into a more civilized
food world. Nasty, un-inspected
meat would never find its way to
my plate.
Well, of course, that’s no guaran
tee. The conditions discovered at the
Blakely plant don’t exactly give us
much confidence in our food inspec
tion system.
The media blitz regarding the
scandal has surely hurt peanut pro
ducers. But the attention has at least
one positive — slack food process
ing plants are surely taking note
of how exposure of their unsani
tary methods can hurt their bottom
line. Perhaps other plants are quietly
cleaning up their act amid the peanut
furor.
Still, bad press is no substitute for
good enforcement. Of course, the
government can never completely
eliminate food hazards. But there
needs to be a better effort at food
safety oversight. And if we’re look
ing at more federal jobs now, then
food inspections seems like a pretty
worthy cause. Clearly, the peanut
plant didn’t fear any government
repercussions for their slack stan
dards. They went for quite some
time without anyone bothering to
check them out.
I liken it to traffic safety. If law
officers put little emphasis on road
patrol, they can expect more speed
ers, more accidents. Likewise, if
government puts little emphasis on
inspections, they can expect more
violators, more sickness.
We know that laws don’t amount
to much unless we have an environ
ment of enforcement.
If we become too comfortable
with an anything goes, free-market
credo for food safety, then we can’t
be too shocked when anything goes
on our plates.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The
Madison County’ Journal.
Pandemic or ‘pandemonium’ — another crisis to prepare for
I remember walking among the
graves in Colonial Park Cemetery
in Savannah on a cool fall day a few
years ago and being struck by all the
tombstones that shared 1918 as the
date of death.
There was a good reason for that.
Yellow Fever swept through the
country that year, claiming more
than 700 lives in Savannah alone
- and more deaths worldwide than
World War I.
Nationwide the figure was around
675,000 fatalities — and some
reports say the worldwide loss of
life could’ve been as much as 30-50
million (21.5 million seems to be the
official number). Any of those num
bers boggle the mind — just imag
ine 700 dead in one town alone.
A number of the tombstones in the
cemetery had been damaged, van
dalized, or simply removed to make
room for walking areas and many
of them were lined up along the one
remaining stone wall at the back of
the cemetery. Many of those too car
ried the 1918 date — young to old,
prosperous to pauper — all repre
sentations of society were there.
At the time I shook my head,
thinking how sad it would have been
to have lived through those days,
possibly desperately ill yourself, and
to witness so many die all around
you — your family, friends, neigh
bors — and then be left to mourn
their sad passing.
It seemed, it still seems, far
removed from how we live today.
After all, modem medicine has
made us relatively fearless in our
daily lives — when we’re sick with
winter colds or flu we go to the doc
tor or hospital, get medicated and
get well so we can go on about our
Close
to
Home
ly Margie Richards
business.
Even the recent peanut butter scare
— as bad as it is — doesn’t compare
to something like what happened in
1918.
We do need to understand though,
that our society can, and if experts
are correct probably will, have such
an experience in the near future.
For example, if the so-called "bird
flu” or another mutant strain of influ
enza makes the jump to humans,
then 1918 could pale in comparison
to what experts think could happen
today.
I know, I know, “fear-monger-
ing” is a tiresome thing, we hear it
most oppressively these days with
the worldwide “economic collapse,”
we’re all facing, with the threat of
terrorism, with global warming —
heck we even get it on the History
Channel with ominous-sounding
programs like "It Could Happen
Tomorrow.”
And yeah, anything could happen.
But if we take a lesson from the
pages of history, we should under
stand that in today’s mobile, highly-
populated society, where most of us
brush shoulders with a variety of our
fellow human beings day in and day
out, it’s quite plausible that a "bug”
could get quickly and quietly into
the general population before we
had the time, or the means, to react.
To me that’s even more frightening
than the economic collapse, meteors
that may come crashing through the
atmosphere, or even the elevated
threat of a terrorist bomb.
The dictionary defines "pan
demic” as an epidemic that spreads
through human populations over a
large region.
There have only been some 200
confirmed human deaths from the
much-touted avian flu so far (none
in the U.S.), and most of those have
been in small, isolated clusters of
individuals. But as this vims changes
and mutates, so could the numbers.
And it’s not just a flu bug that could
cause widespread disease, tubercu
losis is just one other example of
a deadly disease that’s on the rise
again, with some new and antibiotic
resistant strains emerging.
If/when one of these diseases
breaks out, how will we deal with
it? Would panic reign? Would we
ignore it until people were dropping
like flies? Or would we heed govern
ment health warnings, quarantine
ourselves, and wait it out? I’m sure
there will be some of all of that
going on.
Browsing around on the Internet,
I found a government website that
told a little of how Georgia dealt
with the pandemic of 1918:
“The Atlanta City Council
declared all public gathering places
closed for two months as a precau
tionary measure. Schools, libraries,
churches, and theaters also closed.
Streetcar conductors were directed
to keep all windows open — except
in rain. In an attempt to stop the
epidemic before it reached Athens,
the University of Georgia suspended
classes. In Augusta, where influenza
was rampant, the city suffered from
a shortage of nurses. The situation
became so acute that nursing students
were put in charge of some shifts at
the local hospital. An emergency
hospital was also constructed on a
local fairground, and school teachers
were enlisted to act as nurses, cooks
and hospital clerks.” And in the town
of Quitman, people were ordered
to “cough into their handkerchiefs”
and post "influenza” on their doors
if anyone inside was afflicted. Can
you imagine if that happened in
this day and age? It seems, like the
History Channel says, "it could hap
pen tomorrow.” The only difference
is that now, if we take advantage of
it, we have some time to get ready.
To this end the Madison County
Flu Pandemic Planning Committee
and the Northeast Health District
who have been formulating plans for
some time now to handle a pandem
ic on the local level, will sponsor a
pandemic flu training seminar for
county pastors and other interested
church members on Tuesday, Feb.
24, at 7 p.m. in the meeting room
of the Madison County Library.
After all, in our small community,
churches will play a vital role, on
many different levels, in helping get
through any such crisis. The federal,
or even state government may have
few resources to distribute in such
a widespread crisis, so it’ll be up to
us as a community to get ourselves
through it.
Margie Richards is a reporter and
office manager for The Madison
County Journal.
House approves property
assessment freeze
For many years, I have intro
duced and supported legisla
tion that would put an end to
the back-door tax increases on
local property owners that occur
through the revaluation process.
On Thursday, Feb. 12,1 joined
a bipartisan majority in the
House of Representatives who
approved HB 233, which would
establish a two-year moratori
um on property reassessment
increases.
A majority of House members
also voted for HR 1, a pro
posed constitutional amendment
that would have capped prop
erty assessment revaluations at
3 percent or the rate of inflation
every year in the future. But as a
proposed constitutional change,
two-thirds approval was needed
Difficult times call for
disciplined fiscal leadership
With shorter weeks at the
Capitol now, every day is bus
ier as we work diligently to
address the many issues facing
Georgians.
Late last week we learned
state revenue for January was
down 14 percent, equating to a
quarter of a billion dollars, put
ting additional pressure on the
state budget, which is already
hamstrung by our current eco
nomic situation. Earlier this
week, we found out that unem
ployment rose at a shocking rate
in January. These difficult times
continue to underscore the need
for disciplined fiscal leadership
at the state level and also at the
local level.
Property taxes continue to
be a hot topic under the Gold
House
News
By Alan Powell
in the House, and Thursday’s
vote fell short of that.
HB 233 addresses a major
problem in our state: a prop
erty tax system that is broken
and adversely affects all prop
erty owners: residential, com
mercial, agricultural and others.
This moratorium, which now
— See “Powell” on 5A
House
News
By Tom McCall
Dome. This week, we debated
House Resolution 1 and com
panion legislation House Bill
233 that seek to implement a
statewide cap on annual prop
erty tax assessment increases to
three percent per year.
House Bill 233, adopted by a
— See “McCall” on