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PAGE 4A —THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. AUGUST 13. 2009 Frankly Speaking frankgillispie671@msn.com By Frank Gillispie Health care plan makes no sense A few days ago, TV commentator Bill O’Reilly said that he has a Master’s degree from Harvard University, but that he still cannot understand the Health Care bill. (H. R. 3200) Well, I am a quasi literate, half-smart, semi-self educated Georgia red neck and I cannot understand it either. I downloaded the document, all 1,017 pages of it, and attempted to read the thing. I failed. No wonder Rep Conyers objected to being told he should read the bill. The thing is impossible to understand as it is written. Even the people who wrote the bill apparently have a problem understanding it. From time to time throughout the document, they give up trying and just let someone else do it. For example, in the section on definitions you will find this gem: "(5) DEPENDENT—The term ‘dependent' has the meaning given such term by the Commissioner and includes a spouse." The document is a mishmash of legalese and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. For example: "(e) PAYMENT OF GRANT.— “(1) IN GENERAL.— The Secretary shall make a grant to each State that meets the requirements of subsections (b) and (d), if applicable, for a fiscal year for which funds are appropriated under sub-842 section (m), in an amount equal to the reimbursable percentage of the eligible expenditures of the State for the fiscal year, but not more than the amount allotted to the State under subsection (c) for the fiscal year. The following section is the one that many people think would deny end-of-life treatment to elderly or severely handicapped people. See if you think that is what it says. SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION. (3) Physician's QUALITY REPORTING INITIATIVE- (A) IN GENERAL- For purposes of reporting data on quality measures for covered professional seivices furnished during 2011 and any subsequent year, to the extent that measures are available, the Secretary shall include qual ity measures on end-of-life care and advanced care planning that have been adopted or endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if appropriate. Such measures shall measure both the creation of and adherence to orders for life-sustaining treatment. '(B) PROPOSED SET OF MEASURES- The Secretary shall publish in the Federal Register proposed qual ity measures on end of life care and advanced care planning that the Secretary determines are described in subparagraph (A) and would be appropriate for eligible professionals to use to submit data to the Secretary. The Secretary shall provide for a period of public comment on such set of measures before finalizing such proposed measures.” What we need is a mle that all legislation must be written at or below the tenth grade reading level. And that it must contain fewer than 200 pages. That way even rednecks like myself can understand it. That is what was promised, transparency. But then again, I suspect that the politicians do not want us to under stand what they are doing. If we ever figure it out, we might vote them out of office. Mark Twain once said: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being ran by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” He has a point. Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frankgil- lispie671 @msn,com. His website can be accessed at http://frankgiUispie. 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 ZACH MITCHAM, Editor MARGIE RICHARDS, Reporter/Office Manager BEN MUNRO, Reporter/Sports Editor MIKE BUFFINGTON, Co-publisher SCOTT BUFFINGTON, Co-publisher FRANK GILLISPIE, Founder of The Journal. Jere Ayers (deceased) former owner of The Danielsville Monitor and The Comer News Periodical postage paid at Danielsville, Georgia 30633 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. Remembering Mr. John Terrell My first memories of being inside a bank are of sitting with my parents in the office of Mr. John Terrell, owner of Merchants and Farmers Bank in Comer. Those meetings weren’t tense, or formal. In fact, they were relaxed and friendly. My parents weren’t exactly poor, but they didn’t have a lot of money either, and if they needed money due to an illness, or for a better, more reliable car, or for repairs for the house, a loan from the bank was usually needed. And all it took to get those needed funds was a signature and a hand shake, from the kind and gracious Mr. Terrell. He would always talk to them, and me, as if we were “some body,” just as senior center direc tor Joe Dudley told me this week. That’s the way he said Mr. Terrell always made him feel. When he needed a loan for his first car, that’s where he went. That’s where a lot of us went, and not just for the loan, but By Margie Richards for the chance to be treated like “somebody.” It might be years between when he and I saw each other again, but he always remembered me and who my folks were and would unfailingly make some comment about me as a child. It made me feel good. Over the last decade or so, most of my contact with him has been at the senior center, where he was always helping out, usually through the non-profit Frances Wood Wilson Foundation, of which he was administrator. He and the late Eloise McCurley, the previous director of the center, were great friends and Joe told me that it is Mr. Terrell who is responsible for the lovely portrait of Eloise that now hangs in the entryway of the center that bears her name. You’d never have heard that from Mr. Terrell. No, he was a quiet self-effacing man, humble, and a great humanitarian, as his long-time friend, former State Representative Louie Clark, told me this week. Mr. Clark said he and “Kid” Terrell, as his friends called him, were friends for over 30 years, meeting first in Athens, and then continuing their friendship here in Madison County. They would often get together for lunch at places like Zeb’s Barbecue or the Ila Restaurant. “His favorite foods were chick en and dressing and banana pud ding,” Clark said chuckling. “He was very modest and a true gentle- man - the Last of the Mohicans, if you will.” And it would be remiss of me or anyone else writing about Mr. Terrell not to mention his great love of Georgia football. Mr. Clark said Terrell never missed a game, home or away, as long as he was able to go. I asked Mr. Terrell, on more than one occasion, to allow me the honor of doing a profile on him. He would always shake his head “no,” being very kind but firm - he just didn’t want the attention. That’s a rare trait indeed, espe cially in this day and age. His passing last week at the age of 84 was a loss indeed. Well, I hope he won’t be too unhappy with this column, after all it’s written by a little girl who looked up to a very kind, very hue gentleman, who helped her and her family on more than one occasion. And I know I speak for many here in this county, and beyond. Margie Richards is a report er and office manager for The Madison County Journal. The battle of Shiloh through the lens of Foote If I think of those days when the nation was split, I can’t help but hear “Ashokan Farewell,” the melancholy, modern-day fiddle tune that plays over and over again as a camera pans in and out on old grainy pictures from the 1860s. We can never really feel what it was like when North and South fought. But we can peer back through a narrow lens. And the Ken Bums documentary “The Civil War,” which is nearly 20 years old, remains a staple of American remembrance regard ing that war. The 608-minute, nine-episode series is always on PBS. And I often find myself wrapped up in it. Of course, the voice of Shelby Foote dominates the documen tary as much as the fiddle tune. He appears in 90 segments, approximately one hour total. Foote sounds like a grandfather for the region, bringing melody and grace to the Southern accent as he flavors the narrative with anecdotal ironies. Foote, who died in 2005, was a respected fiction writer and his torian prior to the documentary, but he didn’t find financial suc cess and fame until the film. He told Bums, “Ken, you’ve made me a millionaire.” In the Meantime zach@ mainstreet news.com By Zach Mitcham I tmly enjoy his appearance in the documentary, but I recognize that his brilliance as a writer and historian is too often overshad owed by that film. I own two books from his historical tril ogy on the Civil War. And I’ve read portions of each, though I was ultimately overwhelmed by the density of those volumes. Still, if you sit down with those books, I think you’ll agree that his research on the war is tmly impressive. But I recently reread his more accessible novel, “Shiloh.” And it reminded me of what I like about historical fiction. We recognize that recorded history comes as a third-person narrative. We can’t use “I” for Abraham Lincoln. We can’t step into his body. We know the dry facts, but not the feel ings, unless they come by way of quotation. However, historical fiction uses the basic framework of names and places, while freeing an author from the chains of what’s provable. Instead, the perceptions must ring true. The author must open the eyelids of the long gone and make us believe that we are seeing and feeling what they did. Eoote’s 1952 novel, “Shiloh,” is about the two-day battle in south western Tennessee on April 6 and 7, 1862. It’s a seven-chapter book that offers first-person narratives of both Union and Confederate soldiers. There is a clear journal istic balance between the perspec tives of Northern and Southern soldiers. Men on both sides were scared for their lives in the worst of circumstances. I like the way Foote describes the inner dialogue in a soldier’s mind. For instance, in the third chapter, Private Luther Dade, a rifleman from Mississippi, takes a gunshot to the arm and is sent to a triage area to wait for a doctor, but there was no doctor about. Infection sets in. He stumbles toward the sound of gunfire, look ing for help. “I told myself: You better lay down before you fall down." Then I said: “No, you’re not bad hurt; keep going. It was like an argument, two voices inside my head and neither of them mine.” “You better lay down." “No, you feel fine.” “You'll fall and they’ll never find you." “That’s not true. You’re just a little light-headed. You’ll be all right.” “No, you won't. You're hurt. You 're hurt worse than you think. Lay down," Of course, war stories will always interest us, even if there is something kind of perverse about the fascination of man killing man on a mass scale. But normal, everyday people are swept up and away by war. And part of human empathy is the effort to under stand their experience, even if we’re ultimately bound to fail. We know of the markers and stones. We can visit batdegrounds and imagine what it must have been like in times long past. But it takes people like Foote to let us hear the voices behind those old markers. In case you didn’t notice, this is my stab at a book report, kind of like an assignment you might have had for seventh grade sum mer reading. Anyway, I challenge you to read a historical novel and write to us about why it’s impor tant and why it’s worth a look. Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal, Chambliss, Isakson show their priorities If you are trying to figure out what your congressmen really believe in, don’t focus on what they say — look closely at what they do when it comes time to vote. A good example of that involves Georgia’s two senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, and their approach to spending about $2 billion of your money. The two senators, especially Chambliss, have worked hard this summer to take nearly $2 billion out of the defense budget and earmark it for the building of more F-22 fighter jets at Marietta’s Lockheed Martin plant. Should we really be spending $2 billion to build more F-22s, consider ing their spotty track record? The F-22 is the most expensive fighter jet ever commissioned by the Air Force, at a cost of about $350 mil lion per aircraft. For all of that money, however, the Defense Department is getting an overpriced jet that breaks down easily and still has not been flown in combat over Iraq or Afghanistan. Here are some criticisms of the F-22 that come not from left-wing com mentators, but from weapons experts and Pentagon analysts: The F-22 requires more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour it spends in the skies. It costs nearly $50,000 an hour to fly one, which is The Capitol Report tcrawford@ capitol impact.net. By Tom Crawford much higher than the cost of the jet it is supposed to replace. The F-22 is a “stealth” fighter that is supposed to be hard for radar to detect. Its radar-absorbing metallic skin is the main cause of maintenance problems, including problems flying in rainy weather. In the period from October 2008 to this May of this year, only 55 percent of the F-22s deployed have been avail able to fulfill their missions guarding U.S. airspace. The F-22’s radar-absorbing canopy has been a source of problems, with a stuck hatch imprisoning a pilot in 2006. The canopy doesn't last more than 18 months because it loses its strength. Canopy visibility for the F-22 also declines quickly and the canopy has to be refurbished at a cost of $120,000 after an average of 331 hours of flying time rather than the stipulated 800 hours. Senators like John McCain, an Arizona Republican, have derided the F-22 as a prime example of pork bar rel spending for unneeded weapons systems. On top of all these design flaws and maintenance problems, the F-22 is a jet that the defense department does not want. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican originally appointed by George W. Bush, said the $2 billion that would have been spent for more F-22s is more urgently needed to support American troops fighting in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama said he would veto any spending bill that included the F-22 funding. Chambliss and Isakson pushed ahead anyway in their attempts to move around $2 billion in the defense spending bill to pay for even more of these fighter jets. They appeal' to have been unsuccessful, although anything is possible once Congress comes back into session next month. Their actions are defensible from the standpoint of taking care of their constituents. Lockheed Martin is an important employer for Georgia and you can understand why the two senators would want to funnel more money to it. But Chambliss and Isakson both voted against another $2 billion in funding that would have had a much bigger impact on Georgia businesses and consumers: the additional money for the “cash for clunkers" program approved by the Senate last week. You can make the argument that this may not be a wise expenditure because it adds to the federal defi cit. The “cash for clunkers” program, however, has at least been successful in helping financially distressed auto dealers bring buyers into their show rooms. For some dealers, it could be the difference between shutting down and staying in business. The $2 billion that Chambliss and Isakson tried to get for Lockheed Martin would have paid for seven additional F-22s. The $2 billion in the "cash for clunkers" program that they voted against could result in the sale of about 500,000 vehicles nationwide, with thousands of those autos sold by Georgia dealers. It says a lot about the priorities of our senators that they consider it more important to use taxpayer money for overpriced, unneeded aircraft than to help out our auto dealers and car buy ers - or our troops fighting a danger ous way in Afghanistan. Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news service at www.gare- port.com that covers government and politics in Georgia. He can be reached at tcrawford@capitolimpact.net.