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PAGE 4A —THE MADISON COUNTY (GA) JOURNAL. THURSDAY. OCTOBER 15. 2009
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Opinions
Frankly
Speaking
frankgillispie671@msn.com
By Frank Gillispie
Obama, Democrats
creating too much
political friction
Friction can be a good tiling, and it can be an agent
of destruction. It takes friction to smooth and polish
objects and ideas. The crankshaft in your engine has
to be highly polished to avoid wear and distortion. A
small stone can be polished into a jewel for your ring
or pendant. Your wood furniture can be buffed into a
deep shine. All this takes friction.
But friction can also be harmful. If you let grit or
sand enter your engine, the friction it creates can
destroy the crankshaft causing the engine to seize
up. Air friction determines the maximum speed at
which an airplane can travel. Friction from your
shoes can gradually strip away the finish from your
floors.
Friction can waste energy. If your tires are not
properly inflated, the extra friction with the roadway
damages your car’s mileage. Accumulation of dust
on the blades of a fan will reduce the flow of air
from your heater.
In the late spring of 1908 a massive explosion in
Northern Russia, known as the Tunguska Event, was
caused by friction from the air acting on an invader
from deep space. The asteroid or small comet hit tire
atmosphere at an extremely high speed, and became
so hot, so fast that it exploded in the air destroying
thousands of acres of trees below.
So. What does this have to do with today’s events?
Friction can occur in non physical ways, such
as politics. Our two-party political system creates
significant amounts of friction between their ideas
and pians.
Usually this is a good tiling, as the friction from
the party in the minority helps to shape and polish
the legislation from the majority. The result is usu
ally policies that are beneficial to and approved by
most citizens. But that is not always the case.
In the past, political power has been evenly
divided between the two groups. As a result, friction
from the opposition party can bring the efforts of
the rufing party to a virtual standstill. In these cases,
government grinds to a halt and important things are
left undone.
Today, the greater risk of political friction is a
clear possibility. The Obama Administration is try
ing to push major changes through Congress at a
rapid pace. These high-speed efforts are generating
high levels of political heat that could result in a
massive explosion. Clearly, the fallout from such
an event would be damaging to our nation for years
to come.
In order to avoid a political Tunguska Event,
President Obama and Iris liberal Democratic sup
porters need to dramatically slow their push for
reform, allow their ideas to fully develop, and then
be polished and shaped by the friction from tire
conservative Republican opposition. That is tire
only way programs satisfactory to the majority of
Americans can be achieved.
Physicai friction by tire atmosphere caused a mas
sive explosion over Russia that destroyed thousands
of acres of trees. Political friction in Washington
D.C. could cause a policy explosion that will destroy
the careers of hundreds if not thousands of politi
cians. Which will it be? We will probably know by
this time next year.
Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County
Journal. His e-mail address is frank®frankgillispie.
com. His website can be accessed at http://www.
frankgillispie.com/giIlispieonline.
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
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
THE MADISON COUNTY JOURNAL
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A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.
The strangeness of time
When you’re a kid, eternity is some
sort of cousin to fifth grade — at least
I felt like the two were on the same
endless branch of a family tree.
And I felt suspicious of this golden
privilege of “adulthood” that I’d sup
posedly one day reach. Grownups tell
children that "one day you’ll be an
adult and then you can do it your way,’’
but as a kid, I remember questioning
the truth in that, feeling that, in fact,
time stood still, unchanging as grade
school. I was what I was, a kid, as I
would always be.
It’s strange to recall that hopeless
feeling of being trapped in an eternal
fifth grade, the idea that I’d never
get beyond bookbags, homework and
meal money.
Because a quarter century has since
passed. And somewhere in those years,
I got my wish, eventually crossing the
line into adulthood.
Perhaps that status comes with grad
uation, a first vote, or a first "yes, sir’’
directed at you, not from you. Certain
events stand as flagpoles in the sands
of gradual change.
There are those constant reminders
that yet another year has passed, the
surprise I feel when someone seems
to step directly out of a Little League
In the
Meantime
zach@
mainstreet
news.com
By Zach
photo into a wedding announcement.
"UGA students keep looking young
er and younger,” I said to my dad, not
ing how I feel older and older when I
venture onto the Athens campus.
"Yeah, well, it only gets worse,”
he said.
Perhaps the acceleration of years
shouldn’t surprise any of us. We
know that as we grow older each year
becomes a smaller fraction of our
life. For instance, a year represents 10
percent of a 10-year-old’s life, two per
cent of a 50 year-old’s existence and
only one percent of a 100-year-old’s
time on the planet. Doesn’t it make
sense then, for years to seem shorter
and shorter in the context of our lives?
The famous psychologist William
James wrote that the same span of
time may seem entirely different for
different creatures.
"Suppose we were able, within the
length of a second, to note 10,000
events distinctly, instead of barely 10,
as now: if our life were then destined to
hold the same number of impressions,
it might be 1,000 times as short,” said
James. "We should live less than a
month, and personally know nothing
of the change of seasons.”
In James' scenario, a life may be
shorter, but just as full, because more
experience, more impressions, have
been packed into a certain amount
of time.
It’s interesting to think of butter
flies or cats or dogs in this regard. Is
such a fullness of experience true for
creatures with a shorter lifespan than
humans?
I read an interesting article in The
New Yorker by Dr. Oliver Sacks, who
spoke of patients afflicted with neuro
logical disorders. He noted that brain
injury can lead patients to believe that
very little time has passed, when, in
fact, hours have ticked off the clock.
Sacks spoke of one patient who
would sit in the hallway, motionless
for hours "with his right arm often
lifted, sometimes an inch or two above
his knee, sometimes near his face.”
“When I questioned him about these
frozen poses, he asked indignantly,
‘What do you mean, ‘frozen poses’?
I was just wiping my nose,”' Sacks
took a series of photos over several
hours and determined that the patient
“was wiping his nose but was doing
so a thousand times more slowly than
normal.”
We all hear the ticking of the clock,
but such perception is relative to our
condition, our age.
And we have a scientific theory
that shows us that time itself is not as
simple as we think, not necessarily a
pure linear movement. It can bend.
Einstein showed us that objects travel
ing at different speeds can observe
different times, the theory holding, for
instance, that an astronaut who travels
at a great speed through space won't
age as quickly as those on earth.
That's truly mind-boggling stuff.
But you don’t need a PhD in phys
ics to recognize the puzzling nature of
time in our everyday lives.
It surely speeds up for us all. If you
don’t see that, then you’re probably in
grade school waiting on the bell.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The
Madison County Journal.
Mitcham
You’ve got a friend at the PSC
Starting now and for years to come,
many Georgians are going to see
increases every month in their elec
tricity and natural gas bills.
A few dollars here, a few dollars
there, these little increases will add up
to very impressive totals for the state’s
two largest utility firms: $175 million
for Atlanta Gas Light and $1.6 billion
for the Georgia Power Co.
That’s a lot of money coming out
of the pockets of Georgia consumers.
The remarkable thing is that Georgia
Power and Atlanta Gas Light will get
that revenue without even filing for
a rate increase with the agency that
supposedly regulates them, the Public
Service Commission.
There was a time in the not-too-
distant past when a utility film that
wanted to raise its rates first had to
file an application with the PSC. The
utility would be required to disclose
the financial and marketing data that
supported its request to raise rates. It
would have to make a plausible argu
ment that future customer demand
made it necessary to build more
power plants or gas pipelines.
The PSC would - in theory anyway
- digest those numbers, detennine
a fair return on investment to the
utility and a reasonable cost for its
customers, and then set a rate for the
company to charge. It wasn’t a perfect
The Capitol
Report
tcrawford@
capitol
impact.net.
By Tom Crawford
system, but the voters who elected
PSC members at least had an indirect
say in the rates they had to pay.
Those rules largely don’t apply
anymore. Because of changes in the
law passed by a business-friendly
Legislature and new rules adopted
by a utility-loving PSC, there's hardly
any need for the companies to bother
with the grunt work that goes into a
typical rate case.
If Georgia Power or Atlanta Gas
Light want to jack up their rates now,
all they need do is announce to the
PSC that they’re going to add a “sur
charge” to their customers' monthly
bills. They can be sure that three of the
five commissioners - Doug Everett,
Stan Wise, and Bubba McDonald -
will vote to approve the surcharge.
Commissioner Chuck Eaton
sometimes straddles the fence, but
often votes with the Everett-Wise-
McDonald axis. The one commis
sioner who actually considers the
impact of higher prices on recession-
plagued families is Bobby Baker
- who usually finds himself on the
losing end of a 4-1 vote.
The PSC majority is so deeply in
the hip pockets of the utilities that
it’s become a joke. As a commis
sion insider once remarked, “The
lobbyists spend so much time in
Stan Wise’s office they ought to be
paying rent.”
The recent debate at the PSC on a
surcharge requested by Atlanta Gas
Light was typical of how things work
these days.
Atlanta Gas wanted to add some
new pipelines to its network but didn't
want to be bothered with the chore of
filing for a rate increase, so it asked
the PSC to approve a surcharge of 95
cents a month for residential bills and
$2.85 a month for business customer
bills.
The PSC majority, of course,
favored the surcharge, but McDonald
went one step beyond. It’s not fair
to business customers, he said, that
they should have to pay more than
residential customers. He proposed an
amendment to require residences and
businesses to pay the same amount of
$1.18 each month after the surcharge
is fully phased in.
Baker pointed out that McDonald's
proposal would require a widow liv
ing on Social Security to pay the same
monthly surcharge as the Walmart
down tlie street that takes in millions
of dollars a month and consumes
much more natural gas.
"The customer who uses 10 therms
per month is going to pay the same
exact amount as the customer who
uses 100,000 therms per month,”
Baker noted.
"Everybody's favorite whipping
boy is Walmart,” Wise retorted. “As
fun as it is to beat up on a Walmart or
a Kmart or whoever the whipping boy
is, we all have to pay.”
Wise, McDonald and Everett voted
for the McDonald amendment to
give large business customers a price
break at the expense of consumers.
McDonald summed it all up with
probably Hie most truthful statement
he has ever made in four decades as
a politician.
"The residential customer is gonna’
get it one way or the other,' ’ McDonald
said.
He’s absolutely conect about that.
Tom Crawford is the editor of
Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an
Internet news service at www.gare-
pon.com that covers government and
politics in Georgia. He can be reached
attcrawford@capitolimpact.net.
Letters to the Editor
Disappointed with Comer’s failure to pick up debris in Royal Oaks
Dear Editor:
I am writing to express my disap
pointment with the city of Comer
for failing to pick up debris for tax-
paying city residents in Royal Oaks
Subdivision.
At the September Comer town hall
meeting, when I asked for debris to
be picked up in Royal Oaks, the city
council informed me that the track
may not be in running condition
when debris needed to be picked up.
I was also informed that I wasn’t the
only one in Comer that needed debris
picked up. I informed the council that
I am aware I am not the only person
in Comer, but I am the only one in the
Comer council meeting asking for a
debris pickup day to be scheduled.
I attended the Comer council’s
meeting again Oct. 5. When it was
Royal Oaks’ time to speak, I asked
the city council about getting a debris
pickup day scheduled once a month.
I asked them if a certain day could
be set — such as the second Tuesday
or third Thursday — every month.
I was told that debris could only be
picked up in a portion of Royal Oaks’
Subdivision — the parts considered
“Phase 1 and 2.” I asked the council
why, and I was told the builder Tim
Seymour hasn't dedicated Phase 3’s
streets to the city of Comer yet.
I informed the council that I pay
city taxes and should be able to get
debris picked up from my lot in
Phase 3. The council told me they
would be trespassing if the debris
track came down into Phase 3 of
Royal Oaks.
I informed the council again that
I pay city taxes, along with other
neighbors in Phase 3 and that the city
of Comer provides water and sanita
tion pickup in Phase 3.
So how is getting debris pickup
any different than other city services
already performed in Phase 3?
The council informed me again
that the builder needs to dedicate
Phase 3 streets to the city of Comer.
I asked them what needed to be done
and was then informed again by the
committee that the "builder” needed
to get Phase 3 dedicated to the city
of Comer.
I asked again where I could find
information on what needed to be
done by Mr. Seymour to get Phase
3 dedicated to city of Comer for
my own information as a citizen of
Comer. I was told that the “builder”
needs to get the information. I agreed,
but asked again where I could find
information on what Mr. Seymour
needs to get done to dedicate Phase
3’s streets to city of Comer. I was
finally given Jim Baird's business
card as a contact for information on
getting Phase 3 dedicated to city of
Comer.
I do not believe it should be so
difficult for a taxpaying citizen of
Comer to have debris picked up by
the city government, which provides
that service to city residents.
Sincerely,
Marsha Royston
Comer
Thanks for supporting fund-raiser
Dear Editor:
The Comer Woman’s Club would like to thank
everyone that purchased a ticket in support of
their most recent annual fund-raiser drawing,
which was held at the Madison County Fair. The
winner of this year’s prizes were: Lyn Kellum,
Joan Lurwig, Nancy Seymour, Marion Brown,
Tammy Parker, Megan Hancock, Max Sartain,
Anne Threlkeld, Kent Burden, Fran Cantrell and
Amy Baker. A special thanks to the following
Madison County businesses for their help: First
Madison Bank and Trust, Fox’s Pizza, Madison
County Florist, Carmine’s Pizza Time, Blue
Bell Gallery, Merchant’s and Farmer's Bank,
Compadres Mexican Grille, Ku’ Foodlane and
Possibilities Consignment Furniture.
We would also like to thank Betty Crumley for
the lovely handmade quilt.
The proceeds from the fund-raiser will enable
the club to complete certain projects for the com
munity.
Sincerely,
Pat Hancock
for the Comer Woman’s Club
Thanks to Rotary
for building ramp
Dear Editor:
We would like to thank the Madison
County Rotary Club for constructing a
ramp at our home in Hull last week.
They were good, helpful and caring to
us and we so appreciate their efforts.
Sincerely,
Lance and Lillian Thomason
Hull