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Viewpoints Our Views More good news Shortly after the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricentcr opened almost 10 years ago, it became apparent the facility would attract more visitors if a suitable place for meetings and small conventions existed. Responding to a study of needs, the members of tne Georgia Exposition Authority, the state government appointed board which directs the center, developed a small meeting space. With money from the Georgia General Assembly, the Roauemore Center was added. Suddenly the Fairgrounds could host smaller meeting groups in comfort and could attract more users to the facility. Once the Roquemore Center was avail able, larger groups began looking at the Fairgrounds. They would come if there happened to be a larger building with more auditorium seating available. Again members of the Exposition Authority' huddled. Working with Executive Director Michael Froehlich and others, they developed a concept for a multi-purpose building. Perry representative Larry Walker thought the project should go even farther, and pressed for a true convention center. His sales pitch was convincing, and sud denly the state appropriated more than $8 million for a convention center at the Fairgrounds. Now the plans are on paper, and the building will soon be going out to bid. Within 18 months, a new convention facil ity will face 1-75 from the west entrance. The building appears to have not only a functional plan, but an attractive exterior which will draw more visitors to the Fairgrounds. Readers will remember it was the pres ence of the Fairgrounds along 1-75 which first attracted members of the Family Motor Coach Association to Perry. The appearance of the new convention center certainly will make the Fairgrounds even more impressive from the interstate. Walker, working with the Exposition Authority and Froehlich, has given Perryans yet another chance to capitalize on the booming tourism market. Each person who worked for the con vention center should take a bow and enjoy the applause of Perryans for making the facility move from dreams to concepts to ready for construction. Many residents of the community will benefit directly or indi rectly from the tourism dollars spent here because of the new facility. Thanks, folk. We needed that. Mayor makes challenge Editor: I appreciate the kind words you recently stated concerning my birthday. It would not have been possible for me to cele brate that occasion had it not been for Letters to the Editor P.O. Drawer M Perry, Ga. 31069 some skilled doctors and up-to-date research done through the American Cancer Society. As a cancer survivor, I want to encourage every one in our community to get involved in the May 14 -15 Relay for Life event at Perry High School. All of us are touched by cancer in some way or other. Through advanced medical research we will find a cure for the disease. In the meantime, we need the entire community to become aware of what we can do to prevent cancer and a great place to begin that learning process will be at the Perry High School track on May 14. It will also be an evening of fun and entertainment. Please come. Jim Worrall Mayor Houston Tines-Journal P.O. Drawer M • 807 Carroll St. • Perry, Ga. 31069 email timesjrn9hom.net (912) 987-1823 (voice) • (912) 988-1181 (few) Bob Tribble President Jj Johnson Editor and General Manager Ellen T. Green Advertising Director Lifestyles: Pauline Lewis, Joan Dorsett; News and Composition: Charlotte Perkins, Sports: Phil Clark and Alline Kent; News and Circulation: Rob Mead; Bookkeeping: Paula Zimmerman in M / / wL. If a train leaves Chicago traveling... Remember those silly old word problems: "If a train leaves Chicago going 43 mph and another train leaves New York ..." • Well this little test is even better. I got my copy of it via email from a long time friend, Mike Marshall of Sandersville. Like me, Mike is a right brained person. He was stumped and shared the puzzle hoping 1 could solve it. 1 couldn’t, but I have a half dozen friends who are engineer types. I sent the puzzle to them. Within minutes, I started receiving answers. I now have a positive TM£ PtAA/UT GALURY /ts b£oommg evtoeur that f \ SU/PG TOBACCO COMPAAttBS fS (? ADDfCTtVB! <'? Vf 1 • •». }W ‘ »* - • lijjlli'i •! IH (I ..1 * ttK I t r . t ... . ©AMM 99 ravtoons@hom.net 1 Nunn expresses concerns about Kosovo (EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the transcript of an interview between former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn of Perry and CNN television. The subject of the interview is United States actions in Kosovo.) BRIAN NELSON: Now, for an assessment of how things are going in the strike against Yugoslavia, I’m joined by Sam Nunn. He is a former Democrat in the United States Senate and was the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mr. Nunn, thank you for being with us. SAM NUNN D, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: Thank you. NELSON: “The Yugoslav Army weekly” has described NATO’s strate gy in this war as a “fiasco.” I’m sure that’s no surprise. But there are critics abounding of the strategy. So I’d like to ask you, first of all, how would you rate NATO’s perfor mance in this strike? NUNN: Well, we had Plan A, and Plan A hasn’t succeeded very rapidly, if at all. We did not have Plan B, a fall back plan. We did not have any kind of plan for ground forces, or even the perception that we were going to put in ground forces, which means that it was very hard to have the Yugoslavs or the Serbs react with the kind of reac tion we would have liked from the air-power. So, it weakens the air-power when you do not plan for the ground forces. Now, putting ground forces in would be extremely difficult, but rul ing them out from the beginning was a real mistake. Now, the result so far and we Our Policies Unsigned editorials appearing in larger type on this page under the label Our Views reflect the position of the Houston Times-Journal. Signed columns and letters on this page (and elsewhere in this newspaper) reflect the opinions of the writers and not necessarily those of this newspaper. Signed letters to the editor are welcomed. Please limit let ters to 300 words and include addresses and a telephone number for verification purposes. Letters are not published without verification. Letters should be sent to P.O. Drawer M, Perry, Ga., 31069 or brought to the newspaper office at 807 Carroll St., Perry. Our liability for an error will not exceed the cost of space Page 4A Wed., April 21,1999 Jj . Johnson Editor answer to the puzzle. I’ll share it in a future column . ••• Subject: How smart are you ? Four men in a band have a concert that starts in 17 minutes and they must all cross a bridge to get there. All four men begin on the same side of the bridge. You must help jhem across to the other side. It is night. There is one Sam Nunn Former U.S. Senator from Perry don’t know how this is going to come out in the long run, because a lot of it depends on whether NATO can hold together and continue the bombing campaign until the Serbs decide they have had enough and they want some kind of settlement that gets their forces out and allows the NATO forces to come in to protect. So the verdict is not in yet, but right now, so far what wc’vc had is a tragedy for the .Albanians, a rallying-around a dictator, Milbsevic, by the Serbs, many of whom opposed him a year ago, a real destabilization of the whole area and an alienation of the Russian peo ple, if not the leadership. So right now we have .paid a very heavy price for this, but at this stage and that’s what we have to deal with now we are going to have to hold the alliance together. That’s going to be one of the big challenges for President Clinton. NELSON: Well, how do we get ourselves out of this mess? Is it ground troops? NUNN: When you talk about ground troops and I would not rule that out but there are a lot of ques tions here. It took us 90 days to get ground troops into Saudi Arabia dur ing the Persian Gulf War, and that was before fighting started. We had no hostilities. We had bases there that were even more elaborate than the ones we have here. We had warehous- flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them. The flashlight must be walked back and forth, it cannot be thrown, etc. Each band member walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower man’s pace: Bono - 1 minute to cross Edge - 2 minutes to cross Adam - 5 minutes to cross * Larry - 10 minutes to cross For example: if Bono and Larry walk across first, 10 haßP&j,-*' yM occupied by the error. We cannot be responsible for the return of pictures or submit ted materials unless a stamped, return address envelope is included. Our Goal The Houston Times-Journal is published proudly for the citizens of Houston and adjoining counties by Houston Publications Inc., Perry, Ga. Our goal is to produce quality, profitable, community-oriented newspapers that you, our readers, are proud of. We will reach this goal through hard work, teamwork, loyalty and a strong dedication toward printing the truth. Member of Georgia Press Association and National Houston Times -Journa, minutes have elapsed when they get to the other side of the bridge. If Larry then returns with the-flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission. Notes: There is no trick behind this. It is die simple move ment of resources in the appropriate order. There are two known answers to this problem. Mike told me this prob lem is based on a question Microsoft gives to all prospective employees. Microsoft expects you to answer this question in less than 5 minutes! Good Luck! es. We had a country with a lot of logistics. So all the conditions were favorable there. It took 90 days. Right now, we haven’t even started thinking about deploying ground troops. We’ve had no debate in Congress. That would have to take place. They’ve had no debate in the alliance. I would think it would take at least 90 days to get 100,000 to 200,000 ground troops into a country like Albania or a country like Macedonia, because there’s no infrastructure there. We’d have to bring everything with us. And in a modern kind of warfare, with American technology a lot of people don’t realize this we have a very large logistics base. For every air craft, you’ve got to have an electronic warehouse. Many of the times, it’s got to be air-conditioned with the preci sion equipment. And the same thing is true with the Army. The Army is very high-tech. So, we’re not really well-positioned to very rapidly intro duce a large number of troops. So, timing would be the big question. Will the allies participate in a ground oper ation? That’s another question. But when we back off of all of this and we see that we’re trying to limit civilian casualties, which is under standable in the circumstances, we’re certainly trying to limit our own casu alties, we’re not taking really risky mis sions. And we’re not willing and we’ve roped off ground troops. So, when you get into that situa tion, you’ve got to back off and say, “Wait a minute. Should we have used lethal force to begin with?” Because we’ve turned this into sort of a human itarian war, and Plan A has not worked (See NUNN, Page SA) Bob Tribble Times- Journal President Paper blunders A certain church in the area had s sign out front that read, "Come in anc hear our choir." Underneath it said “Do you know what hell really is?" Good intent, but the wrong mes sage conveyed. Over the years we ir the newspaper business have ofter done similar things with misprints ir news stories or headlines. One of the worst mistakes thai comes to mind that we have made at our local group of newspapers occurre'd a few years ago in oui Patriot-Citizen in Buena Vista. An advertisement was sent in to the papei that should have read, “on the job training." When it cane out in print it read,"on the john training.” Seemed rather funny to me but not to the company which placed the ad. Maybe even better than that one was a New Year’s ad we once ran for Cox Funeral Home when James Evans was the proprietor in Manchester. The ad had a picture of a man and woman dancing and under neath were the words, “Swinging in the New Year with our friends and customers.” James wouldn’t speak to me for a few weeks, but it was a sim ple mistake of the wrong signature on the wrong Errors such as the ones mentioned cannot be explained to our readers and customers. We ourselves wonder how such things could happen, but during the rush of meeting deadlines and putting out newspapers, sometimes they do. Austin Saxon, our retired editor at the Wircgrass Farmer in Ashburn, wrote a column recently about some of his blunders over 45 years or so of newspapering. Let me share a couple with you in his words. “I think one of the most embarrass ing moments for me as a newspaper editor came years ago when we print ed an account of a young bride who had been honored with a pantry shower. You can guess what the error was in the headlirie:There on the page for all the world to sec was, ‘Bride Honored in Ashburn at Panty Shower’.” Saxon continues, “Certainly, the most embarrassing times of all were those instances when we buried the wrong person. There is no way you can explain such a terrible mistake to a bereaved family.” Recently the following headlines were assembled as the “Best Newspaper Headlines of 1998." Hope you enjoy them. 1. Include Your Children When Baking Cookies. 2. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say. 3. Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers. 4. Drunks Get Nine Months in Violin Case. 5. Iraqi Head Seeks Arms. 6. Prostitutes Appeal to Pope. 7. Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over. 8. British Left Waffles on Falkland Island. 9. Teacher Strikes Idle Kids. 10. Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead. 11. Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told. 12. Miners Refuse to Work After Death. 13. Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant. 14 Stolen Painting Found by Tree. 15. Two Sisters Reunited after 28 Years in Checkout Counter. 16. War Dims Hope for Peace. 17. If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last a While. 18. Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide. 19. Man Struck by Lightening Faces Battery Charge. 20. New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group. 21. Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space. (See TRIBBLE, Page SA) Newspaper Association. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Your right to read this newspaper is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Houston Times-Journal (USPS 000471) is published weekly for 521.40 per year (including sales tax) by Houston Publications Inc., 807 Carroll St., Perry, Ga., 31069. Periodicals Class Postage paid at Perry, Ga. POSTMAS TER : Send address changes to the Houston Times-Journal, P.O. Drawer M, Perry, Ga. 31069. ISSN: 1075-1874. |S||P*?§Bp