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RIGHT TO HEALTH
The 'Right to Life' movement has been
steadily building in our nation over the past 30
years. This past year the movement was a major
determinant in the election and it has recently
exploded with our President's and Congress' hypo
critical concern gver Terri Schiavo.
All evidence points to the guaranteeing of the
sanctity of human life for the next four years, as
will be witnessed by the further tightening of
restraints on abortion and stem cell research.
What is neither guaranteed nor publicly debated is
our right to health. Why not? What does the Right
to Life movement really mean without decent
health care? Shouldn't the President Congress and
we hold our right to health as sacred an entitle
ment as our right to life?
Right now, 80 million Americans are being
deprived of this right through lack of adequate
health insurance. And it's getting worse as the
business sector continues to drop health plans to
meet profit margins. Does our responsibility to life
end with the developing fetus or should we, like
all other industrialized nations, provide basic care
for our citizens from cradle to grave?
The grossly inflated pride in our presently pri
vatized system notwithstanding, a recent World
Health Organization (2001) global ranking of
health care placed the United States a mere 37th
in the world, between Costa Rica and Slovenia and
behind all other industrialized nations. Moreover,
to hold this unenviable position, we currently
spend two to three times as much per capita as
any country ranked above us.
The message is clear. Privatization is not
working well in the health care sector. Our present
free-market health-delivery system is in shambles,
and the Administration's current proposal to fix it
with a grand-sounding medical savings plan is not
going to cut it. All countries ranked above us
have a national, single-payer health-care system
that results in a lower infant mortality rate,
higher patient levels of satisfaction and greater
life expectancy for its citizens. Isn't it time that
we get a clue, learn from the rest of the industri
alized world, and start discussing the route to a
realistic and affordable health care system for
America that covers all of us?
Jay Allen
Athens
SPANKIN6 NEEDED
Elizabeth Deroshia's opinion piece on spanking
("Spank This,' April 13} would be more useful if
she made it clear what she counts as spanking. Is
it a swat on the kid's butt when he's having a
tantrum on the floor at Target or is in the act of
biting another child at the daycare center? Or
does she mean beating the kid into the emergency
ward over a bad report card, so that the nurse has
to call the police and the social workers? There's a
lot of territory in between those two extremes. If
Deroshia is of the 'any physical pain is spanking,
no matter how minor" school then she and I are
definitely on different pages—but I can't be sure
that's her position. The question is important, and
it hangs there unanswered.
Now, most of us grasp that black-and-blue
beatings are wrong. A lot fewer of us have any
problem with the milder end of contact guidance.
It's entirety possible to think that the swat on the
butt in child-created dire circumstances is not
even punishment It's just high-intensity commu
nication going through the only channel of com
munication that's still open when all rational
channels are turned off, tuned out and blocked.
Deroshia writes, "It does not show the child
conect behavior, it only stops inappropriate
behavior, and that is only temporary.* WeU, so
what? That's like claiming you shouldn't eat
peanut butter because it doesn't provide complete
nutrition and massage your neck. In a great many
circumstances one encounters in raising a child,
stopping the inappropriate behavior is absolutely
all we need.
CONTACT US AT P.0. BOX 1027, ATHENS, GA 30603, EDIT0R@FLAGP0LE.C0M
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'Most parents who spank their small children
just don't want to go to the trouble of adding
three of four extra steps to their parenting style,"
quoth she. Well when kid A is hurting kid B you
don't have the luxury of the three or four extra
steps. On such occasions, what's actually called
for is some high-intensity communication that
puts a stop to the kid-on-kid assault at the cor
rect time, namely right now this instant And, I
may add, satisfies kid sense of justice: he bit
me hard! And all you're gonna do is distract him?
Finally, let's spare a glance at Deroshia's own
tantrum, the one she throws in paragraph six:
"When Dr. Phil did his show on spanking, his
panel was split 50-50, matching the research
numbers. Who do you think the pro-spanking pan
elists were? Yes, Billy Bob and his wife Mary Sue,
a couple of backwards rednecks who were spanked
when they were kids and there ain't nothin' wrong
with them, hack-poo (insert your own spitting
noise here).'
To J. Fuller's mind, any writer capable of
throwing that kind of mindless mud at an oppo
nent has every one of his rational channels of dis
cussion firmly turned off, tuned out and blocked,
and urgently needs a public spanking.
You may consider this note to be it
Jimmy-Bob (hack-poo), ah means,
James P. H. Fuller
Athens
OUT OF AFRICA
This letter is in response to the spanking
article [April 13]. I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in
South Africa. Even as I sit here in the Internet
caft, I can here children in Zulu saying, 'Doch
shaya wena—I'm going to beat you* to each
other in casual conversation and childish banter.
They learn it from the adults. From the teachers
even. My job here is to try to train and uplift the
teachers and the schools. It's a job that the
Department of Education hasn't been able to do
for the past 20 years in the rural areas. It's as
thankless and depressing as I'm sure all Peace
Corps assignments are. I've never really considered
hitting a child until this week. Which is what
makes this article ironic to me. A child was
pushed under the wheels of the school bus on
Wednesday, 13 Apr., which strangely enough is
also my mother's birthday. I heard there was an
accident as the buses were about to be loaded,
and I went with a certain amount of dread. I've
seen quite enough blood since I've been here. The
child was dead before I put my hands on him.
Funny, I had assigned myself to bus duty in
January and failed at my task that day. The chil
dren getting on the bus—it's like a full-scale riot
Climbing over each other, pushing, shoving. I've
yelled and called them animals. Things I never
imagined coming out of my own mouth. But I've
said them. And now, if I have to stand in the
school yard with the biggest stick I can find, if I
have to beat children to keep them out from
under the wheels of a bus, maybe I'll do it
Honestly, I still haven't decided. It's been a hell of
a year. And to find a dead kid at school on
Wednesday. What can you say? I don't know that I
wilL But I don't know that I won't Enlightenment
is all well and good for the privileged, but what
about the masses? Its just the way it is. It's what
they respond to. I'm almost done fighting it
I saw my first R.E.M. concert in Jo berg last
month. It almost felt like Athens. I drank a bottle
of whiskey that day. I'm cn my third glass of wine
now. I miss the hope and ideab'sm and the dark
blurry nights at the 40 Watt Love to Peter, Logan
and the rest
Bethany Culbertson
Amsterdam, South Africa
PLAYING PAGAN
Mankind never disappoints in its mass produc
tion of a little thing called hypocrisy. Case in
point—I ran into more than a couple of people
who consider themselves pagans.
Playing dress-up sure is fun, ain't it? These are
people with regular day jobs, they watch TV,
they're just like you and me. They just think
they're pagans. If you adhere to the dominant
herd morality, you are not a pagan. If you are con
tributing to the technoligization and moderniza
tion of the world, you are not a pagan. If you are
setting up an island of permanence for your 'seif*
in your image-rattled mind, ydu are not a pagan.
And I hate to burst your bubble, but if you are
living in this society, you are doing all of these
things and more, and that my friend makes you a
Christian or a deviant variation thereof. And in
that case I must give it to you—you are just a
hypocrite by default Now before you get all
defensive, take a dose, close, close look—but
then again the mirror can be a cruel companion.
Our society, even though no longer structured
under a dominant church, is still running on well
lain tracks of Christian morality and philosophy
(which since the Middle Ages has had a remark
ably Greek and cerebral flavor), tracks leading us
to a 'better world.' But anyway, take a look
around. This world is dying because of people who
no longer feel any attachment to it or love for
this beautiful life. This world is dying because of
miserable, sniveling people that harbor a grudge
against an existence that does not live up to their
expectations. This world is dying because of a lack
of love, the real kind, that is. This world is dying
because of "Christians,* "Pagans," 'Buddhists,'
'Muslims' and all the other ists, ians and isms.
The world is dying.because of people who tike to
play dress up, and I tell you it is the only world
we've got
Jeremy Jacobs
Lavonia
LIKES HOPE
I want to commend the April 20 cover article,
or "love letter," to the group, Hope for
Agoldensummer, written by Chris Hassiotis.
As someone in his Lite '50s whose current
musical tastes tend to run from Miles Davis to
Bruce Springsteen, and who doesn't get out to the
Athens clubs much anymore, I make every effort
to catch Hope for Agoldensummer when they are
in town. They make me feel young.
My daughter first introduced the group to my
son and me almost two years ago, and we
promptly fell in love with them. Most of the live
music I hear nowadays is when I travel to New
York City. In terms of talent and originality, Hope
for Agoldensummer is at least on a par with
everyone I see there. I was happy to read in your
article that they will begin to tour outside the
Southeast and I'm sure they have a very bright
future.
A decade from now, people will be recalling
when Hope for Agoldensummer played locally.
Jim Ponsoldt
Athens
STEP ON IT
Why does it take so long for all those people
in front of me to start moving when the light
finally changes from red to green? You'd think all
those big, gas-guzzling V8 engines could start
moving faster than they apparently can. What are
we fighting for, if we can't use it any better than
that?
Leonard Wheeler
Athens
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! The EPA has valued
the Hfe of the elderly at only $3.7 million, since
they’re about to kick the bucket anyway.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE) W * you be
forced to spend $2 million to install controls that
would prevent David Reyes from being killed
by your factory's mercury output?
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So, you're not required to spend $4 mWon
on personnel that would prevent your arsenic
output from Idling Jeanne Forsch.
Nope) He won! be Idled for 30 years, so the
EPA apples a discount and values hia We t
the rock bottom price of $1 mHtanl
(fc-ec w such au’ainistrw'On value life? l‘V{:
^Polluting corporations, call now to get GREAT VALUES topav/
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COST - BENEFIT
ANALYSIS'
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THE kKMRONMEMTAl PROTECTION A6CMCY
DECIDE WHETHER TO REQUIRE COMPANIES
to reduce pollution, based on how
the Cort of compliance compares to
THE BENI FITS OF UVES SAVED.
HOW DOES A CULTWE Of UTS MEASURE
THE VALUE OF UFt ? in COLD CA$Hf/
McKinney will be killed by
sulfur dioxide spewed from your factory
unless you spend $7 million on scrubbers.
But we value his Hfe at $6.1 mifcon, so save
your money - you don’t have to comply!
APRIL 27, 2005 • FLAGP0LE.COM 5
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