About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 9, 2011)
CONTACT US AT P.O. BOX 1027, ATHENS, GA 30603, LEnERS@FLAGPOLE.COM ' OR VIA THE “TALK BACK TO US" LINK AT FLAGPOLE.COM WRONG JOURNALISM "Paul Broun, Jr.'s Krazy Korner" is wrong journalism. Do you actually think that this column is helpful? I kept hoping your news paper would stop writing this piece, yet it is there week after week, again and again. Now, I ask you to please stop. This weekly column is an example of de humanization. Endless de-humanization is what Rush Limbaugh and FOX TV do towards the Liberals and the Democrats; this is what Nazi Germany did to the Jews and what many Israelis do today towards the Palestinians. What is your goal in de-humanizing Paul Broun, Jr.? Your content in the column jumps to con clusions in the same way that Mr. Limbaugh does: half information and half editorial con clusions presented as fact. You may want to check with Mr. Broun, for example, and see if he really thinks that women are not to be not allowed to vote (as your recent column inferred). Please look for solutions to our problems and not gimmicks. I am tired of this disparag ing column and its graphics. Your audience is intelligent enough to listen to well-developed arguments re: the failings of Mr. Broun. Sky Campbell ' Athens STILL UNDERMINING EDUCATION I think it's time for us all to face the back- story about both the school voucher and the "fair" tax questions honestly. When segregation came to an end, little segregation academies sprang up all over Georgia. Embarrassed, they soon re-invented themselves as Christian schools. (Check their foundation dates.) These private schools cost a lot to run, but, especially in rural areas, tuition cannot rise. Nearly all middle- and upper-class white people (a genre that includes me, by the way) sent and still send their children to these schools. Now, the voucher system would let them throw some of the money to the struggling private schools safe in the knowledge that the "rougher element" still could not afford them. These same white folks also pay property taxes to support the public schools on top of tuition to a private school, a fact that they resent. The "fair" tax offers them welcome property tax relief, especially if, during the bubble '90s, they moved way out of town and spent their retirement savings on a big ole McMansion in a suburbia that now needs to raise revenue for roads and services already in place where they came from. The public schools are increasingly left with rising popu lations of less qualified students and shrinking revenues. Politicians can dress up vouchers and the "fair" tax in dubi ous new outfits, but it is still the same old dog that has haunted nearly every move in Georgia since the Civil War. Not that Georgia was any great shakes in the education depart ment before integration. What was it we used to say about always ranking near the bottom: Thank God for Mississippi? Even so, we are fast returning in Georgia to the first half of the 19th Century, before there were public schools, where children were educated at home, at private academies or, for the major ity-white and black—not at all. That simply won't work in the modern world. Patrick Mizelle Athens GREAT TOWN! Is Athens a great town or w‘ '*■? Frazzled from getting ready for my trip to New Zealand next Tuesday, I went downtown to have lunch with an artist friend. The parking meter was messed up, so I wrote a note telling the meter maid that it was broken. When I returned, I found this note tucked into the rubber gasket of the driver side window: "Hey your keys were on the hood. We moved them to the front left tire. Be safe!" Sure enough, there they were! Thank you kind souls who found my keys and hid them—may you continue to make our town a great piece to live! * Gary Grossman Athens ALCOHOL NO JOKE Those of us who've had alcoholic relatives, lost dear friends to drunk driving, broken up rapes downtown and witnessed countless, wholesome young people destroy their lives through drinking here can not be amused by the ads you allow chiming, "Work less, drink more!"—ads that make light of ruined livers, STDs and DTs, etc. Furthermore, while Flagpole espouses many worthy causes and proclaims itself "progressive," how can it square this with encouraging abuse of the world's most dangerous drug: implicated in the vast majority of committed crimes (includ ing rape) along with unwanted pregnancies, STD transmissions, etc.? (This, according to a recent World Health Organization report.) And, as Flagpole often cites Jesus (thank fully pointing out that he is no warmonger!) I'll kindly remind Flagpole that Jesus also says that for those who aid in the corruption of the young "... it would be better for them to have a millstone placed around their necks and be thrown into the sea, than to face God at their judgment!" Alcohol abuse, and the chaos it wreaks on society, is no laughing matter. Neither is Jesus' warning. But I'll bet that the warmongering, corporate "conservatives" (who surely supply most of Athens' booze!) are tickled pink that Flagpole helps thousands of immature souls, who might otherwise come to oppose their insidious plans for America and the world, to become impotent, ineffective, apathetic wastrels, with poisoned, clouded, undiscerning minds, instead. Gordon Lee Stelter Athens EAST TO THE ARCH Dec. 27 marked my 15-year anniversary here in good ole Athens, GA. Over the years I have been everything from dishwasher to business owner, and every day my love for this city grows. I was reading the Dec. 22 issue of your fine publication when I came across something that made me bust out laughing, and it got me thinking about some of the little eccentricities that make this town as an educational hub unique. My first week in town I made the mistake of eating Chinese food downtown where Five Guys is currently located. It wasn't so good, and someone suggested Peking to me. Where is it? Over on the Eastside. Thanks. A day or two later, I was driving east down Broad Street (which runs east-west) looking for this "Eastside." 1 passed East Athens Baptist Church and figured I was on the right track. After a while I got to the post office, on what is now Olympic Drive and realized that Athens had run out. So, where was this "Eastside?" Simple—it was northwest of southeast Athens and southeast of south Athens. To get there you go southeast down Oconee Street and then go southwest on Barnett Shoals until it dead ends. What!? What caught my attention last week is another matter entirely. The reason I went to get Chinese that day on College was that someone I met had asked me to meet them for lunch at the arches. I assumed this was some kind of slang for McDonald's and ended up on Prince Avenue. Someone inside told me that the arches were downtown at the end of College Avenue. When I got there I found only the one. I was never able to locate the illusive second arch—just the one Arch held up by three columns. Then I noticed that it was everywhere. UGA's email, billboards, radio and bombarding me in everyday conversa tion. What really got me laughing was the article that called The Arch the arches was about education. Good one! Keep em cornin' Pete. [The library doors at Fowler Drive school repeat the Arch motif, hence "arches." Ed.] Leon Ward Athens BUMPERSTICKER OF THE WEEK: NKJD in a new BMW (No kids just dogs, Bavarian Motor Works) Thanks, Melinda. Send your sticker sightings to letters@flagpole.com. FOOTWEAR • GLOVES • CAPS • RAINWEAR OUR ANNIVERSARY SALE! CELEBRATING 36 YEARS DOWNTOWN!. THE^. , . . MOUNTAIN "Ha pata§onia I V JEWELRY • ART Make Her Your Forever Valentine..-. Free! Dozen Valentine Roses with any Diamond purchase 125 E. CLAYTON ST. • DOWNTOWN • 706-546-8826 m if=t latin cuisine - tapas bar Enjoy ih ls TR° m< ? n,lc D 'noer ^Y.Eeb.to ' Monday L -A Fefa - »/' c ]/aientlne f & | < ^jblnn&v * for tv v$50 includes two salads, four tapas, dessert, a bottie of wine or champagne Sunday B/unch 1 1:30am-2pm •Sun-Thurs 1 1:30am-10pm • Fri & Sat 1 1:30am-1 1pm Downtown at the corner of Hull & Clayton Streets 706.227.4444 Check out our website for events & specials V www.casatniatapos.com ' 4 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 9,2011
