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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.
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' 4 FLAGPOLE.COM • FEBRUARY 9,2011
