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-foM T*M»RRoW320H ...www.thismodernworld.com...twitter.com/tomtomorrow
VOTERS SAY. 'HELP YOURSELF'
There was outrage and indignation last
week over media reports that Lt. Gov. Casey
Cagle had received a $5,000 weekend golf
outing from lobbyists for a healthcare outfit
called Cancer Treatment Centers of America
(CTCA). In addition to that Oct. 12 round of
golf, Cagle was gifted with a cocktail party
and two nights' lodging at The Cloister on Sea
Island, a posh resort primarily patronized by
those in the high-income brackets. His golf
ouring was part of the preliminary events in
a PGA tournament known as the McGladrey
Classic.
I don't understand why anyone was out
raged at this. This kind of behavior has been
going on for years among the politicians that
the voters elect to the General Assembly.
It was just a year ago that House
Speaker David Ralston, his chief of
staff Spiro Amburn and their fami
lies were embarking on a $17,000
junket to Europe, courtesy of
a lobbyist for passenger rail
interests.
That little trip was the most
expensive single expenditure
reported by a lobbyist in Georgia
since at least 2005. Ralston said the
jaunt to Germany and the Netherlands
enabled him to understand better how
European countries handle their mix of rail
and related transportation facilities.
Even though some have questioned the
propriety of what Cagle, Ralston and dozens of
other legislators do each year, what they do
is permissible under Georgia law. Every state
surrounding Georgia puts limitations on the
gifts that an elected official can receive from
individual lobbyists. South and North Carolina
allow no lobbyist gifts to lawmakers.
In Georgia, by contrast, there are no limits
on what a legislator can accept from lobby
ists. None whatsoever.
When Sonny Perdue established GOP con
trol of the governor's office, one of the first
things he tried to accomplish was an upgrad
ing of the state's ethics law that included a
limitation on lobbyist gifts. Perdue proposed
a limit of $50 on the gifts that legisla
tors could accept. The governor's efforts to
write that restriction into law went nowhere
because of the implacable opposition of the
House speaker at the time, Glenn Richardson.
Richardson, who later would resign from the
General Assembly after his affair with a female
lobbyist was exposed, insisted that the gift
limitation would be stripped from Perdue's
bill.
Richardson was so adamant about remov
ing the gift ban that even Perdue's House
floor leader, Rep. Jay Roberts (R-Ocilla),
voted in committee to carry out Richardson's
wishes. After Richardson was forced from
the Legislature in disgrace, his succes
sor picked up right where the former
speaker left off. Ralston, who
sponsored his own rewrite of the
state's ethics law, said he also
was opposed to any limitations
on the freebies that lobbyists
give to lawmakers. It was suf
ficient merely to file reports
disclosing these gifts, Ralston
contended.
"I'm comfortable with letting the
people make the determination," he
said. "They know what to do."
Ralston knew his people well. Georgia vot
ers have consistently indicated that ethically
questionable behavior does not bother them.
There have been numerous media reports in
recent years of the meals, drinks and other
perks that lobbyists for entities like Cancer
Treatment Centers of America and Delta have
given to legislators. None of the lawmakers
involved, as best I can determine, ever lost an
election because they accepted these gifts.
Legislators and other elected officials
will continue to accept favors from lobbyists
because their constituents let them. In the
end, it's only the voters who have the power
to put a stop to this.
Tom Crawford tcrawford@gareporl.com
THIS MtlIKH WtRLI
by TOM TOMORROW
IT’S JUST SOMETHING THE MAN-
HATING FEMINISTS DREAMED UP
TO MAKE THEMSELVES RICH!
LET'S FACE IT—"SEXUAL HARASS
MENT" IS A MYTH!
ANYONE WHO CLAIMS
OTHERWISE IS O0VIOU5LY
A LYING TROLLOP!
THERE'S NO SURER PATH
TO FAME AND FORTUNE'
I BET ALL THESE SO-CALLED
ACCUSERS ARE SECRETLY HOPING
TO BE THE NEXT ANITA HILL!
IT'S BEEN NOTHING BUT
SMOOTH SAILING FOR HER!
AND IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT
THESE FEMINAZIS HAVE NO SENSE
OF HUMOR!
WHAT IS THE WORLD
COMING TO, WHEN
YOU CANT EVEN JOKE
WITH A FEMALE EM
PLOYEE ABOUT THE
SEX YOU'D LIKE TO
HAVE WITH
AND
TAKE
THEY DON'T KNOW HOW
A COMPLIMENT!
IF A RESPECTABLE
BUSINESSMAN HAPPENS
to Find A young
job APPLICANT
SEXUALLY AROUSING—
WHAT'S THE HARM
IN LETTING HER
KNOW?
YOU'D
THINK
SHE'D BE
FLAT
TERED
NO QUESTION A80UT IT—MEN
ARE THE REAL VICTIMS HERE.
SOMETIMES I DON'T
KNOW HOW WE FIND
THE STRENGTH TO
CARRY ON EACH DAY.
WWJD WITH NO TIMEOUTS ON 4TH & 2?
W hen the legend-deity Paul "Bear"
Bryant died in January 1983, shortly
after resigning as head coach of the
Alabama Crimson Tide, members of the arch
rival Auburn fan base had reason to hope that
the end of their perennial frustration with los
ing to the lads from Tuscaloosa might finally
be in sight. Sure enough, in the very next
match-up between the two teams, leading by
three points with time running out, Auburn
stood on the brink of malcing that hope a real
ity when Tigers coach Pat Dye, faced with the
choice cf punting or going for it on fourth
down, cast his gaze to the heavens and asked
for God's guidance in making his decision. "Go
for it, my son!" the Lord thundered without
hesitation, "Go for it!" Naturally, Dye did as
advised, only to look on in total flabbergas-
tion as the Tide easily stuffed the play, took
away the ball on downs, marched down the
field for a touchdown and won the game. As
he staggered back to the locker room, a tear
ful Dye cried out in anguish, "Lord, why in the
world did you tell me to go for on it on fourth
down?" After a pregnant pause, the Almighty
responded, "Beats me, Son. Bear, why did we
tell him to do that?"
Pre- and post- game
prayers have long been
associated with America's
most violent big-time col
lege sport, but in recent
years as the sleazier and
more corrupt aspects of
major college football have
become increasingly appar
ent, it seems to the 01'
Bloviator there has been a
corresponding increase in
the number of coaches who
go out of the way to invoke
the Almighty at every
opportunity. Sure enough,
in a national television
interview in the wake of a
rare victory for the Georgia
Bulldogs over the Florida Gators (who have
positively dominated them over the last 20
years or so) Georgia coach Mark Richt prefaced
his response to a reporter's first question
with "To God be the glory. I'm so thankful... "
Well, the 01' Bloviator reckons that if God had
something to do with the Bulldogs beating
the hated Gators for only the fourth time in
the last 15 years, then it was clearly as big a
night to howl up in Heaven as it was here in
good ol' Athenstown. Now don't be gettin' the
OB wrong. He's not questioning the sincer
ity of Mark Richt's remarks or anybody else's,
for that matter. He is, however, a bit unsure,
regardless of whether they come from the
coach at Georgia, Clemson, Ole Miss or East
Cayuga Community College, whether such ges
tures actually glorify God or trivialize Him. For
example, does a statement like Richt's imply
that God actually dedicated some of his ener
gies to shaping the outcome of an encounter
that, despite its overweening importance to
a couple hundred thousand fanatics in these
parts, amounts to not a heck of a lot com
pared to all the truly critical life-and-death
concerns affecting millions of people crying
out for His attention aiound the world?
As most Georgia fans see things, of course,
it would be entirely appropriate for God to
prefer the infinitely more-endearing "woof-
woofers" of the Bulldog Nation to the "jorted"
[i.e., jeans-shorted], mullet-coiffed denizens
of Gatordom, even though this would run
somewhat contrary to His numerous profes
sions of special concern for the suffering
of the truly pathetic. Moreover, if He likes
Georgia or our coach so much, where has He
been for eight of the last 11 years? Regardless
of how they are intended, don't attempts to
link God to a triumph in any human conflict,
be it mundane or monumental, amount at
some level to a reiteration of the old Austin
Lounge Lizards' famed ditty, "Jesus Loves Me,
But He Can't Stand You"?
Mark Twain's satirical skepticism, I dare
say cynicism, was never on more brilliant
display than in his famed "War Prayer," where
the supplicant of a warring nation implores
the Almighty to "help us to tear their soldiers
to bloody shreds with our shells... to drown
the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of
their wounded, writhing in pain... to lay
waste their humble homes with a hurricane of
fire... to wring the hearts of their unoffending
widows with unavailing grief... to turn them
out roofless with little children to wander
unfriended the wastes of their desolated land
in rags and hunger and thirst... broken in
spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for
the refuge of the grave and
denied it—for our sakes
who adore Thee, Lord, blast
their hopes, blight their
lives, protract their bitter
pilgrimage, make heavy
their steps, water their way
with their tears, stain the
white snow with the blood
of their wounded feet! We
ask it, in the spirit of love,
of Him Who is the Source of
Love, and Who is the ever-
faithful refuge and friend of
all that are sore beset and
seek His aid with humble
and contrite hearts."
Okay, this might be a
little over the top for what
most Bulldog fans would
like to see happen to the Gator hordes [or
the Cajun swarms], although just how far
over, the OB dares not say. Nor is he trying to
imply that God does not intervene in human
conflicts. It would be hard to imagine that He
could have taken much of a shine to Hitler,
for example, although if the outcome of World
War II is in any sense a reflection of His inter
vention, He certainly took His own sweet time
in getting involved.
Much as we would like to make it an
allegory about good versus evil, heretical as
this may sound, a football game is really just
a football game. I doubt that anyone has
trouble understanding why coaches or play
ers would ask God to help them perform at
their best when it's time to take the field,
but, barring the intervention of Satan's co
conspirators wearing the striped shirts, the
actual outcome of the contest itself has a lot
less to do with the Almighty's preference for
one coach or squad over the other than the
simple matter of whose "best" was better on
that particular day. Finally, if, after all, the
idea of a winning coach crediting God for his
team's success is simply to show appropriate
reverence for His power, the OB thinks it only
fair that the losing coach should also have the
option of blaming The Man Upstairs for his
team's failure to make a single first down in
the second half.
James C. Cobb
NOVEMBER 23,2011- FLAGPOLE.COM 7
