Newspaper Page Text
4A
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2003
(sTX'i Houston Minin' if
CEije JJrrurtmi
OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
President,
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans Rex Gambill
Vice President Managing Editor
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
Politics Could Bet Interesting
Local politics could be interesting next year as a
result of changes in senatorial districts.
Ross Tolleson now serves in the Georgia Senate,
elected in a district that turned out to be
Republican.
However, as a result of a recent court decision, he
will be in a district the Democrats carved out to
punish Sonny Perdue when he defected to the
Republican Party if he meets the residency
requirement. He now resides outside the district as
it will be designed next year. It is a convoluted dis
trict that does not make sense, unless it is to make
sure that a Democrat has a big advantage, which
was the purpose of creating the district in the first
place. It includes portions of nine counties.
What has happened may bring Attorney Michael
Moore back into the picture as a candidate.
Tolleson defeated Moore, who was serving his first
term in the Senate, but now the new districts could
make another campaign attractive to Moore.
Houston County is the big loser in the redistrict
ing that is favored by the courts.
The districting plan that undoubtedly will apply
next year slices Houston County up so that it will
be represented by three different senators.
It is a mess.
Redistricting every 10 years, based on a new cen
sus, always has been politicized to the hilt. By both
parties. And all over the country.
In fairness to voters —never mind the politi
cians—some fairness should go into the process of
redistricting so that they will be fairly represented.
Under the current system, districts are carved out
for the benefit of politicians and political parties
and the voters can take a hike.
HOW TO SUBMIT LETTERS
We encourage readers to submit letters to the editor.
Letters should not exceed 250 words and must include the
writer’s name, address and telephone number. All letters
printed in The Home Journal will appear with the writer’s
name and hometown - we do not publish anonymous letters.
The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for
reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. Letter
writers are asked to submit no more than one letter per per
son per week. We cannot guarantee that a letter will be print
ed on a specific date.
The Home Journal prefers that letters be typed. Letters to
the editor are published in the order they are received ~
as space permits. A Journal employee will call to fas
verify the author of each letter. jlrl
There are three ways to submit letters to fCj
the editor: E-mail them to hhj(&evansnews
papers.com, mail it to The Houston Home i/j
Journal at EO. Box 1910, Perry, GA 31069, or / /
drop it off at one of our two convenient loca- Lj
tions - 1210 Washington St. in Perry, or 2060 jf
Watson Blvd. in Warner Robins - between 8 / /
a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. 17 ,
European liberal has it wrong on war in Iraq
I’m feeling cynical today, so I
want to take advantage of the
mood and set a few things
straight. For the record.
It’s all the fault of Alan
Moore, self-described “snooty
English liberal” and banner
bearer for self-loathing, self
righteous politicos everywhere.
I had the dubious pleasure of
reading one of his more recent
diatribes printed in the July
2003 issue of Arthur Magazine.
Taking up about eight typewrit
ten pages, Moore attempts to
put the whammy on American
and British foreign policy mak
ers, especially those of conserva
tive bend; accusing them in so
many words (and I do mean
many - 4,500 of them) of basing
national decisions on filthy
lucre. The pugnacious pundit
from across the pond wants the
world to know that Western,
meaning American and British,
dabbling in the Middle East is
motivated primarily by a greed
Joe Bishop
Columnist
joe@wnng.mgacoxmail.com
for oil, flowery speeches about
liberty and self-determination
aside. Which prompts me to
stand up and say the obvious.
Duh! Of course it’s about the
oil!
I had a high school teacher
who claimed that all history
could be boiled down to dynam
ics of geography and money.
While Mrs. Stanescu’s dictum
Let me give you a little tip
A new study by a Cornell pro
fessor shows that the quality of
service actually has little to do
with how much people choose to
tip waiters and waitresses.
Granted, I get just as annoyed
as anybody when my dining
experience doesn’t live up to my
expectations, but having waited
tables in many a restaurant
myself, I think that many
restaurant-goers are just plain
cheap. Even when I have
received the poorest service, I
have somehow managed to
cough up at least a few bucks
for a tip. I’m stymied by the
amount of people who will go
out for dinner, get adequate or
excellent service and then leave
a meager tip or, even worse, not
leave one at all. I just look at it
this way - if you can afford to go
out to eat, even if it’s just to
Waffle House, you can afford to
leave an adequate tip. If you
know you aren’t going to have
enough money to tip, then
swing by Taco Bell instead.
Or maybe, instead of cheap
ness, it’s just ignorance. Many
people are under the mistaken
assumption that servers make
at least minimum wage. Not
true. Most restaurants pay their
servers a little over $2 and the
Coast to coast with no luggage
In a recent conversation
about traveling and packing, I
remarked that I had traveled
cross-country with only two
extra pieces of clothing, a blouse
and a pair of “undies.” Oh yes, I
did take a toothbrush and other
necessary toiletry items. My lip
stick went into my very tiny
purse, the one I made to match
the reversible wrap-around
skirt I wore, deep blue on one
side and dark brown on the
other. We had a blouse of each
color.
It was 1976, the year of the
All Women’s Transcontinental
Air Race (AWTAR). This was
the race that the media had
early on dubbed “The Powder
Puff Derby.” It was open only to
women pilots and had begun
back in 1929. It had become
more and more difficult to get
sponsorship for the race and the
race management had decided
that this would be the last
AWTAR, the last Powder Puff
Derby.
As with the last of anything, it
made it even more inviting.
More than 200 pilot/copilot
teams signed up to fly the race
and 199 race planes took off
from Sacramento, Calif.
Esther Lowry and I were
number 104. We were flying her
Cessna Skylane. It was required
that the race numbers be paint
ed or taped in large numbers on
the tail of the airplane. This
enabled those timing the racers
when they left an airport and
arrived at another to identify
the plane.
On this race we started at
Sacramento, flew down to
Riverside, Calif, (our flyby was
at March Ar Force Base), over
to Grand Canyon, Ariz., and
then to Santa Fe, N.M. That
was our first overnight stay
Esther and I were being spon
sored by Holiday Inn Systems.
may be an over-simplification in
some quarters, it’s dead-on cor
rect on matters of American for
eign policy. Consider, for
instance, that every war the
United States has been involved
in was triggered either by an
attack on our native soil or by
threats (real or perceived) to
our economic interests. Even
those paragons of classic virtue,
our Founding Fathers, tied per
sonal liberty to economic well
being - it took taxation to drive
regretful colonists to war, and
the Declaration of
Independence would read “life,
liberty, and the pursuit of prop
erty” had Thomas Jefferson
been allowed to mimic Locke
and Rousseau more perfectly.
When America’s national inter
ests .are endangered, America
will steel up and fight.
And so what if those interests
are economic in nature? If we
were absolutely honest about it,
we would admit that there IS
NOT, and CANNOT BE, real
I riijjssßßsr
ippipi .
Luci Joullian
Staff Writer
ljoullian@evansnewspapers.coin
rest of the server’s income
comes entirely from tips. And
many customers don’t realize
that many restaurants require
their servers to “tip out,” giving
a portion of their tips to bus
boys, bartenders, dishwashers,
hostesses, etc. Just look at it
this way - if restaurant owners
paid their servers more and
they didn’t have to depend on
your tips as much, then the
price of your food would go up
as a result. You are going to pay
the piper either way, so you may
as well cough it up.
As a waitress, you learn to
spot the tables that aren’t going
y i
Judy Hall
Staff Writer
jhall@evansnewspapers.com
Therefore, we had reservations
at a Holiday Inn in Santa Fe. We
had a place to sleep and to wash
out our clothes.
Every night as we traveled we
would wash out our dirty
blouse, “undies” and bras so
they would be ready for later
wear. We only carried one bra,
the one we wore during the day.
1 * — 1 1
"Big deal! Politicians are always studying ways to
improve education, but they seldom seem to learn anything."
national security without a
strong economic base. Disagree?
Take a clue from Weimar
Republic Germany of the 1920 s
and ’3os, where a democracy fell
because the economy sucked
eggs. Like it or not, American
society is bound by Gordian
knots to oil imports, at least
until we all agree en masse to
switch to solar power in our
houses and electric cars on our
roads. Do you own an electric
car? Then you,re part of the
“problem.”
So Moore is right, we did go to
war for the oil, and we removed
Saddam Hussein’s nest of
vipers for the sake of our wal
lets. Can you imagine Uday as
viceroy in Kuwait, or Quasay
setting terms for OPEC in
Riyadh? That’s what Desert
Storm was all about stopping in
1991; Operation Iraqi Freedom
just punctuated a sentence
Saddam refused to learn. What
irks me, though, is the liberal
contention that middle-eastern
to tip well. It’s a weird, almost
anthropological set of rules that
are completely unique to
servers - older diners don’t tip
as well; churchgoers usually tip
poorly; if a table orders only
water for their drinks, they
might not have enough money
to cover their bill. Of course,
many of the “platitudes” have
exceptions, but you’d be sur
prised to see how often these
rules (and others that I would
n’t want to put in writing) hold
true.
Many people also think that a
5 or 10 percent tip is perfectly
acceptable. I cannot tell you
how many times I, and some of
my fellow servers, have received
$3 or $4 dollar tips for meals
that were in excess of SSO. Were
these people raised in a barn?
(Just so you know, the standard
is 15 to 20 percent for good serv
ice - and absolutely no less than
10 percent, even for poor serv
ice. Five to 10 percent is a stan
dard tip for a server at a buffet
style restaurant.) And many
times, poor service - such as the
food being delayed coming out -
is a function of the cooks in the
back of the restaurant or the
hostess who just sat the server’s
tables five times in a row, but
So the next morning, if the bra
was dry, great. If it wasn’t, it
was a real waker-upper. Each
team, pilot and co-pilot dressed
alike. We even did this on the
way out to the race. That was
before we shipped our luggage
ahead to Wilmington. Esther
and I flew to Wilmington and
flew the race route backwards,
making stops all along the way.
This enabled us to become
familiar with the stops and to
make public relations stops for
Holiday Inn Systems. We shook
a lot of hands, received a num
ber of hugs and kisses and a lot
of “keys to the city” and other
gifts as we flew westbound. We
also took people on airplane
rides, appeared on television
and did some radio shows, all to
publicize our sponsor, Holiday
Inn Systems.
Leaving Santa Fe, we flew
eastward to Little Rock, Ark.,
on to Nashville, Tenn., made a
flyby at Parkersburg, W. Va.,
freedom and unfettered
American access to oil are
mutually exclusive. True free
dom, lasting freedom, must be
built on a sound base. At the
height of the Great Depression,
Roosevelt defined real freedom
as freedom from fear and want.
You build from there.
Every barrel of Iraqi crude
passing the port of Umm Qasr
means local jobs, an influx of
hard currency, and the prospect
of capital investment, in short,
the foundation for stability and
prosperity. Iraq needs infra
structure - roads, bridges, hous
es, hospitals - and they’ll pay
for that most quickly with
money gained through oil sales.
How absolutely nearsighted -
how tragically stupid - to think
that Iraqis would rather have
their 16 billion barrels of oil in a
destabilized country rather
than clean water, steady food
distribution, and a higher stan
dard of living. As one man in
Basra said, “Take the damn oil -
THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
customers don’t see that and
take out their wrath on the
server - leaving no tip at all or
leaving a penny to “send a mes
sage.”
I’d love to see some of these
people try serving for one night.
How many days have you had
an off day at work? I can almost
guarantee that your pay wasn’t
docked as a result.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t
hold true for servers. Granted,
I’m not going to deal with a
server who is rude or surly or
just plain incompetent, but
waiting a couple extra minutes
for your food, getting blueberry
jam instead of blackberry jam
on your muffin or discovering
that your tuna steak was pan
seared instead of grilled should
n’t be an acceptable reason for
an adult to have a meltdown.
Anyway, amazingly, it’s usual
ly not even the level of service
that predicts how much of a tip
that people leave their servers.
Lynn’s study found that only
about 4 percent of the variabili
ty in tip size is due to the rating
of the service provider. That’s
the same level of variability that
the sun has on tip size - cus
tomers tend to tip more on
sunny days.
and then started our approach
into Wilmington, Del.
As we flew over the
Susquehanna River at 10,000
feet, I told Esther we needed to
start down. She objected, saying
the tail winds were too good up
there. As a result, when we did
come down, our speed was so
great our turning arc was too
wide and took us over the tops
of the hangers instead of the
runway and the timers couldn’t
see our numbers and time us.
We had to be timed wheels-on
which cost us almost four min
utes and moved us from the top
ten to 26th place. One hundred
seventy-six airplanes finished
the race.
The innkeeper of the Holiday
Inn in Wilmington met us at the
airport in a Stanley Steamer
car. Also standing by at termi
nus were my Jerry and Esther’s
Carl. A welcoming kiss and we
were off to the celebrations that
ended a great tradition.
we need clean water.” Face facts
- the oil is going to be sold - it
might as well be to us.
In the end, liberals like Alan
Moore would bury half the
world in a misguided quest for
absolute freedom now, without
economic underpinning or
social stability. If you need an
object lesson, look to that other
hot spot currently in the news,
Liberia. Like other countries in
blood-soaked sub-Saharan
Africa, factions in “democrati
cally elected” regimes slaughter
each other daily for the right to
lead pitifully poor and desperate
nations.
Are they free? Yes. Are they
better off? No. We don’t need to
turn Iraq into Liberia. Yes, it’s
an odd dance, but a tune we’ve
followed for 227 years.
Buy the oil - protect and fos
ter freedom, ours and theirs.
Joe Bishop is the news direc
tor for WNNG 1350 AM,
Houston County’s only locally
owned radio station.