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♦ THURSDAY. MARCH 10, 2005
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OPINION
Daniel F. Evans
President,
Editor and Publisher
Julie B. Evans Rex Gambill
Vice President Managing Editor
Foy S. Evans
Editor Emeritus
It Is All So Contusing
How in the world do you know what to believe
when you read so many conflicting articles about
the effectiveness of some drugs?
Aspirin is a good example.
We recently read that aspirin, which is used as a
blood thinner to help prevent clogged arteries,
really is not that effective, we were told recently.
The ink was hardly dry on this article before
another article reported on a study, which says
aspirin can help prevent strokes in women, but it
is not effective in treating women for heart prob
lems.
The latest information, which is subject to
change any hour, says that aspirin still can be
effective on men for heart problems.
So far so good.
But aspirin, even in the small 81 milligram
dosage (half the amount of a regular aspirin) can
cause bleeding in the stomach, resulting in an
ulcer.
Side effects, too, are to be considered when talk
ing any medication. Heart doctors prescribe
aspirin. Doctors treating the stomach say “no.”
You win some and you lose some.
Statin drugs are used to lower cholesterol. In
large doses the use of statins can result in liver
damage. Doctors trying to keep cholesterol down
try to prescribe as small a dose of statins as pos
sible for safety.
Now comes a report only this week that large
doses of statins are desirable to bring cholesterol
levels down under 100. A few years ago a choles
terol level of “under 200” was considered great.
The risks, according to the latest study, are out
weighed by the benefits.
It seems to the average person that there is a
merry-go-round they cannot get off.
There is one thing all of us have to remember
about these studies telling us about the wonders
of some drugs. The doctors doing the studies usu
ally are on the payrolls of the drug manufactur
ers.
Even doctors working for the federal govern
ment’s Federal Drug Administration are taking
“consultant fees” from drug companies that they
are supposed to monitor.
Despite all the confusion, despite advertising by
drug manufacturers trying to persuade us to tell
our doctor we want to take their products
whether we need them or not, despite all the con
fusion, we still have the best health care in the
world right here in the United States.
Send your Leners to the Editor to:
Itie Houston Home Journal
P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or
Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
It's no secret. H.R. 218 is bad legislation
Rep. Ron Stephens, the
author of an ill-conceived
piece of legislation known as
H.R. 218, was recently iden
tified in this space as being
from Garden City, near
Savannah. Not so, say resi
dents of that city. Even
though most of the state’s
media refer to him as repre
senting Garden City, it
seems Rep. Stephens has
pulled up stakes and moved
to an unincorporated area
not far from Pooler. We can
all rest better knowing that.
More to the point, H.R.
218 would shield from pub
lic inspection nearly all
details of negotiations
between all government
agencies that recruit indus
try - including nearly 900
local and regional develop
ment authorities - and the
businesses they deal with.
Since the public uproar, the
bill has been amended to
soften some of the more
egregious portions of the
j
Dick Yarbrough
Columnist
yarh24oo@bellsouth.net
measure, but it is still a dog
poo piece of legislation that
hopefully will never see the
light of day.
Perhaps Republicans have
learned a lesson that didn’t
quite sink into the heads of
the Democrats when they
were in power. The people
rule. Not the Department of
Industry, Trade and
Tourism that was pimping
Everybody seems to want to get into the act
Everybody seems to want
to get into the act.
Obesity is the topic. Just
about everybody seems to be
obese today. Obesity is sup
posed to kill you. Sometimes
it does.
A large segment of young
people are obese. This both
ers many people. More than
it does parents, apparently.
The parents of obese chil
dren probably are obese, too.
Did you ever look at the
parents of obese children?
You can see an image of par
ents in their children.
Parents have eating habits.
It is normal for their chil
dren to have the same eat
ing habits.
Hence, obese parents and
obese children.
Should government get
into the act? Some members
of the Georgia legislature
are debating whether to try
to do something about it.
It raises two questions:
1. What can they do about
it?
2. Is it any of their busi
ness?
There are very few things
that politicians don’t want
O'Neal makes compelling argument
I had the opportunity
Saturday morning to cover
the Houston County
Republican Party’s conven
tion out at Middle Georgia
Technical College.
(Just as an aside here,
there is Middle Georgia
Technical College, Central
Georgia Technical College,
and Heart of Georgia
Technical College. Is this a
lack of originality or what?
Let’s put some people to
work coming up with some
new names here.)
The highlight of the morn
ing was Larry O’Neal’s
speech to the gathered clan,
to oppose the efforts of the
Republicans in Atlanta to
redraw the state’s congres
sional districts.
Now I never had much
exposure to gerrymandering
up in Tennessee. The
Democrats have always had
such a solid hold of the state
legislature that they never
really raised much stink
when it came time to carve
up the districts. Of course,
the way Tennessee is shaped
you pretty much have to go
at it like slicing a sausage
anyway you look at it. The
Republicans got three or
four slices off the east end
and the Democrats got to
hog the rest.
But here in Georgia the
Democrats got a little
greedy and dreamed up
some pretty bizarre dis
tricts. However, they were
able to pass the judicial
smell test, and they were
able to stand. But wonder of
wonders, the Republicans
got control of the state legis
lature and now they want to
do a little gerrymandering of
their own in the name of
making the districts look a
little neater.
Rep. O’Neal argued that
for this bill. Not corpora
tions. Not developers. Not
special-interest insiders.
Not chambers of commerce.
Not lobbyists for all of the
above. The people are in
charge.
It is amazing that other
wise politically astute
Republicans in the General
Assembly let Craig Lesser,
commissioner of the
Department of Industry,
Trade and Tourism, hang
them out to diy with the
voters by proposing this
unnecessary piece of legisla
tion. What were the
Republicans thinking?
Lesser has been on the job
less than a year and no
doubt still has a fair amount
of moisture behind his ears.
To my knowledge, he has
been unable to cite one
example of a company that
refused to relocate in
Georgia because of our
open-records law. Yet he or
Gov. Perdue, or both, decid
ed to push a piece of legisla
H H %.
I|k, JT-
Foy Evans
Columnist
foyevansl9@cox.net
to get involved in once they
are elected to public office.
It seems that they can find
problems to be solved every
where they look. Often they
have answers and go looking
for problems that do not
exist.
One thing is certain:
Georgians did not send
members of the legislature
to Atlanta to start getting
involved in solving the prob
lem of obesity in children.
There are enough organi
zations better qualified to
tackle that problem, which
■■l gggg m |■"rmm ns
Timothy Graham
Staff Writer
tgraham@evansnewspapers.com
such actions will make the
Republicans no better than
the Democrats who started
the process. He said the best
thing to do would be to wait
for the 2010 census and do
the job under constitutional
authority.
Makes sense to me.
Georgia seems to be track
ing Republican anyway, so
the odds are the state will be
f I?
"You cant accuse the General Assembly of playing politics!
On the contrary, they work hard at it."
tion that resonated nega
tively with the public, and
they put the poor legislators
out front to catch all the live
ammunition from angry
constituents.
Ironically, Lesser was a
radio broadcaster at WSB
Radio in Atlanta earlier in
his career, and he should
have known how secrecy in
government would go over
with the public. If not, he
should have called his old
boss, Elmo Ellis, and asked
him. I suspect Elmo would
have told him in ten words
or less.
Instead of going out into
the state and selling H.R.
218 as they should have
done if they truly believed
the bill had merit, propo
nents chose instead to circle
the wagons inside the
Capitol and blame the media
for stirring up opposition to
it. Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-
Chickamauga) even went so
far as to suggest that
reporters should be required
certainly deserves attention.
As long as most children
seldom walk anywhere and
seldom get involved in
strenuous outdoor activities,
it is likely that they will
become obese eating fatten
ing foods while plopped in a
chair watching television.
The problem cannot be
solved by legislative action.
• • •
Sometimes you have to
wonder what people are
thinking about. For exam
ple, workers at Lockheed
Martin in Marietta. They
went on strike this week,
the second time they have
done so in the past three
years.
Last time they wasted a
lot of time and a lot of pay
roll for very little in return.
Now they are jeopardizing
the future of the company
that feeds them. Some
important contracts are
pending and whether they
go to Lockheed could be
affected by the fact workers
are on strike.
Sometimes strikes are
necessary. Not nearly as
often as strikes are called.
even more GOP-oriented in
five years than it is today.
The odds are also good that ’
the solons in Atlanta will
have one, or maybe two,
extra congressional seats to
hand out after the new cen
sus tabulates the population
increase in the state. That
way they can throw the
Dems a few bones, but then
keep all the rib meat for
themselves.
O’Neal also had an argu
ment against redistricting
that was more selfish, and
thus more compelling.
It seems than any new
plan would place Houston
County in a district repre
sented by Democrat Rep.
Jim Marshall. Now it is split
between Marshall and Rep.
Jack Kingston. Kingston
has a lot of years in
Washington and wields a lot
of power and likes to use it
to protect the military bases
in his district. And, while
Marshall is just as big a sup
to officially register as lob
byists. He later said he was
kidding. They must have a
weird sense of humor in
Chickamauga.
Besides looking extremely
foolish by his comments,
Sen. Mullis obviously does
n’t know pea-diddle about
reporters. Reporters would
make lousy lobbyists.
Reporters wear Hush
Puppies shoes and cheap
ties - if they wear a tie at all.
No self-respecting lobbyist
would be caught dead in
Hush Puppies or cheap ties.
Lobbyists wouldn’t recog
nize a cheap tie if it bit them
in the behind. Reporters
would just as soon have
bamboo splints put under
their fingernails as to make
nice with a politician they
think is a doofus. Lobbyists
are not quite so discriminat
ing. Reporters never have
any money and always
expect somebody else to pick
up the check. That fact
THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
What is going on at
Lockheed makes you won
der about the wisdom of
contracting out so much
work by the Air Force. What
if Lockheed was doing work
that was absolutely essen
tial to the national defense
and workers decided they
were unhappy and went out
on strike? What if this hap
pened to any company con
tracting with the military?
It is something to think
about.
Military and civil service
workers can’t strike. Air
controllers went against the
law and struck several years
ago. President Ronald
Reagan fired all of them and
replaced them.
This is impossible in the
private sector, where federal
laws would prohibit such an
action by an employer.
If I were working for a
company that depended to a
great extent on government
contracts I don’t believe you
would see me on a picket
line because of petty griev
ances. The security of my
job would motivate me to
show up or work.
porter of the military as
Kingston, he hasn’t been
there as long and he is in the
minority party.
O’Neal’s point is that with
any future BRACs around
the corner, Robins Air Force
Base needs as many friends
in Washington as it can get.
And as sweet as it might be
to get back at the Dems, it
would be stupid to throw the
baby out with the bathwa
ter.
O’Neal got the local
Republicans to pass a reso
lution asking their state
party to back off any
attempts to redistrict this
year. It might be a good idea
for the rest of you to get on
the phone or take out your
pencils and get in touch with
your representatives in Hot
’Lanta. Let Willie Talton,
Ross Tolleson and the rest
know that a little short-term
revenge could be a disaster
for the economy of Middle
Georgia.
alone makes them totally
unfit to be lobbyists.
I don’t believe Georgia
will ever again allow one
party to dominate for 130
years as did the Democrats.
And you most likely will
never see another politician
as powerful as former
Speaker of the House Tom
Murphy, who could make
legislation happen or disap
pear depending on his per
sonal whims. Fortunately,
those days are gone with the
wind. In the future, politi
cians - Democrats and
Republicans - are going to
have to earn our trust if
they expect to remain in
office. Making government
less open and more secretive
is a good example of how not
to do it.
You can reach Dick
Yarbrough at
yarb24oo@bellsouth.net,
PO. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139, or Web site:
www.dickyarbrough.com.