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► THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 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
Protecting whose rights?
Should there be a rule to require parental per
mission for students to participate in high school
clubs?
The issue was ruled on recently by the Georgia
Board of Education.
A rule change had been under consideration to
give parents the final word on clubs their children
join at school. It was turned down.
The American Civil Liberties Union took the
position that such a rule would “violate the First
Amendment rights of students.”
We wonder.
Do children’s First Amendment rights outweigh
the rights and responsibility of parents to set
rules for their children and approve who they
associate with and what they get into?
We are inclined to believe that parental control
of young people is paramount and that First
Amendment rights of young people should be
subjugated to parental rules. After all, they are
still children being nurtured and supported by
parents.
There were several months of heated debate on
the issue.
The Georgia legislature considered a bill defin
ing parents’ position on this subject.
The decision by the state board may not be the
final word. It probably will come up in the next
session of the legislature.
Meanwhile, parents may want to consider how
far they believe their control over actions of their
children who are still at home should go.
Our position is clear: Parental responsibility
trumps any other claims.
Is AH Gambling Illegal?
Some critics of raids on businesses with video
poker games point out what they see as an
inequity.
Video poker is gambling. The Georgia lottery is
gambling. They contend that gambling is gam
bling and places that sell lottery tickets should be
targeted if places with video poker are.
In a way, this seems to make sense. Except for
one thing. There may be a moral equivalency
between video poker and the lottery. However,
there is a legal distinction. One is legal. The other
is not.
Law enforcement officers, who are being target
ed as villains for enforcing the law against video
poker, do not have the luxury of deciding what is
legal and what is not. The legislature has done
that. Law enforcement officers have a responsi
bility to enforce the law.
Advocates of video poker have a recourse. They
can persuade the legislature to make it legal.
Otherwise, criticizing law enforcement officers
for doing their duty seems out of line.
The bear facts about how I spent my vacation
For the first time in all the
years that I have been daz
zling you with fancy words
and intricate phrasing, I
took a week of much-needed
vacation. Knowing that you
would be interested in what
I did during this time off, I
have brought along some
slides. Would somebody dim
the lights?
CLICK: This is me on my
first day of vacation. I am at
the breakfast table with the
morning paper, eating curds
and whey. I am reading a
sanctimonious comment
from President Peanut, crit
icizing the United States for
“using terrorism as an
excuse to restrict freedom
and silence human rights
activists.”
CLICK: Here I am throw
ing up my curds and whey. I
always throw up curds and
whey when I read one of
President Peanut’s sancti-
Send your Letters to the Editor to: The Houston Home Journal
P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, GA 31069 or e-mail: hhj@evansnewspapers.com
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■■■■Jx b-
Dick Yarbrough
Columnist
yarh24oo@bellsouth.net
monious comments
CLICK: This slide shows
me in my automobile head
ing for Big Canoe, in the
beautiful mountains of
North Georgia.
CLICK: Here I have
arrived at Big Canoe. Can
you see the bear in the back
ground?
CLICK: This is me shoo-
Malls are no longer safe sanctuaries
There was a time when
malls were safe sanctuaries
where old people walked for
their health and families
enjoyed themselves in com
plete safety.
Apparently those days are
history.
An incident at the mall in
Macon focused attention on
a growing problem at many
malls, where gangs roam,
fights occur and many peo
ple fear for their safety.
Incidents in Macon of
varying degrees - fights,
snatching of pocketbooks,
vandalism - have been
reported in the past. They
have been more or less over
looked by the general public.
The latest incident, where
two women cut each other
with knives, became a cata
lyst for talk radio to ask lis
teners if they would shop at
the mall in the future.
Obviously, such incidents
will not keep shoppers away,
but answers to polls indicat
ed that the elderly and fam
ilies probably will be reluc
tant to venture into the mall
or its parking lot in the
Sometimes justice takes a long time
Michael Schwerner.
Andrew Goodman.
James Chaney.
It’s been such a long time.
It’s been almost all of my
adult life since those three
young men were run off the
road by members of the Ku
Klux Klan, shot to death,
and rolled without dignity
into a grave that was
already dug and waiting for
them.
I suppose there are people
who feel sorry for Edgar Ray
Killen, who think that an
old man in a wheelchair
ought not have to go to jail.
I’m not one of them. I’m
glad they finally got him.
I was part of Chaney’s,
Goodman’s and Schwerner’s
generation. I was 25, like
Michael Schwerner, when
that crime took place in
Mississippi. The crime, and
the news reports on it are
burned into my memory
because I was so ashamed. I
don’t think I was surprised
at all. I was just so ashamed
that I cried.
I was ashamed to be a
southerner.
I was living in Cambridge,
Mass., then. I knew people
in the church I was attend
ing and in the Harvard grad
uate student community
who were going into
Mississippi that summer to
help with voter registration.
Good, bright, brave young
people. Naive young people.
I honestly wouldn’t have
dared do it myself, and I was
afraid for the ones who were
going, afraid they would be
jailed (as some of them
were), but more afraid, to
put it bluntly, that they
would be killed.
Of course I knew that
ing the bear away.
CLICK: This is the bear
running towards me. I don’t
think bears like to be
shooed.
CLICK: Here I am sitting
in a tree.
CLICK: Here is the bear
sitting under the tree eating
my automobile, hubcaps and
all.
CLICK: In this picture, I
am at the golf course with
my son, Ken, and grandson,
Thomas, who is just learn
ing to play. I love this game,
and I hope Thomas can
become a good golfer. He will
need to be if he is going to
play golf with me.
CLICK: This is a shot of
Ken hitting the ball on the
green.
CLICK: This is a shot of
Thomas hitting the ball on
the green.
CLICK: This is a shot of
me hitting the ball in the
■|| J* y Wkjmm
Foy Evans
Columnist
foyevans 19@cox.net
future in the evening.
Crime around malls is
nothing new.
A couple of years ago I was
in Lenox Square Shopping
Center in Atlanta. A woman
who operates one of the
kiosks told me that there
was plenty of trouble
around this mall, which is
one of the most popular in
Georgia.
She said that Saturday
nights were the most dan
gerous, when fights often
broke out.
I I
r 4?
Charlotte Perkins
Columnist
cperkins@evansnewspapers.com
there were kind and good
people in the South. I grew
up among them. It’s just
that there was a moral and
legal climate in the South
then that made violence to
cA f A
^ D C~%'
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bunker.
CLICK: This is a shot of
me trying to get out of the
bunker.
CLICK: This is another
shot of me trying to get out
of the bunker.
CLICK: This is a shot of
me picking up the stupid
ball from the bunker and
dropping it in the hole. If
you look closely, you can see
Ken and Thomas and the
bear from Big Canoe laugh
ing their heads off. I hate
this game.
CLICK: Here I am at
home, giving the Woman
Who Shares My Name a lec
ture on how to manage the
household more efficiently.
She is lucky to be married to
someone who has managed
at the highest levels of
Corporate America, and who
is an acknowledged expert
on operational efficiency.
CLICK: Here I am in the
“You see the troublemak
ers coming in around 3 in
the afternoon,” she told me.
“They seem to pour out of
the MARTA station across
the street. They begin roam
ing around the mall in small
groups, strutting and giving
the impression they are
looking for trouble.”
There was enough trouble
in this mall that several off
duty Atlanta police officers
were hired to help the mall’s
security guards maintain
order.
A little south of Atlanta -
in Clayton County - a mall
that once was a magnet for
families and elderly walkers
has taken on a hip-hop per
sonality that has caused
some core merchants and
public officials to express
concern.
The confinement that
once seemed to provide a
haven for shoppers and oth
ers now seems like a threat
when trouble breaks out.
Most people want to steer
clear of trouble. When inci
dents of violence break out,
they begin wondering if they
black people and to white
people in the civil rights
movement seem somehow
acceptable to the majority.
And when that kind of cli
mate prevails, there are
always bigots ready to do
the devil’s work.
The killers, who undoubt
edly were proud of them
selves for killing those
young men, shamed their
town, their county, the state
of Mississippi and the whole
South, but evil is nothing
new. There are Edgar Ray
Killens in every society in
the world, and have been all
through history.
The ones who shamed the
South more in the long run
were those who let the Ku
Klux Klan represent the
South to the nation and the
emergency room having
broccoli surgically removed
from my nose and ears and
other places. Obviously, the
Woman Who Shares My
Name doesn’t appreciate
people who are acknowl
edged experts on operational
efficiency.
CLICK: That is me telling
the editor that I am cutting
my vacation short because I
am sure my loyal readers
have kept the phones ring
ing off the hook at the news
paper, wondering where I
am and when I am coming
back.
CLICK: This is the editor
telling me that nobody has
missed me - including the
editor.
CLICK: This is me and the
bear from Big Canoe, having
breakfast and reading the
paper before we both go
back to work. I am eating
my curds and whey and
THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
want to subject themselves
to something that may turn
out to be worse next time
they visit the same facility.
Owners of malls have to
be the most concerned peo
ple of all. They have invest
ments to protect and any
thing that makes customers
stay away has to be reason
to worry.
They are handicapped by
laws that would subject
them to scorn and, possibly,
lawsuits if they attempted to
single out the potential
troublemakers and bar
them from their malls.
Troublemakers really
seem to have more rights
than law-abiding people who
want to stay away from any
kind of trouble.
It is a challenge malls of
the future must face.
Aggressive law enforcement
would help, but they have to
be careful how they do it.
It may be a problem with
out an answer. Perception is
important. If the perception
that malls are unsafe grows,
the end of malls as we know
them may be imminent.
world. Those who let those
young men out of jail with
no protection, knowing
what was going to happen to
them. Those in the court
system who were too cow
ardly, too entrenched in the
“Southern Way of Life” to
do right. And those in the
southern press who would
n’t write what needed to be
written.
At the time Schwerner,
Chaney and Goodman were
killed, a newspaper column
saying what this one says
wouldn’t have been pub
lished in a southern newspa
per.
Now it can be (even if
some people may still be
grumbling that the South
changed.)
We’ve come a long way.
checking the obituaries to be
sure my name isn’t there. I
am complaining to the bear
about why I ever decided to
take a stupid vacation in the
first place. The bear isn’t lis
tening. He is reading a story
in which President Peanut
says the 1979 Iranian
hostage crisis wasn’t his
fault. He blames it on
George W. Bush and hanging
chads. The bear looks ill. I
think he is going to throw
up my automobile, hubcaps
and all.
I hope you have enjoyed
the slide show. If so, you will
be pleased to know that next
week I plan to show home
movies of my trip to the den
tist.
You can reach Dick
Yarbrough at
yarb24oo@bellsouth.net,
P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139, or Web site:
www.dickyarbrough.com.