Room Service
Who Should Build The Hotel?

There's been so much said and written in recent months about the proposed Classic Center hotel that it was refreshing to hear both sides square off in a face-to-face debate Wednesday morning, Nov. 12. The debate at the Georgia Center was sponsored by the Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau, and it proceeded according to ground rules that allowed opening statements, rebuttals, questions from the audience and closing statements.

Lewis Shropshire, General Manager of Motel Enterprises, parent company of the local Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, led the opposition to the Classic Center hotel, while emphasizing that he was speaking for the local hotel-motel industry, which was well represented in the audience. Classic Center Director Paul Cramer spoke in favor of the hotel.

The two-hour session boiled down to a couple of sticking points: local motels don't want to compete with a government-owned hotel and don't think the government should be in the hotel business. The Classic Center needs an attached, upscale 200-room hotel to increase its convention business but couldn't get local companies to build one.

Shropshire says his company is in the process of building a new 130-room hotel right across the street from the Classic Center and will add 40 more rooms when demand dictates.

Cramer says close is not good enough, that convention-goers don't want to fight traffic and weather to get to their hotel room to freshen up.

Shropshire says his hotel will consider building a walkway across or under the street.

Cramer says Shropshire's hotel wouldn't be big enough or upscale enough to satisfy his potential conventioneers and besides, Motel Enterprises has been "about" to build a hotel for eight years.

Shropshire says Cramer's hotel would have a devastating impact on the rest of the local industry, but at the same time it would be too large to be economically viable and would become a white elephant that the taxpayers would have to bail out.

Cramer stresses that the Classic Center has never used a dime of money from local government general funds, and he also points out that the proposed hotel, like the Classic Center, would generate more than enough local business to be an economic asset to the community.

In the crudest terms, Shropshire doesn't want any more competition and Cramer wants a hotel he can control, though it would be run by a professional hotel company, such as Marriott. The philosophical underpinnings of the argument pit Shropshire's market-driven model against Cramer's public/private partnership model. Shropshire says Cramer should concentrate on running a civic center and let the hotel industry provide the rooms. Cramer says private business could have built the Classic Center but wouldn't do it, just like they won't build the hotel the Classic Center needs.

For Shropshire, the market should determine when to build a hotel and how upscale and large it should be. For Cramer, facilities like the Classic Center and the hotel it needs are not meant to be profit centers but are economic engines that pull in business that benefits everybody.

Shropshire called in some local free-enterprise curmudgeons to warn about government interference, and Cramer called on some convention planners to reiterate what he says about the need for an attached hotel.

The show, while it may not have changed any minds, was an organized and largely civil occasion for Shropshire and Cramer to take each other's best shots and respond. It brought in a lot of conflicting statistics, but it did serve to clarify the issues.

A high-stakes game is underway for Motel Enterprises, which is apparently taking the next steps of clearing its lot preparatory to building, yet if the Classic Center hotel wins eventual approval, Motel Enterprises' analysis of the local market would seem to indicate that its hotel can't compete. So, Shropshire has to move ahead to demonstrate that his company is serious, and Cramer has to continue selling the concept of the Classic Center hotel, each knowing that the town is not big enough for both of them.

Pete McCommons
Pete McCommons can be reached at editor@flagpole.com

Identity Theft
The Highest Form Of Flattery

Conrad Fink was a Marine and a foreign affairs reporter and vice-president for the Associated Press. He has published a dozen books, is the recipient of distinguished teaching awards and is a bona fide legend as a professor in UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where he teaches three tough courses every semester.

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The tall, trim, bushy-browed, 71-year-old Fink doesn't flap easily; yet he had to call on a generous portion of his steely reserve when he marched into his media ethics (sic) class on the day before Halloween and confronted his doppelganger.

The gold tie, the tweed coat, the briefcase, the eyeglasses, the hair and most of all those eyebrows - Fink's trademark - stared back at him from across the conference table as the class (including two puzzled visiting German students) watched in ill concealed mirth.

"I have never seen him speechless before," says Beth Burger, the journalism and political science student who was Fink for a day. "It's so hard to get him to react."

She not only showed up disguised as her teacher, but during the class she mimicked his gestures. When he folded a newspaper, she did, too; when he threw off his glasses, hers hit the table, too.

"He said, 'Burger, these Germans: they'll think this is a nuthouse,' Burger says. "We all love Fink. We worship the quicksand he walks on."

Burger elaborates by email: "The reason we all love Fink is that he has had experiences as a reporter the rest of us can only dream of. For me personally, he nurtures that dream of being a reporter by ripping up my writing or giving me a pep talk. He brings a lot of energy to the classroom. Just as a writer keeps his readers in mind when writing, as a teacher he makes a point of entertaining us when teaching. You can see how passionate he is about newspapers by watching him fling his glasses on the table or raise one of those bushy caterpillar eyebrows."

Conrad Fink admits that he was "vastly amused," but says, "It took me 20 minutes to get the class settled down... You know, the kids, especially the young women, seem to be fascinated by my eyebrows. I wish I had known that 40 years ago. I didn't tumble to it until it was far too late for it to work to my advantage."

Pete McCommons
Pete McCommons can be reached at editor@flagpole.com.

Animal Control

Last Week's Scorecard

Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 77 calls:

5 complaints of animal cruelty
5 bite cases
7 barking dogs
4 ordinance violations
48 animals impounded
40 dogs
2 cats
1 black racer
1 chicken
1 iguana
2 raccoons
1 skunk
13 dogs placed
2 adopted
10 reclaimed
1 turned over to other agencies

ACC Animal Control press release for the week of Nov. 6 to Nov. 12.

Why We Fight
Iraq From the Other Side

Dear Recruit: Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans.

You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein's secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi.

Because we destroyed our weapons of mass destruction, we were unable to defend ourselves against the American invasion. This was their plan all along. Now our only option is guerrilla warfare: we must kill as many Americans as possible at a minimum risk to ourselves. As the Afghan resistance to the Soviets and the Americans' own revolution against our former colonial masters the British have proven, it will only be a matter of time before the U.S. occupation forces become demoralized. As casualties and expenditures rise, the costs will outweigh the economic and political benefits of occupation. Soon the American public will note that the anticipated five-year price tag of $500 billion, with a probable loss of some 4,000 lives and 10,000 wounded, is not a reasonable price to pay to get our 2.5 million barrels of oil flowing to the West each month. This net increase, of just 0.23 percent of total OPEC production, will not reduce U.S. gasoline prices. At an average of 35 attacks each day, an hour does not pass without an American soldier coming under fire somewhere in Iraq. Ultimately the American public will pressure their leaders to withdraw their harried troops from our country.

It is inevitable. Our goal is to make that day come sooner rather than later.

It is no easy thing to shoot or blow up young men and women because they wear American uniforms. Indeed, the soldiers are themselves oppressed members of America's vast underclass. Many don't want to be here; joining America's mercenary army is the only way they can afford to attend university. Others, because they are poor and uneducated, do not understand that they are being used as pawns in Dick Cheney's cynical oil war.

Unfortunately, we can't help these innocent U.S. soldiers. They are victims, like ourselves, of the bandits in Washington. Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor. We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America.

In recent months we have opened a second front, against such non-governmental organizations as the United Nations and Red Crescent. A typical response of the Bush junta to these actions was issued by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "It is unfortunate in the extreme that the terrorists decided to go after innocent aid workers and people who were just trying to help the Iraqi people."

Do not listen to her. True, many aid workers are well intentioned. However, their presence under American military occupation tacitly endorses the invasion and subsequent colonization of Iraq. Their efforts to restore "normalcy" deceive weak-willed Iraqi civilians and international observers into the mistaken belief that the Americans are popular here. There can be no normalcy, or peace, until the invader is driven from our land. From the psychological warfare standpoint, the NGOs represent an even more insidious threat to fight for sovereignty than the U.S. army.

In this vein we must also take action against our own Iraqi citizens who choose to collaborate with the enemy. Bush wants to put an "Iraqi face" on the occupation. If we allow the Americans to corrupt our friends and neighbors by turning them into puppet policemen and sellouts, our independence will be lost forever. If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals.

Take to heart this warning of Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara: "The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition. This is clearly seen by considering the case of bandit gangs that operate in a region. They have all the characteristics of a guerrilla army: homogeneity, respect for the leader, valor, knowledge of the ground, and, often, even good understanding of the tactics to be employed. The only thing missing is support of the people; and, inevitably, these gangs are captured and exterminated by the public force." If the Americans are right about us, and we enjoy no popular support, we deserve to be annihilated. Fortunately, the U.S. has adopted Israeli-style retaliatory bombing, cordoning off whole villages and other tactics that are turning civilian fence-sitters to our point of view.

To victory!

Ted Rall
Columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back.