Saxby Showing Civility?
To see former Sen. Saxby Chambliss included in a discussion about political civility is appallingly hypocritical. He spoke at the Johnny Isakson Symposium on Political Civility in November in Athens.
He can not be forgiven for the foul billboards he put up with side-by-side pictures of Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein and Sen. Max Cleland during the 2002 campaign. That picture cannot be unseen, nor can we forget who put it up.
Chambliss’ crassness loosened the downward slope of the Republican party mired in mud and vulgarities. Sen. Max Cleland’s star shines brighter than Chambliss’ star ever will.
Dirty politics have been around forever. My memory begins with Lee Atwater, a Ronald Reagan campaign aide. Karma embraced Atwater in the form of a brain tumor, and he died begging for forgiveness.
Atwater’s despicable antisemitism against South Carolina’s Tom Turnipseed, a well-liked moderate Democrat, is renowned. Turnipseed, as a young man, sought help for depression.
Atwater railed that you don’t want a Jewish congressman who’s been hooked up to jumper cables. Turnipseed was not elected.
Karl Rove spread rumors that Sen. John McCain had a Black baby. South Carolinians swallowed Rove’s deceitfulness and supported George W. Bush instead.
Chambliss apparently wants to be seen as an elder statesman, but is actually on the bad knees and bone spurs mudslinging team.
Patricia M. Burns
Smyrna
Athens Needs Safer Streets
Commissioners and Mayor,
I’ll try to remain brief—I’ve attached a letter outlining my thoughts and general opinion on the vote the commission took regarding the commission-defined option. I find it, quite frankly, upsetting that commissioners who will go on the record saying that they are “pro-road safety,” and “pro-walkability,” even going so far as to compile an 80-page document aligning with much of what the contractors brought on by the city suggested for improving the North Avenue Corridor; and that this commission would then reject the adoption of a plan that would have been paid for by $25 million in federal funding.
I own that it’s my fault, like much of Athens, for failing to show up at commission meetings and make my voice heard on the issues that matter to me. The real tragedy is that this isn’t even something that matters to only me—all of Athens benefits from safer roads and more comprehensive pedestrian infrastructure. I hate to see road construction getting in the way of commuting or leisure as much as the next person; but when it’s all finished traffic speeds are slower, pedestrians have more facility navigating the streets, bikers can refrain from engaging in dangerous road traffic, and everyone still gets to where they’re going, regardless of if the road has four lanes or five.
I believe that to make real change, you have to be bold. Unfortunately, we’re going to just keep kicking this can down the non-proverbial, very much real five-lane road, adopt a CDO that has no assurance of being allocated federal funding, and end up with the same wide streets we started off with. Athens will continue to grow and develop—squeezing high-rise student living complexes all over downtown, demolishing old grocery stores to build new ones, converting the old mall into another development you have to drive to, etc.—but I’m worried that with this commission at the helm, we will not prioritize making Athens safe for driving, walking or living in the foreseeable future.
Tim Moore
Athens
Take Care of Veterans
I would like to express my opinion that we, as a country, should be doing more to support our veterans who have returned from war.
Many who come back from deployment face difficulties in returning to normal life due to the psychological trauma they have experienced. A recent study found that, on average, there are 20 veteran suicides committed each day in the U.S. Often, military veterans are forced to seek medical assistance from the Veterans Administration which is unequipped to deal with their trauma and is often severely understaffed. Veterans face long waits of weeks or even months before they can obtain an appointment with a medical provider through the VA system. There have even been anecdotes of veterans committing suicide in the parking lot of the VA because they have come to the end of their rope and see no hope for a return to a normal life. Furthermore, there are known plant-based treatments for severe psychological trauma, such as Ibogaine, that have shown incredible promise in relieving symptoms of PTSD. However, U.S. law does not currently allow for treatment with Ibogaine, so some veterans are forced to go to treatment facilities in Mexico to obtain this life-changing medical care. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, once a fierce opponent of plant-based psychedelic therapies like Ibogaine, has become one of the biggest proponents of these beneficial drugs. I believe we need to do better by our American heroes by revamping our VA medical system, providing additional funding for care, and opening up our medical system to allow for therapies such as Ibogaine so that veterans can get the care they so desperately need.
Brooks Johnson
Watkinsville
Carter Was a Good President
Those old enough to remember the Carter administration are as likely to recall stagflation, gasoline price hikes and the Iran hostage crisis as the Middle East peace accord Carter brokered at Camp David or his forward-thinking environmental policies. With the perspective of time, it is now clear that President Carter was a gifted leader.
It’s been said that it is easy to lead American people where they want to go, but it takes vision to lead them where they don’t. Carter faced down Republican threats that his party would pay at the polls for “giving away” the Panama Canal. Amid prognostications that the Panamanians would be unable to run the canal without U.S. help, he signed the Panama Canal treaties that ended decades of pseudo-colonial domination of a neighboring country. Relations with Latin America improved, security threats to the canal ended, and the canal was returned to profitability.
With skyrocketing oil prices, cardigan-clad President Carter appeared in a televised fireside chat to urge us to turn down the heat and put on a sweater to conserve fuel and bolster American energy independence. New government policies on safety and fuel emissions incentivized automobile manufacturers to produce more environmentally friendly cars that today are the core of the industry.
In his single term, Carter appointed more African American judges to the federal courts than all the presidents who preceded him put together. His labor with Habitat for Humanity is legendary. In 2002, Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for health education, disease prevention and election observation accomplishments in Latin America.
Many say his presidency was ineffective. Time has shown him to have been an internationalist, an environmentalist, a small “d” democrat who put principles before partisanship. Perhaps say instead that President Carter was ahead of this time.
Peggy Perkins
Winder
Trump Isn’t the First to Intimidate Panama
Our new president elect and wannabe emperor has been rattling the saber about adjacent and nearby territories. His rants about U.S. intervention in Panama are nothing new, however.
The nation of Panama’s very creation resulted from a big-stick intervention by that turn of the 20th century president, Teddy Roosevelt. His administration, along with a subservient media empire operated by Joseph Pulitzer and its “yellow journalism,” gave us the Spanish-American war and its global territorial grabs. Those grabs stretched all the way from Cuba to the South Pacific.
To make sure that the isthmus of Panama seceded from the Colombian nation, Teddy sent the USS Wisconsin, a gunboat that carried a triple set of 14-inch cannons, to “protect future American business interests” there.
The liberal forces, those that championed Pan-American unity, that established the Organization of American States, stared down the barrels of those big guns and found little choice but to sign a treaty on board the Wisconsin. Those liberal forces had drawn up what was called the Drago Doctrine. That was Latin America’s answer to the Monroe doctrine. The Drago Doctrine forbade European intervention in the Americas.
The Panamanian secession ensured that American interests could proceed, albeit at gunpoint, with the canal’s building. The Wisconsin’s role in the war’s end and the canal’s completion gave birth to the term “gunboat diplomacy,” a practice still in operation.
Jim Baird
Comer
Thoughts on Leaf and Limb
I read with interest the account of the recent Athens-Clarke County discussion of leaf and limb policies, including some proposals for changes in the system (Flagpole, Jan. 22). Here are my two cents:
Residents of the Cobbham neighborhood like me know there’s no such thing anymore as pickup every six weeks. Maybe that happens somewhere, but not in this neighborhood. Think “every eight to 12 weeks, maybe.” Think “almost never,” like the long weeks before Cobbham’s recent “Cobbham by Candlelight” holiday tour, when the piles of brush took on a permanent look. And the storm damage excuse only goes so far, especially when, after one storm interrupted the regular pickup schedule, the schedule started over in Zone A after storm pickup instead of continuing with those of us who had been delayed.
Of course, I don’t know the ins and outs of the actual routes as they are driven, but it seems that there might be neighborhoods that need the service more, like ours, with so many yards that literally have no place to put stuff, and other neighborhoods that need less frequent service? It would take some kind of survey to know—of course, decisions couldn’t just be based on impressions of differing needs, but maybe some sort of differentiation could be worked out without slighting anyone? Probably not, but it’s a suggestion.
I think a call-in service would be a nightmare, both for sanitation workers and residents. Also, this is supposed to be a service provided to citizens, and the city needs to figure out some way to pay these workers what they’re worth and get the service running smoothly. If people can make a decent living doing a job, then they are more likely to apply for the job: Would the reported “stigma” of working for Solid Waste persist if the salary and working conditions were attractive? (I presume that the service is funded at least in part by my property taxes, which are already quite high, so I hesitate to propose raises that would give the ACC any ideas, but…)
Sharing brush piles and using vacant lots may work in Commissioner Melissa Link’s neighborhood, but a brush pile for whom no one is particularly responsible is a problem waiting to happen. Already my busy street attracts food trash and doggie waste bags thrown on top of the pile by passers-by, and, as I have reported to Commissioner Link more than once, piles that aren’t directly in front of one address can create confusion and unhappiness between good neighbors.
Certainly I don’t have the answer to the city’s inability to make leaf and limb pickup workable for residents, but I applaud the commission’s search for answers. Leaf and limb service is valuable to me as a gardener, a homeowner and a taxpayer, and I send my thanks to everyone who’s trying to come up with a solution. Let’s start by paying these hard-working employees a better salary, and maybe the solutions will evolve from that step.
Dera Weaver
Athens
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