AJC.com > Opinion > Opinion Talk > Archives > 2008 > May
May 2008
How about gay presidential candidate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“The U.S. could soon have something it’s never had: a black or a female president.
“But what if one of the presidential candidates was gay?”
That is the question posed by an op-ed piece in today’s AJC.
“Could a gay person get elected to high office in a country where it’s still legal in many states for companies to refuse to hire someone because of his or her sexual orientation?”
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Should McCain avoid help from Bush?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some political analysts believe GOP presidential candidate John McCain has a campaign problem: An incumbent who is unpopular.
Yet, George Bush is adept at fund-raising. How can the McCain camp best use Bush in the upcoming election? Or should McCain avoid or minimize appearances with the President?
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$8 a gallon gas?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation writes that legislation pending in Congress - set for a vote next week- could raise gasoline prices to $8 a gallon. The bill is called the America’s Climate Security Act and is sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) and John Warner (R-Virginia).
In an effort to reduce global warming, it would place limits on the amount of gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use, writes Ben Lieberman. Europe has similar anti global-warming measures, he writes, and gasoline is $8 a gallon.
But he argues that even if Americans reduce driving because of the bill, China and India will continue to use more, offsetting U.S. gains. Read analysis here.
Should Congress delay the fight against global warming if it will mean drastically higher fuel prices and further jeopardize the U.S. economy?
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White valedictorian at Morehouse: Change?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Morehouse alum Richard Grigsby writes about the college’s first white valedictorian, Joshua Packwood. Bothered by aspects of the media coverage- reporters seemed to question why Packwood would possibly want to attend Morehouse, Grigsby writes that he also had a “momentary pause” about Packwood’s race. He writes, “And why not? I live in the United States, a country that in its very Constitution — a document renowned for enshrining national aspirations for freedom and equality — defined my ancestors as three-fifths human for purposes of congressional representation.”
And yet Grigsby takes a hopeful view of Packwood’s honor.
“It’s clear that the call for ‘change’ is at the heart of this political season,” he writes. “And it’s a beautiful thing to watch play out…”
Your thoughts.
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Hillary for Supreme Court justice?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
James Andrew Miller says Sen. Barack Obama should promise rival Sen. Hillary Clinton a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court as a way to foster party unity “without forcing a political marriage” i.e. offering Hillary the VP nomination.
As VP, Hillary and Bill Clinton could make life miserable for Obama, Miller writes. Is that a way out of the Democratic deadlock? Read column here.
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Death of car culture?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Timpane writes that car culture has been good to us: “It has made this country great, made contemporary life what it is today. Life without cars- without the unquestioned right to personal mobility at will- is unimaginable.”
And yet- Timpane says the car culture no longer works and not just because of higher fuel prices and the impact of roads on the environment.
“The car commute amounts to a willing sacrifice of billions of hours of precious, production time. … This has wrecked family life for many who live farther and farther from work. It has created the commuter suburb, whose residents have little to do with their towns except, just about, the bed where they happen to sleep between commutes.”
Timpane predicts, “we’ll discover -gasp- we don’t have enough trains and buses for those who need them. Life will change. The roads will start getting lonely. It’s a while off- but worth thinking about.”
Is the car culture dying
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Hillary and the Energizer Bunny
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today’s Mike Luckovich cartoon features the Energizer Bunny exhausted from watching Hillary Clinton, who keeps on running and running and running…
After last night’s stunning victory in Kentucky, should she continue running? And even if you don’t support her, do you admire Clinton’s tenacity?
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Less-than-kingly contribution?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When government commissions demand changes in a work of art, bad things usually happen. Commissions tend to be bureaucratic, risk-averse and politically sensitive, while good art tends to be none of those things.
However, “usually” isn’t “always.” And in the case of the proposed statue of Martin Luther King Jr. to be installed at the Tidal Basin area in Washington, D.C., changes demanded by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts are wise and necessary.
According to the commission, the statue as now proposed by sculptor Lei Yixin makes King appear “static in pose, confrontational in character” rather than “dynamic in stance, meditative in character.” While those are purely subjective terms, the commission’s take is right. The latest version does make King seem forbidding and cold, while King in reality was anything but.
The statue is planned as the centerpiece of a $100 million memorial to King and the movement he led. Because it will be placed on federal property in Washington, the commission has final say over its design.
Georgians, on the other hand, don’t have much standing to gripe. A memorial foundation is seeking public and private contributions to help cover the final $7 million —- Maryland, for example, has budgeted $500,000 for the effort, and the city of Denver has pledged $40,000.
And Georgia, the land of King’s birth? Earlier this year, the General Assembly appropriated the kingly sum of $20,000 to help honor the state’s most famous native son in one of the nation’s most sacred places.
Maybe it wasn’t intended as such, but that comes across as an insult. It calls to mind the actions of then-Gov. Lester Maddox, who in the days after King’s assassination in 1968 refused to fly the flag at half mast. But as a minister, King would have understood that “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”
—- Jay Bookman, for the editorial board (jbookman@ajc.com)
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Why are Ga. students failing so miserably?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State School Superintendent Kathy Cox warned this week that as many as 80 percent of Georgia sixth and seventh graders failed the state social studies CRCT exam. About forty percent of eighth graders could be held back for failing the math test. Kennesaw State University education professor Rick Breault faults the state educational leadership, in particular, for the low social studies scores.
“As someone who tries to prepare future teachers to teach social studies, it has been nearly impossible to find elementary schools in which to place our university students where they can see social studies being taught,” he writes. “Many of my science education colleagues have said the same about their discipline. Therefore, state officials should not be in such a state of bewilderment when they put in place a new, extensive social studies curriculum, give little incentive to teach it, and then have children score poorly on tests.”
Cox writes, however, that the math test results are the result of tightening the curriculum standards. She is less certain about the cause of the low social studies scores.
“I know the low pass rates on these tests are frustrating and upsetting for our parents, students and our hard-working social studies teachers,” she writes. ” I sincerely apologize for any hurt this has caused. But I want to be clear: These results are not reflective of the excellence and the effort of our social studies teachers or our students. Over the next few weeks, a committee of social studies teachers and curriculum experts will meet to go over our standards and assessments to determine why we saw such low results.”
On Wednesday, Cox’s office announced that it is invalidating the social studies test results.
“After intense scrutiny of the standards and the assessment, we have come to the conclusion that these scores are not trustworthy measures of student achievement in social studies,” the office announced. ” Accordingly, the results will be invalidated. It is important to note that we found nothing technically incorrect with the scoring of these assessments. This decision is based primarily on the conviction that we need to revise the curriculum and the assessments to better evaluate the knowledge and skills that represent student achievement in social studies.”
What do you think is causing these high failure rates?
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Airline customer service in the toilet- literally
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sacramento Bee columnist Anita Creamer writes, “Last week, a New York man flying on a free pass filed suit against JetBlue Airways, alleging that the pilot on a recent cross-country flight forced him to give up his seat and hang out in the restroom after a flight attendant grew tired of sitting in the jump seat.
My first thought, of course, was, ‘Wow, how’d this guy actually manage to redeem his frequent-flier miles?’
The rest of us would sure like to learn the secret.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, he didn’t. He was traveling on a “buddy pass,” which airline employees can give to friends. In any case, what a fitting opening act for the summer travel season. The way most airlines treat their customers, we’ll all soon be frog-marched down the aisle to assigned seats in the toilet. And we’ll have to pay an extra fee for it, too.” Read full column here.
Meanwhile, a new survey finds passengers are more dissatisfied with airline service than they have been in years. See story here.
Is airline service getting worse? Tell us your horror stories.
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Should McCain’s age, health matter?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John McCain uses jokes, as in his recent Saturday Night Live appearance, to diffuse concerns about his age. He’ll soon be 72, and, if elected, would be the oldest man to become president.
“I’m older than dirt—more scars than Frankenstein,” the Republican presidential candidate recently was quoted in Time Magazine.
Meanwhile, his current medical records are scheduled to be released before Memorial Day.
Should McCain’s age and health matter in the presidential election?
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Coddling prisoners by letting them smoke?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two Georgia physicians argue that state inmates should not be allowed to smoke- even outside.
Taxpayers are footing the health care bills of inmates and eliminating smoking would cut down on those costs, they argue.
Should prisoners be denied their smokes?
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A solution to illegal immigration?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
D.A. King writes that the U.S. has a simple, effective solution to illegal immigration at its fingertips, if only employers would use it. It is called e-verify and it allows employers to run electronic checks on employees to find illegals.
Writes King, “E-Verify is presently a voluntary system that should be expanded, better funded and mandatory, with the goal of eliminating the magnet that draws illegals to our nation. Few will be surprised to learn that it was a coalition of the business community and the far-left ethnic lobby that was successful in making use of the system voluntary.
“That relatively few employers have chosen to use the no-cost tool provides alarming, but unsurprising, insight into the intent of those who have not enrolled in the program.
“When used to verify work eligibility of newly hired employees, a false negative response does not result in termination of the employee until completion of a lengthy and thorough appeal process. Using scare tactics about Americans losing jobs because of E-Verify is, at best, unproductive.” Read full column here.
An AJC editorial, however, recently pointed out reliability problems with E-verify and urged caution in using it.
“There’s nothing wrong with requiring employers to use a government database to verify job applicants’ legal status. But E-Verify just isn’t reliable enough to perform that task, and the Social Security Administration isn’t the agency to handle it,” the editorial said. Read full editorial here.
Is E-verify the solution, and if so, why aren’t we mandating it?
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Who profits from Iraq war? We all do
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Columnist Nick Turse writes that it is no longer just defense contractors who profit heavily from the Iraq war- a wide variety of consumer companies rake in hundreds of millions from Pepsi to Krispy Kreme - and thus we all profit.
“In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his famous farewell address as president, warned of the “acquisition of unwarranted influence” by what he called the “military-industrial complex” in the United States,” writes Turse. “Today, however, the “large arms industry” of Eisenhower’s day is only part of a complex equation. Civilian companies such as PepsiCo and IBM form the backbone of what more accurately can be described as a “military-corporate complex.” These businesses allow the Pentagon to function, to make war and to carry out foreign occupations.” Read full column here.
Does widespread profit contribute to the public acceptance of war - and does that prolong the war?
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High cost of death penalty: Worth it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Whether you believe the death penalty is moral or immoral, what about the cost to taxpayers? Cara H. Drinan, law professor at The Catholic University in Washington discusses the $2 million Georgia has spent on the Brian Nichols case- and he has not even come to trial yet. Read column here. Death penalty cases, she argues, have virtually ruined Georgia’s once highly acclaimed statewide indigent defense system. “… replace the death penalty without life without parole, as New Jersey has recently done,” she argues. New Jersey legislators, she writes, “were able to satisfy their constituents that the death penalty simply was not worth its prohibitive price.”
Is it worth the price?
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Is commuter rail an answer?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An AJC op-ed columnist notes she is “in full support of this state’s organizing a research team to seriously investigate the notion of a commuter rail system linking the suburbs to downtown. Just last week, Forbes magazine named Atlanta traffic the absolute worst in the entire United States. Yep, according to the study, “commuters spend 60 hours a year stuck in traffic, second only to those in Los Angeles.”
She also urges: ” State of Georgia, please get this ball rolling. Please organize a research team. Please at least entertain this idea. Together we can continue to make strides in being a world-class city.”
Could commuter rail be an answer to traffic congestion?
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Are we raising useless kids?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Karen Heller writes about childhood: “For centuries, childhood barely existed. If a child could walk, he could work. A daughter was to be bartered. Today, this remains true in many of the world’s poorest countries.”
Yet in our country, “children study hard, some very hard so they can apply to the same 27 colleges and have their young souls crushed like beetles for no apparent reason than unrealistic expectations and pack mentality.:”
In the summers, “they’re released into the wider world where they’re equipped to do absolutely nothing other than master ‘Grand Theft Auto IV.”
Their greatest skill, she writes, “Is hanging while spending other people’s money.”
They can “text at the speed of sound, yet can’t follow a transit schedule. They’re brilliant and stupid.”
Your reaction?
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President Bush calls Barack Obama an appeaser?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This from the Associated Press: “In a speech in Israel, President Bush, without naming names, criticized those who “believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” He called the approach “the false comfort of appeasement,” and one that has been discredited by history.
The strong words came as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, has expressed a willingness to meet with the leaders of U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Syria. However, White House press secretary Dana Perino flatly rejected the idea that the Knesset remark was aimed in any way at Obama, and Johndroe said Bush was referring to “a wide range of people who have talked to or suggested we talk to Hamas, Hezbollah or their state sponsors.” Former President Carter recently held talks with Hamas leaders.
Obama said in a statement that “it is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.”
Was Bush talking about Obama? And does his criticism have merit. Will it help or hurt Obama to be attacked by President Bush?
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Edwards for Veep?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former presidential candidate John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama. The backing could give Obama a significant boost, ultimately by releasing his delegates and encouraging them to vote for Obama.
Speculation in some quarters is that he might end up again as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Do you think Edwards is a good choice, particularly compared with the so-called “dream ticket” of Obama-Clinton?
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Fewer viewers of Preakness?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With Barbaro breaking down in the Preakness two years ago, and the filly Eight Belles having to be euthanized on the track at the Kentucky Derby less than two weeks ago, columnist Mike King won’t won’t be watching the Preakness this weekend and believes the racing industry will lose public support if it doesn’t take action to stop catastrophic injuries of the thoroughbreds it breeds.
His proposal: Break the tradition of running 3-year-olds in the Triple Crown races and make the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes open to 4-year-olds only. That will force owners and trainers to lightly race their horses as 2- and 3-year-olds, giving their bodies a chance to mature and help their fragile bones to get stronger before they race for the big money.
Radical animal rights groups like PETA want to stop thoroughbred racing altogether, claiming it is abusive to horses. When it comes to abusing animals, some claim there is little difference between the blue-bloods who control the throughbred industry and Michael Vick’s and his friends breeding dogs to fight and kill.
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Does Clinton’s candidacy remove ‘glass ceiling’?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama decisively in Tuesday’s West Virginia presidential primary election, but many see the victory as merely symbolic given that the delegate math is against her.
Even if Hillary Clinton does not win the nomination and even if she is not on the ticket, have there been political gains for the future of women presidential candidates because of her campaign? Does her campaign show that women can run effectively for the highest elected office? Or does the political glass ceiling for women as president remain in place?
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Why do you drive to work?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kevin Green of the Clean Air Campaign presents these numbers: driving to work can cost you up to $1,000 a month (average round trip of 40 miles, including car payment, parking, etc.) while a MARTA pass is $52.50, an Xpress coach pass is $80 a month.
Clean Air will even pay you $3 a day, up to $180 to stop solo car commuting. Why do so many people keep driving to work, alone?
And by the way, is traffic lighter than usual as gasoline prices spiral?
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Will Bob Barr hurt McCain?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Will former congressman Bob Barr’s third-party presidential candidacy hurt Sen. John McCain’s chances? Barr, a former Republican, announced Monday that he is seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, “to let the American people know that they are going to have a choice” of a candidate who would shrink the size of government and start bringing home troops from Iraq. Could Barr’s candidacy tip the race to the Democratic nominee in a close race?
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MLK statue: Dream or nightmare?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Writes Marc Fisher, a Washington Post columnist: “The road to the [Martin Luther King Jr.] memorial has been difficult from the start. It has taken decades to raise the money, select the site and create the design. But of all the battles over how to remember King, this latest round is the most disturbing. As work continues in China on a model of the 28-foot-tall statue, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts has issued a harshly worded denunciation of the image of King that is being carved out of foreign granite.”
“Far from the original concept of a King, who is ‘dynamic in stance, meditative in character,’ the sculpture now being built ‘features a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character,’ says a letter from the commission secretary, Thomas Luebke.”(Read the full column) Fisher writes:
“The centerpiece of the memorial, known as the Stone of Hope, has gone completely off the rails. The solution is to start over.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese sculptor crafting the controversial statue of King, says he feels he is being subjected to the sort of prejudice and cultural bias his subject stood against. “I wasn’t trying to express that King was confrontational but that he was thoughtful,” Lei told Cox international correspondent Craig Simons in an interview. “I just want to focus on King’s ideals.”
(See image of centerpiece below)
Should the King memorial design be scrapped and started over?
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In long run, Israel will have to compromise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In its first 60 years of existence, the modern state of Israel has faced several moments when its survival seemed less than assured. And with the exception of those Jews who are certain of God’s protection, most Israelis understand that they will face more such difficult moments in the future.
As a birthday reminder of that fact, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week renewed his anti-Israeli rhetoric with a diatribe made more threatening by his nation’s apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” Ahmadinejad said, warning that “this regime is on its way to annihilation.”
We can sit here in America and note that the religious mullahs, not Ahmadinejad, hold the real power in Iran, and that Israel’s own nuclear arsenal should provide more than enough deterrent against an attack. Even if Iran does acquire a nuclear weapon, the logic against it ever being used against Israel is almost overwhelming.
However, many Americans are also old enough to remember the anxiety created in this country by the even more unlikely prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. That fear would be compounded many times over for a country the size of Israel and a people with the history of the Jews.
Living in a neighborhood like the Middle East doesn’t help matters any, not with a civil war simmering in Lebanon and Qassam missiles being launched at Israeli targets from Gaza.
However, it is their inability to make peace with their Palestinian neighbors —- a failing for which the Israelis and Palestinians are both to blame —- that causes the greatest anxiety. In a new poll, 75 percent of Israelis said they expect to fight another war with their Arab neighbors in the next five years.
Transfixed by knowledge that a mistake could be fatal, trapped by history in an embrace with the Palestinians that they cannot break, the Israelis seem uncertain of how to change course.
“First we lost our belief in the power of peace to solve our problems,” Bradley Burston, an Israeli journalist, wrote recently in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, recalling events of the past few years. “Then we lost our faith in the power of war to do the same. Israelis and Palestinians both, we are in a state of unaccustomed loss of ideals … nothing has worked.”
That frustration is understandable. In its 60 years of existence, modern Israel has accomplished wonderful things for its people. Under harsh conditions, they have built a technologically advanced democracy and a strong Western economy. But the fragility of that accomplishment is impossible to ignore.
Besieged by terrorists, the Israelis built a wall to protect themselves against infiltration. While the wall all but eliminated suicide bombers, it has proved ineffective against missiles and mortar shells.
To counter such threats, Israel has tried to create a buffer zone, trying to push those missiles out of range, but that too is a temporary strategy. In time the range of those missiles will increase, their accuracy will improve, their payloads will get bigger.
For all its power, the Israeli military cannot change that situation. Nor can it alter a demographic trend in which Jews are becoming the minority in Israel and the occupied territories.
“The day will come when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned last year. “As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.”
For all those reasons, time is an enemy at least as threatening as Iran. Without fundamental change, things can continue in Israel as they have for many years or decades, but long term its odds of surviving a multigenerational war of attrition would be slim.
An American government that does not press both the Israelis and Palestinians to change course —- that does not prod from the outside to force true compromise upon both —- is not a true ally of Israel.
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Is McCain a Bush clone?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Columnist Arianna Huffington writes that Sen. John McCain - who told her he did not even vote for George Bush in 2000 has now “morphed into an older and crankier version of the he couldn’t stand voting for in 2000.”
Writes Huffington: “The John McCain the media fell in love with in 2000 isn’t on the ballot in 2008. And the proof has all but jumped up and grabbed the media by the throat: the ring-kiss of “agents of intolerance” Falwell and Robertson; the decision to make permanent tax cuts he twice voted against, saying he could not “in good conscience support” them; the campaign finance reformer replaced with a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists and fueled by loophole rides on his wife’s jet; the hard-line stance against torture replaced by a vote allowing waterboarding; the guarded-by-a-battalion stroll through the “safe” neighborhoods of Baghdad; the use of Karl Rove as an advisor … and the embracing of the disastrous policies of a man he so abhorred he would not vote for him.”
Has McCain become a Bush clone?
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How do you handle cellphone louts?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“What do you do when you’re forced to listen to someone blabbing away on a cellphone? Do you suffer in silence? Do you walk away? Do you say angry words aimed at blaming and shaming?” writes columnist Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz.
Her solution is to hand the offender a “Peace Note” that says: “When you talk loudly on your phone, I feel frustrated and annoyed and angry because I have a need for peace and quiet while waiting for this delayed flight. So would you be willing to make this your last call or go elsewhere to talk? Thanks, Babs.”
How do you deal with people who talk loudly on cellphones?
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Why do metro legislators let state ignore our issues?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not that long ago, accepted wisdom held that suburban Atlanta commuters would never abandon their cars and commute by a form of transportation as lowly as a bus. Now they’re doing it by the thousands, with standing room only on express buses between downtown and the suburbs.
The program has become so popular that this year, the Georgia Regional Transportation Agency requested $13.3 million from the state Legislature to buy another 28 coaches to expand service.
Of course, the request was denied.
Legislators did appropriate $7.3 million to build a horse barn and practice ring in Houston County, home of Gov. Sonny Perdue. They approved $4 million for a building at the Paulding County Regional Airport, in the home district of House Speaker Glenn Richardson, and $8 million to re-create the office of the late House Speaker Tom Murphy at the University of West Georgia.
But $13 million for new buses to ease the commuting crunch in metro Atlanta? Nah, waste of money.
Of course, that slight to the metro area pales in importance to the Legislature’s last-minute rejection of a regional transportation-funding mechanism. That proposal, if approved by voters statewide, would have given metro Atlanta the means to tax itself to provide the funding it needs and that the state refuses to provide. All this raises a question: How long will metro-area legislators put up with such treatment of their constituents? More importantly, how long will metro-area voters put up with metro-area legislators who put up with such treatment?
MARTA remains the only major transit system in the country forced to survive without financial aid from state government. State officials have also refused to move on a commuter rail line from Lovejoy to Atlanta, even with federal money already committed. The so-called Brain Train, a commuter line linking Athens and the University of Georgia to downtown Atlanta and its universities at Emory, Georgia Tech and the Atlanta University schools, has also been kept on the back burners.
But if our predicament has gone largely unnoticed at the state Capitol, it is making news elsewhere. In a recent ranking, Forbes magazine listed Atlanta congestion as the worst in the country.
As Forbes described Atlanta to its nationwide, business-oriented readership, “more people flood the roadways than the infrastructure can handle. Commuters spend 60 hours a year stuck in traffic, second only to those in Los Angeles. If that weren’t bad enough, Atlanta is so spread out that only 29 percent of drivers get to and from work in less than 20 minutes, the third-worst rate in the country, and 13 percent spend more than an hour getting to work, the fourth-worst rate in the country. The local train system doesn’t service the entire city, and thus fails to relieve the pressure.”
If you’re a business leader contemplating a relocation or expansion, would Atlanta still be on your site list after reading that?
Now, with $4 gasoline looming, the situation gets even more difficult. Atlanta already had one of the most expensive commutes in the country —- now, with a doubling of the price of gasoline, the impact on our economy doubles as well. And as Forbes points out, our lack of a rail infrastructure makes it hard to turn to alternatives.
A similar crunch is hitting the nation’s freight industry. Eighteen-wheelers run on diesel, which has risen in price even faster than gasoline, and congestion in cities such as Atlanta has made moving freight by road more and more expensive and time-consuming.
As a result, freight movers are turning to rail, which can move three times as much freight as a truck on the same amount of diesel. Rail-industry profits have doubled since 2003, pushing stock values up as well. The price of Union Pacific stock has risen 19 percent in the last two months, while CSX stock has risen 36 percent.
Of course, the factors that are driving freight traffic off the highways and onto rail —- congestion and high fuel prices —- apply to moving people as well, as the popularity of express buses demonstrates. But Georgia’s leadership lacks the vision to recognize that fact.
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Jimmy Carter: Palestinians treated cruelly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former President Jimmy Carter, just back from the Middle East, writes, “The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.
“This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. “
Carter concludes: “It is one thing for other leaders to defer to the U.S. on the crucial peace negotiations, but the world must not stand idle while innocent people are treated cruelly. It is time for strong voices in Europe, the U.S., Israel and elsewhere to speak out and condemn this human rights tragedy among the Palestinian people.”
What is your reaction to Carter’s opinion column? Read full column here:
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A blot on Franklin’s tough tenure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mayor Shirley Franklin is nearing the end of her eight-year tenure just as she began it, with Atlanta City Hall in sorry financial shape. This is a disappointing development from an urban chief executive once featured on the cover of Newsweek and ranked among America’s top five mayors by Time.
Franklin has offered the Atlanta City Council a budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year that lays off employees, freezes vacant positions and raises property taxes to head off a $140 million shortfall. Her proposed tax hike will come on top of yet another anticipated increase in water/sewer rates. After six years in office, she presides over a budgeting process nearly as dysfunctional as that left behind by her criminal predecessor, Bill Campbell.
The mayor is not to blame for all of the city’s fiscal problems. The council has contributed a huge share to the dysfunction, and a recession has done the rest.
But Franklin took office amid high expectations, not just for higher ethical standards and inspired leadership — which she has shown — but also for more disciplined fiscal management. She was certainly not expected to preside over another budget meltdown.
For its part, the City Council has already begun harrumphing and hectoring over the mayor’s budget, with some council members protesting the proposed tax hike — “I don’t want to give up on trying to fight a property tax increase,” said councilman Howard Shook — while others complained about the complexity — “This budget seems to be hinged on several policy changes we haven’t even considered,” said councilwoman Natalyn Archibong.
But a preceding City Council made a costly change that helped provoke this fiscal calamity, and some current members were on that body. Perhaps longtime members such as Clair Muller and C.T. Martin remember the vote: In 2001, the City Council made a dramatic improvement to the pensions offered to police officers, a colossal move that will haunt taxpayers for decades to come.
Troubled by low police morale and difficulty recruiting new officers, the council caved in to police demands for better benefits by increasing not just salaries but also the “multiplier” for pensions, from 2 percent to 3 percent. At the time, a police officer multiplied his years of service by two; he received that percentage of his salary as his pension. If he worked 20 years and his highest average salary was $50,000 a year, he’d get a pension of 40 percent, or $20,000. Now, the officer multiplies his years of service by three. So that $50,000 salary produces a pension of $30,000.
On top of that, federal regulations now require cities to set aside more money to cover pensions they’ll have to pay out in years to come. Those pension burdens, plus soaring health care costs, have strained the city’s finances, accounting for the shortfall and forcing dire choices.
But neither of those significant expenditures — pensions or health care — should have come as a surprise. Any accountant should have known that increased benefits would cost the city, and it’s the accountant’s job to know just when those bills would come due. Somebody was asleep at the switch and ought to be fired.
Atlanta residents are already struggling under the burden of a $4 billion overhaul of the city’s ancient sewerage system. The overhaul is absolutely necessary, an ambitious but distinctly unglamorous undertaking that other mayors refused to take on. Franklin was courageous to do it.
But she has already hiked water/sewer rates 70 percent over the past five years, and she has proposed several more. If the council adopts them all, the average household’s water bill will have jumped from $50 to $135 over 10 years, a 170 percent increase, according to Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter D. L. Bennett. That’s on top of the additional penny in sales tax charged on items purchased in the city.
Over the past decade, Atlanta has experienced a resurgence, with middle-class residents moving back inside the city limits, shops and restaurants opening and a new vitality energizing older neighborhoods. A property tax hike might not halt the city’s momentum, but it sure will dampen residents’ enthusiasm for its leadership.
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Trust in U.S. justice? Get real
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts questions whether African Americans can trust the U.S. justice system. Read full column here
“It’s about Amadou Diallo, shot at 41 times — hit 19 — by New York police while reaching for his wallet,” writes Pitts “It’s about Rodney King, beaten to pieces by L.A. police for a traffic violation. It’s about Jeffrey Gilbert, bones fractured by police who broke into the Greenbelt, Md., apartment of his girlfriend and pounced on him as he lay nude in bed because they mistakenly thought him a cop killer. It’s about L.A. police manufacturing and planting evidence. It’s about my son, stopped by police for driving with an “obstructed” windshield — he had an air freshener in the shape of a Christmas tree dangling from his rearview mirror.”
Is the deck stacked against African Americans?
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Is a college degree overrated?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Marty Nenko a career counselor in Oakland, Cal. argues that for many students, going to college means taking on massive debt, probably never getting a degree and ending up with a job where no degree is required. He calls on colleges to be more open about graduation rates, employment data, etc. Read the full column
“Colleges should be held at least as accountable as tire companies are,” he writes. “To be government-approved, all tires must have — prominently molded into the sidewall — ratings of tread life, temperature resistance and traction compared with national benchmarks.”
Is college overrated?
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Should Clinton or Obama drop out?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Heading into today’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana presidential primaries, a Gallup-USA Today poll found that 6 in 10 Democrats say Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should continue their presidential campaigns.
Of the minority who would like to see either Clinton or Obama drop out and concede the nomination, more call for Clinton to step down than Obama, Gallup reports
If the two candidates split the states tonight (Obama has already been projected as winner in North Carolina), should one of them drop out? Or do you want to see the contest continue between the two?
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Should we broaden war to Iran?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the opinion of CIA Director Michael Hayden, “it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq.”
Hayden’s assessment is widely shared in the U.S. government, and it’s no doubt correct. The Iranians are arming and probably training Iraqi insurgents, and they are in part responsible for the recent rise in U.S. casualties. Last month, 52 U.S. personnel were killed in Iraq, by far the highest total since September 2007.
The question is what to do about it, given the basic facts of the situation:
Fact one: Iran has every incentive to prevent us from “winning” in either Iraq, its neighbor to the west, or Afghanistan, its neighbor to the east. The reason is sheer self-preservation.
The U.S. government has publicly committed itself to the overthrow of Iran’s government. But the Iranians know that as long as they can keep us tied up and bleeding in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can’t turn our attention to them. From the Iranian point of view, they’d rather fight the Americans “over there” —- in Iraq and Afghanistan —- than have to fight us at home.
Fact two: Already overstretched by fighting two long-term wars with insufficient manpower, the U.S. military knows it cannot afford to open a third front against Iran. We do have the power to strike and strike hard at Iran —- “It would be a mistake to think we are out of combat power,” as one top American official warned recently —- but if attacks on Iran led to something bigger and more sustained, we would have a hard time containing the consequences.
Fact three: Gasoline is now approaching $4 a gallon in the United States. A broader war in the oil-rich Persian Gulf involving Iran could quickly drive the price of gasoline to $8 a gallon or higher, with immense ramifications for a global and national economy already teetering on the edge.
At one level, it is tempting to forget facts two and three and focus instead on the fact that Iran is helping to kill U.S. soldiers. But history suggests the answer is not so simple.
In fact, American presidents and foreign leaders have often had to face this sort of dilemma, weighing the dangers of a broader war against the perceived benefits of military action. Most of the time, they have understood that a broader war would do little good.
In the Korean War, President Harry Truman refused to approve attacks against Communist China even though the Chinese were supplying weaponry and manpower to our North Korean opponents and helping to kill U.S. troops. Truman understood that the dangers of an all-out land war in Asia outweighed the possible benefits.
In Vietnam, presidents Johnson and Nixon made similar calculations even though the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were being supplied by the Soviet Union and China. A decade later the roles were reversed, with the United States smuggling arms to insurgents in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union, and the Soviets were forced to accept that reality.
Limited war, with all its frustrations, is sometimes the best option available. But it takes wisdom and patience to appreciate that difficult fact, two traits seldom seen in the current administration.
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Why haven’t superdelegates deserted Obama?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Between “Bittergate” and the revenge of Rev. Wright, Barack Obama has just had the worst four-week stretch of his campaign.
This is just what Hillary Clinton has been waiting for — an unexpected controversy that taints Obama, underscoring her argument to the superdelegates that she is more electable.
Oddly, however, it isn’t working. Despite Wright’s unfortunate reappearance, superdelegates are still drifting toward Obama. In fact, he’s nearly even with Clinton among those who have committed.
What gives? Why haven’t superdelegates deserted Obama? Do they have Clinton fatigue?
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Can U.S. schools learn from China?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dixon Adair, a 10-grader at Atlanta International School, spent a semester in China and returned impressed with some aspects of the nation’s educational system.
He writes: “The school day ran from 7:40 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and most students in the grade in which I was placed — eighth grade — studied until midnight. The eighth-grade students were also expected to go to school on Saturdays for extra classes, to prepare for end-of-year exams.
“Instead of the teachers assigning students extra work, the students would often give themselves extra exercises to do so that they could improve themselves for their own good, not just so that their teachers would be impressed. They also went as far as “punishing” themselves by doing a lot of extra work if they performed poorly on a test because they knew that what felt like punishment now would actually benefit them in the future.”
Teachers are awarded immense respect, writes Adair. “In China, when the teacher enters the class to begin it, the students stand up to greet the teacher and bow,” he wrote. And students are actually required to mop the classroom floors.
Back in the U.S., he welcomes a more relaxed educational atmosphere but still believes the U.S. can learn from China.
“The school that could combine the best of American and the best of Chinese education practices would surely be the best school of all.”
Do you agree?
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Paying students to study?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is it a good idea to pay disadvantaged students in Fulton County schools $8 an hour to study? The woman behind the Learn and Earn program says she’s not certain it will work. But Jackie Cushman is sure that it’s worth a try: “We have only started, but it is a good start.” Read her essay here.
A Georgia State professor, meanwhile, calls Learn and Earn a “sincere but misguided attempt.” Richard Lakes, an expert in educational policy, writes that Learn and Earn “serves not to build up a marginalized subgroup of kids but to hold them down, to reinforce their roles as members of the servant class in the new economy.” Read his essay here.
What do you think?
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$4 gas will change lifestyles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paying $4 a gallon for gasoline will do more than lighten your wallet and raise your blood pressure.
Over time, it will also alter the basic geography of our lives, transform how we live, work and shop, affect our interactions with one another and change the way we do business. It may even change our eating habits.
In fact, if you recently passed up that ribeye steak at the grocery because of its $10-a-pound pricetag, the price of gas has already changed your diet. Food is now a petroleum-based product, and as oil costs soar, so does the cost of food.
Thanks to misbegotten government fuel subsidies, for example, vast acreages of farmland are being diverted to raising corn for ethanol production, and that’s corn that the cows aren’t eating. In addition, most of the pesticides and herbicides used to grow our food are petroleum-based, as are many fertilizers. Fertilizers heavy in ammonia, for example, are critical in grain production. They’re created from natural gas, and since the price of natural gas has almost quadrupled in the past 10 years, the price of fertilizer, and thus grain, has soared as well.
Until now, cheap energy also has helped to shape our living arrangements. In places such as metro Atlanta, where the urban core no longer serves as the center of gravity, development has sprawled into suburbs and exurbs. People in search of cheaper housing or more space could just keep driving farther and farther from their job sites until they found housing that met their needs.
But $4-a-gallon gasoline puts a tether around their necks, pulling them closer to the core. With gas prices so high, someone who drives 30 miles to work each morning in a 20-mpg vehicle will have to spend $12 a day just on gasoline.
That’s a big bite out of a weekly paycheck, and before long, market forces are going to start driving that commuter to find another solution. You can already see it happening.
Here in Atlanta, property values in the downtown core have held steady or even continued to rise, a product of short, cheap commutes. But the situation is very different in exurban Atlanta.
According to MetroStudy, a real-estate research firm, developers in the northern half of metro Atlanta now have a five-year backlog of lots ready to be built upon. In south metro areas, they have enough lots cleared and served with utilities to meet current demand for seven years. With gas prices so high, it may be decades before those lots in the farthest reaches of metro Atlanta see construction.
Gasoline prices are sending commuters an economic signal, telling them to shorten their drives, and with a little math, the size of that signal comes into sharp focus. Every day, drivers in metro Atlanta travel about 130 million miles. Assuming average fuel consumption of 20 miles per gallon, that’s means we use 6.5 million gallons of gasoline a day.
In January 2007, when gasoline was $2.15 a gallon, we spent $14 million a day on gasoline. But if the price rises to $4 a gallon, we’ll be spending $26 million daily, an increase of $12 million.
People respond to numbers like that. For decades, it was argued that you could never get Americans out of their big cars, yet last month, sales of light trucks and SUVs fell 17.4 percent compared with April 2007, while sales of cars rose 5.2 percent.
And out in San Francisco, where $4 gasoline is already a reality, revenue from toll roads and bridges is falling while ridership on mass transit is increasing. Similar trends are occurring here in metro Atlanta. According to the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, the number of vehicle miles traveled per licensed driver in the metro area fell from 58.8 miles a day in 1998 to 44.9 miles in 2005. And express buses from northern suburban counties that once disdained mass transit are now standing room only and are turning riders away.
Four-dollar gasoline can only accelerate those trends. We have built an economy and a society on a foundation of cheap energy, and that foundation is washing away. As a result, changes that once seemed implausible may now be inevitable.
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Should governor veto or approve gun bill?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Should Gov. Sonny Perdue veto or approve House Bill 89 which would allow licensed gun owners to take their weapons in public parks, restaurants and on public transit?
Read “Don’t allow gripes to kill a valid bill”
Read “Arms far too available now”
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Time to end the death penalty?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia State University law professor Anne Emanuel argues that is time to take another look at the death penalty here- despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding lethal injection. Writes Emanuel, “the death penalty is not the only way we can deter murderous crime and keep dangerous people off the streets. Most states, including Georgia, authorize sentences of life without parole. In public opinion polls, support for the death penalty drops significantly when life without parole is offered as an alternative.
The social and economic costs of capital punishment appear to be staggering. And yet, there is no convincing evidence that the death penalty deters offenders from killing. In a 1995 national poll, police chiefs ranked the death penalty last among effective ways to reduce violent crime.”
Is it time?
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Should U.S. drill for more oil?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Robert J. Samuelson, a Washington Post and Newsweek columnist writes:
“What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.
It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25-30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves).
What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both “energy independence” and cheap fuel. They deplore imports —- who wants to pay foreigners? —- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a “no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality,” writes Robert Bryce in ‘Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence.’ “
What do you think about U.S. drilling for oil?
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Should cyclists use roadways?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spring weather has finally arrived and it’s a great time to ride a bike.
It’s also the time of year when motorists and cyclists often are at odds over where, when — and even if — cyclists should use roadways.
A recent letter to the editor in our Northside edition complained about cyclists using major roadways during rush hour. We’ve since heard from cyclists who point out that they have a right to use the roads and that biking is a cheaper commute in the time of gas prices.
Have our roadways become so crowded there is no room for cyclists? Or, should cyclists have the right to use roads when and where they want — even if it causes a backup?
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America could use a little ‘tough love’ from leaders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We Americans have a high regard for ourselves. We are —- or so we tell ourselves —- the richest, the most generous, the most powerful, the most peace-loving, the most productive, the most wise and most lovable nation on the face of the earth.
We also love politicians who dare to tell us all those wonderful things about ourselves. Like any people, we want to think well of our country and take pride in it, and we want leaders who take pride in it as well.
But there’s a difference between justified pride and illusion. Too many Americans seem to believe that our place in the world has been divinely ordained and thus permanent, when in fact it is the product of past sacrifice and wise choices. It can all be lost if we also lose the capacity to look at ourselves and our problems honestly.
For example, it is no longer true that we are the richest nation in the world. Quite the contrary, in recent years we have become the world’s biggest debtor nation. We are financing our prosperity in the manner of an old but declining aristocratic family, living beyond our means year by year by pawning off the assets earned by earlier generations.
But our leaders don’t dare to tell us that truth, because they know we wouldn’t take it well. Even as they acknowledge some minor current difficulties, most of our political and business leaders reassure us that our economy is still sound as a dollar. They don’t happen to point out that compared to the euro, the value of that dollar has declined by a third in just the last five years.
Yes, we remain productive, but that too cannot last if our government is too poor to invest sufficiently in our public infrastructure. Our roads, bridges, rail lines and ports are crumbling and insufficient in a modern economy, but we decline to tax ourselves to correct that situation. Our nation’s Highway Trust Fund —- the main source of infrastructure investment —- will be bankrupt by 2009, yet we refuse to increase gasoline taxes to replenish that account.
Officially, we tell ourselves we can’t afford it. But meanwhile we ship fortunes to oil producers overseas, where the money is put to such useful and productive purposes as building ski resorts in the Arabian desert.
There are no easy answers to $4 gasoline, but our leaders are nonetheless eager to offer a few. Some choose to bash the oil companies, as if they are at fault for our addiction to their product. Others suggest suspending the federal gasoline tax, which would slightly and temporarily ease our pain at the gas pump but do nothing whatsoever to cure the underlying disease.
President Bush, for his part, suggests drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet another seemingly pain-free solution. But we could drain the wildlife refuge of every single drop of oil it might hold and it would not lower the price of gasoline a nickel. Nor would it alter our strategic situation in any meaningful way.
Four hundred years ago, an English writer-philosopher offered great advice to a counselor to King James I. Always tell the king the truth, Sir Francis Bacon wrote in a letter to his friend. Tell the king what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear.
“If you flatter him, you betray him,” Bacon warned. “If you conceal the truth of those things from him … you are as dangerous a traitor to this state as he that riseth in arms against him.”
A lot of things have changed since Bacon’s time. In this country, We the People are now king, but Bacon’s truth still applies. Those advisors and courtiers who flatter us also betray us.
Instead of flattery, we need honesty. We don’t need leaders to tell us how great we are, we need leaders willing to tell us that we’ve gotten ourselves into a bad mess and it’s going to take hard work, sacrifice and cooperation to fix it. The alternative is the decline of a great nation.
Or, as a writer-philosopher named Bob Dylan once put it:
“If it keeps on raining, the levee’s gonna break;
Some people still sleepin’, some people wide awake.”
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