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June 2006
Sex offender law is short-sighted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper has shown he has something that our legislators lack: common sense.
With an order issued Thursday, he ruled that Georgia’s registered sex offenders can live within 1,000 feet of school bus stops without the threat of possible arrest.
“While the Court recognizes and appreciates the importance of protecting the public, the Court cannot approve of doing so in a manner that offends the Constitution,” Cooper wrote after granting a temporary restraining order earlier in the week.
Amen.
Look, I’m all for protecting our children. But this is law is troubling for many reasons. (The judge’s decision on the bus stop rule is temporary and the remaining provisions of the law went into affect July 1.)
First, there’s strong potential for abuse.
County government officials assign the locations of school bus stops prior to the start of every school year.
Someone might review a sex offender registry and say, “Hmm, a sex offender lives there. We’ll move this school bus stop over this way just a little bit and chase them out of here.”
Second, it is anathema to our country’s standards of crime and punishment. Prisons rehabilitate criminals. They provide therapy for those who need it. When prisoners have served their time, they’ve paid their debt to society.
Not so with this law. According to media reports, its remaining provisions include employment and loitering restrictions and a broader definition of areas where children congregate, such as churches. Current Georgia law already bans registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of places such as child care centers and schools.
Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer for the Atlanta-based Southern Center, said the act “imposes one of the oldest and severest form of punishment, and that is banishment from the community.”
She’s right.
We can’t ruin the life of a 22-year old man who had sex with a young girl who lied about her age and had the fake driver’s license to back up her claim (and why isn’t she charged with fraud?) by legally treating him like the man who sexually assaulted his stepchildren.
The way I see it, we shouldn’t make a man move out of his house because was charged with indecent exposure after urinating in the woods and then ended up on a sex offender registry. A caller to the Neal Boortz show on Thursday said this happened to him.
People commit heinous of crimes, acts so despicable and vile that they make us physically ill. Yes, we need to do something to protect our children and our citizens from those people. There is a special place in hell for them, and I don’t mind giving them a head start.
But this is not the way to do it. This law is lazy, ignorant, shortsighted, and just plain mean.
It says something about us that I don’t like. It says that we pass laws casually without fully considering the ramifications or consequences. It says we pass laws based more on fear and prejudice than on justice and the establishment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s not an easy decision to make. It shouldn’t be. This law was passed too easily and without enough thought. Surely, we are a more reasoned society than this. Surely, we as citizens can’t be as lazy as our politicians.
What do you think?
Permalink | Comments (50) | Post your comment | Categories: Bill Allen
We deserve answers from library board
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What do the dates May 10, 1933 and June 12, 2006 have in common? They are both poignant dates for those who love books and democracy.
On May 10, 1933, the Nazis began their infamous ‘book burnings’ and set ablaze over 25,000 library books by Jewish intellectuals and other authors who threatened their misguided Aryan beliefs.
On June 12, 2006, the Gwinnett County library board decided to reduce to ashes the career of Jo Ann Pinder, Gwinnett County public library executive director, because her confidence and vision threatened the close-minded, meddling and misguided Gwinnett County library board.
Pinder had the leadership ability and management acumen to successfully lead the public library for 15 years that enabled it to achieve national honor and recognition as Library of the Year in 2000.
She and the public deserve to know why she was fired earlier this month “without cause.”
If there are documented reasons for Pinder’s dismissal based on her job performance, then the library board should share that with her and the public.
Otherwise, it simply looks like petty politics and personal vendettas being played out at taxpayers’ expense, since the library board is obligated pay Pinder a year’s salary - $127,000 – in severance pay.
Brett Taylor, who was appointed in January 2006 to the library board by District 1 Commissioner Lorraine Green, was the only library board member who voted to retain Pinder.
In a letter addressed to Gwinnett County citizens that the AJC Gwinnett News ran online on June 5, Taylor said the effort to fire Pinder was ignited by personal issues that Phyllis Oxendine had with Pinder.
Oxendine was appointed to the library board by county commission chair Charles Bannister in January 2005 and at one time also worked for the library system.
Taylor also stated in his letter that he believes Oxendine plans to fire several people and eliminate positions from the library executive staff. If this is so, then Pinder’s firing may be just the tip of the iceberg.
If library executive staff is dismantled, it’s possible that Pinder’s work to build an award-winning library will be undone. And if those staffers have employment contracts similar to Pinder’s, the county may also have to give several other library staff fired ‘without cause’ their severance pay.
Following Pinder’s dismissal the library board cut $3000 from its $22 million 2007 budget that was intended to purchase books for its popular Spanish-language fiction collection.
The board’s decision hinted of racism towards the library’s fast-growing Latino community and also appeared to be an assault on Pinder’s efforts to increase Spanish-language offerings.
After an outcry from the public, library board Chairman Lloyd Breck told the AJC Gwinnett News that the board will vote unanimously in a special session on Wednesday to restore funding for Spanish-language books.
The move may be a sign that the library board has moved away from its bullying and tyrannical maneuvers. Let’s hope so.
I encourage the public to continue to pressure the library board until it explains why Pinder was dismissed. They should also demand that those who appointed the board - the county commissioners - break their long silence about her dismissal.
We must remember that the library board serves at the pleasure of the commissioners and that the commissioners serve at the pleasure of the Gwinnett county electorate - which is us!
Have you contacted your commissioner about the library board’s shenanigans?
Permalink | Comments (32) | Categories: Beni Dakar
Insurance companies choose wealth over health
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Have you been following the battle between Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia and Piedmont Healthcare? It’s the latest saga in the story of insurance companies attempting to manipulate the market.
First, a brief history on the origins of insurance.
The practice of insurance was perfected by Marcus Licinius Crassus, a wealthy businessman and general who financed the reign of Julius Caesar. Crassus owned a bunch of slaves, all skilled builders.
He would go to the wealthy and middle class people of Rome and offer them his slaves to put out fires - for a fee, of course. If they didn’t pay and a fire broke out, Crassus would stand outside the burning building with his slaves, lamenting the homeowner’s decision not to hire him.
Then, he would offer to buy the burning/destroyed properties and neighboring buildings. He’d rebuild them and either keep them to rent or sell them for a huge profit. Some say that he and his crew even managed to start a few of those fires at “opportune” moments. If the property owners did pay - well, you get the point.
Fast forward to today.
Blue Cross took out a full page ad in the paper not too long ago telling people, in effect, that they must all switch doctors immediately if Blue Cross and Piedmont couldn’t reach a deal on a new contract.
There was no mention in the ad that Blue cross is obligated to allow patients to continue to see their doctors in certain situations (for example, pregnancy and terminal illness). They only said that people had to do something now.
Blue Cross further neglected to tell senior citizens that Medicare folks didn’t have to make the switch. “Patients are being held hostage by Blue Cross and their misleading communications,” Nina Montanaro, a spokeswoman Piedmont Hospital, told the Atlanta Journal-Consitution.
I’m singling out Blue Cross because they are the latest insurance company to publicly display the tactics perfected by Crassus some two thousand years ago. Almost every health insurance company has been or is now guilty of this kind of behavior.
We all know people who have had one horror story or another. Here are a few examples from around the country that the media has reported:
There was the man who had heart attack and had to be rushed to a hospital, but had to pay an exorbitant amount of money because the ambulance took him to a hospital not covered under his insurance plan.
Because the man didn’t ask to go there - the fact that he was unconscious and near death appears to have been irrelevant - the insurance company said they were free from obligation. They ended up settling in the patient’s favor, but only after a time-consuming battle. This is typical of insurance companies officials who hope the appeal process is too much for their clients to endure.
Then there’s the woman who has a brain tumor but can’t get the operation prescribed by the doctor because the insurance company says there haven’t been enough of them performed to be “accepted standard procedure.”
Everyone has a story.
My brother had a stroke several years back and his battles with the health insurance company included: Calls from creditors, reading documents that would challenge a lawyer, hours of anguish talking with insurance company employees who weren’t helpful and knew nothing about his condition.
The goal of a business is to maximize profits. I understand that. I also understand that there are people who take advantage of the system. But too often it seems that the goal of health insurance companies is to maximize profits, not the best treatment for clients.
Research the McCarran-Ferguson Act that explains an insurance company’s exemption from federal antitrust laws (yes, they play by different rules than most businesses). Learn about actuarial tables, and how they will help determine what kind of treatment your health insurance provider will recommend for you.
The bottom line is, as wealthy as this nation is and for all of our advancements in medical technology, we are not getting anywhere close to the kind of care for which we have worked. And somewhere, Crassus is laughing.
Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve our health care system?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Bill Allen
How does your paycheck compare to CEO’s?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
America is at war!
And no, I am not talking about Mr. Bush’s Iraq fiasco.
The war that I am referencing is right here on the home front — in our workplaces. Moreover, based on the current rules of engagement — it is a war that all but a very few Americans have the hopes of ever winning.
The war that I am talking about is often denied, under-discussed, and threatens to undermine our social fabric.
Of course, I am talking about the ongoing war between the classes and the struggle for income equality.
The economic gulf between Americans continues to widen and because of it millions of Americans are estranged from one another. This polarization is not just between the richest Americans and the poorest Americans. The most noteworthy and ominous compensation gap is between CEOs and their middle class employees.
A recent article in The Atlanta Business Chronicle reported that the median “expected” pay, in 2005, for 41 Atlanta area CEOs was $117,739 every two weeks.
In 2000, the median household income in Gwinnett County was $56,082; while the median US household income was $30,056, according to the Gwinnett Coalition.
One of the excessively compensated CEOs earns more in two weeks — than two median income Gwinnett households do for an entire year —which, keep in mind, is much higher than the overall U.S. median household income.
I am a capitalist — and I am all for people having the opportunity to make lots of money and even become downright rich. But I find it troubling that only a handful of the usual players — late middle age, upper-class, and well-connected white guys — have a chance for the executive suite and the sweet life. When will more women, blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and others have an opportunity to lead American companies?
Moreover, I know that CEOs have the responsibility of setting their organizations on a good course and that they alone must answer to demanding shareholders. But I just don’t believe, that those duties are on average 400 times more valuable than the contributions of employees who work on the shop floor or in the office of the same company.
Here in Gwinnett County, the starting pay for a Firefighter I/Emergency Medical Technician is $31,515 annually. Using the special calculator at the Executive Paywatch Database it would take 1,141 years (until 3147 A.D.) for a Gwinnett Firefighter/EMT to earn enough to equal Home Depot CEO, Robert L. Nardelli’s 2004 compensation.
It is just obscene that a man who is willing to risk his life for the public good is paid so little in comparison to a man who heads a publicly traded company.
If your house in on fire or your loved one is having a heart attack, the value of the Firefighter/EMT is far more than any CEO could ever offer shareholders.
How does your paycheck compare to your organization’s CEO? Are public safety workers or top company executives more valuable to society?
Permalink | Comments (106) | Categories: Beni Dakar
Overheard: What we’re venting about
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
People love to vent if you give them the chance. Having a beer, standing in line at the grocery store, chatting at the park. This is some of what I’ve seen and heard over the last couple of weeks:
Trucks over six wheels shouldn’t be allowed on the road between 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. It’s ridiculous when a light turns red while the first truck in line is only halfway through the intersection. Line six or eight of them up in a row (with all the development in Gwinnett County, this is a common sight) and an already bad commute becomes miserable.
I saw a guy the other morning driving his car, talking on a cell phone, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette AND picking his nose at the same time. Of course, he was going 20 mph below the speed limit while driving in the left lane.
Attention, Gwinnett County and City Governments: How about widening the roads and making them ready to accommodate new development BEFORE building everything? And no, just putting up a new traffic light doesn’t count.
Don’t get too cocky, Mets fans. I know y’all are excited, but the Braves haven’t won 14 in a row just because they were lucky. There’s a lot of baseball yet to play, and history is on our side.
Congratulations to the Gwinnett Gladiators, not only for this season, but also for all the seasons of excellence and entertainment that they have provided. So, when do you think Mayor Shirley Lassiter hits the late-night talk show circuit?
What is it about serving on the board of a homeowner’s association that transforms people from decent neighbors into tyrannical despots? If it’s the 15-minutes-of-fame thing, may I suggest taking a bubble gun to school? You’ll get more attention.
How do all these CEOs get away with stealing these corporate profits? What exactly do they do to earn it? Unless you’ve done something like, oh, cure cancer or AIDS, I have a hard time believing that anyone is worth that much. Maybe part of the problem is that you and I (the stockholders) really don’t get to make those decisions.
If you don’t like the candidates, if you don’t like your elected officials, don’t blame the lobbyists, don’t blame the political parties, and don’t blame the religious groups. Blame a society that doesn’t participate. A lobbyist’s dollar wouldn’t buy spit if people kept their politicians honest by keeping up with events. If you don’t vote, if you don’t educate yourself, then you get what you settle for. Judging by the statistics, that includes a lot of you.
It’s pronounced “NEW-clear,” not “NEW-q-lar.”
The larger the SUV, the greater the likelihood that there is only one person in it. And, have you ever noticed that they CRAWL over speed bumps? Come on, people, they are made for tough driving!
Got anything to get off your chest?
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Bill Allen
When will same-sex marriage be allowed?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage failed to pass in the Senate. However, Republicans plan to take the issue to the U.S. House of Representatives, so the gay marriage issue is sure to be front page news for some time to come.
The way the GOP uses the same-sex marriage issue to strengthen its political base is masterful. I am convinced that the best smoke-and-mirrors show is not performed on stage by a magician anymore, but instead on the political stage, by a vulnerable GOP as Election Day nears.
In 2004, the GOP effectively used the issue of gay marriage to deflect from its shortcomings on the war in Iraq and an ailing economy. Now in 2006 — with the war in Iraq still looming, gas prices escalating, and the aftermath of Katrina with the devastation of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf region still fresh — they again seek to use the gay marriage issue as a tool to redirect Americans from focusing on what matters most.
What befuddles me is how easily so many Americans fall for the ruse. Americans purport to be a people who believe strongly in free choice, marriage and family. But when it comes to two same-sex people sharing in fundamental American values and customs, many of us seem to lose our ability for fair play and reason.
While growing up, I was taught that there was nothing more natural and sought- after than love, marriage and family. So it seems reasonable to me that all adults, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to enjoy equal access to marriage and family.
Moreover, when gays and lesbians are denied legal marriage, they are also denied other rights that most of us take for granted — such as the right to transfer and inherit wealth from and to our spouse, make medical decisions for our spouse, and an array of rights concerning child welfare.
Almost 40 years ago, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws, which barred interracial marriage, were misguided and that love is colorblind. I believe that opposition is always strongest right before a breakthrough and that in the next decade many Americans will begin to see that love is also blind to gender.
But in the meanwhile I remain puzzled by how many otherwise good and decent Americans can be so easily distracted from substantial political issues by the GOP’s red-herring use of the same-sex marriage issue.
Why is love and commitment of two same-gender loving people such a contentious matter? When do you think gays and lesbians will have equal access to marriage in America?
Permalink | Comments (283) | Categories: Beni Dakar
Zero tolerance for ‘zero tolerance’ in school?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Zero-tolerance policies in our school system are the rash created by the disease of ignorance in our society.
I was reminded of this when I read about the Mill Creek High School student who was transferred to an alternative high school because his belt buckle looked like a gun. Previously, there was the girl at Peachtree Ridge who was suspended for changing the words to “On Top of Old Smokey.”
Remember the little kid with the Tweety Bird key chain? The student who was suspended for bringing a butter knife to school? The six-year old who was suspended because he kissed a classmate on the playground?
What bothers me most about all of this is the abdication of common sense.
Look, school officials are charged with the daunting task of protecting our children. It’s a thankless job in which they can seemingly do no right. Safety issues are compounded by fears of litigation for doing the wrong thing. All of which demands a perceived necessity for the extreme enforcement of rules.
No principal wants his or her name on a lawsuit. No administrator or school system wants a catastrophic incident covered by the news media comparing their situation with Columbine. I can almost sympathize with their extreme caution. Almost.
A belt buckle? A key chain? Something comes to mind about cutting off the nose to spite the face. In the end, taxpayer money ends up getting wasted in litigation because those who work within the school system fail to exercise the education and ability to reason that they are trying to impart to our children.
I guess, then, that school officials are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It’s more bearable to be laughed at than to bear the guilt of a student who was hurt or killed on their watch. At least Gwinnett schools spokesperson Sloan Roach gets to earn her salary on a regular basis.
The school system, however, is not the only one participating in this theater of the absurd. Parents are informed, at the start of the school year, what is acceptable and what is not. Parents know (or should know) what kind of world we live in. They know (or should know) that schools are paranoid, that they are looking for a reason to deal harshly with “unruly” students.
No-Child-Left-Behind dictates that schools must maintain discipline. There’s a lot of money involved here, so schools are going to err on the side of the ridiculous when it comes to enforcement of discipline. The federal government gives them a financial incentive to do so. Parents should know that. Students should know that too.
Should the Mill Creek student be transferred to an alternative school? For this, no. He, his parents, and school officials should simply be required to take a remedial class in common sense (taught, I would hope, somewhere besides Mill Creek).
Should the Peachtree Ridge student have been suspended? Yes. Not for the song, but for the lack of respect that she showed to her teacher and to school administrators. People get fired in the real world for doing exactly what she did, so consider it a lesson learned, and a relatively cheap lesson at that.
Should the girl with the Tweety Bird chain or the boy with the butter knife have been suspended? Please. In my day, the teacher would have taken the offending object, called my parents, and that would be the end of it (if it even went that far). It seems like a no-brainer to me.
And therein lies the problem. People just aren’t using their brains. Given that we are talking about public schools, I think that’s a serious indictment, on both the public and on the schools.
I don’t know what the answer is, but maybe you do. What do you think?
Permalink | Comments (68) | Categories: Bill Allen
How do you respond to crying kids in public places?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For crying out loud, why is everybody giving Wendy L. Heath and her fussing 2- year-old child the blues?
Heath, who lives in Duluth, wrote a guest opinion column, titled Restaurant proves family-unfriendly”, in the May 26 edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to the column, Heath and her husband, along with their children ages 2 and 6, decided to eat at a restaurant located in The Mall of Georgia, in Buford. While Heath was accompanying the 6-year-old to the ladies room apparently the 2-year-old who was left at the table with her husband was crying loudly.
When Heath returned to the table she began to soothe and quiet down the crying child. While she was comforting the child, a staff member at the restaurant reported that other customers had complained and asked the family to leave the restaurant.
When Heath asked to speak to the manager, she was informed that she was speaking with was the manager. Heath says that all of this occurred within a few minutes — and she is dismayed at the zero tolerance policy towards a hungry two-year-old with a temporary lapse in deportment.
What flabbergasted me are the barrage of letters; enough to appear on both May 30 and May 31, which were overwhelmingly in support of the restaurant’s decision to eject Heath’s young family from their establishment without consideration for family circumstance.
After all, the restaurant the Heath’s visited is not an upscale place, but family style, which would imply some flexibility and success strategies in dealing with families with small children.
Heath reports that she and her family have visited restaurants as formal as Ruth’s Chris Steak House and have not been asked to leave. Moreover, having small children should not make families second-class citizens and limit their enjoyment to participate in the community.
This intolerance towards babies and small children is not limited to restaurants. Ironically many places of worship that I have visited are the most offensive and chauvinistic when it comes to their tiniest parishioners. Be truthful! How many times have we seen people look askance during a sermon because a colicky baby cries or a small child is squirming in the seat?
Yes, parents of small children should use good judgment about where they should take their offspring — especially tired, sick, and overly hungry children. Furthermore, parents with small children should expect the possibility of self-ejecting themselves from public places if their child’s behavior becomes too loud or riotous.
But, we (the public) also should strive to be more patient with parents with small children in public places. After all, every adult was once a child — and children both need and deserve the right to learn how to socialize in public by being among the public.
If we really have the concern for children that we purport to have and believe that “no child should be left behind” then let’s begin by accepting that small children should be included in public places, whenever it is reasonable to do so.
Are you willing to show more tolerance towards parents struggling with fussing small children in public places?
Permalink | Comments (292) | Categories: Beni Dakar
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