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Thursday, August 3, 2006
School choice, Guantanamo, McKinney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
You know you’re in a down-home, Southern fried county when, as the headline writer declares, “DeKalb under orders to boil.” Eggs, yes. But most everything else should be fried.
PR exec Joe Ledlie’s candidate for the most abused word is “hero.” It’s up there. If you have occasion to use the word more than, say, three or four times a year, you’re probably abusing it.
Polarization is good. Or so we might surmise from Andrew Young’s endorsement of U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.). “Congress needs controversy,” said the enabler of the endorsee.
Yes, that was our Fred Rheney who died last Friday in Smyrna. “Our” meaning that The Atlanta Journal never had a more devoted reader or better-informed letter-writer than Rheney, a 33-year Grady High School teacher, who peppered the Journal editorial pages with his incisive, to-the-point commentary for more than 40 years. His last letter, published in January 2001, celebrated Bill Clinton’s departure from the White House.
When parents are clamoring to put their children in a Catholic high school in a Duluth office park, doubling enrollment to 400 in one year, what does it tell us about the hunger for public school alternatives? Notre Dame Academy’s tuition of up to $8,800, depending on the grade, is within voucher-program range, and less than public schools annually spend per pupil.
Surely teachers are not complaining that the $100 handed them by taxpayers this year to buy school supplies and incidentals is not enough. Last year it was zero.
Gunshots were fired at a Jermaine Dupri party after one man tried to steal another man’s gold necklace. I’m there. Come after my high heels and we’re gonna fight.
I’d vote against a politician who continued to charge me for “boutique” gas when it’s selling for $3 per gallon — but of course you can’t find one responsible. Buy $3 gas in Fulton and the direct and indirect tax amounts to about 70 cents per gallon. The special “clean air” formulation “tax” levied by the Environmental Protection Agency adds five to 12 cents per gallon, while local, state and federal taxes amount to 58.9 cents per gallon. So the oil company takes a dime in profit and government takes seven times as much. Boutique gas requirements should be waived until sufficient refining capacity exists to support the different-city requirements.
Hey, morticians, keep your clothes on. No beefcake calendars. Preachers, too. And educators. Those who serve the mourning should not make themselves distractions. Don’t wear funny hats, dress in purple suits or take off your clothes. Brides and corpses should have no competition.
America’s resolve in the war on terror should be that of Cuban exiles on Fidel Castro. For almost 50 years the Cuban community has held fast, no matter the political and cultural winds, a fine example for a free world gone to accommodation and relativism.
About three times a week, guards at Guantanamo are attacked by detainees. One example: A prisoner faked a suicide attempt; others slicked the floors with human waste, hoping to overpower guards who slipped while coming to the prisoner’s aid. As in the entire war on terrorism, rules apply to one side only.
MARTA reports an $18.5 million surplus for the fiscal year ended June 30. What to do? The correct answer, mixed among those of the candy-store kids, is offered by Richard McCrillis, interim general manager. Save it for the bad times, says he. (Fire this guy. He’s obviously a kook.)
Fidel bad. Raul worse. But he’s not Fidel and in a decade Cuba will be a hotspot of capitalism. One drop breaks the dam.
For the first month ever, Toyota outsold Ford in July in the United States, it is sadly noted here. No guilt here for driving a foreign car, nor any belief that government should come to the rescue in any way whatsoever. Just the sadness that comes with seeing Rich’s go away, Delta under stress and an American icon experiencing hard times.
A fellow dies at 85 in 2006. His family attributes the death to asbestos exposure while working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. Such is the place-blame world he departs. When I go, even if I’m 110 at the time, sue the pork producers. Or the DDT manufacturer. Or my parents for forming an inferior gene pool.
Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
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Immigration: love us or leave us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The temporary lull in the national debate over illegal immigration ramps up and moves South in coming weeks. Debate includes a series of hearings, two of which are in Georgia. The push to see whether distinctly different House and Senate bills can be reconciled starts today in Mission, Texas, where President Bush is expected to make a strong pitch for a temporary worker program.
I spoke Tuesday with U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who’ll be one of the conferees when the House and Senate start negotiating. Like the President, he strongly favors temporary work permits. “I always come down on the side of border security,” said Chambliss. “That obviously has to be the number one priority.” But temporary work permits should be distinct from any pathway to citizenship, Chambliss said, so that workers can come and go as needed.
For those in Congress, “this is one of those issues where we’re going to make a lot of people mad regardless of what we do. It is the most emotionally charged and sensitive issue that I have ever seen.” Getting a bill by November may not be possible, he said, but it’s essential that voters see by Election Day that a bill is at hand.
Germany began a guest worker program recruiting Turkish workers, albeit without a citizenship option, in 1961. It ended in 1973. More than 30 years later, Germany has 2.5 million Turks who entered as temporary workers and never left, most of whom chose not to opt for citizenship when Germany changed its laws to permit it six years ago. And, as the AJC’s Eunice Moscoso reports, “many remain on the margins of German society, living in ethnic enclaves where unemployment, poverty and youth crime rates are high.”
That’s what we don’t want. Certainly, after the President can certify that borders are secure, a path to citizenship that doesn’t include amnesty or reward illgals should be spelled out. And, just as certainly, it should be easy for documented workers to come here for limited times and go home.
The hearings, though clearly political, are important because they will explore ramifications of the more comprehensive Senate version and will, ideally, allow a national consensus to develop. The 1986 version turned out to be amnesty and not much more.
I’d welcome a compromise that secures borders, that doesn’t put illegals in citizenship line ahead of those who played by the rules, and that establishes a distinction between those whose first loyalties are to their homeland and those who intend to cast their lot with the USA. We’re a global economy, but uncompromised loyalty can be to but one nation.
