Nation needs more ‘self-made’ risk takers
At least President Barack Obama was succinct when he said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” Mary McCartin Wearn (“Rick Jackson claims to be a self-made man. Let’s unpack this myth,” Oct. 4) spends an entire column trying to dismiss the very notion of a self-made man.
I appreciate the counterpoint the AJC published: “‘Self-made’ doesn’t always mean what people think it does” (Shelley Wynter, Oct. 4). Telling people like Oprah Winfrey or Republican nominee for Georgia governor Rick Jackson they’re not self-made is absurd, insulting and potentially detrimental to our country’s future.
We are a nation built on individual risk-taking and achievement. We need to promote that, not undermine it. I believe that what ails America today is the decline of our work ethic, the hunger and drive to make it. Many young people today over-prioritize immediate work-life balance rather than working hard toward advancement. I fear that we are getting soft. We need to stay hungry to compete globally.
Jackson overcame incredible odds to build a large, successful company. By any reasonable measure, he is a self-made man. I trust him to lead Georgia.
DANA R. HERMANSON, MARIETTA
Banning data centers is only partial solution
Congratulations to the citizen activists of Lovejoy and the Lovejoy City Council for working together to protect their community from a proposed data center (“How one Georgia city went from considering a data center to banning them,” Oct. 2).
The city’s approach, adding data centers to the zoning code and then banning them, is only a partial solution. As an epidemiologist, I’m concerned about airborne emissions from the data centers’ use of fossil fuels. These emissions harm the climate and people’s health everywhere, including those communities that have kept data centers out of their backyards.
Solar energy is a viable option to reduce the ongoing damage to the planet and our health from burning fossil fuels. So why doesn’t Georgia do more to promote clean solar energy use by data centers, as well as community solar? Because Georgia Power profits more from fossil fuel energy, and the Republican majority on the Public Service Commission supports Georgia Power.
As long as a Republican majority controls the five-member PSC, actions to rein in Georgia Power will remain unlikely. That’s why voters need to use their power to create a three-person Democratic majority on the PSC by reelecting Commissioner Peter Hubbard and electing Shelia Edwards. In this election, we need to vote as though our lives depend on it, because in many ways, they do.
MARY WHITE, ATLANTA