By MONROE ROARK
mroark@thecitizennews.com

A few points to ponder as we enter the weekend (which for me means hosting a birthday party for my 3-year-old Yikes!):

I have yet to hear anyone in authority, from Gov. Roy Barnes down, explain why video poker is a "cancer" that must be eradicated in Georgia but the state-run lottery is not. If anyone out there knows, please explain it to me.

To take it a step further, has any form of gambling been as destructive to families as alcohol?

Which is worse, losing the rent check to a slot machine or getting behind the wheel while drunk and plowing into another car on the expressway? Oh, I forgot, alcohol sales fatten state tax coffers. Video poker machines don't.

During the entire Gary Condit-Chandra Levy episode, I've barely heard a mention of the fact that Condit serves on one of the Congressional intelligence committees.

Am I the only one who thinks this is important? Not to suggest that Levy is a spy for the Chinese or anything, but what better way to put the United States in a position for blackmail or steal vital secrets than to compromise the personal life of one of its most powerful leaders?

This possibility was also woefully underdiscussed during the Clinton-Lewisky scandal.

I didn't think I'd ever agree with Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell on anything, but he has a point on the University of Georgia admission requirements. Not the racial quotas those are wrong, plain and simple. Admission should be based on merit, but if you can't make exceptions based on race, as Campbell said, you shouldn't be able to get in just because your mom and dad graduated from there.

Finally, it is being reported that former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds has been hired by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and is now on his staff.

In case that name sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, a federal jury convicted Reynolds in 1997 on 15 charges of bank fraud, wire fraud and lying to the Federal Election Commission. Reynolds had also been convicted in 1995 by an Illinois jury on two counts of solicitation of child pornography, three counts of criminal sexual assault, three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, and four counts of obstruction of justice. His sentence was cut short during Bill Clinton's last-minute pardoning spree.

So, with his new position working for Jackson, we have a congressman who engaged in an illicit relationship with a younger subordinate, who was pardoned by a president who engaged in an illicit relationship with a younger subordinate, now employed by a minister who engaged in an illicit relationship wtih a younger subordinate.

His new job? Youth counselor.

What a country.

[Monroe Roark can be reached at mroark@TheCitizenNews.com.]

ion Home Page | Back to the top of the page