I so appreciate Cal’s comments on upcoming elections. The Citizen does a great service in bringing to light all the issues, local to national.

But, what I couldn’t believe is that in a county that leans as far right as Fayette does, the ESPLOST wasn’t chucked into the gutter. Republicans stand for less government, especially when it comes to light that the current amount of funding is not used as efficiently as is could be.

It seemed pretty clear to me that the school board could use the current amount of funding a little more efficiently and avoid the ESPLOST.

Like many Fayette residents, I will not see my salary increase next year. Many businesses are tightening their belt right now, and the government should do the same.

If the economy were good, and I felt that my salary would continue to go up, then maybe I could support an ESPLOST.

Hate to say it, Fayette, but I think you deserve Barack Obama. You obviously don’t want less government.

On another note, if I see the statement, “in Chinese, crisis equals danger plus opportunity,” I’m going to lose it.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson in his editorial, “As a nation, we’re broke,” trotted out this well-known but incorrect statement.

As a long-term student of Chinese characters and their meanings and usage, I can attest the word crisis is composed of two Chinese characters. The first one’s major meaning is indeed “danger.” The second one is more complex.

In Kenneth Henshall’s work on the origins of Chinese characters, the second character in crisis had an original mean of “loom.” Later on, it was taken to mean “equipment” by associated meaning, so it is in the word for “machine” and “airplane,” among others.

Other associated meanings are “occasion,” “crucial point,” and — yes, indeed — “opportunity.”

So, the meaning of crisis based on the characters could equally be “period of danger” or “dangerous occasion.”

But a reader of Chinese characters is not going think of the pithy aphorism we’ve created in the West, and we should not think of this as some pearl of Chinese wisdom. For that, read Confucius’ “Analects.”

Paul Schultz

Peachtree City, Ga.

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