How sad for Terry Garlock. He served admirably in Southeast Asia, but didn’t receive a ticker-tape reception when he returned from Vietnam 40 years ago. Apparently, he lies awake at night cursing the Woodstock attendees (many of whom were Vietnam vets) who had fun one weekend while he was away serving very nobly for an ignoble cause. His ire is misdirected. Instead of criticizing a few music fans who didn’t share his views, he should be angry at the Presidents who invented a incident to start the war (Gulf of Tonkin attack), lied to the American people about our progress (Tet Offensive), lied to Congress about escalating the war (bombing Laos and Cambodia), and sacrificed over 58,000 brave American soldiers for a cause they later abandoned — as well as rogue soldiers who sullied the army’s good name by committing atrocities (My Lai). Instead of being proud of his own personal sacrifice, Mr. Garlock must vilify his peers who didn’t serve with him (perhaps for cowardice as he suggests or perhaps because they saw the futility of the struggle that he couldn’t). The sad conclusion for Mr. Garlock is that he devotes so much time to revisionist history to prove that America’s cause was heroic when he need only rest in his own knowledge that he acted heroically. Thank you for your service Mr. Garlock; get some peaceful sleep.
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The teachers in Fayette County have taken a 4.5 percent pay cut for the 2009-10 school year. They are also being forced to take a three-day furlough. This is old news. What is NEW news to me is that Fayette County is sending every math department chair in the county on a conference. That’s one teacher from every school on an all-expenses paid conference. With all of the sacrifices made by the teachers, is this really a wise use of money? Where is this money coming from?
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To the parents in Peachtree City who pull their kids out of class for days and weeks at a time to take “educational trips,” there are several breaks throughout the year for your jaunts; use them. I know you think the rules don’t apply to you, but now your child thinks the same. Why don’t you try to instill some respect for rules, apparently something your parents didn’t teach you. Then, to make it worse, when you return, you expect/demand that the teachers do some extra work to make sure your kid doesn’t fall behind. These are the same teachers who have taken a pay cut and an additional three furlough days with workloads remaining the same, or, in a lot of cases, actually increasing. As the spouse of a teacher, I know how much time is involved in the normal day to day teaching activities, including hours at home. The extra work brought on by your thoughtlessness and selfishness only serves to make the day longer, and the teachers more stressed than usual. But, also as the spouse of a teacher, I know their dedication, and I know they will do the extra work. It seems they care more for your child than you. But why should you care? You’re special!
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When the former Assistant County Attorney Davenport said at the recall hearing, “I represent the issue of eroding the trust of the citizens of Fayette County,” truer words were never spoken. Your firm’s eroding of trust is what led to your being removed. I guess with this recall hearing loss, your chance at getting the gravy train back with Bost Hogg is gone. Good thing.
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I just finished reading Rick Sanderson’s letter to the editor July 7, 2009. Being called a “worthless county commissioner” by Harold Bost is like being called ugly by a bullfrog.
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I don’t get it: Went to court this week to pay a traffic ticket and saw one of our local Fayetteville inmates in jumpsuits and chains. The judge let a man go for free for possession of a controlled substance, DUI and driving with a suspended license. Granted, he spent a week in jail, but paid zero to get out. I assume that he had no one to bail him out or no money to pay. I get a $280 speeding ticket and am forced to pay it. Punish the accomplished and reward the parasites.
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The citizens of Tyrone have a decision to make. Four years ago Grace Caldwell and Gloria Furr were elected to the Tyrone Town Council after waging a campaign of misinformation, half-truths, and outright fabrications. A rallying cry of their 2005 election campaign was “Save Shamrock Park.” These two had promised the citizens that if elected Shamrock Park would be a priority for improvements. In 2007 the voters of Tyrone gave Grace and Gloria what they wanted and elected the majority of the candidates they backed to the position of mayor and council member (a 4-1 majority). Fast forward to 2009: NO improvements have been made to Shamrock Park, in fact improvements to Shamrock Park are no longer even discussed at council meetings even though the town ended up with a $201,265 surplus in 2008. NO balanced growth; growth has simply been eliminated. NO traffic plan; it has never been brought up in a council meeting. NO planner to help staff. NO strategic planning and thoughtful decisions with citizen input. This group only wants to hear from their supporters and only then when they are praising them. Now this “dynamic duo” want the citizens to give them four more years. They have proven that they cannot tell the truth nor can they be trusted.
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I see that Tyrone is looking for a city manager and a city clerk. Are the rats escaping from a sinking ship?
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Red golf cart owner, PTC registration number 10289: your kids are horsing around in Highgrove towing skateboarders as they drive through the neighborhood.
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Hey, All South Robertson, or whatever you are calling yourself these days. How about picking up the recycling I paid you to pick up? You changed my pickup days and I learned of the change from a neighbor. You have failed to pick up my recycling six weeks in a row. Your phone mailbox is full and you have ignored my emails. Now tell me again, why should I continue to do business with you?
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Does any other parent of a Rising Starr child realize that your child is cleaning the cafeteria after lunch? Yes, they are wiping the tables and sweeping the floor when they should be in class. One teacher even went as far as to tell my child not to tell me this was going on. What? Isn’t there a paid staff that should be doing that? What are the custodians doing? I can tell you that they are NOT cleaning the bathrooms. They are absolutely disgusting. I cannot believe that the school is encroaching on my child’s learning time to make them clean a cafeteria that we as taxpayers are paying a staff to do. During this time, two of the custodians are selling icee drinks while another is walking around yelling at the kids. Pathetic.
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What a shame SMHS administration has decided on where the seniors must have their pictures taken in order to be in the yearbook. What kind of kickback do you suppose the school is getting for that one? Many parents I have spoken with are hopeful that the seniors don’t cave to that pressure. I doubt the yearbook staff will leave the senior section blank if we don’t surrender. Let’s stand firm.
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Parents of Robert J. Burch Elementary school, unite! The wonderful AR program at our school is in grave danger. Burch has a lot of blood, sweat and money invested in AR. Don’t let this awesome program be taken away from our kids. We will be left with the mediocrity that is the “25 book” program, bored, uninspired kids and an empty library. We are too good to allow this to happen to us. Write or call the principal and even the superintendent if you feel strongly enough. There is one upside to this program being scrapped: Our PTO can save some money; our library will never need any more new books.
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The SMHS football program has always been a senior program except for this year. Unfortunately the coach has changed his philosophy this year as he has been waiting for the junior class to be able to play varsity. It is no secret that the junior class is being catered to and groomed for next year, which is scheduled to be coach’s last year. It’s a known fact that the seniors will be sitting and that’s just the way it is going to be. The seniors have been shanked in the program since their freshman year. If the junior parents don’t like this free speech, well, you will never understand as your class has been prima-donna’ed since seventh grade. It is very interesting how the new touchdown club board is made up of junior parents. Good luck to the seniors, keep your heads up as you have been dealt a bum deal. Regardless of what coach says, you kids have gotten the shank. Politics are strong in the SMHS football program.
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Hopefully SMHS football will have more plays than option right and option left. Passing the ball will change how the defense plays and will also help win games, like the dome game.
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My son has recently had a visit from DFACS because my grandson was coerced into telling a story in class. The story originated from a Chuck E. Cheese dinner the weekend before where my son was showing my grandson how to play a video game with a shooting arcade with guns. The child stretched it and made it sound like his father has a lot of guns at home and that the child has a key to the locks and that dad takes him shooting all of the time. The next thing you know, someone at the school (no one will admit who it was) has DFACS at school interrogating my grandson without my son’s permission and then my son gets the home visit by DFACS on Aug. 21 where they searched every inch of his home and inspected the two toddlers who were having nap time in bed. My grandson has never held a real gun, my son doesn’t own any guns, and there are no weapons in my son’s house that involves guns by any means. I understand that the government schools have an obligation to keep the kids safe at school. I also understand that since Columbine, the schools are concerned more now than ever, but my goodness, these are kindergarten kids! Is this what our country has come to when our little kindergartners try to use their imagination when encouraged by grown adults? No wonder more and more parents are taking their kids out of government schools and home schooling them. What if there were guns in the house that were locked up and disarmed? Would this Fayette County government have made another wrong move and violated my son’s Second Amendment rights also? Or would they have simply taken my grandchildren to a strange foster home sponsored by the state of Georgia where the state DFACS’ history has not been too pleasant in regards to the safety of some previous foster kids?
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To the parent of the sixth grader at RSMS who objects to his or her child’s math teacher having a poster of Barack Obama displayed in a classroom. Barack Obama is the President of the United States. Act like a citizen and show a little respect. It’s perfectly appropriate to display his image in a school classroom. You say that you don’t care about the teacher’s political views and then make a ham-handed attack on the current administration, though you said nothing but lies. So you do care about the views of the teacher. The views infuriated you enough to make up lies about positions of the current administration and write them in the newspaper. Face it: the United States voted for Democratic senators, Democratic representatives, and a Democratic President because they were sick of the Republican administration that ran the country on the rocks financially and brought us to our lowest point in prestige and influence in the world since the Revolutionary War. Things are going to change. Be a better loser, for Pete’s sake. You remind me of the kid who used to play ball with me as a kid who if you didn’t let him win all the time, he took his bat and ball and went home. Grow up.
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To the person who is upset about the Obama poster in the sixth grade class room: Are you kidding me? It’s a classroom. I’m guessing if you look around you’ll probably find even more pictures of Obama within the school. Want to know why? Because regardless of how you feel about him or his policies, he’s still the President of the United States. Our United States. I recommend you teach your children to respect our President because his/her teachers will be doing just that.
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In F.M.S some kids may call the food inedible. Some complaints from the kids are the bread is hard, the chips are stale, the food is tasteless, under-cooked, or they just weren’t fed enough. But there are ways that their food can be improved. The students should have a variety of sweet tea, lemonade, apple juice, and fruit punch. The school had taken out a slushy machine, but they should have at least added a smoothie machine with different flavors. The students also need larger portions of food. The school should not feed the kids raw chicken. No more mystery meat for the children! Fruits and vegetables should be fresh in order to be healthy, and no more stale chips. Processed foods won’t help us during a test. The bread is either hard or really soft; I’m pretty sure they want it just right. Why is F.C.H.S. getting better food than F.M.S.? We realize times are tough but the cuts should not be made in our lunch.
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Has anyone noticed how bad Peachtree City looks these days? The grass is knee high and litter is now decorating the sides of our streets. Shall we mention the dead animals on the roads and pot holes as big as craters? How about roaches the size of bats crawling around our fire stations? Keep in mind, firefighter’s “live” in the fire stations, they don’t just “work” there. It was such a great decision to “fire” the lawn care provider’s of our city, so that we can save a buck. God forbid should we raise taxes so as to possibly salvage the jobs of hard-working employees who took pride in the way our community looks. No, that would be a bad idea. Instead, double the cost of medical insurance for all city workers, deny merit raises, etc., and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The employees of Peachtree City will take the brunt, while the citizens of this community sit back and complain about library hours. It would be ludicrous for you to take any responsibility for the state of our city’s budget failures. Let’s be brutally honest, shall we? The city looks like crap. You think our property values are only decreasing because of the economy? Think again.
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Bring our Public Works people back to the streets of PTC before the city is overgrown with weeds and tall grass. Especially the open area in the Waterwood Bend area. The north end of Waterwood Bend when you first entered it used to be so beautiful. It’s really a shame that homeowners do not take any personal pride in their property. All it takes is a few hours a week to keep your yard and bushes trimmed. I have lived in PTC over 30 years and never seen it look so bad.
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I have relatives which will be visiting PTC for the first time in about three weeks. I have always bragged about PTC and how beautiful it is. I’m sure hoping that within three weeks, maybe the workers will cut the grass along the paths and main streets before they come. Looks like Code Enforcement could use some help also. I have never seen so many neglected and overgrown yards.
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Scott Rowland, where are you? I was surprised and impressed by this young man in the July 4th parade who in his early 30s has taken on the political challenge of running for Peachtree City mayor. He is young blood, raised in this town. We just don’t see this kind of interest and enthusiasm enough in our young adults. I hope your peers rally around you and call the rest of us into a new and fresh perspective. Let us hear from you and about you.
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I live on a cul-de-sac in the Southern Shores subdivision and on Wednesday evening at about 8, I happened to be looking out the window. I saw two teenage girls, with long, blonde hair, running from the direction of my garage. They ran up our lawn, and jumped into a running, red, American, new model sedan that quickly drove off. I thought that was really strange and went out into the garage to check for mischief, but found nothing out of place. I just discovered what those girls were up to. As I was putting extra milk away in the garage refrigerator, I noticed that all of our beer was missing. Please, keep your garages closed at all times. Heaven forbid those girls drank those nine beers while driving or drove drunk after consuming them.
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I wanted to thank Kim Bramblett and all the volunteers of the Peachtree City Triathlon held on Saturday, Aug. 22. It was a fun race and everyone helped this novice triathlete enjoy the day. Also, sorry and thanks to the PTC residents who were inconvenienced by the traffic being stopped during the race.
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When is Fayetteville going to do something about the empty building that use to be Wendy’s? I think we should get rid of it or make a new restaurant or store. I think it’s easy for people to vandalize. Empty buildings look bad. Nobody wants empty buildings all around their neighborhood or community. It makes it look like we don’t do good business. This should be taken care of.
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To all you bicyclists out there on the public highways: I applaud your energy, your commitment to the environment and health, your determination and your courage. I would, however, like to point out that pulling out into traffic with no warning in front of a van pulling a blue 16-foot stock trailer with two 1,000-lb. horses in the back going 45 miles an hour is not courageous; it is rank stupidity. We will not risk injury to our horses to avoid hitting you if you pull out in front of us again. I love my horses and I don’t know you. You have been warned.
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I’m tired of reading about “Sharing the Road” and other people’s ignorance about the rules of the road. I’m a cyclist in PTC and do everything I can on my bike: commute to work, take my kids to school, and go shopping. PTC is a great place to ride a bike, and with very few exceptions I’ve had great experiences here. Cyclists have all the advantages in PTC. We can legally ride on both the cart paths and regular streets. By Georgia law a bicycle is considered a vehicle that can be operated on almost any surface street except interstate highways. The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety website shows some of the rules. Cyclists do have to follow the rules of the road, which means riding with traffic and obeying traffic signs and signals. Golf carts are much more limited in terms of the where they may be driven. The law requires that I ride as close to the right side of the road as practicable, but I’m allowed to choose how far right based on how I assess the safety of the situation. When I sense motor vehicles are “edging around” me too closely (and usually at too high a speed), I move toward the center of the road so they have to make more effort to pass. I’m sorry if this is an inconvenience, but I won’t survive a several thousand pound car hitting me because the driver isn’t putting safety first. Here is how I pass a cyclist when driving a car. I slow down to match the cyclist’s speed, look for an appropriate time to pass, and giving the cyclist enough space I gently drive around to minimize the draft. This is an appropriate and safe way to pass. Per Georgia law, cyclists are allowed to ride “not more than two abreast.” This means I can ride side by side with my buddy. From a practical standpoint, when a car approaches from behind, we move to single file to make it easier for the car to pass, but it takes time to make the shift so a driver should be patient. This is called sharing the road. To address bikes on the cart paths, some cyclists ride at a speed that would be dangerous on a cart path so expecting all bikes to ride there is unreasonable. I couldn’t imagine Lance Armstrong or even those who aspire to be like him training on cart paths, but for those who want a leisurely ride, the cart paths are better. Also, there are sections of cart paths with blind corners requiring frequent stops or are uncomfortable due to tree roots pushing up under the pavement. For those who want a smooth, uninterrupted ride, the streets are better. Finally, I want to make a safety request. When passing a cyclist on Peachtree Parkway south of 54 where it is a four-lane road, please change lanes well before the cyclist. I can’t count the number of times where Peachtree Parkway is nearly deserted, and I’m passed by someone who can’t make the effort to completely change lanes or even mostly get out of the right lane. Usually, this minimal effort is made when the motor vehicle is nearly on top of me. I can see vehicles approaching from behind in a mirror, and it can be unnerving. When I turn my head to look at you and point to the inside lane, it means you’re too close.
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Is it just me, or is Peachtree City overrun by walkers on Saturdays? Why do they have to take up the entire path? They are sometimes three abreast and they are not about to move over. Many of them have in earphones and won’t hear you if ask them to move over anyway. Or even worse, they are walking a dog on a 15-foot leash. Why can’t they go walk at the mall or around The Avenue or something? The paved paths should be for cyclists only! After all, it is so dangerous for them to be on the roads.
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Okay, one more time, people, it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand this, so give it a try. If you’ve got 40 cars lined up behind you in the left-hand lane, you really do need to move over. You’re impeding traffic. Get off the phone and get over. You’re disrupting the flow of traffic, and when you’re riding alongside someone in the right-hand lane to keep people from passing you, you’re breaking the law.
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When I was a kid, my friends and I would attach a playing card to the fork of our bikes and enjoyed the sound of it hitting the spokes as we rode. I wonder if the people who drive on our golf cart paths with their noisy and smelly gas powered golf carts feel the same way.
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Another SPLOST tax is just cotton picking crazy! Why our local government people think raising taxes during a recession is a good idea, I’ll never know. And why is the county still building that expensive bypass to nowhere?
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Now that the water restrictions have been eased substantially and usage is back up, how soon can we expect the water and sewer rates to return to pre-drought levels? Typical of any government levees, they only go up and never go down as situations change.
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Our society not only should encourage free speech, but all citizens should exercise this right freely in the political arena. However, I don’t condone the actions of those folks, whatever their motives, who attend the town hall meetings on healthcare and proceed to scream and interrupt the speaker and turn the meetings into a three ring circus. The purpose of the meetings is to give folks an opportunity to learn more about the various health proposals and to express concerns to those conducting the meeting, whether elected officials or members of the President’s staff. Based on what I have seen on TV, it appears that there is an organized effort to totally disrupt the meetings by a few people to insure no meaningful discussions can take place and to gain TV coverage. I don’t know who is behind this effort, but based on past events, I suspect it comes from the loose knit groups calling themselves the Tea Party. With tactics like this, they more resemble Hitler’s brown shirts, an organized group of young thugs Hitler used to beat up on the Jews and to do much of his dirty work. So far the Tea Party folks have not resorted to rocks and clubs, but then they have just started. Mark my word, if they keep going, it will turn violent before it’s over as these types of groups tend to attract some folks who get caught up in the frenzy of the moment and do things they most likely would never do without the screaming and hate-mongering of the organized crowd. Seems we should be able to agree to disagree in a civil manner and respect those who are conducting the meetings.
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The government behaves like the brother-in-law who is constantly asking for a loan. In the beginning, you help him out and he’s quiet for a while. Soon he keeps coming back for more and more, and when you have no more to give, he calls you names and threatens you because now he has all your money.
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Some weeks (when I have the stomach for it) I read the right-wing rantings in the editorial section of The Citizen. I was surprised and gratified to find the voice of reason in a letter by David Browning in last week’s edition. (“It is high time we demanded policies that serve all Americans, not just the healthy and the wealthy.”) So right! I am fed up to the roots of my hair with radical “conservatives” who are conserving nothing but their own privileged status in this out-of-balance society. There are plenty of wing-nuts like columnist William Murchison to keep them stirred up and convinced that are taking a moral position on every political issue that they imagine might threaten their personal prosperity. And why is it that these people are usually one ones who espouse “Christian values” and sport bumper stickers that ask WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) Good question. If he walked among us today, I believe he would be leading peaceful, rational meetings to help design a more egalitarian system of caring for our sick and injured, for starters. I think he would vote for careful and compassionate reform. I know he would not be spouting nonsense designed to stir fear and hatred among his fellow citizens. This region of the country has a particularly shameful history of resisting needed social changes. But healthcare reform will be accomplished because the weight of human need and social justice is behind it. As David Browning wrote in his response to William Murchison and his ilk of rabble-rousers: Your day is done!
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Some questions for the radical protesters who are doing their utmost to stall healthcare reform: Where were you hiding when George W. Bush led us into a fiscally, politically and morally disastrous war? Why were you silent then about the billions spent on death and destruction? Do you feel well served by the private profit-motivated insurance industry? If so, you have been lucky. You might want to read a recent Harvard University study that found 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007 resulted from medical problems. More startling is the fact that 78 percent of those filers had medical insurance at the onset of their illness. The majority of American families are “protected” by insurance policies with many loopholes, co-payments, deductibles and benefit ceilings, that they are one serious injury or illness away from bankruptcy. If some of our creative protesters truly understood the healthcare mess in this country, they might turn their energies toward the promotion of humane, responsible reform.
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I am writing to warn people of the dangers of high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I went to a heart doctor to have a stress test and that is the last thing I remember. I had a heart attack and had a triple bypass. I was in a coma for four weeks and lay flat on my back in the hospital for another two months. I had an [incision] in my throat which was very painful. I hurt so bad I asked the nurse to just give me a shot to kill me. She gave me a shot and I thought I was dying. All of a sudden a cloud appeared next to my bed, someone was in the cloud, looked at me standing next to my bed and said, “We are going to save this one,” turned and walked out of the room. I have no idea if it was Jesus or an angel. All I remember was a white hat, or turban, no face, just a figure standing beside my bed. From that moment on I began to get better. I amazed the doctors. I am now in the process of learning to walk again. Lying in bed for weeks does a number on the muscular system. I want to stress to people with high cholesterol that it is a path to a heart attack. I didn’t listen, didn’t take my pills and now I am paying the price. If I can make just one person aware of the danger then I will be happy. It’s hard to go from a woman driving a Dodge Ram 1500 to someone in a wheelchair.
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Thank you, Obama! Once again this administration has put the screws to the American people who have to exist, or subsist, on Social Security as their only means of income. The idiots who run the Social Security Administration say all the people drawing Social Security will not receive a cost of living adjustment for the next two years because the cost of products, etc. has gone down. Where do these nut-jobs live? It’s certainly not here in the USA. I guess these nut-job experts don’t have to live on Social Security and try to make ends meet from day to day or month to month. We as American voters should have had enough by now of this administration and we should make them aware of this come time to vote. I say vote them all out of office and do it now before we’re paying to live in this country and all the illegals live here for free. Oh, wait, that’s already happening. Tell them what you think at the polls.