April 11, 2004
It is an Alleluia Day! It was pointed out in church this morning that God has certainly been on people's minds this year, what with the roaringly popular novel,
The DaVinci Code and Mel Gibson's movie,
The Passion of the Christ. Put all of this into the context of the war in Iraq and I would say we have collectively been praying quite a lot.
* * *
In Peachtree Corners, we have all been given a wonderful gift. Real estate broker
Robbie Stedeford and the agents of RE/MAX Suburban Atlanta on Peachtree Parkway have erected a small pedestal monument to the victims of 9-11-01, with a lighted American flag raised behind it. Red and white azaleas and blue forget-me-nots are planted at the base of the memorial. On April 2, 2004, this flag was officially dedicated and it was quite a moving sight to see the firefighters of our own Gwinnett Station 4 raising this huge flag to fly strongly in the wind.
It took strong men and women to hang onto the flag as the wind caught it. This storm flag is 600 square feet in size, which, as
Cynthia Stedeford pointed out, is the size of a garage. She sells houses so she knows these things. This lighted American flag is something magnificent to see as one drives down the parkway at night. I guess if you love America you would think this way.
But, unbelievably, not everybody appreciated this memorial. One of the neighbors on Avala Park Lane filed an official complaint with the county, evidently upset over the height of the flagpole. Now Stedeford has to get a variance.
* * *
The recent horrifying newspaper articles about the two Gwinnett teenagers whose parasail cable snapped while they were aloft in Florida made me think back a number of years to a trip to the Bahamas, where our two young sons went scuba diving on Thunderball Reef. They had exactly one hour of scuba lessons, in the hotel pool. Hello! Fortunately, like the two Gwinnett teenagers, there was a happy ending, everybody was safe, and all is well that ends well. But, looking back on this Thunderball Reef deal, it was an exceedingly dumb thing to allow our children to do at the time.
Some of these risky stunts do not appear to be very well regulated, but we sure didn't check, just bowed under kid pressure. We should have left Thunderball Reef to that old James Bond movie. I still get agita thinking about it.
* * *
Well, once again, we are all under-whelmed by our 2004 Georgia General Assembly. You would think that all those duly elected grown-ups would be able to do the state's business in a responsible and timely manner. Frankly, I thought this session might be a huge boondoggle when the legislators could not even agree on the Governor's Ethics Bill. You wouldn't think Ethics would be a partisan matter, would you? Until we get this Ethics matter straight, I do not believe we can trust what our representatives say about anything else. It sounds like they are too busy hanging on to their wallets, but perhaps I am incorrect in this assumption.
* * *
I read a letter in today's Gwinnett Opinion of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which made me want to comment on that writer's opinion that Wayne Hill should not be re-elected as Gwinnett County Commission Chairman. I happen to hold the opposite opinion:
Wayne Hill needs to be re-elected for a fourth term. Here's why: Declared opponent District 1 Commissioner
Marcia Neaton is imminently unqualified to be the commission chair. Ask her constituents if they think she has done a good job for them. Conduct your own poll. Just go ask anybody in downtown Duluth and see what you are told. Neaton (ex-Griggs) has nothing to lose in this race. She would not have been re-elected to her District 1 seat and is aware of this, or she wouldn't have tossed her hat in the ring for the chairman's seat. She is figuring that anybody who might be mad at Chairman Hill might vote for her.
The people who think Wayne Hill should step down need to stop and think seriously about just whom they might be handing Gwinnett over to. Hill would have been happy to step down after his second term, but said he'd worked too hard for Gwinnett and could not hand it over to just anybody, so he stayed in for a third term. We ought to be thankful he felt that way. Our toilets flush, clean water rushes through our faucets on demand, and our property taxes are not outrageous. If you do not like Gwinnett, please hurry up and move over to Fulton County, if you can afford it. They'd love to have you because they need a huge amount of help to fix their unsanitary nasty sewers, a terrible problem brought on by ageing infrastructure and negligent politicians.
Stop yammering about growth. Nobody can stop it. The trick is to be proactive about what to do with it and I believe Gwinnett is trying to be that way. If, by some fluke, growth was totally stopped in Gwinnett, economic growth would screech to a halt also. As a taxpayer, see if you would like that situation, as you watch the value of your property stagnate, or worse.
This is a very complicated issue, but none of the complaints I've seen about Wayne Hill to date even come close to addressing the real issues. Simplistic and uneducated would be
good words for what I have seen in the opinion sections of the local newspapers. My friends, Gwinnett County is a $1.4 Billion operation. We need the expertise of an honest and ethical CEO, who understands economics and finance and who the bond markets trust. We have not seen anybody yet who is better than Wayne Hill, so please think about that.
* * *
I am rehabbing my own fingernails after about ten years of wearing those beautiful, but deadly, acrylic nails. An infection blew up under one of my nails, which required the services of an emergency room doctor because it was a weekend. You know it was a desperate situation! He lanced the infection and I now have an $800 finger. My procedure cost so much because the hospital has to take care of so many folks who have no insurance and no money. We have a health system that is seriously out of whack, folks, if it costs $800 to lance a finger. We must work harder than ever to get our fine healthcare delivery system back into better balance. No more fake acrylic fingernails for me, at any rate. My dermatologist said she frequently sees the damage they do to women's fingernails, a few of which do not ever recover.
That's a pretty sobering statement! So much for fabulous movie star fingernails…I'm a countrywoman anyway and don't need them.
* * *
The azaleas are gloriously blooming. What lovely things they are! Many folks, however, mistakenly trim their azalea bushes with a buzz cut into balls or boxes, and then they are lovely no more. These folks just don't know any better. Southern azaleas need to be hand trimmed so their natural form is not destroyed. One look at a yard with buzz cut azaleas will be all you want! Blooming dogwoods and natural azaleas, however, like the sweet scent of honeysuckle, will remain in your memory bank forever.
* * *
Hope all is well, and thanks for reading.
041104
Archives
|
