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January 22, 2006
“If I knew then what I know now, I obviously wouldn’t have done that work.” That saying of Ralph’s is getting quite a workout, isn’t it? How many times have we seen it by now?
Ralph Reed
was quoted saying it yet once again in today’s edition of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Metro section. Folks, I am really tired of reading that quote! Indeed. I expect Ralph is very sorry his friend
Jack Abramoff
got caught ripping off clients. By this time I expect Ralph is also very sorry he even
knows Jack Abramoff. Nothing I have heard or read in the popular media, however, has knocked me off my opinion that Ralph Reed’s byline ought to be, “Don’t watch what I do, you fools, watch what I say.” This is not a good motto for someone who wants us to trust him enough to elect him as the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia this July. Nope! Sorry, Ralph. No vote for you.
Senator Casey Cagle
appears to be everything you are not on that Republican ballot.
Any of my faithful readers will recognize that I’ve said this more than a few times:
Even as we speak this moment, there is somebody somewhere who is doing something that they do not want the rest of us to find out about. These ethical lapses do not happen by chance, my friends. They are intentional even if the perpetrators try to act surprised and offended when they are caught.
Perhaps that failing may be part of human nature, but I hate to see taxpayers and voters having to grapple with excess ego and hubris and squishy ethical practices when it comes time to choose an elected official. Just give us honest ethical candidates and we’ll take it from there!
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Glad to see our former Commission Chairman
Wayne Hill
getting back into politics. He’s challenging Bobby Reese
up in Sugar Hill. If memory serves, Reese is the representative in the old 85th District that ditched his Sugar Hill constituents after the General Assembly had already convened in 2002 in order to run against
David Shafer
for a senate seat in the 48th District that was prematurely vacated by Judge Billy
Ray
. That year also District 2 Commissioner Patti Muise
quit with another year to go on her term so Gwinnett had to hold two sets of special elections, one for the state and one for the county. The “Herding Cats Political Phenomenon” that year was something I hope never to see again. Politicians’ contracts with voters did not seem to mean much. At least now with our electronic voting capability, having to hold a special election won’t be as costly to taxpayers as it was back in 2002.
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Here’s a conundrum for you. Gwinnett County voters approved a bond issue to build a 1,440-bed pre-trial detention facility because we are evidently running over with prisoners. But, if you have made a trip to a Gwinnett hospital emergency room lately, you will conclude that the county is also running over with sick people. The nonprofit Gwinnett Hospital System is building a new state-of-the-art hospital in Duluth, Gwinnett Medical Center-Duluth, and that new facility will contain 81 in-patient beds. Emory Eastside, a for-profit hospital over in Snellville, is embarked upon a building program to add beds over there as well. It is indeed an expensive proposition for hospitals, nonprofit and for-profit alike, to build capacity for these badly needed and long-overdue hospital beds, too. It begs for community involvement, especially since there are such large numbers of indigent and under-insured folks seeking hospital care.
Here’s my issue for you. How many of us are likely to wind up in the hospital for whatever reason? It would seem that all of us are potential patients, I think. Now, how many of us are likely to wind up in the jail for whatever reason? Surely not all of us are potential prisoners! Yet, look at the very disproportionate emphasis on the crooks. It does not make much sense to me. Personally, I’d rather spend tax money building a first-rate hospital for Gwinnett’s citizens than a first-rate holding pen for loser criminals.
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It’s Girl Scout cookie time! My husband and I told our little neighborhood cookie maven that we’d be happy to write a check to her troop, but that we did not want the cookies. Neither of us can eat them and we know better than to let those delectable morsels spend even one tempting night in this house of cookie lovers, even if they are on the way to somewhere else! This year we were told that we could make a donation of cookies to the Ronald McDonald House and so we did this. Our cookie maven gets the cookie sale credit and the folks at Ronald McDonald get the case of cookies and we never touch them. This is quite a wonderful and most appreciated idea!
***
Hope all is well. Thanks for reading.
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