This is Viewpoints for Monday, Feb. 13, 2017

Mistaken identity

It is shocking, hateful and despicable that our judges use their political views to block President Trump’s executive order not allowing certain verified foreigners who entered and did threaten the safety of our country. Judges take an oath just like our presidents to protect us, enforce our laws and our Constitution. Further, it is so evident that some members of Congress are so politically hateful that they disgrace their office, embarrassing themselves and the rest of us.

Such despicable, hateful action takes me to the local level occurring in opinion/comments as published in The Telegraph. I will not call names but use what happened to me. A person using despicable hateful words called me a rich &%$@ living on the lake. I assume Sinclair or a Tanner living on Lake Tobesofkee since The Telegraph gives my address as Macon. I let it ride for a while but he continues to degrade me even speaking of my rich husband working at his high paying job. I finally wrote an opinion correcting the financial status of my husband who had died years ago and certainly was not rich and the paper was kind enough to publish. This man has not apologized for his hateful words nor misinformation.

Since I do not live on a lake, it is clear this person did not know me, my husband nor the rich &%$@ at the lake. Freedom of speech is great, but when one speaks of nothing he knows with such demeaning verbiage, it is shameful and disgraceful for all. Why not clean up the comment pages of the opinions for there is a possibility you do not know the person you are prosecuting. Even if you do, refrain from disgracing yourself and others. Criticize only their words for all may not be as bright as you think you are.

It’s a profit thing

Well, it is official, Betsy DeVos is our new secretary of education. Need you be worried that your child in one of the tens of thousands of public schools will be left behind in an era of charter schools and vouchers? No. After all, Betsy did “mentor” in one of those institutions. And, so it was not a total waste of her time, she also set several families on the road to financial independence by setting them up as Amway distributers. She is a true multi-tasker.

Now, to the exciting part. Betsy’s plan for saving our failing schools. True to her affiliation with multi-level-marketing (MLM) and the source of the millions her family donated to needy senators and congressmen, she will set public education on a path of achievement, success and, most of all, profit. Here is how it might work.

1. Have your friends and colleagues invest in a company making school uniforms. (Preferably an overseas factory for tax purposes.)

2. Strong arm state governments to support school vouchers. If they balk, have Trump destroy the careers of several of them and the rest will fall in line.

3. Find a group of individuals with little or no education background and have them submit an application for a for profit charter school. (If you must use a non-profit, make sure the principals have very generous salary and benefits.)

4. Make sure all applicants use a script citing “Failing Schools, Right to a good Education and Parent’s right to Choose.” “Neighborhood schools” is good, also. This is marketing 101, folks, catch words are crucial. The “CORE” curriculum must be used to keep “Jeb” on-board. He flunked out with No Child Left Behind so his hat now hangs on this hook.

5. Once established, offer incentives to the first school group to recruit five more such independent-minded stalwarts of education to form their own charter schools. A small percentage of the downstream schools’ voucher revenue should be enough.

6. Have the next five recruit five more and so on.

7. Make doubly sure to remove any local control over charter schools and limit accountability and oversight, especially in grading student progress. After all, DeVos set the new passing grade standard with a 50 out of 100.

See, easy-cheesy. Sure, eventually the money runs out down the line, but at least your group got in on the ground floor, right? Oh, about No. 1 above, uniforms. Charters are really big on uniforms. They tend to limit individuality and thought. And there is profit to be made. In a line from Steve Martin from “The Jerk,” “Oh, it’s a profit thing.” Exactly!

Coverage a disgrace

I was amazed at the Super Bowl coverage in Monday’s Telegraph. Instead of “Heartbreaker” or some other headline that would have told the story from the Falcons’ point of view, the main headline read “Super Comeback,” telling it from the Patriots’. (Yes, the word “heartbreak” did make it into a secondary headline — but it was a secondary headline.) Much worse, however, was the choice of game photos, of which there were two — and in both of them not a single Falcons player was even to be seen. Instead we were shown a triumphant Tom Brady and a triumphant James White and that was all. The photo captions might as well have been written by the Patriots’ public relations department, because they barely even mentioned that the Falcons took part in the game. Surely The Telegraph had available to it photos showing some of the Falcons’ many great plays during the game.

This coverage trashed and insulted the Falcons and their fans. Is it possible that whoever wrote that headline and/or selected those photos is a Patriots fan who did this intentionally?

News flash to The Telegraph Sports Department: Macon and the rest of your readership area are in Georgia. The Falcons’ home town is Atlanta, which likewise is in Georgia. Your readership contains many Falcons fans and no more than a few Patriots fans. There is such a thing as home-town loyalty. If you refuse to exhibit it and embrace the opposing team instead, why would you expect your readers to show loyalty to you by continuing to read you?

This story was originally published February 12, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Monday, Feb. 13, 2017."