This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Amendment 1

An Opportunity School District, or charter schools are not the best path to long term quality public schools for any community. The “traditional” school district led by a qualified superintendent of proven high principles selected by an elected district board dedicated to assuring quality education for all through excellent governance without bias for any has proven successful over decades. Public school education is the responsibility of the local community.

To vote for the amendment says we are unable or unwilling to meet our responsibility — a terrible admission. If there is a school failure, those first responsible are the members of the school board. If board members are incapable, recall them, replacing them with talented and dedicated individuals.

Experimentation or “trial by error” should not be thrust upon students or their parents because part of the education system has failed them. Adding a layer of unproven ideas from remote locations sounds like it would take a miracle to be successful, and we in Bibb County have already suffered enough from that lie.

Deceptive language or not, Amendment 1 on the November ballot deserves resounding defeat. If anyone should know about deceptiveness and obfuscation it should be those of us in Bibb County, where we remain in such a state as the result of the Dallemand era, a flawed superintendent and proven inadequate governing board.

The Bibb School District is now blessed with an ethical and talented superintendent whom we can rely on for improvement throughout the system as remnants of the flawed Dallemand board are leaving. The major element we need from state government in Atlanta is adequate operating funds, not another educational gimmick or bureaucratic obstruction.

Carbon explosion

Elon Musk’s rocket debacle, regardless of one’s affirmation (or denial) of climate change, the hypocrisy about the causes is an issue. The pass that Elon Musk, darling of the politically correct due to his Tesla efforts, has gotten for contribution to carbon emission from his rocket’s explosion is an example of why people are skeptical about government efforts to control carbon emissions.

Why is his company not subject to more scrutiny and regulation before this was allowed to happen, especially in view of the information evasions that have occurred related to the Tesla?

Climate change

When I was young, my grandfather and I would pick peaches on Taylor’s Mill Road in Peach County and then spend an impatient hour or so turning the wheel making homemade peach ice cream. Though the summer record hot days accumulate, I am concerned about too-warm winters. Too warm for the peaches. What then? No sitting at Lane’s or Dickey’s or wherever licking a luscious cone on a sunny afternoon?

If a peach could talk:

“A Georgia Peach”

It is no consolation to know

That others wither, too. I have heard

The obituaries of kin from the birds

Who descend from Yankee Land.

White Christmas there is but a memory.

Blessed be they that die!

More blessed than I

Who will finish my many years

Green, perhaps, but surely barren.

I hope not. But we all must do our part.

Telegraph readers should seek out organizations that are working to prevent drastic climate change: CitizensClimateLobby, The Audubon Society, and others. And talk to your representatives. Let’s keep the Georgia in “Georgia Peach.”

Corruption

Who is responsible for drug use? Parents, schools or law enforcement! Who must control its distribution? Law enforcement. Why are they failing? Is it partly due to corruption?

A loss for words

When Donald Trump first came on the scene he was a breath of fresh air. Trump was the forceful non-political figure on the scene. His popularity was evident when he won against the 15 or 16 others who floated in and out of the debates. I could understand his message. He was specific; he was forceful and as one of Hillary Clinton’s supporters said, even one of us “white uneducated males” could understand. But then erosion set in. “Trump wasn’t political enough.” He was too blunt. He said some bad words sometimes. There again we “uneducated white boys” still understood. But alas, the “liberal progressive” members of the left wing of the Republican Party began to educate him to be a smooth, sophisticated, political candidate. I’m sorry Trump, this “uneducated white boy” doesn’t understand you anymore. I guess the best I can expect from you is to be a second Hillary.

The facts of life are that the vast majority of native Americans, the five-time losers in our Sanctuary Cities, and the human garbage that is coming when Madam Hillary becomes president negates the chance that this special plot of land on this Earth, given our Founding Fathers by God Almighty, will be a human garbage can like the rest of the world!

More for less

This letter references “Which cart” letter from Aug. 31. We have been using recycling bins in Lake Wildwood for years. However, when the process was changed the first of this year, so did the efficient pickup schedule for this area. We had very few pickups in January and February. After calls I made about the recycling pickups, things were better in March, April and May. In June the first pickup date was missed. So we decided to put the bin out each Tuesday night for our Wednesday pick up. There was no pick up during the rest of June. After taking the bin back and forth for four weeks, we decided to just put the cans and plastic containers in the regular trash.

So now we are paying a larger fee for less service. Before this year, we paid $38.25 quarterly for trash and recycle material pickup. Now we are paying $60 quarterly for trash only. Go figure. We love to recycle, but no one will come get it.

This story was originally published September 5, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, September 6, 2016."