This is Viewpoints for Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017

A long way to go

Please permit me to comment on three recent pieces in The Telegraph. Dr. Bill Cummings has now ascended to the top chair as a columnist for The Telegraph, and his writings get better every week. His recent piece, “Why can’t religion be more like science?” was journalistic gold and had William Randolph Hearst read it he would have hung his head in envy.

The letter by Sloan Oliver in a recent edition alludes that our local schools will not improve substantially until the families of our school age children becomes more involved in the education of every child in the family. That is the elephant in our local public schools that has led to private, parochial and charter schools springing up like tulips after a spring rain. There is not anything that will take the place of an involved parent, albeit it cannot be replaced by tax money or anything those dollars can buy.

The Center for Collaborative Journalism as reported in The Telegraph, recently held two community forums that covered many topics, but the conversation quickly meandered into race in our public school system when one participant said “my wife and I had given birth to a thoroughbred; I wanted him to run with other thoroughbreds,” and that is why we sent him to a private school. Offense to his comment was taken by some attendees because horses that are used to breed such animals are carefully selected, and that process, metaphorically, when applied caused some to conclude his use of the word thoroughbred was racially charged thus evoking visions of master races and racial purity.

The forum discovered one of the major problems in race discussions today but failed to report that finding in the article; as long as an aggrieved person or group is allowed to redefine established word and language meaning at will in order to to foster a particular point of view, participation in those events will be slim. Slow progress in resolving the issue will follow. To paraphrase an old tobacco company adage, “we’ve got a long way to go, baby.”

Strong action

Bibb County's Commissioners belated response to unpaid garbage fees are short sighted. If you intend to do corrective actions on just one, when multiple fees are going uncollected.

The tax commissioners should implement very strong actions to end this circus of evasion. Liens and fast track foreclosures will better serve those of us that pay all of our fees.

This story was originally published February 11, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017."