This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Wrong is wrong?

In the editor’s reply to Joe Hubbard’s letter Monday, Dec. 11 regarding the new garbage bill, he stated that the big change was going from quarterly to annual billing. That is not what I see as the big change. Whoever made up these rules now wants to charge $300 per year for any structure on a piece of land that no one has been living. This is absurd.

How can you legally charge for garbage service when there is none? I am part owner of a house that no one has lived in for years and this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. It is not fair and I think some consideration should be made in this regard. We always pay taxes on this property. That should be enough. Right is right and wrong is wrong and we all know which this is.

Promises, promises

Can I get a big thumbs-up for consolidation? Does anyone remember the “pie-in-the-sky” promises, that if we could just consolidate city and county governments, we would get more efficient government, less expensive to operate, and lower taxes?

Wouldn’t it be great if only we lived in utopia where politicians always told the truth, were not biased or prejudiced, and always made decisions based on what was good for the people they serve. But alas, we live in Macon-Bibb County. Just remember election time will come.

Libel and slander?

I opened my paper today to find an “editorial cartoon” with what I believe is tantamount to slander and libel. Judge Roy Moore is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, yet you print a cartoon of words that can only be attached to a guilty person proven so either by confession, DNA, reliable witnesses, or a trial by jury. Judge Roy Moore and President Trump have not been convicted, only accused, and in this country that is simply not enough. To label them as a “pedophile” and “sexual predator” means you are taking the word of people with no proof, and if you have any integrity as journalists you would issue an apology, retraction and a thorough self-examination of what you report as news or “editorialize” as opinion.

The Jerry Springer phenomenon of putting people into hotels they could never pay for on their own, or fly in an airplane, or eat food for the upwardly mobile has replaced the integrity found in days gone by. I remember watching Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite. What are they teaching in journalism today? You have sunk to the level of an Enquirer magazine and you have lost my respect. No wonder the American public doubts the words of the press when lie after lie is being told, and a half-hearted retraction is offered. Your reporting on local issues by some of your reporters is quality-filled and to the point. Your obvious detractions to make political statements beggar description.

We the people want a free press that reports the facts, and Judge Roy Moore and President Trump are NOT pedophiles or sexual predators. They are men who have served this country. They have the right not to be labeled as such until a jury and judge have so adjudicated. Shame on you! This is not the America I want. A Republican from Kentucky, Dan Johnson, killed himself because of the “gotcha” yellow journalism. One more printing of this kind of trash will have me forever canceling my subscription. I hope other Middle Georgians will join me if this is the kind of vileness you seem so willing to embrace.

What to think

Much ink and airtime have been expended lately on what is called “fake news.” I don’t like the term because it has never been adequately defined. About once every 10 years the Telegraph runs a front page article that is also covered by the Wall Street Journal. Friday was such a day.

The WSJ headline was “FCC Reverses Rules on Net Access.” The article outlined in terse comment the actions of the FCC in reversing a two-year-old rule implemented by the FCC in 2015. Simple. News.

The Associated Press article on Page 1 of The Telegraph screamed “FCC votes to end era of equal internet access.” The article consisted of about 24 column inches of outrage and alarm, claiming that Republicans had just canceled out “decades” of fair play for Internet users and put them at the mercy of unscrupulous Internet Service Providers.

Fake news, if I had to define it, would be the printing of lies and narrative about things that never happened. The AP article was not fake news. It was a flagrant example of a technique used by tyrants for hundreds of years: Propaganda.

I encourage all readers to compare the AP articles in the Telegraph to the one in Friday’s Wall Street Journal and decide for themselves whether to think what their intelligence leads them to or to think what the AP and The Telegraph tell them to.

Served for all

I served in the military for many years. I served for those who stand for the flag and those who don’t. I served for those who sing the anthem and those who stay silent. I served for those who stand for the anthem and those who take a knee. That’s freedom, that’s America.

Christmas frenzy

This is the season when the frantic rush to get just the right thing for Uncle George and all the kids takes up much of our time. If you fit in this category, and most of us do, please take just a moment during your day to remember why this season and the celebration of Christmas is so important. We are celebrating not only the birth of a king but the third person in the Trinity who came to seek and to save all who are lost.

There has been much publicity lately in The Telegraph about who believes in what or who and who is right or wrong about the divinity of Christ. Let me say that for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, King of Kings, whose rule is everlasting, world without end.

This story was originally published December 18, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, December 19, 2017."