This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Telegraph’s endorements for May 24 primary and nonpartisan election

Sheriff

David Davis

Tax commissioner

Wade McCord

County Commission, District 2

Larry Scheslinger

County Commission, District 5

Bert Bivins

County Commission, District 6

Don Druitt

Bibb Board of

Education, District 2

Thelma Dillard

Bibb Board of

Education, District 5

Sundra Woodford

Bibb Board of

Education, District 6

Bob Easter

****** Many thanks

The pace at which we all live our lives these days allows little time for reflection and almost no time to stop to pause and consider important milestones in our personal lives and in the life of our community. However, one recent moment in the life of this community took place on the stage of Porter Auditorium, and it is worth a moment of consideration. During this year’s annual Dance Arts Studio recital, time was taken to honor and pay tribute to an extraordinary woman of achievement, Jean Weaver. She has been for 40 years a dedicated teacher, a cultural leader and artistic visionary. Many former students came from all over the country to share that day with her and to pause in their lives to say “thank you.”

Macon has been profoundly enriched by her presence and passion for her students and the art of dance. The beautiful annual production of The Nutcracker has been her gift to this community, and her legacy is 40 years of passing on her knowledge and her passion for dance to hundreds of students, parents and thousands of audience members. We are so fortunate that Macon has been her home all these years. She has been a mentor, an inspiration and a great friend to me for the 34 years I have been in Macon. She is a great lady. Bravo, Jean Weaver, bravo! Many thanks from a grateful community.

Government vs. cancer patients

Last summer, the nation was shocked when our neighbor, former President Jimmy Carter, announced he had been diagnosed with cancer that had spread to his brain. Then, just four months later, came another shock when he announced that a groundbreaking immunotherapy drug regimen had miraculously put his cancer into remission.

Alarmingly, access to cutting-edge treatments like the one that saved President Carter’s life is now in jeopardy. The federal government recently announced a mandatory Medicare “experiment” that will make it harder for Georgia’s most vulnerable patients to receive life-saving medications.

Bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are targeting Medicare Part B, which covers complex drugs that have to be administered in a doctor’s office, such as those for cancer, cerebral palsy and immunodeficiency disorders.

If CMS gets its way with this experiment, there is a very real possibility that desperately ill Georgia patients who aren’t lucky enough to be a former president of the United States could find it much harder to access the groundbreaking treatments that save lives.

This experiment is the absolute worst thing we could do to our nation’s fight against cancer. Sens. David Perdue and Johnny Isakson and their congressional colleagues must help us say no to government cancer care, and yes to thoughtful solutions that help every patient receive the all available treatments to beat their diagnosis.

Hire a fact checker

I am an avid reader of The Telegraph and am often amused by Frank Gadbois’ letters to the editor. Over the years I have learned that Gadbois has an opinion on almost everything in Middle Georgia and is always short on facts and long on opinion. As was the case recently concerning the trip local Middle Georgia leadership took to Washington D.C. For Gadbois’ information and for clarification to The Telegraph readers, everyone who attended the trip paid their own expenses. I can also answer his question “why the base union president was never invited on this annual boondoggle?” Not only did the AFGE Local 987, which represents Robins Air Force Base, attend, but Robbie Tidwell, the union president was one of the guest speakers at the event and was lauded by former Sen. Saxby Chambliss “as a hero” for the work he has done at Robins with the local union. In the future I would suggest Gadbois hire a fact checker, or better yet, maybe he could go to the source and get his facts prior to submitting his opinion.

‘Saints’

It has been often said there are two activities that you should avoid observing while they are in progress. That is the making of laws and sausage. I would now add another activity based upon my early voting May 2. Not the act of early voting at the Pio Nono facility, but the development of the primary ballots for Bibb County, Democratic, Republican and nonpartisan (a real Trojan Horse) voters.

These “Sample Ballots” represent a feeble, almost impossible attempt to explain how to vote in spite of the political bias of this voting cycle from those in power or those who desire to be part of the power structure. The “saints” who work at the Pio Nono early voting facility should be canonized for their efforts to serve the public with a smile, warm greeting and humility trying to explain the created obfuscation. They were helpful, but let’s face, it there is little you can do with wet manure except endure.

I could only think about how the voters could reward those who created this tragedy. If employed in the public sector, I suggest the temporary shifting of duties to cleaning grease traps and portable toilets for a period of time. This might enlighten the power brokers that the voters want a simple method of voting for the man/woman of their choosing.

Trojan Horse

Certainly hope Donald Trump doesn’t get elected president of the United States. If Trump should succeed, he will spoil all that our Trojan Horse has accomplished.

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, May 24, 2016."