Category Archives: Community

Questions for CUEE —Etta Mims

Received today.

Updated 5PM 28 Sep 2011: Added preface and other changes to
the
document by Etta Mims.
-jsq

I am attaching an 8 page document I compiled this week to show


that
CUEE and the Vote Yes supporters are not answering the questions being
asked of them. They are dancing around the topics but these supporters
are spending alot of money to put our children and the employees of
both schools in danger of 4-5 years minimum of changes that will be
detrimental to all concerned.

Another interesting note, if you go to the Vote Yes page, and

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CUEE demolishes its own case

CUEE still doesn’t have a plan for improving education.


When asked for any concrete examples of education improving
because of school consolidation, not one person could come up
with one: not CUEE, not the Chamber, not their invited experts.
Their invited experts established that consolidation in Troup County
not only didn’t save money, it required a bond issue.
And it took four or five years of the hardest work they’d ever done,
even though they couldn’t give any evidence that it improved education.
It was like that on almost every point: the Chamber and CUEE either
couldn’t answer the simplest questions, or even more frequently
demolished their own case.

The last question asked to give an example of any company that
had declined to come in because of multiple school systems.
Not only could nobody give an example, but someone, I believe it was
Walter Hobgood, stood up at the podium and said when he was working
for a large company he had never encountered a case where they looked
at the number of school systems.

Early on Chamber Chair Tom Gooding went on at great length about

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Local leadership nets $1.5 billion solar project

That’s 400 MW of solar power in twenty 20 MW PV plants,
just across the state line in Gadsden County, Florida.


Plus ongoing jobs, expanded education, private sources of investment, and customers for the electricity.

According to SolarServer quoting a National Solar press release yesterday,

National Solar Power chooses Gadsden County, Florida for 400 MW PV project

The company estimates that the 400 MW project will create 400 jobs during
the five-year construction phase and up to 120 permanent operations jobs.

And that’s not all.
According to Solar Energy News today,

Plan to build $1.5bn solar farm in Florida,

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Detracking Troup County, according to Terry Jenkins

In Troup County, school “unification” was all about race and desegregation,
according to the speaker our local Chamber is bringing in

Tuesday evening.



Dr. Terry Jenkins, co-authored an interesting paper in 1997,

Detracking Troup County: Providing an Exemplary Curriculum for All Students.

As series of decisions, not unrelated to race, made by the “white fathers” of
the city of LaGrange, led the citizens of the city to vote their school system
out of existence and to become a part of the county system.

The quotes around “white fathers” are in the paper.

Hm, back when I first encountered CUEE, they were speaking to SCLC in Valdosta
late last year, Rusty Griffin among them, and the theme was desegregation.
They did not receive a warm welcome.
Funny how CUEE changed its tune to “unification” after that.

But the local “white fathers” are still insisting on making decisions
for all of us.

-jsq

WordPress blog on animal protection problems

Susan Leavens has branched out from her facebook page,

Georgia’s Regulatory Animal Protection Division the truth behind them,


and has now created a WordPress blog,

Georgia Department of Agriculture Animal Protection Problems

Among other things, she’s reposted a bunch of LAKE posts about animal
shelter issues.
That’s kosher, as long as there’s attribution, which she has included.
I applaud Susan for starting her own blog!

-jsq

Tom Gooding and the Chamber rebuffed @ VBOE 20 Sep 2011



Tom Gooding, Chair of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce,
asked the school boards to do the Chamber’s homework.
He got no takers.

Reiterating the Chamber’s demand from its
letter of 9 September 2011,
Gooding asked VBOE superintendent Dr. Cason at the 20 September VBOE
forum to commit to meeting about what to do if the “unification”
referendum passes.

Dr. Cason said that should have happened two years ago, and

Now is not the appropriate time.

He said if the referendum passes, then the two school boards will sit down
together.
Dr. Cason didn’t say anything about inviting the Chamber or CUEE to such
meetings, since, after all, neither the Chamber or CUEE would have any legal
role.

Here’s

the video:




Tom Gooding rebuffed @ VBOE 20 Sep 2011

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Forum at Valdosta Middle School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2011.

Videos by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.

-jsq

The other execution Wednesday night

Everybody knows

the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis Wednesday, 21 September 2011.
Fewer people know the state of Texas executed Lawrence Russell Brewer
that same night.
The cases are the same in one very basic way, and different in others.

One blog overstates the case.
David Henson wrote for religion margins,

the state killed two men; we only cared for one

Two men were executed last night by the state.

And no one said a word about one of them.

Because it wasn’t about Troy Davis. Because witnesses didn’t
recant. Because the evidence was clear. Because hundreds of thousands
worldwide didn’t sign a petition for him.

Because it was about a white supremacist.

Another blog is more accurate.
Sam Worley wrote for Bleader 22 Sep 2011,
The second execution,

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Videos of last night’s Valdosta school forum by George Rhynes

Last night was the second of the three forums


the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE) approved
along with its

statement opposing school consolidation.
George Rhynes reports there were 300 people there,
and he videoed everybody who stood up and spoke.

I especially like this one,

with Jerome Tucker asking:



What makes the Chamber of Commerce
better qualified than professional educators?

That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?

Here’s

the video:




Videos of last night’s Valdosta school forum by George Rhynes

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Forum at Valdosta Middle School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2011.

Videos by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.

Here’s
a playlist of all George’s videos of that Forum:




Videos of last night’s Valdosta school forum by George Rhynes

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Forum at Valdosta Middle School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 September 2011.

Videos by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube.

-jsq

News so good, there’s a law against it!

I’d like to thank the Commission for the award!





Louis XIV handing down an award

at Versailles

I and LAKE will wear it proudly.
The VDT doesn’t have one of these.
WCTV doesn’t have one; WALB doesn’t have one.
Only LAKE posts news so good, there’s a law against it!

It’s now been a week since
the Lowndes County Commission passed

an ordinance for no stated reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the
public.
It’s still not on the

county’s online list of ordinances.
Gretchen was covering an event Friday at which she saw
Commissioner Crawford Powell; she asked him to send her a copy of the ordinance.
Five days later, nothing has arrived.

So, our only clues are Commissioner Raines’ remarks that it had something
to do with videoing and photographing.
And his remarks that he believed that the Chairman could do it on his own,
but he’d like to make a motion for the Commission to approve it.

So we have to guess it had something to do with



Ashley Paulk’s outburst of the previous morning,
in which he

flattered me
by addressing me and only me by name,
even though there were at least two video cameras recording the meeting.
This is what he was going on about:

The County Commission wishes from this day forward that any filming be
done from the media area in the back corner of the room.

He didn’t say anything about still photography, or for that matter


about digital videoing, so I don’t know whether what he said
had anything to do with whatever it was that
Commissioner Raines moved Tuesday and the Commission approved.
Nor does anybody else know.

Now a cynic might say,

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Calderón contra la Guerra de las Drogas?

Juan Carlos Hidalgo wrote for Cato 20 September 2011,

Calderón Hints at Drug Legalization Again,



Mexican President Felipe Calderón seems to be experiencing a dramatic
change of mind regarding his war against drug cartels. Soon after a
drug gang set fire to a casino in Monterrey a few weeks ago killing
52 people,

Calderón told the media that ”If [the Americans] are
determined and resigned to consuming drugs, they should look for market
alternatives that annul the stratospheric profits of the criminals, or
establish clear points of access that are not the border with Mexico.”
Many people interpreted that as a veiled reference to drug legalization.

The referenced story by Julian Miglierini 1 September 2011 for BBC News
also said the Mexican president went farther:

Monterrey attack: Game-changer in Mexico’s drugs war?

Hours after it took place, the president described it “as an abhorrent act
of terror and savagery” and later said the authors were “true terrorists”.

When you think about the billions or trillions the U.S. and other
countries spend against terrorists who cause less damage than the
Mexican drug cartels, he could be indicating that priorities are
misdirected.

The Cato article says Calderón has now gone further:

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