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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4 • Saturday, March 1, 2014
Corinth, Miss.
Other Voices Legislature misses mark on open meetings law Once again, the status quo outweighs common sense under the capitol dome in Jackson. Despite what most lawmakers publicly may say, many privately dislike open government. They know what’s best for the rest of us; just ask them. For many politicians and government workers, open government is what often gets them in trouble. Those pesky journalists and concerned citizens who attend board meetings and demand to see copies of public records often cause great heartburn for those in power who like to slink around in the dark. That’s why we hoped against hope that Senate Bill 2404 might be passed. The measure would have removed the exemption in Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act that allows publicly owned hospitals from holding meetings in private. Natchez-Adams County has seen firsthand just how ugly the results of those secretive dealings can be. The county-owned hospital is currently seeking permission to file for bankruptcy, the second time in less than five years. The bill died last week after the Senate failed to take up the matter. We have yet to hear a legitimate reason why public hospital boards should be entitled to operate out of public oversight, particularly when they’ve leaned on the public to support their debt obligations. Change comes slowly to Mississippi. Let’s hope the Legislature corrects this gaping, illogical hole in state! law next year. The Natchez Democrat
Medicaid expansion’s demise is a shame It’s a shame that we can’t take care of our own. The Mississippi House turned its back on thousands of working poor people in a divisive vote against a bill that would have expanded the state’s Medicaid system, essentially once again turning down millions of dollars from the federal government. Most Democrats voted for the expansion, most Republicans against it. Gov. Phil Bryant and his Republican friends in the Legislature say the state cannot afford to expand the program. The state says about 644,000 people are on Medicaid and the House bill would have added 230,000 more. As it stands if you make more than $5,500 a year, you aren’t eligible. In Mississippi, a full-time minimum wage job pays a little more than $15,000. How can we not afford to take care of these Mississippians — even if ! it means an increase in taxes? It would be wonderful if we had higher-paying jobs that would lift these people out of poverty, but we don’t. We remain one of the poorest states in the nation, a fact that is easily forgotten on the more-prosperous coast. Every year, the state makes choices on how it will spend our money. The needs are many. Some expenditures are essential. Schools. Public safety. And public health. For the state’s lowest-wage workers, often the only way they can afford it is a trip to the emergency room, where they cannot be turned away regardless of their inability to pay. And we all pay for that care, because the hospitals recoup it one way or ano! ther from those who can pay. Emergency care is far more expensiv e than a trip to the doctor. And the pile of unpaid bills is astounding. According to a recent survey of Mississippi hospitals by the Mississippi Hospital Association, about $2.5 billion worth of care is not paid for each year. Our leaders need to make the tough decisions and make it a priority to find the money in the budget to pay our share of the cost, most of which will be paid with federal tax money. The Sun-Herald, Biloxi
Prayer for today Almighty God, grant that I may never be so discouraged that I feel my life has been spent. Help me to so live, that I may not follow into hopeless days, but look for the bright and beautiful in to-morrow. Forgive me for all that I have asked for and accepted through willful judgment, and make me more careful in selecting my needs. Amen.
A verse to share “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” — Ephesians 4:32
Should we intervene? Whether saber rattling or not, word is out that the White House is “rethinking its options” on intervening in the Syrian war. The collapse of John Kerry’s Geneva 2 talks between the rebels and regime, the lengthening casualty lists from barrel-bomb attacks, and a death toll approaching 150,000, are apparently causing second thoughts. All the usual suspects are prodding Obama to plunge in, if not with troops, at least with a no-fly zone to prevent Bashar Assad from using his air power. Our frustration is understandable. Yet it does not change the reality. This is not America’s war. Never was. As Obama said, it is “somebody else’s civil war.” First and foremost, Obama has no authority to go to war in Syria, for Congress has never voted to authorize such a war. An unprovoked attack on Syria would be an impeachable act. Last August, the American people were almost unanimously opposed to intervention. The firestorm they created was why Congress ran away from the Obama-Kerry plan for missile strikes. So if Obama has no authority to attack Syria, and America does not want a war, why, after Iraq and Afghanistan, would Obama divide his nation and plunge his country into that
civil war? What are the arguments for intervention? Same old, same old. Patrick America Buchanan has a moral obligation Columnist to end the barbarism. At the time of Rwanda we said, “Never again!” Yet it is happening again. And we have a “Responsibility to Protect” Syrians from a dictator slaughtering his own people. But while what is happening in Syria is horrible, all Middle East ethnic-civilsectarian wars tend to unfold this way. And if there is a “moral” obligation to intervene, why does it not apply to Israel and Turkey, Syria’s nearest neighbors? Why does that moral duty not apply to the European Union, upon whose doorstep Syria sits? Why is it America’s moral obligation, 5,000 miles away? It is not. The Turks, Israelis, EU and Gulf Arabs who hate Assad would simply like for us to come and fight their war for them. The Washington Post says we must address not only the moral “nightmare,” but also the “growing threat ... to vital U.S. interests.” Exactly what “vital interests” is the Post talking about? Syria has been ruled
by the Assads for 40 years. And how have our vital interests been imperiled? If we have an enemy in this fight, it is al-Qaida, the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, all of which are terrorist and implacably anti-American. And who is keeping these enemies of ours out of Damascus? Assad, Hezbollah, Iran and our old friend Vladimir Putin. And who has been supplying the terrorists? Our friends in the Gulf, with weapons funneled through Turkey, our NATO ally. The Syrian war would become a more savage affair, as Assad would know he was now in a fight to the finish. As U.S. air power was committed to the defeat of Assad, his allies would likely provide more weapons for his defense. Casualties could soar and the probability of a wider war would increase geometrically. Should Assad fall, his routed soldiers and Alawaites and Christians would face reprisals for which we would be morally responsible, as it was our intervention that brought this about. We might have to intervene with troops to stop a massacre by jihadists. And if Assad fell, proWestern rebels would likely have to fight the al-Qaida rebels for power. Syria could come apart, and we
would own it. Obama’s frustration is understandable. He said two years ago Assad must go. Assad flipped him off. Obama said use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” which, if crossed, would bring serious consequences. Assad’s troops apparently crossed that line. What did we do? Worked with Russia to remove the weapons. Washington is enraged that Putin continues to support Assad. But Assad’s regime is the recognized and legal government of Syria. Russia has a naval base in Latakia, is owed billions by Damascus, and has been Syria’s ally for decades. Why should Putin abandon Assad at our request? What have we done for him lately? Besides send Billy Jean King to his Olympics? Why, Putin might ask, should he abandon his Syrian allies rather than us, the Turks, and Gulf Arabs abandoning ours? There is a grave moral issue here — for us. How, under just war theory, can we continue to sustain a conflict that is killing thousands every month with no end in sight? Are we not morally obliged to try to stop such a war? Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
Suffering from social media overload BY WYATT EMMERICH Northside Sun
I am starting to suffer from social media overload. After reading somewhere that five percent of Americans use Twitter as a main source for news, I figured I needed to understand the medium. After all, I am in the news business. Plus Twitter just raised 24 billion dollars by going public, despite the fact that it is losing two dollars for every one dollar in revenue. The Twitter interface has gotten fancier now, with better Web and smart phone applications. Somewhere in the process of downloading the new app, I checked the wrong box and all 5,000 of my e-mail contacts got a personal invitation from me to join Twitter. My apologies. I was surprised at how many people took the invite seriously and joined. The Northside Sun has been sending out Facebook and Twitter updates for years now, but I have not done this personally. I now have 108 followers, slightly behind the world Twitter leader Katy Perry who has 50,000,000. The problem with getting on Twitter is coming up with something relevant to tweet. At first, I thought this would be no problem, but in practice my life is more boring than I had hoped. I have
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summoned up all of two tweets in two weeks. I still argue that Facebook’s sweet spot is keeping vaguely in touch with old friends. My children abandoned Facebook years ago for Instagram. They wouldn’t be caught dead on Facebook once the parents took to it. Now SnapChat is replacing Instagram. There are just too many of these things to keep up with: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Pinterest, Tumblr, Tagged and on and on. Ask.fm has 34 million users. I’d never even heard of it until I did a Google search of top social media platforms. This past week the WhatsApp texting company was purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. The app allows you to text over Wi-Fi, saving cell phone charges. It has 500 million users. The company is only four years old. Far be it for me to figure out how a company with 50 employees can be worth $19 billion, but I sure wish I had bought Amazon, Google and Apple a dozen years ago. The big winner in this deal is Sequoia Capital, which funded the WhatsApp startup. They walked away with billions. That’s the problem with
these social media companies. There are so many new competitors funded by so much venture capital money. Facebook has to continually buy out any newcomers at huge prices. It will be interesting to see how this game plays out. Meanwhile, the average consumer is getting flooded with invitations to join this social network or that social network. In the meantime, my company will still offer a very simple, low-tech alternative that has worked quite well for a few centuries — a newspaper. A recent survey conducted by the Godwin advertising agency discovered that 70 percent of Mississippians still read newspapers. Sixty percent of Mississippians consider newspapers their most trusted source for advertising. In an age of 300 cable channels, satellite radio, Netflix streaming, a gazillion Web sites, the newspaper is the only mass media left. If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have said the Web would be 30 percent of my business. Instead, it is five percent. For whatever reason, people seem to like hometown news served in printed form. Go figure. My theory is that print is traditional, simple, and familiar, the way we would
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like our lives to be. It is an antidote to the hectic confusion of the World Wide Web. Print is Mayberry. The liquid crystal display is not. In the meantime, I will be trying my best to come up with interesting tweets for my 108 followers. However, I fear my limited columnwriting abilities won’t translate so well to tweeting. Last week, we ran a column by Kelley Williams about the many statefunded technology startups that have failed. Kelley mentioned seven different companies, including View, which produces auto tinting windows in Olive Branch. A few days later, longtime Northside Sun subscriber Charlie Tomlinson called me up and asked me if there was something he didn’t know. His son is the human resources person at View and still very much has a job. Indeed, View just raised an additional $100 million and its factory is in operation. In Kelley’s defense, View has yet to make a profit since receiving $40 million in state funding in 2010. Current employment at the Olive Branch plant is 210 full time, considerably below the forecast of 330, which View still hopes to achieve. It really depends on your definition of what constitutes a “failure,” a relatively vague term.
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