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TODAY'S
ISSUE
Rotarians' loose change
helps battle spread of Alzheimer's
By
Von Starkey, Norcross
President, CART Funds
(Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust)
Special to GwinnettForum.com
MAY 11, 2004 -- Did you realize that on any given day in America,
$8.25 billion of loose change passes between our populace? Dropping
loose change into the CART blue bucket is a simple, painless, and
effective way to raise the much-needed funds for Alzheimer's research.
That is what the CART Fund was originally developed to do...raise
funds without conducting fundraisers and without interfering with
other projects of individual clubs.
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CART
Fund directors present Dr. Robert A. Reenan, second from left,
with a $250,000 check for Alzheimer's research. From left
are Von Starkey of Norcross, Karen Shore of Concord, N.C.,
and Roger Ackerman of Sumter, S.C. On the back row are Dr.
Jack Bass of Hilton Head Island, S.C, Jim Puryer of Augusta
and Bruce Baker of Greer, S.C. The CART Fund originated out
of the Sumter, S.C. Rotary Club.
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Each week, Rotarians from clubs throughout North Carolina, South
Carolina and Georgia empty their pockets of loose money in the hopes
that their individual donations will collectively bring about a
different kind of change...a cure for Alzheimer's disease!
Doctors report that Alzheimer's is claiming more victims worldwide
every day. Over four million Americans are victims. Medical scientists
predict that unless a cure or some prevention method is found ,the
number of American victims will grow to 16 million within the next
20-25 years. Furthermore, without a cure one in ten Americans will
ultimately become victims. Sadly, 75 percent of the world's victims
live outside of the United States.
Rotary Club members are business leaders and professionals who
want to better their communities. Rotarians want to fund Alzheimer's
Research projects that will find a cure for this terrible disease
threatening family and friends in our communities. The CART Board
depends on fellow Rotarians to help raise the much-needed funds
for research.
In April, the Board of Directors, Grant Review Committee, of the
CART Fund, approved the research grant application submitted by
the University of Connecticut Health Center. The principal investigator
for the project, "Testing the Amyloid Hypothesis in Drosophila,"
is Dr. Robert A. Reenan.
Then on May 4, 2004, at the annual CART meeting in Columbia, S.C.,
the Board of Directors, comprised of Rotarians from 11 Rotary Districts
in the Southeast, presented a check to Dr. Reenan for $250,000.
This check represented the fifth research project funded by the
C.A.R.T. Foundation (Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust). Since
1999, Rotarians donated over $1 million to fund research for a cure
for Alzheimer and Alzheimer's related diseases. Donations came from
individuals and local businesses, fund raising by Rotary Clubs,
and matching funds.
The effectiveness of donated change can be illustrated by considering
that in the 11 Rotary districts of the Carolinas and Georgia, there
are approximately 35,100 Rotarians. Assuming each club has 85 percent
attendance (Rotarians are proud of their attendance), who meet weekly,
and an average donation of just 35 cents, over $500,000 for research
can be raised annually. Using this formula, Rotarians in the USA
and Canada combined, could provide over $5.5 million annually for
Alzheimer's research.
This project grows each year as more people are supporting it.
The CART Board wholeheartedly appreciates all that Rotarians are
doing to live the motto "Service Above Self." Additional
information on the CART Fund Foundation can be found at www.cartfund.org.
ELLIOTT
BRACK
Republicans
continue effort for control of legislature
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com
MAY 11, 2004 -- Will 2004 be the year for Republicans to take over
most of state government? Many feel it will happen, making Democrats
a minority party----a position they have not enjoyed before.
 Naysayers
will point out that the Republican Party has been poised so long
to " take over" the state that it's becoming a joke. Even
though it has appeared for years that the state was becoming more
Republican, even as it often voted for a Republican president, still
Republicans do not totally control the state government.
They're close now, only needing the Georgia House of Representative
to control the three key elements, already having the Senate and
the governor's office. (Note, however, that the GOP does not have
the lieutenant governor's office, an odd arrangement.)
Gwinnett, in recent years, has done its part for the GOP, sending
down mostly a Republican legislative delegation, to help push the
GOP efforts for takeover.
After the 2002 election, it appeared that the Democrats had barely
survived the Republican effort to win the Senate. But in a series
of four key party switches, all of a sudden the Republicans enjoyed
a 30-26 majority in the Senate. This came just after the General
Election voting in 2002, with the four key former Democrats becoming
Republican, to the howls of the Democrats. The GOP had sidestepped
what had appeared to be the Democratic safeguarding of that body
in the General Election.
In the House of Representatives, last year the Democrats maintained
a comfortable lead, 107-72-1 (an independent), frustrating efforts
by Republicans to get complete control, which the Democrats had
previously for years.
Then a new element came into the picture: a suit that challenged
the 2002 gerrymandering of Georgia's House and Senate. The courts
ruled the previous apportioning by the legislature was wrong, and
challenged the two bodies to do it right. But, since each party
controlled one of the two bodies, no agreement was reached, and
the federal courts drew its own election boundaries for the two
houses.
The upshot is that neither party appears to have an automatic advantage,
since what the federal court was seeking to draw were reasonable
and fair boundaries. (Thank goodness the federal boundaries did
away with really-odd shaped districts, and made the boundaries seem
reasonable.)
As soon as the court boundaries came out, the Republicans seemed
to have the better plan of attack to gain legislative control. They
sought more Democrats to switch parties, in order to keep control
of the Senate, and to perhaps gain control of the House.
What all this means is that with the new boundaries, neither party
is assured that they will win control of either house. The really
scary aspect is in primaries, which often have low turnouts. Key
legislators, running in new districts, might get sideswiped by newcomers,
of their own party, then have to face a General Election opponent.
The new boundaries are a real monkey wrench for both parties. No
one is safe!
So we await the General Election to see if the voters allow the
GOP to take control of both houses. The Republicans think their
time has come to gain this complete control that the Democrats had
for years. The GOP has yearned long for thisŠ.but will the
voters tell them they prefer a split Legislature, with neither party
having complete control? We'll find out in November if the Republican's
long wait for total control will ever be over.
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FEEDBACK
5/11: Does not subscribe
to idea that president is bungling fool
Editor, the Forum:
Much has been written about Bush being a bumbling, stupid fool.
I don't subscribe to that idea at all; in fact the man is a genius
who cleverly portrays himself as Joe Everyman, a "regular guy."
Howard Gardner, a Harvard researcher and author of books on "Multiple
Intelligences," has identified interpersonal genius in salespeople,
cheerleaders and politicians.
Bush is brilliant at hoodwinking the public and exploiting facts
and people to portray situations to his liking. Bush manipulated
Congress and the public to believe in a connection between Saddam
and terrorism, that WMDs were found in Iraq, that invading a country,
killing its citizens and destroying its infrastructure is a method
of instilling democracy, and that war is a humanitarian endeavor.
Using his genius to craft his super-slick sales pitch, Bush has
usurped power from the American people, taken tax dollars from the
poor and middle class and handed them to the wealthy and to donor
mega-corporations, and convinced many Americans to like him despite
all of this. Only a very savvy, clever salesman who cold-bloodedly
uses trusting people, their faith and their patriotism could have
accomplished these goals. George Bush is a genius.
-- Amelia Bird, Beverly Hills, Calif.
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION
From State Sen. Don
Balfour of Snellville
"I just finished Washington's Crossing by David Hackett
Fischer. This book brings to life the war that helped to found our
country. More specifically, how Washington started with 30,000 troops
but in Dec of 1776 he was down to less than 3,000 troops that were
under contract only until the end of the year. The books tells of
a country that was divided internally about the Revolution versus
being loyal to the Crown. Washington was an extraordinary leader.
"The next book I plan to read is "Ten Minutes from
Normal" by Karen Hughes, a close adviser to President George
W. Bush."
ENCYCLOPEDIA
TIDBIT
5/11: Just where did
that term "Crackers" come from?
The epithet cracker has been applied in a derogatory way, like
redneck , to rural, non-elite white southerners, more specifically
to those of south Georgia and north Florida. Folk etymology claims
the term originated either from their cracking, or pounding, of
corn (rather than taking it to mill), or from their use of whips
to drive cattle. The latter explanation makes sense, because in
piney-woods Georgia and Florida pastoral yeomen did use bullwhips
with "cracker" tips to herd cattle.
 The
true history of the name, however, is more involved and shows a
shift in application over time. Linguists now believe the original
root to be the Gaelic craic , still used in Ireland (anglicized
in spelling to crack ) for "entertaining conversation."
The English meaning of cracker as a braggart appears by Elizabethan
times, as, for example, in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What
cracker is this ... that deafes our ears / With this abundance of
superfluous breath?"
By the 1760s the English, both at home and in colonial America,
were applying the term to Scots-Irish settlers of the southern backcountry,
as in this passage from a letter to the earl of Dartmouth: "I
should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name
they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set
of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas,
and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." The word
then came to be associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida,
many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.
To access the Georgia Encyclopedia, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Who knows? Thackeray
indicates we all may be authors!
"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he
does not know till he takes up a pen to write."
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, passed along to Roy McCreary
of Dacula by the late M.L. St John of Atlanta.
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is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible
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