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TODAY'S
ISSUE
Relay for Life breaks
own records, again tops in country
By Mary Root and Dwayne Downs
2005 Gwinnett Relay for Life co-chairs
Special to GwinnettForum.com
JULY 15, 2005 -- Thanks to thousands of caring, generous people
in Gwinnett County Georgia, the American Cancer Society Relay For
Life in Gwinnett broke its own records for fundraising and survivors
in 2005. For the third time in the past four years, the Gwinnett
Relay, raised more than $2 million in the fight against cancer.
This year's $2,213,273 total as of June 24 is our best year. It
raised the 12-year total of monies contributed in Gwinnett to almost
$15 million!
Across the country - and even the world - event planners look to
Gwinnett as a model and are in awe of the dollars raised and numbers
of people involved. With more than 4,300 Relay For Life events in
the U.S., being number one is a pretty big deal. And being number
one all but one year in the past eight years is an even bigger deal.
Event staff and volunteer leaders from events like those in Lancaster,
Pa. and Australia/New Zealand often visit Gwinnett to see how we
do it. They quickly see that the depth of participation from across
the county is part of the secret.
They are awed by the students, teachers, administrators, bus drivers,
and parents from Gwinnett County schools who participate in and
support the American Cancer Society through Relay For Life. They
are bowled over by the dollars the school teams raise ----- nearly
half the total event income. Few events can boast of a group like
Norcross High School whose teams raised more than $60,000.
Visitors marvel at the teams from hospitals, churches, doctor's
offices, police and sheriff offices, libraries, subdivisions, power
companies, road construction, real estate and other businesses.
Altogether, these totaled the 550 plus teams this year.
And they can't believe the number of survivors - more than 1,700
this year - who walk the first lap at Relay on Friday evening to
celebrate their victories over cancer. Many can attribute their
survivorship to the dollars the American Cancer Society has invested
through the years for research and education.
Our visitors want to know how the Mothers and Daughters Against
Cancer (MADAC) teams raised more than $45,000 and how they set the
bar higher and higher each year for the Team Spirit Award.
They look at the impressive list of sponsors who support Relay
and want to learn how to snare a signature sponsor like Scientific
Atlanta, that raised $150,000 through sponsorship, teams and matching
funds.
They wonder what inspires people like attorney Gary Martin Hays
who joined with Athens, Ga. radio station, WNGC Country 106.1 DJ
Tim Cicerelli to promote this year's area Relays by riding adult
big wheels from the Gwinnett Chamber offices to the Fairground the
day of the event.
They are motivated by the more than 50 volunteers on Gwinnett's
Relay steering committee and the hundreds of other volunteers who
make the Relay happen every weekend after Mothers' Day in May.
Thank you, Gwinnett County for making our Relay the best, anywhere.
The world has heard about your dedication, energy, enthusiasm, devotion,
generosity, creativity, and caring love. Gwinnett is number one
because of you!
ELLIOTT
BRACK
Court nominee speculation is much ado about
nothing
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com
JULY 15, 2005 -- All the hubbub over who President Bush will nominate
to the Supreme Court is to us not worth our time in speculation.
Here's why: no matter from which area of the political spectrum
the president picks his nominee to the court to replace Sandra Day
O'Connor, there's no reliable way to determine how the nominee will
eventually vote on cases before the court. And judging from some
of the current justices sitting on the court, the presidents who
nominated them must have for years scratched their heads, or later
"rolled over in their graves," at the decisions these
justices made.
Remember the appointment to the Supreme Court of the land is for
life. And when a person is operating with that tenure of office,
the mind of the justice works in a different light than if that
person had a limited term. The upshot is that often the justice
starts to render decisions that are a far cry from the way he or
she was expected to vote.
Granted, some justices can usually be counted on to be conservative
or liberal in their views. But every now and then, even judges we
anticipate seeing in certain corners may find some quirk in his
or her interpretation of the law so as to land that justice siding
with often-surprised fellow justices.
Perhaps the best example on the current court is Justice Paul Stevens,
nominated by President Reagan, and expected to be steady in his
views of a conservative interpretation of the Constitution. Far
from it; he is today deeply sided with the more liberal view.
Who would have thought? More recently, Justice David Souter, nominated
to the Court by the first President Bush in 1990, expected to be
a "restrained jurist," turns out to be what some consider
more open and reasonable judge, with leanings from the center to
the left.
The web site OYEZ says "To this day, Souter has demonstrated
a moderate jurisprudence though he has not appeared afraid to wander
deep into either camp along the political spectrum. Court watchers
continue to be amused by Souter's eccentric habits and behaviors."
Or consider Justice Paul Stevens, appointed by President Gerald
Ford.
Of him OYEZ says:
As a justice, Stevens has avoided simple conservative or liberal
labels. As the Court moved toward the right during the Reagan and
Bush presidencies, however, Stevens appeared more and more liberal
relative to the make up of the Court. … Stevens will typically
examine the facts of each case carefully and on their own merits……He
has demonstrated considerable judicial restraint and deference to
the Congress.
What seems assured is that no matter who court the nominee of the
president is, that their impact on cases before the court could
go in any direction. The best part of their job is that it is a
lifetime appointment. This gives these judges their independence.
It speaks to the balance of powers within government. Independence
allows them to ponder cases to the extent of their abilities, with
no threat of ramifications by others.
Our system for bringing justices to the court works, sometimes
flying in the face of those who seek to manipulate it.
So let it work. Just look at all this hoopla and speculation of
who the nominee will be, and which group will be benefited by the
appointment of any specific person, as all being, in the words of
Shakespeare, "Much ado about nothing."
McLEMORE'S
WORLD
7/15: Taking
it with you
Another great cartoon for Bill McLemore:
FEEDBACK
7/15: Everyone
would benefit by sitting by a soldier on a plane
Editor, the Forum:
We recently flew out of the Atlanta airport to head to a trip out
west. We were seated by some soldiers, one directly next to us,
one sitting in front of us. They were both going home. For two weeks.
One to see his fiance, one to see his newborn son. We started talking
with them as they described their situations...one was saying to
imagine holding a turned-on hot hair dryer on your face, all day,
that was what what it felt like over there often...(my problems
were promptly put in perspective!),...they had already lost ten
men in their unit...there were always street bombs that could go
off any minute...
I found myself listening and also wishing they could sit in first
class, and yet I was happy to have a chance to hear their hearts,
the hearts of heroes.
On a cheerier note, they had brought many of the citizens "happy
bags" that were filled with medicine or food or little blessings
and gifts, those went over very well,...as he talked, my eyes darted
to his bracelet worn with pride, Fight for Freedom. I told him i
truly appreciated all they were doing and all he simply said was
"Someone has to do it." Everyone should sit by such a
Someone. Everyone should sit by a soldier. Sometime.
-- Cindy Evans, Duluth
7/15: Remains not a
fan of Chastain Park after one incident
Editor, the Forum:
You know, speaking of the Keillor incident at Chastain, I've felt
the same way and haven't been back since 1996 when a Chicago show
was ruined by a bunch of clinking glasses and loud talking from
the front tables. Somehow security never got down to the front tables
during that show either; never been back and most likely never will.
-- Anthony Rivera, Suwanee
UPCOMING
CEO of Inhibitex
to be Technology Forum speaker Tuesday
Speaker for the July 19 meeting of the Gwinnett Technology Forum
will be Dr. William D. Johnston, president and chief executive officer
of Inhibitex.
The meeting, sponsored by the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, will
be at 7 a.m. at the Scientific-Atlanta Auditorium on the campus
of Gwinnett Technical College at the George Busbee Center. Dr. Johnson
will lead a discussion on "My IPO Road Show." There is
no charge to attend this Forum.
RECOMMENDED
READ
- An invitation: What Web sites or books have you enjoyed?
Send us your best recent read along with a short paragraph as
to why you liked it, plus what book you plan to read next. --eeb
GEORGIA
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sandhill area once
unproductive, can now see useful foliage
Sandhills are found on the fall line in Georgia and along the northern
and eastern banks of large Coastal Plain streams in Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, and North and South Carolina. They are distinct both as
a landform and in the types of vegetation they support. Visually,
the sandhills are often striking as islands of exposed sand and
sparse vegetation in the midst of denser forest. Although soils
across the southeastern Coastal Plain are typically sandy, sandhills
are characterized by thicker sandy deposits 1 to 25 meters deep.
An open, dwarf forest or savannah of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris),
turkey oak (Quercus laevis), and wiregrass (Aristida beyrichiana)
is the most common vegetation on these dunes. Several species of
evergreen oak and woody evergreen shrubs as well as many drought-adapted
grasses and herbaceous species complete the sandhill flora. Sandhills
also form the prime habitat of Georgia's state reptile, the gopher
tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), and of the endangered eastern indigo
snake (Drymarchon corais).
 Fall-line
sandhills differ in origin from the riverine sandhills of the Coastal
Plain. Sandhills of the fall line date from the Miocene Epoch (about
25 million years B.C.), when they formed the ancient coastline of
the Atlantic Ocean. Riverine sandhills, smaller in extent and less
continuous in occurrence, formed when sand from exposed river bottoms
was deposited on the northeast banks of Coastal Plain rivers and
streams during the Holocene (8,000 years ago to present) and Pleistocene
(1.8 million to 8,000 years ago) eras. Dune soils are 95 percent
quartz sand and are nutrient-poor, highly permeable, and extremely
low in water-holding capacity.
Because sandhills are very unproductive sites, in the past most
were maintained as islands of native vegetation. Since the mid-twentieth
century, however, many sandhills, both fall line and riverine, have
been converted to pine plantations or bermuda grass pasture (usually
with the application of fertilizer), and occasionally to agricultural
fields or residential developments. Even relatively undisturbed
sandhills suffer from human intervention. Until recent years, fire
had an important role in maintaining an open, parklike landscape,
but fire suppression has now reduced the populations of gopher tortoise
and other species of plants and animals that require open sandhill
habitat.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
View if the difference
in knowledge and wisdom
"Knowledge is knowing the answer; wisdom is understanding
the answer."
-- Our first president, George Washington, via Roy McCreary,
Dacula.
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is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible
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