BRACK: Maps, breweries, nursing homes, NCAA and two losses 

The latest map puts Gwinnett in four congressional districts.

By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum

DEC. 19, 2023  |  The recently passed map by the Statehouse of Georgia state and federal legislative districts will be getting judicial scrutiny.  Republicans might brace themselves from not doing enough to make the districts equitable. If untenable, a special master must re-do the districts.

The current U.S. House districts would put Gwinnett into not one, two or three, but four different Congressional districts. For the sake of the voter’s understanding, it would be best to have Gwinnett in two such districts, since with over a million population, we outnumber having just one Congressional district.

But hey, by being in four districts, then the county can approach four members of Congress when they need Congressional action!  It’s not all bad!

Several local breweries have closed recently.  What it means is that too many have opened.  After all, even with the influx of newcomers, Gwinnett has never been a community like the television show “Cheers.”  Neighborhood bars are not as frequent here as they are in other parts of the county.

And what’s the worth of a local beer, when you can still get (though not very easily) Rolling Rock? 

The actions of politicians continually stump us.  So often, they seem to act illogically, proposing the very opposite of what they should be doing.

The most recent is an effort to relax senior and personal care home staff requirements. Yes, that’s at least the efforts of the owner-run Georgia Senior Living Association. “Cut the payroll, and make more money,” seems to be their mantra.  But they are cutting their own throats, for eventually people will stay away from poorly-run places. The very idea!

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is catching heat in several ways these days. (Ask Florida State!)  It should catch the devil. For years, rather than looking out for the college athletes, they have ensured that the college athletic programs and their staff have richly prospered beyond belief.

It all started, we feel, years ago when they began allowing freshmen to participate in intercollegiate sports their first year in college. Requiring the freshmen to sit out a year and get their early days of a basic education would have been a better way to go. 

And now they are even letting athletes compete for not just four years, but for five and six years. Red-shirting doesn’t help. Allowing athletes to transfer to other schools may seem reasonable, but it is causing maybe more trouble than it solves.  

And there is no doubt that the major cause of the problem is the big money that television brings to the NCAA. It has worked out so that the same major teams end up with the most money, and the continued domination of the same teams over and over and over.

There must be a better way for the NCAA to operate?  What’s your suggestion?

Some football fanatics are still moaning over the loss of a key football game recently. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. Your pain shows.

But what if your teams lost twice?  You see the two schools I graduated from, both lost: Iowa, to Michigan, 26-0, then even worse, Mercer, in small college playoffs, lost to South Dakota State’s Jackrabbits, 41-0. That’s right, neither team could even score! At least most of you only lost once.

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