GwinnettForum | Number 21.51 | July 19, 2022
PREPARING FOR MEDICAL CAREER: Eight Georgia students recently graduated from the Pathway to Med School program at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville. For more on this program, see Notable below. The students are, from left, Sarah Fix, Benjamin Lemon, Sarah Monteiro, Hannah Nobles, Emily Pearson, Margaret Racine, Emily Steele and Nhat Nguyen.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Our democracy may be in trouble with today’s poorer newspapers
EEB PERSPECTIVE: New national suicide prevention phone line is 988
SPOTLIGHT: MTI Baths Inc.
FEEDBACK: Supreme Court has set the stage for turning USA backwards
UPCOMING: Masks now required while inside county facilities
NOTABLE: Gainesville hospital graduates eight in Pathway program
RECOMMENDED: We need your input with new recommendations!
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Scientists hoping to restore American Chestnut tree to maturity
MYSTERY PHOTO: You must look “up” to this week’s Mystery Photo
Our democracy may be in trouble with today’s newspapers
By Raleigh Perry
BUFORD, Ga. | Coming from a family in Chattanooga with a lot of newspaper people in it and having a newspaper on my breakfast and dinner tables, I have an appreciation of the printed media. There were two dailies. The Times in the morning and the Free Press in the afternoon. One leaned left, the other right.
Perry
My grandfather was an editor for a while with the Times and my uncle was an editor for the Free Press. My uncle bought a small weekly which he published while working at the Free Press. He did not compete; it basically ran legal advertisements .
My uncle died just after World War II and the management of that paper fell to my aunt, my grandmother’s sister. She ran the paper from then to late 1975. It had never lost a penny since its inception.
The problem today is that newspapers, per se, are falling by the wayside. Everyone that is interested in the news gets the blather from radio, television and now their phones and computers. Just looking at today’s New York Times and remembering the national/world news that was presented on CBS’ Evening News is shocking. The CBS news is about 15 minutes of news and 15 minutes of advertising. On most days, like today, it took me well over 30 minutes just to read the Times front page. That id is real news, while what is presented on CBS is somewhat trite.
I can remember when The Atlanta Constitution was a very good paper. It no longer has its own staff as it once did, and they have lots of stories from other newspapers of the Associated Press. There is little Atlanta (and almost no Gwinnett) coverage there. Today there are not only fewer stories, but many long (often boring) stories, often rehashed.
You think you are getting the news important from one of the news channels – CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX? If so, you miss a lot. The cable channels like MSNBC and CNN are more commentary and opinion on the news. The basic anchors of yesteryear, like Walter Cronkite and John Cameron Swazye, read the news without any obvious bias. And then the television news was more news than advertising.
Any daily newspaper should print more national and international news than it does. Most of what we get from overseas are condensed squidgets. And all too often in the AJC, all it tells me basically is how many people were shot in Atlanta or some other bizarre crime stories. It is easier (and cheaper) to present “emergency” news than hard-digging exposes.
The really sad part is that, without newspapers, people don’t get in-depth news, nor much news about the everyday working of government. That, in the long run, weakens our democracy, and not just a little bit, but tremendously. Can we recover this?
Yes, I get the AJC and the NYT in my driveway. I subscribe to the Washington Post online. I read articles from other papers as well as four other outlets online. I want all the news that is fit to print rather than some of the news that fits, we print.
I was raised by those who worked in the field, and once you get printer’s ink in your system, it never goes away.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
New national suicide prevention phone line is 988
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 19, 2022 | Here’s something that might be mighty important to some Gwinnettian. You can now access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline with a three digit telephone code, 988, providing quicker and easier access. The old number was 800-273-8255. To me, this really seems to be a major, and mighty important, change.
Now for some catching up: First, keeping up with the Braves. As noted here today elsewhere, newspapers are declining significantly. One particular way you can tell it is in sports reporting. Once one of the larger departments of the newsroom, today’s AJC sports is almost a ghost of itself. And where are the Furman Bishers or the Jesse Outlars? (Bisher passed in 2012 and Outlar in 2011.)
Consider coverage of the Atlanta Braves. With the newspaper’s earlier deadlines, night games are not reported the next morning anymore. You ought to be thankful that the Falcons and Atlanta United play mostly in the daytime, so as to be in the next morning’s paper. Luckily, you can easily follow golf and tennis that way, too.
But not baseball. The newspaper keeps promoting that we should use the online edition to keep up with late sports, but the dedicated-in-hands newspaper doesn’t think that way.
Of course, maybe we should, and that would give us the overnight scores. Maybe the drive of the Braves to overtake the New York Mets will spur us on checking the online morning paper. So far we haven’t.
Yet through the magic of the internet we found several quick, enjoyable ways of getting the Braves scores and highlights. There are several links to this type of information. Input “Braves-Nationals (date)” and click “Game Recap” to get the gist of the game.
Washing time: Another change: modern science continues to improve the way we do routine activities. Now we have found a way around lugging in those heavy plastic bottles of laundry detergent.
It’s called “Sheets.” Each sheet has detergent in it, and comes in a small recycled box of 50 for $14.99. It weighs seven ounces.
Compare that weight with a large detergent container, one in those bright orange colors. That comes in a 108 fluid ounce size (1.62 gallons). Now if water weighs 8.3 pounds a gallon, we figure that orange container comes in about 13-14 pounds. For sure, you know it when unloading your car.
So no more heavy lifting the detergent. Those we have talked to say the new method of Sheets works beautifully. No more heavy lifting. Go to https://sheetslaundryclub.com to check it out.
City budgets: Two of our Gwinnett cities have among the highest city budgets in Metro Atlanta.
The city of Atlanta had a proposed budget for 2023 of $745 million. The next highest is Marietta, with a budget of $392 million.
The City of Buford is the third-highest proposed budget for 2023 in Metro Atlanta, at $182,355,657. Lawrenceville ranks fourth at $172,520,402.
The main reason the Marietta, Buford and Lawrenceville budgets are so high is that all three operate enterprise funds. Marietta has extensive electric and water operations, while Buford and Lawrenceville both have electric and gas distribution operations included in their budgets. The city of Norcross has its own enterprise fund in electrical operations. Its 2022 total budget is $44,548,294.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
MTI Baths Inc.
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s featured sponsor is MTI Baths Inc. of Sugar Hill. MTI Baths is a manufacturer of high-quality acrylic and engineered solid surface bath products, including whirlpools, air and soaking baths; lavatories; shower bases; and kitchen sinks. MTI’s patented Fill-Flush® and Simple Touch® whirlpool cleaning systems are the best on the market. MTI now offers engineered solid surface–countertops and sinks. Every product is custom-made to order. We are now operating in an additional manufacturing plant of 38,000 square foot. CEO of the firm is Kathy Adams, while Russell Adams is president. MTI Baths was excited to be the project management for the Georgia Tech KOAN Project, John Portman’s final design of a sculpture) in Atlanta.
- Visit their web site at http://www.mtibaths.com/.
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.
Supreme Court has set the stage for turning USA backwards
Editor, the Forum:
The amendment when Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the 14th, (a real Independence Day), giving the Federal Government power to guarantee that state governments could not pass laws that allowed states to treat some people worse than others.
Following the Civil War, former Confederates in southern states were passing laws to force their Black neighbors back into subservience. These legislatures passed a series of laws known as the “Black Codes.” State legislators in 1865 regulated and structured how Black Americans worked, lived, worshiped, and conducted themselves, without any recourse in the law for protection when they were robbed, assaulted, raped, and killed.
Today the Supreme Court is setting the stage for turning the ship of state backward, returning to those dark age horrors!
Additionally, people (including 18, 19, and 20 year olds), will be able to use firearms to not only rape girls and women at gun point with impunity and commit mass murder with legally obtained weapons. But women, (no thanks to the Supreme Court) will be subject to prosecution in many states with medieval-backwoods-redneck state legislatures if they ameliorate a pregnancy.
The effects of recent Supreme Court rulings are pure sickness. There is an indication that there is more to come unless honest and thinking voters cast ballots intelligently with high principles, not base cruelty.
– Ashley Herndon, Oceanside, Calif.
- Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words, and include your hometown. The views of letters are the opinion of the contributor. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net.
Masks now required while inside county facilities
In response to increasing COVID-19 case numbers, Gwinnett County is requiring all employees and strongly encouraging visitors to wear face masks or face coverings while inside county buildings and facilities effective July 18.
Mask requirements for visitors inside courtrooms will be at the discretion of the presiding judge.
Gwinnett County’s COVID-19 Community Level — which is determined by hospital bed usage, hospital admissions and the total number of new COVID-19 cases in the community — is high. When community levels are high, the CDC recommends wearing a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status or individual risk.
The mandatory face mask policy for employees is intended to protect county workers as they provide essential services to the public, says County Administrator Glenn Stephens. “For two and a half years, our employees have adapted to provide running water, safe roads, emergency response and other critical services to residents,” said Stephens. “It is imperative that we keep our workforce safe to continue to deliver the superior quality services our residents expect and deserve.”
Gainesville hospital graduates 8 in Pathway program
Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) in Gainesville continues to help address a shortage of primary care providers across the state, as eight young students recently graduated from the Pathway to Med School program.
The Pathway to Med School program is a 4-week, residential program for undergraduate pre-medical students who attend Georgia institutions and intend on staying in the state to practice primary care. The program consists of 180 hours of clinical shadowing across the region, plus community-based research and instructional sessions. A total of 64 students have graduated from the program since it started in 2015. This year’s class and the colleges they attended includes:
- Sarah Fix, Fayetteville, Georgia College and State University;
- Benjamin Lemon, Macon, University of Georgia;
- Sarah Monteiro, Lawrenceville, Mercer University;
- Nhat Nguyen, Lilburn, University of Georgia;
- Hannah Nobles,McDonough, Georgia College and State University;
- Emily Pearson, Atlanta, University of Georgia;
- Margaret Racine, Atlanta, University of Georgia; and
- Emily Steele, Acworth,Georgia Southern University.
Missy Lochstampfor, director of Foothills Area Health Education Center (AHEC) – the organization that coordinates the Pathway to Med School program—says: “This program would not be possible if not for 18 current primary care providers and other clinicians giving more than 600 hours of their time to help these graduates get hands-on experience. Every year I am encouraged to see our primary care providers and students working together for the good of our region. I wish all of our students the best and look forward to watching them succeed in their careers.
There are currently 11 counties in the state without a family medicine physician, 37 counties without an internal medicine physician, 63 counties without a pediatrician physician and 75 counties without an OB/GYN physician. The Pathway to Med School program supports students interested in pursuing careers that will meet those needs.
- For more information about the Foothills AHEC Pathway to Med School program, visit foothillsahec.org/ptms.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
We need your input with new recommendations!
Help! We’re out of recommendations. Send us a review of what you have read, eaten, seen or heard. We need your input!—GwinnettForum.
- An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Scientists hoping to restore American Chestnut tree
(From previous edition)
The chestnut tree blight reached Georgia in the 1940s. Wounds in the bark allow fungal mycelia from germinated spores to penetrate living cells quickly.
American chestnut can still be found in eastern forests today, because it continues to resprout from surviving root systems. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata ) was one of the most prevalent and valuable trees in the eastern forests of the United States. The chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica), accidentally introduced around 1900, killed most of the mature trees in the natural range of the species, and today the species exists mainly as an understory shrub. Efforts currently underway in Georgia and other states, however, may eventually result in the restoration of American chestnuts to eastern forests.
A number of approaches for combating the disease have been attempted, including (1) searching for naturally occurring heritable resistance in American chestnut; (2) breeding American chestnut trees with resistant Chinese and Japanese species to generate resistant hybrids; (3) irradiating seeds with gamma rays in the hope of producing blight-resistant mutants; (4) investigating hypovirulent strains of the fungus (that is, strains infected by a virus that debilitates the fungus and lowers its virulence);, and (5) developing a system for engineering American chestnut with genes that might confer blight resistance. Some of these approaches appear promising.
The American Chestnut Foundation’s backcross breeding program has produced trees carrying blight-resistance genes from Chinese chestnut but with a growth habit close to that of their American chestnut parents, which supply 15/16 of their genome. Scientists at the University of Maryland are testing an approach that may lead to more rapid spread of the virus responsible for hypovirulence in the fungus: they have inserted a DNA copy of the viral RNA into the fungus, allowing the virus to spread sexually.
Scientists at the University of Georgia and at the State University of New York have produced tissue cultures of American chestnut that are capable of producing thousands of structures called somatic embryos. Once the ability to produce genetically engineered American chestnut trees has been demonstrated, genes that have been shown to confer resistance to disease-causing fungi in other plant species can be tested in American chestnuts.
In 2006 a stand of American chestnut trees, estimated to be between 20-30 years old, was discovered in Pine Mountain near Warm Springs. Composed of six 44-tall trees, the stand is the southernmost representative of the species able to produce flowers and nuts. Pollen from the trees is expected to help scientists produce a breed resistant to the chestnut blight fungus. However, the tree rarely reaches 30 feet or produces nuts before it is attacked and killed by the fungus, which also infects the Allegheny chinkapin (Castanea pumila) and some species of oaks.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
You must look “up” to this week’s Mystery Photo
Instead of a lighthouse at low levels, let’s look up this week at this gorgeous snow-capped mountain. No doubt many GwinnettForum readers have seen it. Now, exactly where is it? Send your answer to elliott@brack.net and include your hometown.
Lou Camerio of Lilburn was the first to recognize a lighthouse in Burlington, Vt., on Lake Champlain. It was sent to us by Catherine Brack of Charleston, S.C.
Two others, George Graf of Palmyra, Va. and Allan Peel of San Antonio spotted it. Peel wrote: “Today’s mystery photo is of the Burlington Breakwater North Light located 2,000-feet west of the Waterfront Park along the northernmost tip of the man-made breakwater in Burlington Bay, Vermont. The breakwater is on the National Register of Historic Places, but the lights, being replicas, are not. The two lights were replaced and rebuilt several times as fire and ice took their toll. In the middle of the 20th century, the wood towers were replaced by steel skeleton towers.
“In 1857, two wooden lighthouses were initially constructed on the ends of the breakwater to mark the harbor entrances. Neither lighthouse lasted very long and new lighthouses were needed. In 1890, two stronger lighthouses were placed at either end of the detached breakwater. Both towers stood for over 100 years until they were replaced in 2003. The Burlington Breakwater North Light is 35-feet high with a range of 7-nautical miles flashing every 2.5 seconds.”
GwinnettForum is provided to you at no charge every Tuesday and Friday.
Meet our team
- Editor and publisher: Elliott Brack, 770-840-1003
- Managing editor: Betsy Brack
- Roving photographer: Frank Sharp
- Contributing columnist: Jack Bernard
More
- Mailing address: P.O. Box 1365, Norcross, Ga. 30091
- Work with us: If you would like to learn about how to be an underwriter to support the publication of GwinnettForum as a community resource for news and commentary, please contact us today.
Subscriptions to GwinnettForum are free.
- Click to subscribe.
- Unsubscribe. We hope you’ll keep receiving the great news and information from GwinnettForum, but if you need to unsubscribe, go to this page and unsubscribe in the appropriate box.
© 2022, Gwinnett Forum.com. Gwinnett Forum is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible social, political and economic approaches to improve life in Gwinnett County, Ga. USA.
Follow Us