OPINION Kerrville Daily Times, Monday, March 10, 1997 Page 4A Kerrville Daily TIMES THE NEWSPAPER OF THE HILL COUNTRY GREG SHRADER Editor and Publisher CLINT SCHROEDER MARGARET EDMONSON Managing Editor City Editor Editorials Center Point officials cast right vote on water grant votes enter in Commissioner Point the right Mayor Jannett direction Charles Pieper Young Thursday cast and their when they voted to pursue grant funding to bring a freshwater system to the East Kerr community. Currently, Center Point relies on two small local water companies, individual wells and septic systems. At the same meeting, Upper Guadalupe River Authority general manager Jim Brown told the commission that the town's wells and septic systems are deteriorating and pose health hazards. Regardless of how Center Point residents feel about the incorporation issue, they cannot disagree that these wells and septic systems are a problem. And whether Center Point is incorporated or not, free money is free money, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Already Center Point appears to be in good hands by tapping the services of Karen' Kibbe of Raymond K. Vann and Associates of Richmond, Texas. Kibbe was instrumental in bringing a $500,000 grant to Harper for a fresh water system. "This is a particularly opportune time to seek grants because the state is doubling up on such expenditures," Kibbe said. "It almost literally approves any grant application it receives at this time.
In subsequent years, chances of getting such funds could be considerably less." If nothing else comes out of the resurrection of Center Point government, let it be the development of a fresh water system for the residents that live there. Everyone needs water, and it has to be clean and free of pollutants. The current small water companies have to face the rigors of day-to-day operations and sometimes service has been interrupted for periods of time. While these water companies provide a valuable service, a centralized water system is the best thing that could happen to Center Point. Center Point leaders who are willing to take advantage of this opportunity are meeting the challenge of a growing, developing community.
While Young and Pieper might have stood on different sides of the fence when it comes to governing Center Point, their alliance on this issue shows they both have the best interests of the town at heart. Bible verse 66 And Jesus called a little dom of heaven." child unto him, and set him (Matthew in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, We must have the faith of a Except ye be converted, and child to become a child of God. become as little children, ye Have you put your faith in shall not enter into the king- Jesus? Mallard Fillmore by Bruce Tinsley "WE HOLD THESE 'THE ONLY TRUTHS TO BE FOUR SCORE THING WE SELF- EVIDENT THAT AND SEVEN HAVE TO FEAR "SHOW ALL MEN ARE YEARS IS FEAR THE CREATED EQUAL" ITSELF" 0 for We should try to get over our treatment of Africa Really, it is hard to deny that the West exercises racist policies. It does so by failing to reach logical conclusions about the turmoil in black Africa. We wait for Nelson Mandela to instruct us in the matter and, most recently, Keith Richburg, a black American journalist.
Do. you know where TingiTingi is? Well, neither does the world atlas The New York Times, though it lists villages as small as Sharon, population 2,000. Very deep in the day's news one, learns that last. Friday 17,000 refugees fled Tingi-Tingi." We learn that the town is 130 kilometers northwest of Ubundu. Ubundu is where United Nations relief planes have been attempting to land in order to deliver food to the Rwandans, Hutus and Zaireans engaged there in civil conflict, but the planes have had little luck with their enterprise because the Ubundan airstrip was last used in 1963.
Zaire's president, Mobutu Sese Seko, as everybody knows, is in the south of France looking after his prostate cancer. He is very indignant that more strenuous efforts are not being made to hold back the rebel forces that threaten his country. And indeed there is a movement to convene "international monitors" to the scene. That movement is spearheaded by Kenya's president, Daniel arap Moi, who has been in power for 19 years and likes it there. Nothing galvanizes dictaLetters to the Mediocrity not in sheriff's vocabulary To the Editor, tors more than the need to encourage stability for other dictators.
The Mwenze saying, could force, once Mobutu Mobutu than his gave as government not been we have since unreliable Kindu, stationed, since been paid is a long What bribery. Twenty-four tu arrived speech Assembly. endure York with of home, aides, ing for College is not for everyone. Neither i is Law Enforcement. Dropouts and flunk-outs are common to both.
Not every hopeful can meet the high standards required to be a part of the Kerr County Sheriff's Department. Only the best become permanent members, thanks to Sheriff Frances Kaiser. Mediocrity is not in her vocabulary. Under her leadership, our Sheriff's Department has become one of the best in Texas. BOyS, YES, SiR! Dick MORRIS, GREAT! IM SORTA MAy I HELP YOU? DENNiS ROPMAN, BETWEEN JOBS SLOBODAN RIGHT NOW, a IS THiS THE CAN you AGENCY THAT HOLD, SIR? REPRESENTS OKSANA Dick MORRIS? BAIUL'S ON THE OTHER LINE GAHER aol.com ME MONEY" Clinton William F.
Buckley Jr. On the Right rebels' "justice" official, Kongolo, is reported as "International monitors become an interposition and it would just result again in the protection of by his foreign friends." has difficulties other prostate. One deserter his reason for deserting forces that he had paid. Unpaid armies, been coached to learn Julius Caesar, are very allies. The banks in where the deserter was.
have not been open 1991. Teachers have not in three years, which time to go without pay. substitutes for it is years ago, Mobuin New York to give a before the U.N. General He took some care to his week's visit in New some of the comforts bringing along 63 including a lady-in-waithis wife, a maid, two editor In most places, those can't take it quietly and pursue it. Such is here! Failure in any form is and it is human nature everyone but themselves.
Perhaps these people port group in which they and complain to each As readers, we appreciate the Kerrville Daily Times sounding board for these As voters, we Sheriff Frances Kaiser. ly support both our County Sheriff's and protection they any price. We thank you for the valets, a radio editor, a TV editor, three cameramen, a photographer and a lighting engineer. He received, it is recorded, more applause during and after his speech than any other visiting dignitary during the 23rd General Assembly. His address, delivered in French and composed (intelligent observers deduced) by some Gallic sophist animated by hate and contempt for the West, excoriated the West for its treatment of Africa.
One of his points was that. American aid, to African students wasisimply a uous means of augmenting government spending in America, since those students spent their grants in America, and charged that it was humiliating to the African to be proffered aid in such undignified means. General Mobutu knows something about humiliation. During one of the civil wars in Zaire, he was about to suffer his throat cut by a contending black faction, and was saved from this indignity by a CIA officer who tossed him into a cellar to hide. Two important events of recent days may be a harbinger for relief.
The first is the summoning by Nelson Mandela of a half-dozen black African leaders to South Africa to explore Mandela's vision: of an all-black African mobile army that might be used to bring relief to such anguished trouble spots in recent months as Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Liberia, Uganda who can't make it or choose another path not the case around never pleasant, for losers to blame should form a.supcould gripe, whine other. the fact that has not become a malcontents. overwhelmingly elected As citizens, we firmsheriff and the Kerr Department. The security provide for us is worth honest and profes- Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau the list is wretchedly long. Mandela was spurned by Mobutu, presumably on the grounds that any organization that acknowledged, a need for military interposition in Africa threatens the stability of incumbent dictators, which is of course correct; it does, and should.
The second is a cultural event, the publication of Keith Richburg's book, "Out of America." The author is a black journalist with The Washington Post who spent three years in Africa and confronted almost every day the terrible' backwardness' of the; countries he visited, and" the' random cruelty. Africa is "a place' where the best and brightest minds languish in dark prison cells." Mr. Richburg's brief is primarily against his fellow black Americans, those of them who in designating themselves as "African Americans" invoke, as though there were cause to do so, an implied pride and respect for the life and culture of contemporary Africa. "Thank God," Richburg concludes in his book, "my nameless ancestor, brought across the ocean in chains and leg irons, made it out alive. Thank God I am an American." The condescension shown toward Africa (Mobutu was royally treated in 1973) gnaws at the edifice of reality and the idealism of the rule of law and democratic civility, and we should try to get over it.
Copyright 1997 Universal Press Syndicate sional treatment they continue to receive from the editor's desk. Keep the good news coming. We'd rather run with the winners than flounder with the failures. Frances J. Brown, Kerrville Write us Letters longer than 350 words are subject to rejection or editing; letters must carry the full, legible name of the writer and signature; letters must include an address and daytime phone number for verification; mail letters to the Kerrville Daily Times, 429 Jefferson Kerrville 78028; letters may be sent by e-mail to MR.
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