Columnists

Business: Mid-Year Economic Update

lydia.senn — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:02:54 -0700

In January of this year I wrote an article for this publication titled "What to expect in '08". Now that we have reached the half way point of 2008, I thought it would be a good idea to see how the economy is doing compared to what we expected to happen this year.

Are things going as predicted?

Opinion: What's a Lowly Commuter to Think?

liz.flowers — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:47:17 -0700

So you live in North Fulton, and you are one of those poor drones who schleps long distances back and forth each day. Gas prices have eclipsed four dollars per gallon, and short of switching to a Vespa, you feel helpless to do anything about it.

If you watch the talking heads on news shows you are hearing from one side that we need to open up as much federal land as possible – on and offshore – to increase domestic oil reserves.

The other side says that is poppycock. They say it will take a decade or more to create new reserves, which will do nothing to help short-term prices.

Connecting the Dots

lydia.senn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:32:32 -0700

For moment we thought Newt Gingrich had reformed. There was our ex-congressman and former Speaker o the House on C-Span agreeing with Sen. John Kerry on the need to sharply reduce our greenhouse emissions. And then he was on a public service announcement with no less than the current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the same message.

No Time Like the Present to Think About Dying

lydia.senn — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:19:00 -0700

As most people will attest to in these harried times, there is little time in any given day to think about much else beyond the crisis in front of you. Making deadlines, getting the kids to all their activities and homework, trying to get ahead at the office and having some semblance of a social life means we are spending far more time than ever trying to keep all the balls in the air.

Americans surpassed the rest of the world in 1999 for the longest work hours; Japan fell to second place that year.

English in the Work Place: Common Sense

lydia.senn — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:07:38 -0700

“Common sense is not so common,” once said philosopher Voltaire. One of the greatest concerns for my constituents is the growing scarcity of common sense in government. People have begun to lose faith in Washington because even the seemingly obvious course of action too often gets bogged down with paradoxical regulations and political correctness. No greater evidence is needed than the current push by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to stifle the use of the English language in American workplaces.

Does Foxworthy Know As Much as a Fifth Grader?

lydia.senn — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:00:59 -0700

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy was talking the other night on one of the cable news channels about why he supports the Iraq occupation. Now just to back up for a moment, Foxworthy is best known for his hilarious “You know you’re a redneck…” routine. More recently he’s hosted a quiz show where adult contestants try to answer questions from a fifth grade examination. If the contestant get’s it wrong, he or she has to face the camera and accept the humiliation of admitting, “I am not smarter than a fifth grader.”

Time for Voters to Rally Around McCain

lydia.senn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:03:45 -0700

Originally published March 14, 2008.
As we watch Sen. Hillary Clinton, Hill, Hillary Rodham, or whatever politically advantageous nickname she wants us to call her today, and Sen. Barack Obama fight for their party’s nomination, I must admit that both of them are showing their party’s true identity.

Much like John Kerry in 2004 both of these candidates are not sure where they stand on most issues, when they should take a stand on any issue, and in which state they should take any stand at all.

Opinion: Pass the Prozac, Please

liz.flowers — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:10:02 -0700

Two days after the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and Mulkey Engineers and Consultants held their second public workshop at Mt. Pisgah Church to champion improvements on the Old Alabama Road corridor, the chairman of GDOT, Mike Evans, held a press conference downtown to release a new report that says the state faces a $51 billion transportation shortfall through 2035. Bummer.

But the bad news didn’t stop there.

Cold War Re-do?

liz.flowers — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:59:05 -0700

Americans are all surprised that the Russians are calling our plan to build an anti-missile shield along their eastern border a provocation. After all, say the Americans, we are just trying to protect ourselves from a sneak attack.

Or are we?

If the Russians are really going to attack us using missiles, the shortest distance would be over the Arctic Circle, not across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. But that’s not where the missile-defense system is going.

Drought, drought go away

liz.flowers — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:59:49 -0700

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?”

I don’t normally go to Joni Mitchell to refine my ideological view of the world, but her old song about the yellow taxi taking away her boyfriend pretty much sums up the trouble with dwindling resources: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone!”