The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 28

2C CONVERSATIONS Sunday, April 24, 2011 i The Times shreveporttimes.com LOmSITUsTA; BUDGET PROCESS wait DON'T CUT THAT PAPT OF THE MISSION STATEMENT: Conversations provides a town square for community discussions, in print and online. Readers are invited to fill these spaces with words that inform, question and challenges we all seek to better understand issues and each other. The Conversations staff will routinely be in the community, listening and reporting. The Times Editorial Board will provide informed daily commentary, often to persuade but 1 always to provoke wider discussion to help us build a better community. Editorial pi? etoite Hi David WrightThe Times LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Drawing line on government help can be tricky task Re: "$100 shoes are not a necessity" Although I agree with several of the points made by Deegie K.

Lawless in her March 22 opinion, I immediately assumed that Ms. Lawless has no use or would not take advantage of some of the government programs that she seems to be criticizing. I wonder if Ms. Lawless will refuse to apply for her Social Security benefits when she is eligible Hall, Monday, May 2, at 7 p.m. The public is invited.

Sheldon Goldsholl Shreveport Jindal continues his contradictory ways According to State Treasurer John Kennedy, who appeared on the Moon Griffon radio program on Thursday, the state hired consultants to provide information about the need for another hospital in New Orleans and the costs. Their own paid consultants told Jindal and LSU that the area would only support a hospital with around 330 beds and if they built anything bigger than that, it would go bankrupt Despite this, Jindal has already had a groundbreaking ceremony on a new state hospital. This is the kind of insanity that continually contradicts what Jindal says and what he actually does. If they go forward and build a 424-bed hospital and it goes broke as their own consultants predict, the state will have to step in and take over. Who in their right mind starts a business knowing full well it's likely going to fail? A "Roads" Scholar Governor in Louisiana, that's who.

God help us! George H. Poleman III Shreveport Rose Van Thyn leaves legacy of mutual respect As we approach the third anniversary of the establishment of the Van Thyn Professorship at Centenary College, it seems appropriate to examine the basis for the tremendous influence that Rose Van Thyn brought to bear on the everyday thinking of many Shreveporters. Why, we might ask, did she evoke so much respect and admiration among us? In spite of the mental and physical ordeals she was forced to endure in the Nazi death camp, she never exhibited vengeful hatred. What could have been hate gave way to tolerance and understanding. Her motto was, "Never give this explained her ability to recover from the abyss of Hell and to share her experiences.

As she explained to her admiring audiences, her motive was to spread her message of forgiveness and respect for humanity. In continuing the professorship's pledge to expand the meaning of democracy in our city, we are honored to present Dr. Anil Nanda, noted neurosurgeon and speaker, who will share his thoughts with us. This event will be held at Centenary College in the Whited Room of Bynum since it is a government program. I also assume that she will not use her Medicare benefits when she reaches age 65.

By the same reasoning, I am sure on her next road trip she will avoid all the Interstate highways, since state and federal funds financed the construction of those highways. Ms. Lawless states that "I do not think we should not have 'some' social programs and help." Where do we draw the line? I applaud her comment that "we can learn a social lesson from the Japanese people in humility and also a lesson in survival." There are many charitable organizations helping and supporting the tragedy in Japan as well as many governments around the world. Joel Duskin Shreveport Where a steep budget drop should push Louisiana to reforms, it sometimes pushes us to gimmickry to delay the pain. One example is the governor's idea to sell off state assets, in this case prisons, to raise $86 million of the $1.6 billion needed to balance next year's state budget.

It's among the almost $475 million in one-time money the Bobby Jindal administration proposes to plug holes in recurring expenses in his $2 4.9 billion budget. That strategy in turn demands a gimmick to deny the governor this fiscal escape hatch. We like the intent behind a bill co-authored by state Rep. Jim Morris, R-Oil City, to require a difficult-to-muster two-thirds vote to use one-time revenues. But House Bill 189 seems to substitute device for discipline.

And though this long foretold budget crisis doesn't count as an unexpected emergency, real ones can pop iip. Lack of control, of course, is the same reason so much of the state's money is constitutionally dedicated; voters didn't trust government to make the right decisions. So lawmakers and the governor are left mostly to whack away at health care a critical need and economic engine for our high-poverty state or higher education our best path to a better future. Several area lawmakers are making the right noises We can't blink! about the Legislature finally getting it right this year. Better to make the hard calls now on state services that best serve the state in the long run.

But there also needs to be a realistic appraisal of the revenue needed to sustain them. Those choices are best served not strictly through ideology or pragmatism, but a mix of the two. Consider that the governor's hard line on taxes no new ones or increases in existing levies. Too often his professed stance puts him in a corner contrived of inconsistent logic. His anti-tax hard line was mocked last year over a $15 increase in the cost of a driver's license, while college tuition hikes brought similar complaints.

And do fiscal conservatives lean on one-time windfalls as a sustainable budget model? Meanwhile, the governor will pick up his ideological pen to veto legislation that would extend 4 cents of the current sales tax on cigarettes past its 2012 sunset date. The extension fits his definition of a tax increase. I Never mind that Louisiana's 36-cents-per-pack cigarette tax is the third lowest in the country and that such taxes can be part of a sound health policy to reduce smoking. Few-; er smokers also would relieve some demand on state health services. As lawmakers descend on Baton Rouge on Monday for the start of their regular session, we don't envy their task.

Meeting with The Times Editorial Board last week, state Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, said this budget moment should drive us to "correct the size of state government." State Sen. Sherri Cheek, R-Keithville, warned that cuts to health care and higher education can have a decade of adverse effects for northwest Louisiana. They're both right. Service rather than leadership icans face and who represents a majority African-American legislative district, be against creat ing a new minority district here in Shreveport? Isn't it obvious? Well, spell it out for you.

The new legislative district would have been shifted to include parts of Southern Hills. '4 Kameko Thomas Guest Columnist Dr. Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month and author of "The Mis-education of the Negro," said this of those who sought leadership through the eyes of the public, as opposed to doing the work of a public servant: "He is restricted in his sphere to small things, and with this he becomes satisfied. His ambition does not rise any higher than to plunge into the competition with his fellows for these trifles.

At the same time, those who have given the race such false ideals are busy in the higher spheres frpm which Negroes by their mis-education and racial guidance have been disbarred." I mention this because I'd first like to set the stage for both irony and blatant hypocrisy on behalf of state Rep. Barbara Norton. I won't insult your intelligence by going over the facts concerning redistricting here in Louisiana. By now, everyone knows the resulting loss in the state's population necessitated redrawing legislative districts. Every politician who had something to gain by keeping things as they are shamelessly jockeyed for position.

And Ms. Norton was no different I have a question for you: Why would an African-American politician, understanding the stark political realities African-Amer- The Times 222 Lake St. Shreveport, Louisiana 71101 shreveporttimes.com want the people she claims to represent to be able to choose for themselves who their representative should be. It would be one thing if Ms. Norton's record was beyond impeccable, or even consistently on the side of righteousness, but it's far from that This is the person who, not long after being elected, was caught voting on behalf of absent colleagues to help secure herself a pay raise, had the audacity to invite Hurricane Chris (who, incidentally, happens to be her godson) to the floor of the state Legislature to perform (on taxpayer dollars, no less) a song that would be considered degrading and disrespectful to any woman with a working brain and wait for it when confronted with the damage that publicity stunt did to the state, basically stated that since Louisiana was always a joke in the eyes of the nation, there really wasn't anything she could have done that would have made things worse.

I certainly beg to differ. Now Ms. Norton sided with those who opposed creating another minority district Was this the act of a woman of the people? Or was this the act of a female only looking out for her self-interests? You decide. Kameko Thomas lives in Shreveport. Editorial Board Pete Zanmiller Africa Price Executive Editor agpricegannett.com fij Need I say more? This change in her voting demographic, especially in light of the state Legislature's desire to have these changes approved and implemented in time for October elections, spelled trouble for Ms.

Norton. Her concern was that she wouldn't be a "shoo-in" for re-election under the newly drawn district. And in her desperation to maintain the tenuous grip on her "trifles," she betrayed her constituents by siding with Republicans in their efforts to further dilute African-Americans' right to fair and proper representation. That's right folks. Barbara Norton, who's run numerous times for every public office imaginable throughout the years, produces the African-American History Parade every year and holds an annual shoe drive for underprivileged youths, doesn't Curtis Heyen Craig Durrett Editorial Page Editor cdurrettf9gannett.com Assistant Editorial Page Editor Community members: Lynn Cawthorne, Aubrey Lurie and Don Spalding.

Editorials reflect the views of The Times Editorial Board. CONTACT US We welcome comments on editorials, columns, other topics in The Times. Letters must include name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The 222 Lake St. Shreveport, LA 71101; Fax: (318) 459-3301; E-mail: shreveportopinion(3gannettcom..