The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • 26

Sp fr- Opinions D2 Sunday, November 4, 2007 www.thetowntalk.comoplnlon Town Talk THE TOW TALK IS fcl THE DRUG- CwMx RESISTANT '7J a INFECTION KfcmDFIRE Mill I .1. Ed Humphrey President and Publisher Paul V. Carty Executive Editor Cynthia D. Jardon Editorial Page Editor Editorial opinion expressed in the column below is that of the Editorial Board of The Town Talk. Comment in signed columns, cartoons and letters on this page is the viewpoint of the author.

Except for signed columns, contents of other pages in the newspaper have been prepared to be factual, informative, fair and objective. When we err, we will publish a correction. Founded March 17, 1883 For Mom, life is always about an adventure Good morning. Today is Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007.

It should be a beautiful autumn day, a perfect day to remember things. Some of my best memories are about the "adventures" mat Mom took us on when we were all a lot younger. We visited beaches, lakes, cottages and cousins the six kids strategically seated in the car to accommodate left-handers and occasional car sickness; sandwiches, Sea Ski and Kool-Aid packed with plastic pails and shovels in the trunk; some kind of chatter on the AM radio, and Mom behind the wheel. Dad? He was usually home, working to make sure the checks cleared and "relaxing" so he said by painting the house and rearranging the furniture, trying to make best use of a house that had to suit the ever-changing needs of three boys and three girls who were bom within seven years and 17 days of each other. On occasion during our vacations and road KILLING THOUSANDS ITTIA1T I the public t-w mm.i A Quo! Left alone, our many biases can be our worst enemies trips, we got lost, although none of us ever felt the anxiety of being lost.

When we were lost, we were on an "adventure." That was MomSpeak for "part of the run is getting there." She was right. To this day, I usually enjoy going somewhere at least as much as I enjoy being there I believe we all are prejudiced in one way or another. That means I am prejudiced, too. The definition is more than inclusive. According to Webster's, "prejudice" is defined are willing to listen to their own good sense, not to the indoctrination and claptrap of others.

Prejudice often is grounded in fear despite the defiant swaggering and false bra Paul Carty pcartythetowntalk.com (318)487-6370 and sometimes more. The trip itself can be I 1 I Lhhh- mmm vado seen among those who put their racism on parade. Fear of the unknown holds power over people. We're conditioned from birth to fear that which we can't see or don't understand be it the God who has power over life and death, the monster in the closet or the stranger down the street. We make assumptions, often without realizing we have done so, based on what is nor in three ways: an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason; any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable; or unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious or national group.

Who among us has never jumped to a conclusion about Cynthia Jardon cjardonthetowntalk.com (318)487-6376 OUR VIEW Little ones hold the key to big challenges A bright spot in Louisiana is its commitment to early childhood education, an effort that started in earnest in 2002 and has grown significantly under the guidance of Gov. Kathleen Blanco. From the start of her first and only term as governor, Blanco has been steadfast in her commitment to improving education at all levels in Louisiana and strategic about investing in programs that will reap the greatest rewards. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the success of "LA 4," the state's initiative to improve early childhood education. LA 4, named for its emphasis on 4-year-olds, is a remarkable program that has earned national recognition and given Louisiana a much-needed badge of honor.

LA 4 is giving children the leg up they needs to succeed in school, the single-most important thing in the future of an individual. An individual's success in school means everything to that individual's success in life. It also portends larger successes for communities. With education, health stands to improve, the economy is positioned to flourish, the social fabric is more tightly stitched, and civic engagement increases. The quality(of life, for all, improves.

Virtually forever, Louisiana's public schools have been the bottom-feeders in education. Our students and our state have suffered as a result. That reality has become exponentially more prob-lematic as the economy has shifted and made new demands on employment and investment. Agriculture and "extraction" drilling, timbering, mining and so on remain important, especially as the state and the nation feed more and more of the world. But the growth in employment that pays well and anticipates the future is elsewhere.

In the Information Age, what counts is knowledge and the ability to learn. An effective pre-K program helps children develop socialization skills, relationships, independence, communication and more. Every child's innate desire to learn is nurtured, and each one moves ahead ready, willing and eager to learn more and more. Gov. Blanco deserves much credit for the state's progress in this area.

She appreciates and understands the absolute need for education and lifelong learning. She is sharing that dedication and enthusiasm as she prepares to leave office and as U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, prepares to move into the Governor's Mansion. Jindal will take the handoff easily and run with it, no doubt, as he is an acolyte of education from day one.

More than anything else, Louisiana must keep its collective eye on this and make sure that leaders and lawmakers make the right decisions for the future of the state. The future is in our children, and their future is in the classroom. interesting and restful; and I have thought about that many times while driving all over the country for the fun of it or while taking the long way to get a cup of coffee. The adventures with Mom were great, and they have been on my mind a lot since finding out that she has parked her car, perhaps for good. While talking on the phone two weeks ago, she said she "had a scare" while returning from the market.

The market probably Gentile's (pronounced "jen-TTLL-eez) Market can't be more than a mile from her front door. But it might as well have been a million miles away that day. She said she forgot where she was for a moment that lasted too long. "That's a different kind of adventure," I said with kind of a halfway laugh. She got back home OK, but has not driven her car since.

My sisters have jumped in to make sure she gets where she needs to go. This is the right thing, and I've known for 30 years that Mom would hang up her car keys when the time was right. Thirty years ago, I was driving a cab part time in a college town and enjoying taking care of my "regulars." They included a woman who lived alone and used a wheelchair to get around. I picked her up around 6 on weekday mornings, drove her to the main library, and escorted her through the entrance. Another regular was a woman whose husband was disabled.

She worked as a bookkeeper (and enjoyed it), and she did everything else that had to be done to keep up her home, her spirits and the spirits of those around her. She didn't have a car, so I picked her up twice a week once to take her to and from the supermarket, and once to take her and her husband to the hospital, where he received physical therapy and she received a welcome break from a very busy schedule. I remember my regulars as if I had just dropped them off all nice people and all finding ways to make life right. I also remember sharing stories about them with Mom. She liked hearing them, and I remember her telling me at the time that she would stop driving when the time came.

She said it matter-of-factly, and I never doubted it. She grew up in Boston and raised her family in suburban Philadelphia, where she now minds her grandchildren, so she knows all about taking buses, calling cabs and riding trains. She is independent, too. Always has been, as best as I can tell. That's something she gave to me that and the spirit of adventure that rides with me when I visit beaches, lakes and anywhere else that is new and different.

For Mom, the adventures will be a little different from now on, and I think she, for the first time ever, is just a little worried about that. Me, too. Paul V. Carty is the executive editor of The Town Talk andwww.thetowntalk.com. someone or something? We often make decisions about what we like and don't like based on no information, misinformation or stereotypes.

We start in the cradle. A child will say he doesn't like a certain food based on unreasonable assumptions his sister doesn't like it, it looks funny, the dog wouldn't eat it (which really is enough of a testimony to keep me from taking a bite). But if you can get the child to try the food, he often finds he likes it just fine. (OK, it hasn't worked with my grandson, even though the rest of us love broccoli.) But does being prejudiced, by definition, mean a person is racist? No, not by a long shot. A racist hates people of any race other this his or hers.

Racists believe they are superior. Many racists believe their attitude is reasonable and based on some knowledge they have acquired. For too many of them, their beliefs and illogic are virtually wired to their being. I am afraid we will never eradicate racism. We can and must try, despite the frustration of trying to use logic to fix illogic.

For others who act in ugly ways because they have been misinformed and misled by others, we can inform and try to educate. That will help to change those people who mal within pur family and our close friendships. We are most comfortable with people who are "like us," people who are familiar. That provides a sense of safety. Staying inside small circles, however, does not let you engage the larger community and the world.

It tends to put distance between one culture and another, one place and another, and one person and another. Still, the stereotypes that keep us apart do persist. It will take desire, discipline and commitment to undo what should be undone. We must leave behind that which prevents us from making reasonable, intelligent decisions about people decisions based on whom they really are, not on assumptions. Yes, it's human to jump to conclusions.

Our own biological plumbing and neurological wiring work together to generate and endless stream of automatic responses to virtually every situation, encounter and experience. That's the power of the survival instinct and the evolution of mankind. But we also have the capacity to make conscious decisions based on our experience. In the case the of all the prejudices that conspire to make us so much less, we must listen from experience and change our ways. To do otherwise is to give up.

I won't do that. Cynthia Jardon, editorial page editor of The Town Talk, and www.thetowntalk.com, lives In Alexandria. Those who rely on elite media for Iraq news suffer Mark Twain famously battlefields, mostly for his own blog (www.michaely-on-online.com). No journalist has revealed more about al Qaeda in Iraq AQI), including its "reputation for hiding bombs intended to kill parents in the corpses of dead children they'd gutted." His readers have learned what most Americans would not know from NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and NPR: why AQI has failed to win Iraqi hearts and minds: "Between shooting people for using the Internet, watching television or other 'moral transgressions' such as smoking in public, AQI's claim of fundamentalist piety proved to be a thin veneer, quickly eroded by blatant drug, alcohol and prostitute use." In perhaps his most haunting dispatch, Yon reports on meeting an Iraqi official who told him that it was al Qaeda's practice to invite "to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy" and at some point during the meal 'their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed.

The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family." Why have the elite media not covered such atrocities while spilling barrels of ink over the abuses at Abu Ghraib? In part, perhaps, because the conventional story line is that Iraq is nam redux: Americans are the "occupiers" and.anyone who fights them must be "the Resistance." Reporters who dispute that narrative are apt to dine alone. As to why lower military casualty rates and fewer insurgent attacks are not seen as newsworthy, CNN's Barbara Starr told media critic Howard Kurtz that it was not yet clear that such developments represent "a trend soldiers ridicule women disfigured by bombs, run over puppies for sport and desecrate graves for a laugh? All of this was reported in such mainstream publications as Newsweek and The New Republic. None df it is true. Meanwhile, the barbarous violence committed by al Qaeda and the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq is scarcely noted.

For example, here's a story you probably have neither read nor heard: On Oct. 28 in a village 10 miles southwest of Baqubah, U.S. infantrymen came upon a prison run by al Qaeda. In it, according to military spokesmen, they found a hostage, bruised, battered, dehydrated and tied to the ceiling, his arms injured because of the way they were twisted behind his back. He had been kidnapped three days earlier, he said, because "of my brother who is in the Iraqi army.

said that "if you don't read the newspapers you are uninformed if you do read the newspapers you are misinformed." Today, those who rely on the elite media for news of Iraq suffer from both disabilities. Start with lack of information: The average news consumer probably has no clue that Army Gen. David Petraeus' new strategy has crippled al Qaeda in Iraq, that Americans and Iraqis are now fighting side by side against both Sunni and Shia extremists and that the elimination of terrorist safe havens and weapons caches has improved security for average Iraqis in places that a few months ago were snake pits. As for misinformation, how many people still believe that guards in Guanta-namo flushed Korans down the toilet, that U.S. Marines committed a massacre at Haditha and that American FROM THE PAST 25 Years Ago in The Town Talk November 4, 1982 Campaign finances: U.S.

Rep. Gillis Long spent more than twice the amount of his major opponent, State Sen. Ned Randolph, in the last days of this year's congressional campaign. Long, D-Alexandria, won re-election. 50 Years Ago in The Town Talk November 4, 1957 Hot Wells authority: The president of the Alexandria Junior Chamber of Commerce said today the state already has the authority to lease Hot Wells to a private group.

100 Years Ago in The Town Talk November 4, 1907 Jewelry store painted: J.C. Glass' new jewelry store on Second Street is being painted and decorated by O'Donnel Bros. Clifford D. May Scripps Howard They wanted information and for my brother and me to work for al Qaeda. They beat me with cables while holding a gun to my head, but I would not work for them because I would not betray my brother." Had he not been rescued, he would have been executed for the "crime" of refusing al Qaeda.

Even so, he said, "I would never support them." Where can one go to leam what is really happening in Iraq? Michael Yon is a former Green Beret. He has been reporting from Iraq's "Don't blame God for man's mistakes. Read and post Story Chat comments at www.thetowntalk.com inn anointing2000, commenting on "Your mail: Which will is God's will?" at www.thetowntalk.com.