Recent editorials from Georgia newspapers:
May 17
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia, on the Class 2015:
It’s that time of year when proud young men and women don the odd yet traditional attire of colored robes and a square hat with a dangly tail, walk across a crowded stage to much fanfare and clutch a piece of rolled-up paper that says, in essence, “You have reached the next level. Move ahead one giant step.”
The Class of 2015 will follow myriad others that came before, each new graduate equal parts hopeful and terrified of what lies ahead.
Their challenges over the decades have changed: Wars, depression, social upheaval, fluctuating job markets, ever-shifting economies and a world that grows more uncertain and unforgiving with each new crop of tassel-flippers. Those obstacles change but never go away, no matter what graduates plan for the next stage they cross.
High school graduates headed to college face changing educational requirements and perhaps a heavy debt burden when their next diploma is earned. College graduates step into a job market growing in some areas and shrinking in others, hoping they rolled the dice and chose the right field. And grads headed into the military will defend a world more unstable than ever amid a changing defense strategy.
It’s as if each is walking off the stage to the cheers of loved ones straight into a pit of quicksand that threatens to swallow them.
Too pessimistic? Perhaps. But they’re not children anymore and must leave the fantasyland of youth for the reality of a harsh world where only the best and brightest will prevail. They can’t close their eyes and wish it any different.
And some will be more prepared than others. A recent report from the education advocacy group Achieve shows Georgia students rank low on their ability to succeed in college or the workplace based on academic measurements.
The tests they face next won’t be easily passed, that’s a given. So instead of focusing on what’s beyond their control, members of the Class of ’15 must zero in on what they can control: their own behavior and actions. The good news is this hard world can be conquered - and has been before - by those who summon their best qualities, make the right adjustments and catch a little wave of luck.
That’s why today’s graduates should fine-tune a few personal qualities to help them succeed in whatever endeavor they seek, offered from the rear-view mirror of experience (disclosure: the names in the editorial board box at the bottom of this page have been around awhile).
Yes, it’s easier to preach than to practice, but a few of these mantras may help you dodge and weave your way past many of the potholes ahead. So, grads, do the following …
- Stay flexible. Always a desirable quality, now more than ever. Today’s high-tech world turns on a dime, yesterday’s innovation fast becoming tomorrow’s VCR. Pick your path and know your destination, but don’t fear detours that will get you where you want to go.
- Be nice. Common courtesy never goes out of style. Whether dealing with the public or just colleagues, a pleasant disposition and kindness will caulk over many transgressions. You’ll sleep better at night knowing you’re that kind of person.
- Be real. Stay honest and true to yourself and others. Liars don’t last and phonies fade. Besides, nobody likes them.
- Always hustle. The race isn’t always to the swift, and the tortoise can catch the hare. Be that guy or gal who shows up early, makes the extra call, gives a little bit more and dives after every loose ball. Like compassion, hustle can make up for a lot of mistakes. And yet, remember that …
- Effort isn’t enough. There likely were times in your early academic career when a sympathetic teacher or coach gave you credit for trying hard. Those days are over. Your boss, college professor or commanding officer has no interest in energy spent without results; in a bottom line world, you have to produce.
Remember the wise counsel of Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
- Step outside yourself. Move beyond your personal space to become part of something bigger. That means going all-in as part of the team. Be the person others rely on to share the credit without hogging the spotlight. Offer yourself to the community at large and contribute to a greater good, whatever that may be. Your heart will benefit, and the relationships you forge will serve you well down the road.
- Keep learning. Even those leaving the halls of academia for other ventures should know their education has only begun. Processing information in a classroom is nothing compared to the high-stakes, full-speed cram course found in the real world. Soak it all in, ask a lot of questions and don’t let it scare you. Those wise old hands showing you the ropes were in your shoes once. Someday you’ll be the one training the next crew of newbies.
- Listen well. A wise man once said he never learned anything when he was talking. Ask good questions, then hush and listen to the answers.
- And one last one: Have fun. Life is as much a journey as a destination, so remember to enjoy the ride. A good day’s effort is its own reward; embrace it, celebrate it and own it with a smile on your face.
In fact, just keep that same smile that was beaming from under your mortar boards as you clenched that beloved scroll of paper with your name on it. Good luck and Godspeed.
Online:
https://www.gainesvilletimes.com
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May 14
Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, on getting tired truckers off the road:
Investigators with the Georgia State Patrol have yet to file charges in connection with the fiery crash on Interstate 16 in April that killed five Georgia Southern University nursing students who were on their way from the Statesboro campus to a Savannah hospital.
That process could take weeks.
However, state troopers have pinned down the cause of the April 22 accident in Bryan County, just west of Savannah. They said a tractor-trailer came up on slow-moving traffic and did not slow down in time, triggering a seven-vehicle, chain-reaction-type wreck. The students were traveling in two of those vehicles.
The tragedy continues to reverberate. Just recently, it has spawned lawsuits.
Families of three of the young victims have filed lawsuits against a trucker from Louisiana who was driving the 18-wheeler, alleging negligence. Among others named as defendants were two trucking companies, Total Transportation of Mississippi and U.S. Xpress Enterprises Inc.
Again, the Georgia State Patrol has the final word on charges and it has yet to give a full, formal report about what happened almost a month ago.
But the most recent lawsuit alleges that the driver who was behind the wheel of the truck that caused the chain reaction, John Wayne Johnson of Shreveport, Louisiana, “was drowsy or for some other inexplicable reason” and struck the vehicles “at highway speed.”
What’s more, they allege that the truck was equipped with a Collision Avoidance System, which is designed to warn drivers as they approach objects in the highway …
Regardless of what the State Patrol determines and lawyers allege, there’s no question that the federal government is deeply concerned about truck safety, especially drivers who are fatigued.
On Feb. 17, Journal of Commerce senior editor William Cassidy wrote that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is pursuing plans to study whether the way truckers are paid leads to unsafe driving habits, rule-breaking and deadly crashes.
It’s an important study. It’s one that could open the door to federal regulations that determine how drivers are paid, if not how much. And, more significantly, it could lead to safer highways.
Most interstate truck drivers in the U.S. are paid by the mile, Cassidy wrote. Some safety advocates argue that compensation model encourages drivers to violate federal hours of service rules, which limit driving time, and work while fatigued in order to rack up miles and earn more pay.
The federal agency plans to survey managers at more than 2,000 trucking companies using an online questionnaire. But truckers won’t be included - an obvious gap that should be filled, as long as respondents know that they won’t be punished for giving honest answers.
Cassidy wrote that regulators in the U.S. aren’t the only ones interested how truck driver pay - both the method and the amount - may affect truck safety. In Australia, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, a regulatory body created in 2012, is pursuing a broad review of truck driver pay in several industries, including long-haul trucking, waste hauling and port drayage …
Australia already is much farther down the road than the United States. Their government agency has the authority to issue orders that set terms for driver pay and even levels of compensation. Last year, it imposed an order that requires trucking companies to pay owner-operators within 30 days.
The tribunal drew a direct connection between late payments, fatigue and safety.
Some of the steps taken by Australia, including requiring truck drivers be paid for non-driving, on-duty work time, have been considered by the Obama administration, Cassidy wrote. The White House included language requiring drivers to be paid at least minimum wage for non-driving work hours in the “GROW America” infrastructure spending bill it sent to Congress.
Some U.S. trucking industry executives have been arguing that the industry needs to raise driver pay substantially and improve working conditions before the federal government decides to step in, Cassidy wrote. One of those worked for U.S. Xpress Enterprises - one of the companies being sued in the I-16 crash. The company raised its driver pay by 13 percent in 2014, he wrote.
“The fact that they might start telling me how much I have to pay my drivers is pretty scary,” U.S. Xpress chief marketing director John White said at a NASSTRAC Logistics Conference in 2012. “That’s very concerning to me.”
But more concerning are tired truckers who need rest. They shouldn’t be on the road. Let’s hope this study leads the way to safer highways.
Online:
https://savannahnow.com
___
May 19
The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle on whether media cares about Obama losing peace, war in Iraq:
Just last Friday, the Pentagon assured us that the terrorists of ISIS were on the run. Not to worry.
By Monday, ISIS had overrun the key city of Ramadi, leaving bloody, smoldering bodies in its wake.
Could the Obama administration possibly believe its own rhetoric? Or do we now officially have a Soviet-style government that lies through its teeth to its people with no sense of irony or guilt?
Whatever the case, Mr. Obama’s empty promise last fall to “degrade and destroy” ISIS rings even more hollow today.
It has been a half-hearted effort at best, and the goals of the mightiest nation in the world have been routed yet again with the fall of Ramadi.
In short, Barack Obama, having already lost the peace in Iraq, is now losing the war.
It’s been sadly amusing to sit back and watch the national media tie themselves into knots in the past week or so trying to get Republican candidates to admit (since the Democrat candidate won’t speak) that going into Iraq some 12 years ago was a mistake.
Where are the questions about the current state of affairs? Why aren’t the media obsessing over the Obama administration’s abject failure to “degrade and destroy” the 7th-century savages of ISIS?
And why aren’t the talking heads tying themselves in knots asking if it was a mistake for President Obama to withdraw precipitously from Iraq?
Where are the questions? Isn’t today’s situation, and what led directly to it, a little more relevant than asking “Knowing what we know today, would we have done what we did 12 years ago?”
Even the liberal Washington Post waxed quizzical after the fall of Ramadi. In noting Mr. Obama’s rhetoric last fall of the ISIS threat to even America, the Post wrote in an editorial this week:
“Yet he refuses to commit the Special Forces and military assistance that could meet that threat, portraying any alternative to his minimalist policy as being ’dragged back into another prolonged ground war.’ …
“Every conflict will have ups and downs, as administration spokesmen said Monday. But it is Mr. Obama’s unwillingness to match means to strategy that threatens to prolong this war.”
Even Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff says administration claims that the war is going well should set off “alarm bells.”
If this were a Republican president, would the rest of the media be so sanguine about the goings-on in Iraq and the policy failures on display there?
Instead, the major media are satiated and satisfied by fables from our generals about how well it’s going in Iraq.
Has the administration managed to dismiss all truth-tellers and dissenters from our military?
Sorry, comrades, but we’re just not buying what they’re selling.
Online:
https://chronicle.augusta.com
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