598-4305 - Offical Contest Rules

September 19, 2012 Page 10A
Reminders
abound: it’s
a diff erent
world now
By Roslyn Ryan
Editor
The bright spot in my Tuesday evening
last week was getting a compliment on my
purse—from a Powhatan County deputy.
Please let me explain: I was preparing to
cover a school board meeting and passing
through the metal detector at the door to the
Powhatan High School auditorium. As I
guess is protocol, the deputy had taken my
bag to look through it (for what, I’m not sure:
dangerously stale crackers? Incendiary hand
wipes?). “Ma’am,” he said, handing it back
over, “you win the award for neatest pocketbook
of the evening.”
As someone who rarely wins many accolades
for my organizational skills – most
days a live animal would have a decent
chance of going undetected among all the
other junk crammed in my purse – I have to
admit I was tickled by the remark. So much
so that my momentary elevation to the rank
of Organized Person almost caused me to
forget one very simple – yet undeniable –fact:
I had just walked through a metal detector to
get to a school board meeting … in Powhatan.
Now, before I go any further, please do
not misunderstand me: I am not complaining.
Metal detectors and things of that nature
have become a fact of modern day life for
good reason. Even if the chance of something
happening is infi nitesimal – even if they serve
only to make people feel a little safer – I
don’t think they are a bad idea.
But there is also a part of me that tends to
forget that even Powhatan is not immune to
the ills of the larger world outside – and I like
forgetting. Even if fewer people leave their
doors unlocked at night these days, or freely
take a stroll around the neighborhood after
dark, I like the feeling that the violence of the
world “out there” hasn’t quite reached us.
As I said, I am not complaining about taking
two seconds to walk through a metal detector,
or about having my purse searched.
But at the same time, I can’t deny a yearning
to go back to the way things used to be, back
before we had to worry about all this stuff.
Maybe it was the fact that the meeting
happened to be on Sept. 11, offering one
more reason to think of how much things
have changed in so many different venues
across the country and the world. Air travel,
access to buildings both public and private,
the need to safeguard your identity and personal
information – all of these things seem
as though they are no longer the way they
were in “the good old days.”
In the end, of course, we can reminisce
and yearn all we like: time marches on. At
the very meeting I attended Tuesday, talk
turned to the business of fi nding a replacement
for Dr. Margaret S. Meara, who will
soon retire as school superintendent after 23
years.
Time marches on indeed.
With it, of course, go the old way of doing
things and some of the small town character
that so many of us fi rst fell in love with when
we discovered this idyllic little spot called
Powhatan. No one would ever say that they
would rather risk safety than mar the image
of Powhatan as a place where nothing dangerous
ever happens. But it’s still hard to give
that image up.
By Jason Moore
Contributing columnist
P.O. Box 10
Powhatan, Va. 23139
Phone: 804-598-4305
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Fax: 804-598-7757
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Reunion offered
wonderful way
to reconnect with
family, history
Dear Editor,
On Saturday, Sept. 1, the Howell
Family celebrated our family picnic.
Our family is comprised of a
long line of love, strength and pride.
We hail from the strong, deep roots
of Mr. and Mrs. David and Irene
Howell of Powhatan, fondly known
as Daddy and Big Mama. Their
Since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson,
U.S. foreign policy has attempted
to blend “real politick” with a moral underpinning.
These efforts sometimes blend
seamlessly, other times they work at crosspurposes.
When they fail to blend, politicians
have a diffi cult time explaining why
their soaring rhetoric resulted in failed policies.
The failure of practicality and morality to blend is
attributable to two things: the failure of our leaders to
treat us intelligently and our failure to act intelligently.
Politicians always attempt to disguise practical political
goals with the cloak of morality. We entered WWII not
because of the “Final Solution,” which was then well
documented; we entered because it served our political
goals after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We did not liberate
Kuwait simply because it was invaded by an aggressor
nation. We retook the country, because of a strategic
interest - oil.
Politician refuse to state the obvious, and instead, resort
to generic phrases such as “this is who we are” and
“it’s the right they to do” when discussing foreign policy.
They do this purposefully, and this leads to the second
problem. The American people seem not to care
about foreign policy and are not educated about it. You
should care and you should become educated. We spent
billions of dollars in foreign countries to achieve policy
goals, and the consequences these policies have a bearing
on our economy and national security.
The “Arab Spring” blossoming this year in Tunisia,
Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya has been a true
opportunity for the U.S. to blend morality and practicality
in its diplomacy. Our efforts, however, to accomplish
change have met with abject failure. The failure springs
from our national leaderships’ failure to explain the importance
of U.S. involvement in these events, and Americans
unwillingness to engage.
You cannot explain Middle Eastern politics in a 30
second campaign attack ad. No news agency is going to
commit the time to the in-depth analysis of the problem
that the American people deserve. No President has
been desirous to take advantage of the bully pulpit to
explain the issues either. The repercussions of U.S.
Middle Eastern policy, however, are so wide reaching
that the area’s issues must be more prominent in our national
dialogue.
Take events in Libya, Egypt and Syria for example.
These are the three most important countries affected by
the Arab Spring. Libya has been transformed. NATO
intervened in the country allowing rebels to topple the
Gaddafi regime. Elections were held, including a poll-
A local sculptor recently unveiled a tribute to the
county’s namesake, Chief Powhatan. Who, in your
opinion, are some other Powhatan ‘icons” who might
deserve a monument?
E-mail answers to editor@powhatantoday.com or
submit them online. Visit www.powhatantoday.com to
see fellow residents’ responses.
LETTERS
union blessed them with nine children.
From oldest to youngest, they
were Sam Howell, Lucille Brown,
Norman (Luck) Howell, Emma
Howell, Otis Howell, David (Duffer)
Howell, Mable Brown, Julia
Lewis and Raymond Howell, all
deceased but not forgotten. The celebration
took place at the home
place of the late Julia and William
Lewis, Sr. The family gathered with
four generations present. It was an
awesome occasion fi lled with lots
of good food, games, singing, line
and swing dancing (where the more
mature family members showed the
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young bucks what dancing really
is), a car show, laughs and remembering
those gone on before. The
event proved that although many of
our loved ones are asleep with the
Lord Jesus, their spirits and personalities
live on in their seeds. As we
were reconnected to some and introduced
to others, we laughed,
cried and were reminded that there
is nothing greater than the love of
family.
Sincerely,
The Howell Family
MY POINT OF VIEW
When it comes to foreign
policy, who really cares?
ing station in D.C., and a democracy is developing.
In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak’s government was toppled
with great hope that a more democratic Egypt would
emerge. Mubarak, no friend to democracy, was a friend
to the U.S. and maintained the peace treaty with Israel.
The country is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood, a
group which in a friend to neither Israel or the U.S., and
which may turn back the clock the limited advances
which occurred under Mubarak.
In Syria, thousands of people are dying at the hands
of a regime which created and operates under HAMA
RULES. If you do not know about Hama Rules, then let
me tell you. In 1982, there was an uprising in the Syrian
village of Hama. Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current
dictator Bashir al-Assad, decided to bring down the
uprising. He sent elite Syrian army forces to surround
the 20,000 person town at night. These forces used artillery,
machine guns and attack helicopters to kill everyone
in the town and destroy the buildings. The next day,
every building in the town was bulldozed and a fl eet of
steamroller came in to fl atten the entire town. A village
of 20,000 souls became a parking lot overnight.
Most people don’t care about the Arab spring, because
most people could not fi nd Syria, Egypt or Libya
on a map if their lives depended on it. Well, you should
care, and let me give you a real example of why you
should care.
Syria has one of the largest stock piles of chemical
and biological weapons in the world, and they have admitted
this. The regime in Syria is Alawite Muslim.
Alawite Muslims, which some Muslims think of as infi -
dels, are a sect of Shite Muslims, and they equal 10% of
the total Muslim population worldwide. They have brutalizes
and terrorized the people of Syria for 40 years,
and if they lose power Hama Rules will be used on them.
They, therefore, have nothing to lose and everything to
gain by fi ghting to retain power.
Syria is a client state of Iran with close ties to Hamas
and Hezbollah, both terrorist organizations in the Middle
East. If Syria wanted to dissuade the U.S. from assisting
Syrian rebels, it could give weapons grade biological
or chemical agents to terrorist organizations.
The terrorist could launch a chemical or biological attack
in the U.S. For example, a chemical or biological
weapon could be released in the subway of a major U.S.
city, as happened in Japan, causing widespread death
and panic.
What our foreign policy is and how it is conducted
should be a larger part of our political dialogue. We
should be more informed and expect more information
from our political leaders. I know in the end, however,
this is a Quixotic editorial.
You and I are too concerned with our daily lives, the
U.S. economy and how our favorite sport’s team is doing
to care about U.S. foreign policy.
Jason Moore serves on the Powhatan County Board
of Supervisors representing District 2.
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