Georgia Gazette

I'm Sid Hoskinson and this is Georgia Gazette. On today's edition, one lawmakers plan to get rid of affirmative action in Cobb County, it could have extensive economic ramifications. A shining threat of hope, a history of black women in America, plus the forgotten music of Thomas Moore. Stay with us. The 1998 session of the Georgia General Assembly is half over. In the 20 or so days so far, state legislators have tackled a number of important issues, including affirmative action, the budget, tax cuts, and teen driving. Late this week, state senators approved a $12.6 billion mid-year spending bill that's loaded with projects in lawmakers' home districts. Most of the nearly 560 individual projects added by the Senate and earlier by the House would repair and improve local recreational

parks, paint and repair city halls, and buy equipment for police and volunteer fire departments. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman George Hooks of America sees the pork barrel projects as a way to give back to the taxpayers at the local level. It is just a minuscule, an obscure part of the budget. And if you look in that, they go to a lot of them to little small communities that really can't have looked any other source of funding, and we grate them pretty heavy by per capita income, and I'm real proud that we can return to the Georgia tax payers, that tax money. A House and Senate Conference Committee will now go to work ironing out the differences between the two versions of the mid-year budget. Also this week, the House voted to give a property tax break to farmers who raise livestock and also to farmers who grow peaches and pecans and similar crops. A handful of legislators who are farmers would directly benefit from the tax exemption. The Georgia Senate moved to protect lottery proceeds from the whims of future state leaders

and lawmakers. As James Argrove's reports, senators want to make sure the money is spent solely on education, including Georgia's pre-K program and hope scholarships for good students. The measure, if approved by voters, would right into the Georgia Constitution, the program's eligible to receive lottery funds, making it tougher for politicians to tamper with the money and spend it on something else. The resolution is part of Secretary of State Louis Massey's legislative agenda and was introduced on his behalf by Albany Senator Mark Taylor and other Senate leaders. Taylor said the current funding formula for lottery proceeds must be protected because the money is helping to raise educational standards in Georgia. Georgia is reaping the benefit already of the lottery for education in our educational statistics, in the growth of our state, the attractiveness of our state to new industry, and certainly you can see by how fast our state is growing that people are looking at Georgia as a great place to live, and the lottery for education programs are key to that. The measure passed the Senate, but not before Republicans were able to amend it to give

the General Assembly the authority to use lottery funds on other programs, if it gets the approval of two-thirds of the legislators in both the House and Senate. That amendment is opposed by Massey who says it defeats the whole purpose of the bill. I don't think the General Assembly should be able to decrease the amount of money going for education or to drastically change the great programs that Governor Miller has built into our state lottery, and I don't think any member of the General Assembly in the right mind would try that now. The question is, what's going to happen in two, four, six, or eight years from now, when we're in a different economic environment? Massey says he will work with House leaders to try and have the Republican amendment removed when the legislation reaches that chamber. If the measure is passed by the House, the amendment would appear on the General Election ballot in November, time James R. Groves. The state's tough new teen driving law survived efforts to weaken it this week, a proposal to restore limited driving privileges to young drivers who lose their licenses for speeding died in a Senate committee. Early in the session, Governor Zel Miller made it known that he would veto any bills that weaken the law.

Republican Representative Earl Earhart's bill to ban affirmative action in Cobb County spent this week in the Senate where its fate is uncertain. For the past three years, the Cobb County Representative has tried to get a bill through the legislature that would ban affirmative action program statewide. This year, when Earhart's attempt failed again, he introduced a measure that would ban affirmative action only in his home county. The idea struck fear in the hearts of some lawmakers and business leaders who foresee the loss of millions of dollars in federal funds if Earhart's bill goes into law. Susanna Capeludo has our story. Republican Earl Earhart has watched his anti-affirmative action bill being bottled up in committees year after year, never making it to the floor of the Georgia House for a vote. When his bill failed again this session, he decided to change his strategy and introduce another bill that bans affirmative action programs only in his home district of Cobb County. It passed the House and Earhart believes other counties may soon follow his lead. Many counties are in the process right now of drafting very similar local legislation

and we can go county by county if we can't do it as a statewide initiative. It seems to have gone a lot of attention in the last three weeks. I can't say that it's something that I was looking for, but it is something that the people feel passionate about the concept of equal justice under the law. You're taught that in the first service class you ever take, that you have an equal protection guarantee in this country. So when people find that, hey, somebody is not guaranteeing me that, they're interested in that issue. The Cobb County bill now awaits action in the Georgia Senate. Department of Transportation officials have warned Cobb County representatives that passage of the bill could cost the county $25 million in federal transportation funds. The DOT's Frank Danches says that row projects even partially funded by federal monies have to follow the Intermodal Surface Transportation Act. That act has clauses in it regarding disadvantaged business enterprises and there is a stated goal for the state of 10 percent on the disadvantaged business enterprise clause.

So any of our contracts that we let, we have percentage in there for disadvantaged business enterprises and DBEs. But the threat of losing federal funds isn't scaring Cobb County Commissioner Bill Byrne. In fact, he wrote a letter in support of Earhart's bill to Senator Chuck Clay of Cobb County. And according to Earhart, Bill Byrne is ready to take the federal government to court. Should it decide not to fund Cobb County roads? We have a chairman in Cobb County who puts principle over politics and is willing to fight for it. He knows what's right and it's unfortunate that we have to go to court to guarantee our rights under the U.S. Constitution that it's tragic that we have to see our own government to be able to do that. But chairman Byrne is a plain spoken individual. He said he'd put them in federal courts so fast and make their head spin. And that's what he told me and more power to him. I'm glad he's on on my side. But some in the county field they could lose more than just highway funds. Cobb County

is home to Kennesaw State College. Legally the college would not be affected by the affirmative action bill because it is a state institution. But school officials fear that the bill's passage would send an image of a county where diversity is not welcome. And that says Kennesaw's Gordon Harrison could keep away the best students and faculty. Higher education is extremely competitive. Kennesaw State University has over 13,000 students with the third largest institution in the state. We're growing faster than any of the university. We have a tremendous diverse population in the community at Kennesaw State and will it affect our ability to bring in the best and the brightest there is no question about it in my mind. Because the bill is a local one, only the five senators who represent parts of Cobb County get to vote on it. So far only Senator Abernathy is opposed to it. Senators Clay and Lamont favor it and two including Senator Steve Thompson are undecided. I am concerned with the letter that Representative Barnes has received from the highway commissioner saying that we'll lose $25

million in federal highway funds with the road needs that Cobb County has. And also the Kennesaw State University which I'm alumnus and also remember their board opposing it. I'm trying to weigh those things especially with regard to the fact that Cobb County really doesn't have an affirmative action program to see if it if it makes sense to enter into the argument or if it should be a statewide debate as opposed to a local measure. And this is no reflection on Representative Earhart. I'm just trying to to come to a determination as to what's best for Cobb County. It's not known exactly when the bill will come up for a vote in the Senate. Meanwhile the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other civil rights organizations have vowed to organize a national boycott of Cobb County should the bill become law. I'm Susanna Capeluto. February is black history month but since 1619 when the first black women were brought to this

country as slaves until now the lives of African-American women have been largely ignored as cultural and historical forces. However a new book is set to change all that. A shining threat of hope by Darlene Clark-Hein and Kathleen Thompson is the first comprehensive history of black women in America and some say completes the history of this nation. Darlene Clark-Hein talks with Syngen Flynn about her book. Here we are in the last years of the 20th century. We had the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the women's movement took off in the 1970s. Why is it only now that a book of this importance is being written? Well I think we had to wait for a full generation of black women historians to receive training and academic appointments to go out and research and reclaim the history of black women and so for over 20 years now this going back and piecing together through fragments and looking for sources and interpreting

and defining black women's lives has been going on and until that fundamental work was done that foundational work was done we couldn't have a comprehensive history of black women. You say accomplishment, cultural expression, resistance to oppression, these three characteristics distinguish the history of black women in America. Can you elaborate on that? Well one of the things that we really emphasize is how black women had to essentially take nothing and make something out of it that the families that they created and sustained and nourished through three hundred and eighty years of oppression from slavery and poverty during depression and what have you that these that these families were absolutely essential for black people to survive

and that their role in creating the families and sustaining the families perhaps has not been studied or appreciated as much as they as it should have been and when we talk about cultural expressions we were really focusing in on the fact that black women had to develop as part of their survival arsenal a rich interior inner life you had to have a definition of your worth of your humanity and who you were that differed from the larger societies definition of you and that development of a rich interior life some people compared to spirituality talk about the role of black women in the churches which was and of course the black church is as important as the black family in terms of the of accomplishments and creations and sustenance of things that black women have done to sustain their communities but the interior life of the interior consciousness

is reflected through their cultural and artistic expressions we see it in black women's poetry from the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley to the poetry of Alice Walker we see it in the music of the Billy Holiday in the Marraini in the Aretha Franklin we see the cultural expressions declaring urgently that we are human beings we are not a chattel we are not beast of burden and so I think that's an essence of black women's history how similar or how different is the experience of black women in America as compared to white women well it would take another book to to answer that question but there I always point out or Kathleen Thompson and I point out that in the very beginning there was a critical law that was enacted in 1662 that said that the status of the children of black women would derive from the mother there was never any law like

that that talked about white women's children white white children derived their status and their legacy and their lineage was traced through the man through the male a part of the family so that black women were never protected by the law they were never accorded their femininity was never protected by law black white women still had rights they were human beings they had rights as wives and of course they could demand an inherent wealth and in this kind of a black women could not there were slaves and then afterwards black women were circumscribed because they could not vote even after the the suffrage movement was enacted the majority of black women in the south were disenfranchised because they they were black and so white women have had advantages

because of their whiteness that black women could not enjoy and black men have had certain advantages because of their maleness that black women could not enjoy so that's why we need it this space to explore in a separate and distinct way the historical experiences of black women a final question the title of the book is a shining thread of hope what's the significance of that we wanted to make it very clear to everybody that this is not a history of victims that this is a history of women who achieved and struggled and who accomplished important things and who never threw out the three hundred and eighty years never ever gave up hope it's a history of hope darlene claquine thank you very much thank you darlene claquine's book a shining thread of hope the history of black women in america is

published by broadway books who would have thought that being able to break a sentence down into its many parts subject verbs modifiers phrases would become such an enviable skill even the degree of clinton speak around us we must rely on grammar masters like Cherokee count he's richer dallas to tell us what the politicians and the tobacco company executives are really saying dallas is a retired editor in public relations executive he's also the president of sp el the society for the preservation of english language and literature and he's on the phone with us now thanks for giving us your time mr. dallas well thanks for having me on listen i must tell you that i'm really very intimidated talking with you i'm like minding my peace and cues as it were do many people

react to you like that once they find out what you do well they do but after they get to know me a little better they don't because i'm not a very pedantic person and i certainly don't try to correct people at least not except in a constructive way and then only when asked well of all the notables um in the media right now who would you say has the best grammar skills and conversely who has the worst well i think uh new gingrich generally speaks very very well um it's hard to say it has the worst i think it's um some people have certain problems for example the president seems to have problems with pronouns uh generally his his grammar is good you know he's very articulate obviously very well educate uh but now and then he lapses and uses a me when he should use uh i or something like that well can you give us a few examples of some truly butchered english and and what are the most common mistakes that you find people making

well as far as grammar is concerned the most common mistake that i think i i see is the use of uh of uh lie when it should be lay and also i see a lot of errors in the use of who and whom many writers rely too much on spelling checkers computer spelling checkers which can't tell the difference between say uh base as in a base fiddle and bass as in a fish as a fish here's a good one from the Wall Street Journal quote you can bet that the clinton gore team will be working to carve ill eyes whomever is named independent council and of course it should be whoever because it's the subject of it is whoever is named how bad a shape is our language in these days well i think it's bad and it's getting worse uh it's probably probably getting worse because people are becoming so much more oriented to visual communications uh as because of television the

influence of television television relies so much on on short uh i hate to use such a cliche as sound bites but that's probably what it amounts to and relies much less on well written well constructed sentences and that sort of thing but mainly i think television keeps people from reading or it takes the place of reading to a great degree and uh when i was growing up in school i read a lot that as did most of my classmates uh i think today most kids students spend their free time watching television well i can remember um diagramming sentences when i was in school and none of my three children have ever brought home any sentence diagramming homework well it's too bad because diagramming is an excellent tool to learn how to uh sentences put together

well do you think our children are hopelessly mired in poor english and how can we fix this well i think we need to return to some of the basic ways of teaching in in schools and uh putting more and more stress on reading or some renewed stress on reading um i'm not sure that we're hopelessly mired uh i'm generally a very hopeful person and i would say that uh a great many people oh there's a lot of interest out there now in in better writing and uh better english and as evidence of that i cite the fact that uh my organization spell which you mentioned uh has almost 2000 members people recall uh the days when uh when uh teaching when when diagramming and that sort of thing uh uh was taught and they a lot of people like to tell me about their uh sixth grade english teacher

and uh but there are a lot of people out there who are like me uh and that they are disturbed about the way our language is abused so i think there's some hope i've been talking with proper english crusader Richard Dawes about well proper english transgressions and transgressors and thank you sir for being with us thank you for having me one common language i'm afraid we'll never get oh why can't the english learn to set a good example to people whose english is painful to your ears the scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears they're even up places where english completely disappear well in america they haven't used it for years why can't the english teach their children how to speak no agents learn nor region the Greeks that ought their Greek in France every Frenchman knows his language made a cent but the French don't care what they do actually as

long as they pronounce it properly a ravians learn a ravian with the speed of summer lightning and the Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening still to come on this edition of Georgia Gazette the demise of a hotly contested hog farm in Taylor County political cartoonist Pat Olafontt and a little classical love music complete with stories don't go away opponents of a proposed hog farm in Taylor County are claiming victory this week after a north carolina port producer dropped plans to build a huge breeding farm in middle

Georgia Mike Savage has more in the story just south of butler Georgia off of us highway 19 people who live near whitewater creek are breathing a sigh of relief melvin pervus owner of pervus farms in robins north carolina has withdrawn his plans to build a 20,800 south breeding farm in Taylor County opponents of the farm say this mega hog farm as it's called would have been the largest in the state whitewater creek resident jerry allman opposed the farm he says the sheer size of it concerned residents these people are like pervus and so forth and these mega hog farms and these concentrate animal feeding operations and all grazing operations like that they put so many in one spot that they're just not able to cope with and deal with the amount of deer that they that they create and that's where in the problem lies is the concentration of if they could deal with the waste I mean it wouldn't be nearly as much problem but they're not

dealing with the waste allman and others sued pervus and a group of landowners near the proposed farm site on the grounds that the mega farm would pollute the groundwater on surrounding properties and cause an odor problem allman says there was also concern about environmental problems caused by some pervus farms in north carolina see what he was going to put in down here was pretty much when the experiment came to there this was 20,800 south plus four plus the bigs I mean it's been roughly like sitting the amount of manure that's be creative be like sitting in the city of makin the size of makin about a hundred thousand people buying some white water creek up there and not drinking the waste allman and other whitewater creek residents won their lawsuit against pervus in published reports in columbus and makin newspapers pervus said he was going to appeal the judge's decision but then changed his mind because of the public outcry against his mega hog farm in those reports pervus also complained about the difficulty obtaining permits for the farm

from the state environmental protection division but david word assistant director of the epd says pervus was treated just like everyone else environment protection division has not denied mr. pervus's proposal nor any hog farm in this date we the process is they have applied we put forth the requirements and we were in the process of reviewing their application and their proposal as it relates to our requirements but had not reached or gotten close to reach a decision on that application Georgia's environmental regulations for hog farms are not as tough as north carolina where the farms were growing at such a fast pace the state's general assembly was forced to enact a law to halt the construction or expansion of hog farms Georgia may follow north carolina's lead legislature is considering tougher regulations for all large animal feeding operations meanwhile according to published reports pervus has decided to look outside of Georgia for other possible sites for his mega hog farm the company denied our repeated requests

for an interview on mic savage you Georgia Gazette commentator david clark has had swine encounters of his own greetings from cuckard Georgia i have a friend out in the county named donny old donny is a farmer tight

salt of the earth good a guise you'd ever want to meet help anyone who ever needed it consequently when he called me needing help the other day i had to oblige him donny had bought 20 young pigs from a man who couldn't take care of all the pigs he had for some reason the man had put nose rings in all the pigs noses the reason i heard was that they did better at the fair if they had rings in their noses so donny ended up with 20 cute little clean pink pigs with brass rings in their noses when the light hit them just right it was really a sight the only problem was donny didn't have a pin for the pigs yet had to tie them up some kind of way until he could get a pin built that's why he called me one pair of hands is barely enough to handle one pig much less 20 i don't know why he thought my pair would be able to handle the other 19 maybe i looked like a champion pig rassler by the time i got over to donny's he had an idea his plan was simple and really made a lot of sense we were going to back up to a pine tree and unload the pigs in a formation

kind of way there was a trick to it though we were going to tie one end of a short rope to the first pig's tail we would then tie the other end of that rope to the second pig's nose ring then we tie a short piece of rope to the second pig's tail and attach that piece to the third pig's nose ring and so on until we got all 20 pigs tied to each other or circle around this pine tree since they were all tied together they couldn't go anywhere but around the tree believe it or not we actually did a good job of getting all those pigs tied together luckily they were small pigs and fairly easy to hold the hard part was keeping the wounds which were already tied to each other to sit still so we could tie the remaining ones to them some of his wife's cornbread took care of that problem finally we had all the pigs unloaded and tied to each other in a circle around this pine tree donny was real proud of himself and we stood there laying against the tree looking out at the tentative circle of swan pigs get a funny look in their

eye when they suspect something is going on one by one each pig got that look I said to donny the only problem with this idea is the slack in the line what do you mean slack he thought I was saying his idea was slack and naturally got kind of offended well donny look you see how the pigs tails curl up when one of them moves it will take a second for the rope to catch up with the tail and this will make the rope kind of snap the ring on the pigs nose following him oh well what do you think we ought to do about that as he said that he sneezed when he sneezed he kicked his foot slightly forward unfortunately he kicked one of those pigs right in the butt that pig jumped forward for just a split second the whole world stood still the way it does when it kind of feels like the way a pig looks when a pig suspects something is

going on donny looked at the pigs I looked at donny the pig behind the one donny kick looked up donny looked at me that split second was overmodic quick we knew it was over because the pig behind the one that donny had kicked jumped forward with the lurch running into the butt of the one donny had kicked his tail became completely uncurled at that point yanking on the rope which was attached to the nose of the one behind him by this time the pig donny had kicked became startled by the pig behind him lurching forward and rammed the pig in front of him it was amazing to see how fast that docile circle of tentative pigs quit eating cornbread and started trying to outrun both the rope that was tied to their nose and the pig that was poking them in the butt the pig I really felt sorry as for was the last pig he caught it from both directions donny said well I guess I better get busy on that pin David Clark CD kindly curious is available from out of the sky productions once upon a time the music of Thomas Moore was very popular not only in his native

Ireland but throughout Europe and the United States today however Moore is barely remembered anywhere from member station w-u-g-a pat flanagan reports on a resurgence of interest in this composer's work if you've ever heard a song by Thomas Moore it's most likely to be this one or maybe if you're very into Irish music this one but overall the extensive musical works of this Irish composer have

fallen out of fashion in america in the last half of the 20th century emory university professor james flanary is seeking to reinstate him to his rightful place in music and in history with the book and two cd collection called deer harp of my country the Irish melodies of Thomas Moore Thomas Moore was the first Irish artist recognized as such internationally he carried the riches of the gaelic speaking culture over into the english language was a kind of miracle because it was really on its last legs due to the oppression of british colonialism at the end of the 18th century and he took the mythology and the songs and the literary tradition that existed in the

Irish language and translated it into a world language where indeed it's set in most of this huge interest in Irish culture that exists today james flanary is an american his scholarship is interdisciplinary but his interest in the music is clearly a labor of love inspired in irland i had a dear friend who uh used to gather a group of us on saturday evenings after the pubs closed in his beautiful 18th century home he and i would sing these songs he would play he would be at the piano and we would we went through his his green volume of more melodies i fell in love with them all over again and i said to myself these songs were once the most popular songs in the english speaking world they were like the songs of say john lennon would be today you know and i said these songs they were once popular they're still so extraordinarily beautiful they need to be restored to a modern audience along with new arrangements of tomas morse songs by harpist jennad harpison flanary also updates a long vocal tradition in these days of popular tenors the irish

tenor is a particular vocal quality and i have some of the aspects of that particularly say the high-floating sounds i can do that pretty well but my voice is actually a darker sound it's more of a lyric tenor than an irish tenor the young man who is beaming love of the glor one's life is gleaming love how sweet to roll through more or less through while the drowsy world is believing the moods of tomas morse songs range from the praising of nature to the blatantly rebellious to the utterly chilling

i think there's a there's a huge spiritual yearning that is out there in our culture today and the music at least the slowheirs are almost a meditation upon that condition which endeavours to carry an audience into a state that brings forth a tremendous communion with one's fellow men what yates would have called the anamamundi the soul of the world the collection deer harp of my country the irish melodies of tomas morse is a much needed updating of a composer and songwriter whose works as interpreted anew by james flannery and janet harborson are likely to propel him to restore popularity for another century in athens i'm pat flanagan year a harp of my country in dark nest i found the the cold chain of silence had hung over the long when proudly my old island

i'll pile up all the and they all by call to light freedom and song the book and cd set of tomas morse music is published by j s sanders and company ladeness have awakened the eye for less life liest thrill but soft as to the echo the deep sigh of sadness that evening the ever-feet will steal for all of the still political cartoonist pat oliphon has lampooned them all from a right-em cowboy linden johnson to

the scandal de juror bill clinton oliphon scathing wit is the focus of a new exhibit at the Carter Center in Atlanta called seven presidents and featuring oliphon's pen and ink cartoons pencil sketches and even his broad sculptures oliphon was on hand last week for the show's opening where according to melissa gray he delighted a crowd of admirers with his explanations of how he goes about poking fun at the nation's highest office he probably think this is clinton but it's not starting off with a pair of rather vacuous looking eyes pat oliphon quickly sketches out in charcoal the long head and even longer jaw of past president george bush we're getting into caricature again he didn't have a chin like that but it felt like he did and he always had him wearing glasses because when he first campaigned bush he took off his glasses he thought it made him look wimpy

so for all the rest of us who wear glasses I always had him wear glasses and I also just don't make the point a little stronger I gave him a purse and that purse became a mainstay of oliphon's cartoons of bush even when it clashed with bushes bow-tick cowboy duds and I am too a Texan sheriff's badge the purse is just one of the many pen and ink props oliphon uses to get his opinion across whether it's a jab at the president's manhood or a comment on his inherent clumsiness Jerry Ford came to the White House he was sort of difficult to draw because there were no trademark things about him but he he fortunately used to fall downstairs fall upstairs and so I gave him this she's a bandaid and that sort of stuck you might say oliphon brings his irreverent sense of humor from australia he left his native country 31 years

ago because he says nothing ever happens in australia and he needed better subject matter he says he wasn't disappointed when he landed in the United States I come here in the middle of the Johnson Goldwater campaign I mean there's two totally polarized sides to this thing it was a wonderful exciting times the civil rights was just getting going at the time and Vietnam was getting more and more serious and there were great sues and movements of opinion in the country I'd never come across anything like it before it was just a wonderful thing and I thought this is a great place to work from the start all of that was fascinated by the goings-on in the oval office and he cast each president in recurring roles LBJ became a maverick sheriff defending his public support from a posse of critics Nixon is a thumb sucking child latching on to a security blanket of sensitive national secrets and accompanying each president

is all offense trademark mascot punk the penguin who gets the final word with the sharpest barb fellow Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist Mike Luckovich says all offense style really paved the way for all the political cartoonists who came after him all offense he says engages your brain by making you laugh the old style cartoonist prior to pat kind of did a kind of a dark type cartoon well to give you an example it would be something like the grim reaper on top of the world and the world would be you know there'd be like this black coming down from the grim reaper and that would be labeled communism and you know it wasn't funny and it was actually very boring and then when pat oliphon came along he kind of brought a real sarcasm and humor in in making his points and that wasn't really done up until that point stop it first lady quickly and just she of the dangers over by

which may be a reason why he never today all offense draws a besieged bill Clinton who's no longer waiting for the other shooter drop because those shoes are already raining down upon him as a satirist all offense says he should be enjoying the current White House circus but instead it's making him more cynical about the presidency it's always been fair game for sniping at but even in johnson's day it had more dignity to it I think I think the erosion of the dignity of the office is what I've noticed most and we've got it we've got it to this stage where reality is outstripping satire and I have to scramble every day to be satirical about this because it's reality is ahead of me. Pat Oliphon continues to exercise his first amendment rights on the nation's editorial pages but for a look at his past work visit the Carter Center in Atlanta for seven presidents

the Art of Oliphon the exhibit is on display through March 29th I'm Melissa Gray to remember with Gore he's a very earnest look but then he's he's neck goes straight into his collar he grew up in the the Fairfax Hotel in Washington he's father was a senator there and I figure he spent a lot of time with the concierge which is which is why he talks that way yes you can get your tickets here some people like to say I love you with flowers others with candy as you may have guessed we prefer to say it with music and with me today is peach state public radio music director

Winston King he's brought along several CDs all of them in the romance vein to share with us it being Valentine's weekend and all hi Winston well hello there Sid we're starting with the theme from the movie gone with the wind and in terms of drama there's there's nothing more wrenching than unrequited love and and in looking at the music that you've brought with it that seems to be a thing that runs all through classical music yeah yeah particularly you know chinkowski seem to be a master of this and that you know the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet though the love was required it it was you know a lot that ended tragically and I think it's something that most people know they they think of the the famous love theme which we hear right now from Romeo and Juliet and the story based on Shakespeare's drama Romeo and Juliet's and then encapsulated in this little fantasy overture by Peter Chikomsky and of course we know that Chikomsky just loved to break loved to break our hearts Francesca de Rimini from the drama by Dante Alighieri the tale of the

inferno in which two lovers two lovers of the wife was cheating on her husband and she took a young lover and so when she truly loved and their punishment for her punishment for infidelity and his punishment for suppose you would call it adultery to be trapped in purgatory for eternity just inches away from each other spiraling for eternity almost touching but never I've never heard that before there's a wonderful little story that goes along with this piece which we are listening to right now the Siegfried Idol or some people say the Siegfried Edel by Ricard Bachner well the story about this

is that it's a 33rd birthday present for Ricard Bachner's wife Cosima and the wonderful little story that goes along with this she awoke one morning sun was out and they opened their beautiful huge French doors out on the patio inside their bedroom and their assembled was a group of musicians who played this as something of a morning song what a wonderful way to wake up on your 33rd birthday Carl Orph and his coming Aburana coming Aburana has a checkered tale said it is a piece of music which has been adored ever since Carl Orph unveiled it in the forties but it's a piece of music

that has its origins going back many many centuries back at the time of Latin text when they were all the rage you know comic books were in Latin back then also you had the middle French and the middle high German back when those languages were spoken widely across you know the regions of Europe and speakers of these languages and at least the literate people of that time they I guess they get they they took a little time to write down I suppose what we called the 15th century smut back then and Carl Orph picked up these old texts polished them off and put them in a 20th century orchestral setting and one thing I'd love to say about this it is that if I were to read translations of the coming Aburana on the air I would lose my job just recently James Horner won a coveted golden globe award for his music to the motion

picture Titanic it's one of those new things we just have to throw in for this time because that is a classic love tale which you know he's just making box office records across the country now the story of two lovers one makes it one doesn't off the ship and it's a tale set down by James Horner we're listening to the selection called Rose from James Horner's motion picture music to the Titanic all of these romance or romantic or love theme CDs they're all in our music library and thank you Winston so much for sharing this music with us I said thank you very much and that's Georgia

Gazette for this week our program was produced by Susanna Capeludo and Melissa Gray with additional help from La Shonda Parish John Hawkins and member station W. UGA in Athens our engineer was Art Sweat next week NPR sports commentator John Feinstein reflects on last year's college basketball season his new book March to Madness takes quoting Mr Feinstein a rough and tumble look at the 1996 97 season in the Atlantic Coast Conference I'm Sid Hoskinson for the entire Gazette team thanks for listening broadcast of Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens if you have any comments or questions about this program please write to

Georgia Gazette Peach State Public Radio 260 14th Street Northwest Atlanta Georgia 30318 or you can access Georgia Gazette on the worldwide web at www.gpp.org Georgia Gazette is a public affairs presentation of Peach State Public Radio. Dr. Nala Portnoy conducted the Augusta Symphony Orchestra and that performance of

for Kofi Ebb's fifth symphony a winner among Soviet era compositions garnishing both critical and popular acclaim our recording thanks go out to Alan Cook performance showcase was made possible in part this week by Acura Avogasta a Schrobe Department of Music at Columbus State University the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the members of Peach State Public Radio. Lee Johnson wrote our theme music which is performed by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Melissa Gray co-produces this program with thanks to Michael Cardin and I'm Winston King inviting you to join me next Sunday at noon for another hour of performance showcase this program is a cultural affairs presentation of Peach State Public Radio.