Thursday, March 12, 2009 ______Viewpoinits The Dixie Counly Advocate 174 NE 351 Hwy PO Box 5030" Cross City, FL 32628 Ph. 352-498-3312 Fax (352)498-0420 PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS Letters to the Editor, Ads Editor dcadvocate.net News News@dcadvocate.net - $24.99...... .............. In Dixie County $29.99................................ Elsewhere Includes Tax OFFICIAL ORGAN of DIXIE COUNTY Katherine McKinney..............Editor . Eli Loy.........................Production Manager Brandi Barber...... ............Receptionist/UPS, . David Rymanm............Webmaster Angel Lee .Reporter John Kelley.................... Football Reporter .. The Dixie County Advocate is owned by ...-.. v;... LSAMedia, LLC. of Dixie County ; Deadline for news and announcements is 5:00 p.m. on Monday Deadline for advertising and classified ads is 12:00 Noon on Tuesday. Classified'ads are $5.00 for 20 words or less; .10 cents additional word Classified ads are payable in advance. 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THE DIXIE COUNTY ADVOCATE (USPS 158-760) is published weekly Every Week without Fail, Since July 1, 1921 2009 Dixie Count, Advocate Ford gets it right I bought my last Ford more than 25 years ago, and it lasted 20, so I can't complain.' It was a Courier pickup, it served well de- spite a lot of rough treatment, and it got me the equivalent of a $1,000 trade-in simply because it was terminal by that time and I wasn't trading anything in on my next vehicle. Having lived in Dixie County for more than 30 years, I well understood that I could not retain credibility among the life- time residents if I did not at least own a pickup truck, espe- cially since I have been seen driving a small economy car from time to time. So I opted for a slightly used 2000 Chevrolet S-10 pickup, w.rhich I still drive and consider an excellent in - vestment.. , 'My point here is that I have no particular axe to grind in the S ongoing Ford-Chevy controversy Having listened to boring hours of argument by devotees of both brands, I can only say - that I have not been disappointed by either. As for Chrysler products, I have owned only one, a 1950 Dodge which I purchased in 1956. It had a "semi-automatic" trans- Smission which was just as well,,as it didn't function all that ef- ficienfly in either manual or auto, leaving the driver the op- tion of choosing the lesser evil. In'all fairness, that's not suffi- cient information upon which to base an opinion of Chrysler products overall, so I won't. In case you hadn't guessed, what I'm getting at is the fact that executives of both General Motors and Chrysler have been making frequent trips to Washington in search of "bail-out" money. A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about serious money, ;any part of the government largess. Thesy've aid "Nothanks"to theavailability of tax- pamultier dollars, deciding instead to thought out o their own in these economic hard timesits. Obviously, Ford has not foune other itself immune to the diffiul- hanies of doing business i.oday's economy, ad.I have no idea Snow they can survive without government help, while their competitors apparently cannot. Ford is faced with the same union demands for wages, pensions and assorted fringe bene- fits that the UAW requires of their competitors. All I can say S is, somebody at-Ford might be,looking at the long-range bene- fits of bit ing the bullet as opposed to nursing from the govern- ment's teat. . What comes' into play here. is the proven fact that government benefits bring government control. Perhaps Ford does not want some Washington bureaucrat telling them they have to design all driver's seats to accommodate tall, skinny guys like Barack Obama, rather than shorter guys with big butts like Rush Limbaugh. In any event, I see Ford's choice as an excellent selling point for advertising purposes. Consider: "When you buy a Ford, you know you can still get replacement parts even after the government has quit subsidizing our competitors and they've gone out of business." Or, maybe "When you buy a Ford, you haven't already paid for it once with your tax dollars." Right now, I'd not be of a mind to buy stock in much' of any- thing; however if for some reason.I had to buy stock, and it had to be in an American automobile manufacturer, I think I know which one I'd go for. Mr Prater: Ya gotta love a company that tells Uncle Sam to keep his nasty old money and that spits in the eye of socialism. I drive my Ford Excursion with a little more pride these days.---Ed a . .. . w. '.a:' a. & It's a small world after all Kathy McKinney I spent the weekend alone at Sea World with four children under the age of ten. I made it home alive to tell the tale. Notice I didn't say anything about sane, or sol- vent. I figure getting back alive is doing pretty good, consid- ering. Am I the only one who feels that tight place between my shoulder blades relax just a little bit when I hit that Suwannee River bridge headed back into Dixie? That, to me, is the "sweet spot" that tells me I'm finally home. Uncle Sam sent me back some of my tax money, so I decided to splurge and.to take the.kids for a few days at Shamu Land. (They're running a really good deal now, by the way on the year-long passes for Florida residents. Buy a regular ticket and go all year for free.) Anyway, I loaded up my three kids and my sisters' youngest brat and we headed south to the land of the $4.00 Pepsi. I booked a hotel on Priceline . that is right in Shamu's park- ing lot, so we could walk back and forth. 'What they don't tell you on the internet is that it is a looonnnnngggway from your . second floor room with no ele- l ' vator. This means I had to . drag four little kids and a 250- pound double stroller bump- bump-bump down a flight of stairs, across a resort, through a parking lot, down a path, play squirrel across a busy street and then across Sea World's gi- gantic parking lot.' By the time we got there, I must have looked like an insane woman, cursing and sweating with my. hair all plastered to my head and my eyes all rolling and wild. (When you look really crazy, people are nice to you, I've noticed.) Everywhere we went, people were good to us. Maybe it was my fresh-out-of-the-mental-hospital look, maybe it was the fact that I was dragging four kids with me, or maybe the pitiful economy has reminded Orlando service industry who puts bread on their tables. Whatever it was, people bent over backwards to do stuff for us. The lady at the resort piz- za place said, "I only charged you for a pepperoni," when she handed me our meat-lovers' pizza. The waitress at the Village Inn where we ate breakfast every day said, "I gave you a 10% discount," one day and didn't charge us for a side of hash browns the next. The .waiter there played with the kids and made a special trip into the back and brought them all back little bags of goldfish crackers and,told them to take them to the park so they'd have a little snack while waiting in line. Little things like that restore my faith in. human be- ings and the fact that we're all in this together. It gave me a happy little glow that lasted for a long time.. It was amazing, especially after my last few trips to the land of Mouse. Back in August of 2006, I think it was, I swore that I would NEVER, ever darken the rat's door again. It was hot, I was tired and miserable, and nobody seemed to want to wait on you, and when they did, they snarled like you were interrupting their oh-so-important day. I didn't get much of that this time. There were, a few people who were less than great this trip...the checkout girl\who was too busT carrying on a conversation in Spanish with a security guard to check me out, for instance. .There were LOTS of people Express your opinion! Vote online in our monthly poll at www.dixiejobs. dcadvocate.net "Should Dixie join the Nature Coast' Water Authority?" Poll, ' Do you favor Dixie County and the Town of Cross City joining the Nature Coast Water Authority and providing water and sewer to unincorporated areas? e -No E 1 Not enough information : 0 Ye. Dear Editor: Due to Rural North Central Florida's lack of sufficient Public Utility Services, we 'are now completely without local Public Emergency Broadcast Communication Connection. This is not my understand- ing of the reason for the Pub- lic Broadcast System's exis- tence. Below is a descrip- tion of each service that could provide us with basic. TV Internet &/or Phone con- nectivity and our'current condition of no service or no reliable service. Digital TV Service After the mandated February change over to digital from analog, we have lost our only connec- tion to our only Local News & Notification Services. When the TV broadcasters were testing their systems in October and November of 2008, we were receiving from 1-8 broadcaster's signals in analog and digital on our new Digital TV with a cur- rent Digital Antenna System (see below: Then & Now ch.s ). We are now only receiving 1-2 channels (WUFT PBS & WNBW national network only) signals sporadically.' Neither of which are provid- ing us in the Horseshoe Beach Area with any broad- cast of local news, emer- gency or weather informa- tion previously received. This is causing us serious concern about Emergency, Storm & Fire alerts not to mention cutting us off from current information about the world around us. Con- tact with our former local carrying on conversations in Spanish, it seemed. I expect a certain amount of "international flair" when I go into the lair of the Mouse...the ladies in Indian costume or in the ftll Arab toes-to-eyeballs coverup thing are always there. It's 'fun to people-watch and to see all of the tourists from all over the world who come here to spend their money I no- ticed this time, though, that most of the foreign-language conversations seemed to be going on between employees. Two cops walking the sidewalk stopped to talk to a guy in a Sea World name tag: they all spoke Spanish to each other. I was starting to feel like I had gotten off the bus at Epcot's World Showcase instead of Sea World. I felt like an out- sider; a stranger in my own homeland. It was a little weird. There was a large school group of kids, all in matching school bus name tags. They ran around Shamu's Happy Harbor, playing and laugh- ing and chattering in Span- ish. The chaperones ran be- 1 hind them, yelling instruc- S tions, also in Spanish. I found myself wondering what school they were from, &- wondering if maybe an en- tire class from Mexico or Puerto Rico were travelling together k Then I got a close- sobup look at the cute little name tags they had on that w c said "Zellwood Elementary. Sc School." Huh? My brain Jumped into "politically cor- rect" mode without my per- mission, telling me that it was probably a group of ESL (English as second lan- guage) students out on a field trip. My Republican brain kicked back into gear and said, um, HELLO? How are the kids ever going to learn English if they are surrounded by other students who are only speaking Spanish and if their teachers are only speaking to them in Spanish? Maybe I'm being insensitive or something (I usually am) but this just doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Why are the citizens of Zellwood paying in their hard-earned tax money so that these public school kids can be sheltered from Amer- ican cultureaand language? It seems obvious that these are the kids who would benefit from an English-only total im- mersion language environment at school and school func- tions. So why are we doing the exact opposite? It was time for dinner so I loaded the kids back up in the stroller-mobile and we trudged across the park to the place Where, for an outrageous amount of money, you can sit down in air conditioning and eat while you watch sharks. Seems sort of ironic to be chowing down on shrimp and fish while surrounded by.big fish that would prefer to be chow- ing down on you, but it's fun...and air conditioned. (It's amazing how much you're willing to pay for being cool and comfortable after a day in a theme park.) We ordered, and Once again, everyone bent over backwards to make us com- fortable. I had dressed my kids in their Dixie Youth soccer uniforms (that construction-worker yellow made them hard to lose in a crowd) and one of the waiters walked up and asked what part of Dixie County we were from'. I told him and'he said, "Oh, heck, my cousin Nancy Neeley lives in Horseshoe, do you know her?" I told him I did and we chat- ted for a minute about shrimp and family I guess that no matter where you go, it is sort of a small.world after all. TY Station WCJB channel 20 resulted'in no resolution. " However, we: were suggested to install a 50' Antenna due to trees, since we are now considered'out of each of our closest broadcasters' viewing areas and trees might interfere with new narrower signal band. Ironi- cally, trees are not interfer- ing with the digital signals we do receive but with no consistency* nor the signals we were receiving prior to the now postponed changeover date**. (Possible suggestion is to investigate licensing, signal, strength re- quirement regulation and monitoring.) Wireless & Cell Phone Service Al- though every major supplier initially claims to adequately cover the entire state upon closer request to investigate, we are told there are no plans to add coverage to our area. (There is an unused tower just 1-2 miles from our home.) Neither Verizon or AT&T plan to utilize this op- tion any time in the pro- jectable future. Internet Connectivity via Broad Band & Telephone Utility Service AT&T currently supplies the Town of Horseshoe Beach DSL service via phone lines which pass less than 1000' from our residence but refuse to avail any of the res- idences along the CR351 highway corridor with this service. It was my under- standing that we have been paying additional taxes to al- .leviate cost being a factor in supply of Public Utility Ser- vice to Rural or Impover- ished' Communities. (We even suggested a possible cost sharing on equipment to no avail.) Satellite Service Florida's weather systems often dis- rupt the signal & repair or resumption of service seems to address higher density populations first. Cost & Reli- ability make this the least de- sirable solution. Newspaper Service Local news- papers are weekly only, print- ed for Thursday distribution. -Delivery is by mail or pick up on Wednesday Cable Service No supplier. In- frastructure cost and low density of population could be a deterrent. Please record each of the above noted complaints and failures to service to all ap- plicable Agencies. We are tax payer voters, who would appreciate your assis- tance. Please keep us in- formed as to the progress of addressing these complaints. S. Wildner Horseshoe Beach Mr Wilder: I believe that the Emergency; Broadcast System is available for no charge, throughout our area, on that old fashioned . device, oh, heck, what do you call it? Oh yes, radio. We , even have access to a few local stations. Check your local listings. I like 97.3 The Sky. --Editor i Page 2 www. dcadvocate.net * 0 Maybe . Ai* &**