ffltWUNSWCK?^C0N
Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers
Edward M. Sweatt Editor
Susan Usher News Editor
Doug Rutter and Terry Pope Staff Writers
Johnny Craig Sports Editor
Peggy Earwood Office Manager
Carolyn H. Sweatt Advertising Director
Timber ley Adams & Cecelia Gore ^Advertising Representatives
Tammle Galloway & Dorothy Brennan Typesetters
William Manning Pressman
Brenda Clemmons Photo Technician
Lonnle Sprinkle Assistant Pressman
Phoebe Clemmons and Frances Sweatt Circulation
PAGE 4 -A, THURSDAY, APRIL 4. 1991
Burst Of Business Activity
For Shallotte Trading Area
Three new businesses ? a major discount store, a medical ser
vices complex and a bowling center ? plan to locate in Shallotte.
This burst of activity is a promising sign for the economy of
the Town of Shallotte and the entire South Brunswick Islands. It
helps re-establish Shallotte as a trading and activity center and of
fers to fill many of the needs expressed by area seniors in a survey
made a year ago. (Those results are elsewhere is this week's edi
tion.)
The decision to locate in Shallotte also affirms the town board
of aldermen's decision to stick with its sewer policy of extending
service only within the town limits. The board has stuck by its
guns even under intense pressure from several area developers.
At least one of the new businesses, Wal- Mart, had considered
building outside of town, but reconsidered in light of that policy.
Bravo.
Sewer is a service provided by the town, intended for the ben
efit of its own people. Used wisely it can also serve as a planning
and resource development tool: It can be used to attract new in
dustry or business to a district or site. In a refreshing change from
what is often the norm in Brunswick County, it puts the town, not
the developer, in the driver's seat.
That's important. If Wal-Mart had located out of town it
would have paid county taxes and sales taxes, certainly, and a
sewer fee if the town had so allowed connection.
At the same time, it would have drawn shoppers away from
Shallotte 's downtown business area and placed additional finan
cial strains on smaller "mom and pop" stores there. That would
not have been good, especially during the transition period associ
ated with completion of the U.S. 17 bypass of Shallotte.
This way, at least, Shallotte gets something in return. The
store's presence downtown should help bring shoppers in. There's
a chance the traffic and exposure will help other businesses as
well. The same concept goes for the medical complex.
The same is true of the bowling center. Bowling is extremely
popular with South Brunswick Islands residents, as results from
lanes just south of the state line remind us every week. Having
lanes here will add to the recreational options for visitors as well
as meeting the needs of year-round residents.
The 1991 season is starting off with a bang.
State Should Rank Needs,
Set Budget Accordingly
Let's get our priorities straight as a state.
At the same time state legislators are whacking away at bud
gets for human services and education, advocates are unabashedly
seeking big bucks for some projects that can only be considered
frills.
The state is just as bad. It continues to pour money into build
ing roads and bridges and in other projects of'questionable priori
ty. These are needs, but they certainly shouldn't be at the top of
the list.
The latest of the special requests is a bid for $4.38 million to
help save Fort Fisher.
There are lots of good reasons to support the rescue of the fort
from erosion through construction of a revetment. It holds an irre
placeable spot in state and national history. It draws more visitors
than any of the state historic sites, visitors who spend money in
the area. Protecting the fort helps protect and save our heritage.
The erosion has been going on a long time and certainly needs
attention.
But the timing of this request is tenible. Before the state even
thinks about spending this $4.38 million, it needs to invest first
and fully in its greatest asset. That isn't the past, but the future:
human potential.
Programs that build people, that give young people and adults
the skills and values they need to become productive workers and
good citizens, should be North Carolina's top priority. All the in
dicators tell us this, from our young people's low SAT scores to
the complaints from mdustry that new hires simply don't have
what it takes to do their jobs.
We have yet to tap the full potential of our community college
system in helping individuals prepare for the rapidly changing en
vironment of the workplace. Yet, for the past several years the
system has endured horrendous cuts. Those now proposed would
send the system back to the dark ages of its beginning. Institutions
like Brunswick Community College and the people they serve
will lose because of this.
While most observers say the public school system needs a
major overhaul, no one has said it needs its budget slashed to
pieces in the meantime. Until there's something better devised to
take its place, the educational system we have now needs to be ad
equately funded.
North Carolina needs to get its priorities straight and invest in
the programs that are guaranteed to show the biggest return in the
long run: those involving people.
If it is important that Fort Fisher be saved immediately, then
supporters should convince the state to fund the project in addi
tion to other, more basic requests. Second, both the federal gov
ernment and private historical groups, should each chip in a large
sum of money, since Fort Fisher is supposed to be the highest
preservation priority in North Carolina under the American
Battlefield Protection Plan.
No matter how unique or how important the site of the fort
may be, it is not worth sacrificing expenditures on basics such as
education.
20,000
Gallons Of
Water A Day Is Deadly
Too much of a good thing can kill
you.
It's an argument opponents use to
convince regional and municipal
water suppliers not to add flouride
to the public's drinking water.
Last month, Brunswick County
Commissioners wisely renewed its
effort to begin adding flouride to the
county's water supply. The previous
board had approved the program in
concept, but no one in county gov
ernment seemed to be excited en
ough to really push for its imple
mentation.
Health experts say adding flouride
to water strengthens the mineral com
position of teeth, cspccialiy in young
children, making teeth more resistant
to acid attacks which result in cavi
ties. Flouride also helps to strengthen
bones ami can act as a deterrent to os
teoporosis, a disease that causes
bones to become brittle with age.
The American Dental Associa
tion estimates that for every SI
spent on fluoridation at least S50 is
saved in the dentist's officc.
Brunswick County will apply for
nearly S57.000 in state grants to fund
its flouride program. Water cus
tomers may pick up a tab of around
50 cents per year to pay for the
chemicals, such a small price to pay.
Terry
Pope
Flouridc is most effective when
ingested during tooth growth, when
the chemical becomes part of the
tooth substance. In 1980, the U.S.
Public Health Service issued a re
port it hoped would educate the
world on the importance of flouride.
Its goal was to push for fluoridat
ed water in 95 percent of public wa
ter supplies by 1990. Last year, it
was reported that only 60 percent of
the nation's water systems now
have flouride. The agency now
hopes 95 percent can be achieved
by the year 2000.
If flouride is so good for you and
is so relatively cheap, why is there
resistance to have the invisible war
riors pumped into our homes?
I received a letter last week from
a Sunset Beach resident who asks
the same question. The writer ex
plains how a daughter's dental
problems developed over a five
year period after moving away from
a fluoridated water supply.
A dentist advised that the lack of
flouridc had a great impact on the
child's teeth during her critical
years of development It is an argu
ment that Dr. David McDaniel, a
dentist who screens school students
in Brunswick County, also made be
fore commissioners last October.
McDaniel said 36 percent of
Brunswick County's school children
had cavities or severe dental prob
lems when screened in 1989 com
pared to 13 percent of schoo1 stu
dents in New Hanover County,
which has flouride in its drinking
water. Brunswick County's water
expansion project will provide more
and more residents with fluoridated
drinking water in the years to come.
It is the fear of cancer that has
some people swimming against the
stream. Safety questions were raised
after a study revealed that four out
of 130 male rats which received
very large doses of flouride in their
drinking water developed a rare
form of bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
Interestingly enough, none of the
female rats or mice involved in the
experiment developed bone tumors
during the two-year study conduct
ed by the National Toxicology Pro
gram. Even the researchers were
skeptical about the findings.
Why? The level of flouridc at
which cancer occurred in male rats
was 45 to 79 times higher than nor
mal human consumption through
fluoridated drinking water.
A person would have to drink
20,000 gallons of water a day to
consume the same amount of
flouride those poor rats were given
over a two-year period.
However, opponents are back in
full force. Another study to deter
mine the validity of the rat test has
been ordered.
Across the country, local govern
ments are once again scared into
keeping flouride out of water until
studies are complete. And then there
will probably be another study and
the debate will continue, on and on.
Dr. Brad Williams, a dentist on
the Brunswick County Board of
Health, said flouridc appears natu
rally in well water in the Ash com
munity and throughout parts of
Horry County, South Carolina.
Those lucky Ash residents are the
only county residents now who are
enjoying a good thing and are living
to smile about it. No doubt, they do
so with a full set of teeth.
YEAH, we Li
LOOK AT IT.
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You Should Read The Things They Write About Us!
Mint juleps, Crinolines, fried
chicken, grits. That's the way lots of
people visualize the South, especial
ly if they've never visited.
Certainly these items are ele
ment'. of our past and in some cas
es, rur present. But they aren't the
whole woof or fabric, any more
than these quotable quotes I'm
about to share with you are.
The quotes come from book
called The Traveller's Dictionary of
Quotation, edited by Peter Yapp and
published by Routledge, Chapman
and Hall, Inc. My guess is they
would be fun while passing
through, but I'm not sure they add
much to a visitor's first impressions
of the region.
From the post-Civil War carpet
bagger era to more modern times, it
seems that in the hands of its own
writers and others the South has not
always fared gently. See how your
views today compare with those of
others over the past century. What
do you think about the South and its
fj%,
Susan w
Usher v *
J2f*
people? What writer would you
quote in trying to describe the char
acter of the region?
Whatever you do, don't take
these quotes too seriously, especial
ly if you're a Southerner!
"The South, the poor South!"
So mourned John C. Calhoun in his
dying words in 1850. An intellectu
al giant of political life in his day,
Calhoun was an ardent nationalist
who later became an equally strong
advocate of states' rights as he
fought to preserve the agricultural
way of life in the South.
"A Southerner talks music."
Mark Twain wrote this line in his
1883 work of non-fiction. Life on
the Mississippi.
"Alas! for the South, her books
have grown fewer ? she never was
much given to literature." Or so
claimed J. Gordon Coogler in his
1897 edition of Purely Original
Verse. (Good thing the likes Eudora
Welty, William Faulkner, Thomas
Wolfe, Flannery O'Connery or Car
son McCullers didn't see this
quote.)
"In the south, the war is what
A.D. is elsewhere: They date from
it." Again, that's Samuel Clemens,
a.k.a. Mark Twain, speaking in Life
on the Mississippi.
"We Southerners are, of course,
a mythological people." That's
Raleigh newspaper man and South
ern liberal Jonathan Daniels speak
ing in his reportorial book, A
Southerner Discovers the South,
1943.
'The South has preaching and
shouting. ..grits... country
songs...and all or it, all of that old
mental cholesterol, is confined to
the Sunday radio." Thai's Tom
Wolfe, writing in 1965 in The
Kandy - Colored Tangerine - Flake
Streamline Baby.
"Southerners say that their
speech is so measured that, before
a Southern girl can explain that
she won't, she already has."
Trevor Fishlock, 1980, in American
and Nothing Else.
And yet, for all its size and all
its wealth, and all the "progress"
it babbles of, it is almost as sterile,
artistically, intellectually, cultur
ally, as the Sahara Desert"
Scorching commentary from H.L.
Mencken "The Sahara of the
Bozart," Prejudices, Second Series,
1921.
"The Old South was ploughed
under. But the ashes are still
warm." So said Henry Miller in
1945, The Air-conditioned Night
mare.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
There Is No Excuse For This Slowness
To the editor
I have grown up enjoying and appreciating the
coastal communities of North Carolina. As a
child I visited Wilmington and Carolina Beach.
As an adult I have grown to appreciate
Brunswick County, and especially Holden Beach.
The people there have always been friendly,
while the environment has been void of tall
buildings, megacommercialism, and all the trap
pings that come with them. I have seen this to
be a good place to spend vacations and holidays
with the family.
My love of this area has prompted me and
other members of my family to buy property in
the Holden Beach area. My parents, my brother
and myself are all absentee land owners. We are
a few of the many people who enjoy the beach
areas during the warm months of the year.
On March 13 my parents received a phone
call informing them that their beach house had
been broken into and robbed. This is not such
shocking news because when you leave a house
empty for a period of time, you can expect this
to happen.
The shocking news is that the Brunswick
County Sheriff's Department informed my par
ents that they had discovered the break-in on
Feb. 28. The information was received by the
owner 12 days after the discovery. There is no
excuse for a law enforcement department to be
this slow or lax.
When a family member went to check on per
sonal items that may be missing, it was discov
ered that no one in the sheriff's department had
filed a report concerning the break-in. Once
again, there is no excuse for this lack of action.
The only positive thing that was done was the
locking of a storm door that would keep honest
people out of the house considering the front
door was damage beyond use.
The house is not located in a sparsely popu
lated area nor in an area with very little traffic
on the roads. It is located on Kirby Road which
is traveled 24 house a day. 1 make this point be
cause no one knows when the house was
robbed. We suspect much earlier because the
electric bill is double the normal amount. No
one has been there since November and the
winter has not been harsh. The clectric meter
was read on Feb. 28. Where is the protection?
As a taxpayer of Brunswick County, I am ex
tremely upset with the non-professionalism of
the Brunswick County Sheriff's Department. Can
anyone in the department do their job correctly?
I am a school teacher and If I do not perform
my job to meet the high standards of my local
school system, I will be terminated as my boss
sees fit.
I only regret that I do not live in Brunswick
County so that I can work hard to remove the
non-professionals of the sheriff's department
The voters of Brunswick County must watch
their workers of public service jobs and ques
tion their effectiveness.
Randall Jackson
High Point