OUR VIEWS

Populism run amok

Republican backers of the recall drive, including a car-alarm magnate who bankrolled it to the tune of $1.7 million, were ecstatic. Since top Democrats are pledged not to run against Davis and a ballot spot is open to anyone with $65 and 3,000 signatures on a petition, the governor's mansion would seem to be easy pickings for the Republican with the best name recognition. But, since the winning candidate needs only a plurality, not a majority, who knows what could arise from that mess.

The campaign will be ugly. Davis, a bare-knuckle politician, is resolved to fight, and the Democrats, no matter what their private misgivings, are determined to keep him in office. Since California has 20 percent of the electoral votes needed to elect a president, the two national parties, and behind the scenes the White House, will inevitably get involved.

The courts will also be invoked — a Davis appeal is already before the state supreme court — and California might replace Florida as a late-night joke. Thus, the largest state in the union and the fifth largest economy in the world does a passable imitation of a banana republic.

The state's recall provision was enacted as a populist reform in 1911 and has been used only a handful of times since and never successfully. It survives as an anachronism. Impeachments must meet certain standards, but the recall requires only the time and money to round up enough signatures.

Elections are vital to a democracy, but they are meaningless without finality, if their results are subject to overturn by electoral mulligans and do-overs.

Davis is unquestionably unpopular. The state's economy is in the tank; the budget is $38 billion in the red; and the state legislature, thanks to various "reforms" by referendum, is dysfunctional. It's hard to see how removing Davis would solve any of that, but maybe you have to be a Californian to understand.

We trust that the Golden State will forgive the other 49 states for not following wherever it's headed this time.

Bringing back sidewalks

Not only are sidewalks a matter of pedestrian safety, but they encourage exercise and promote a sense of community in a neighborhood.

It is much easier to notice and greet neighbors while walking on a sidewalk than it is while walking on the edge of a street with an eye out for cars and trucks. It is also easier for a person on a sidewalk to take note of suspicious activities.

For these and other reasons, many local governments around the country in communities that were originally built without sidewalks have gone back and built them. And many more local governments have begun requiring sidewalks when new subdivisions are created.

The latest to do so is the Shelby County Commission, which on Monday unanimously approved sidewalk requirements for all new subdivisions. While this won't undo the decades-old mistake of allowing subdivisions without sidewalks, it will prevent the mistake from spreading further in Shelby County.

OTHER VIEWS

Despite the evidence HRT still lures women

by BONNIE ERBE
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

In fact, my goal (unattainable as some may believe it to be) is to endure menopause the old fashioned way — the way our grandmothers, great-grandmothers and foremothers did: free from chemical or herbal interlocutors entirely.

I know this statement will incite thousands, possibly millions, of women who believed for decades the promises made by the medical establishment.

Since the mid-'60s, doctors and drug companies described and prescribed an obstacle-free course from middle-age to post-menopause supplemented only by a bit of HRT (hormone replacement therapy). But it could serve to save still others who, despite the obvious risks, are considering it.

This despite mounting evidence that those promises of improved memory, sleep-filled nights, banished depression, a return to lithe-like silhouettes and an end to hot flashes were little more than market-driven bunk. Those claims were indeed designed to sell HRT (not to enrich the lives of the women they were supposed to help) and to expand the bank accounts of doctors and drug companies.

One year ago this month, women on HRT, or contemplating it, learned of the frightening results of a quickly halted major government study. The Women's Health Initiative was launched to prove the bounties of HRT. It was instead arrested mid-stream when government scientists found PremPro increased the risk for breast cancer, stroke and heart attack.

Yet I have friends and relatives who still swear by it. Millions more American women continue to consume it and remain uninformed or confused about its potential harm.

Now comes a book they should all read. Author Barbara Seaman challenges the carefully-orchestrated HRT myth in her new work: ''The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women." What is so amazing is her work recounts anecdotes that perfectly parallel my own experience.

Some five or six years ago, when my own once-reliable memory started to falter, a friend who worked in public relations for a drug manufacturer (not Wyeth-Ayerst, maker of PremPro) immediately recommended HRT. The buzz in the mid-life women's community abounded with such talk. I have heard countless female friends tell one another they looked so much better or their wrinkles started to disappear after they took HRT.

That was before the government study was abruptly stopped and some 10 million American women were taking it. PremPro was then one of the nation's most successful and lucrative prescription drugs.

But even months after the Women's Health Initiative study was halted and HRT was showered with massive negative press, Express Scripts of St. Louis, Mo., reported 57 percent of more than 300,000 women it surveyed were still taking HRT. If extrapolated nationally, these findings mean more than 5 million still take it (including my mother-in-law, a retired nurse who underwent a hysterectomy in her 50s and has religiously devoured HRT ever since. My best friend's mother has been on it for decades, endorsed by her endocrinologist son, who believed it prevented heart disease. The latest data show the opposite is true.)

Sadly, many women find the latest information about HRT more confusing than helpful. The Partnership for Prevention, a nonprofit health policy research organization, released a survey last December (six months after the Women's Health Initiative study was stopped) finding just as many women felt confused about HRT (24 percent) as felt better informed (27 percent). No wonder, since we're told one thing one day and the opposite the next.

How ironic that a medication originally sold as improving memory doubles the chances of dementia. How ironic that a drug designed to stave off cancer, osteoporosis and heart attack actually does nothing or increases the risk. How ironic that women seeking innocently to stave off illness and prolong youth did the opposite and that some continue to do so.

Maybe Seaman's book can help turn this situation around.

YOUR VIEWS

Ultimate victory or downfall looms

Our nation has never been in such jeopardy, 9/11 being a minor prelude to impending attrocities, the nature of which we cannot fathom. Terrorist attacks, murder/suicides, random murders of military peacekeepers and unbridled statements as to terrorist goals of annihilating our nation of "infidels" have left no doubt as to our enemy's intentions. A passive attitude of our citizenry toward this impending threat will guarantee our excruciating defeat.

Likewise, attempts to establish defenses along our borders, at international airports and at the massive number of vulnerable strategic U.S. targets at home and abroad are an exercise in futility, as acts of terrorism are almost totally indefensible (what defense is there to your derailing a train tonight using a simple crowbar).

At this juncture, citizens will need to realize that the only defense against terrorism is offensive action. Citizens will further need to realize that this offensive action will require that most funding and military mission/strategy, by far, be geared toward the gathering of human intelligence, infiltration of terrorist organizations and the destruction of these organizations from within.

To his credit, our president and his administration understands this fact. He further understands that these offensive actions, due to their sensitive and clandestine nature, will require time. Because of the nature of the beast, this "time" required to organize and act will necessarily include our suffering of casualties for an extended period during the interim.

This initial suffering of casualties will be the hardest part for our citizenry to accept. Making it even harder on our citizenry to accept these hardships are treasonous political factions within our nation who would elect to appease the terrorists at this time for immediate political gain. Sadly, any delay in pursuing this aggressive offensive attack on terrorism will cause suffering of casualties manifold in the future and throughout our national home front and resulting ultimately in the downfall of our democratic republic to terrorists.

Our citizenry had better get real serious about our nation's survival, and soonest! Simply, there is but one choice: Find and destroy the terrorists.

Bring 'em on.

Armond "Si" Simmons

Pell City 35128

Need to get out

The longer we wait, the more kids we are going to sacrifice. Your paper can help by getting more reporters with the troops to film and show the public what our kids are experiencing.

We need as many reporters as possible to convey the tragedy of Iraq.

Leroy J. Carlisle

Decatur 35640-3825

Doing to himself

Did I not try to tell all of you to watch what he says when shooting from the lip? When asked the question, "Why now?" by a young reporter his response the second time he was asked by this young reporter was, "Because he tried to kill my daddy!"

Is this a reason to go to war against any nation? I will be the first to agree Saddam needed to go. If we would let the CIA do the job the way they used to be allowed to do it, there would not be any Saddam to contend with today.

We went through this same exercise in Vietnam in '68 trying to pacify that country. Still, we got ambushed on a daily basis!

Been there, done that, too.

Harold L. Smith

Mount Olive 35117

Need the truth

If a child brings home a report card on which the child has blacked out grades in arithmetic and spelling, common sense tells a parent those grades weren't A plus.

In like fashion, Bush censored his report card on 9/11 and that should tell any thinking American his grades weren't A plus.

Republicans control both houses of Congress and they are not doing their job. It is past time to appoint an independent investigator to determine if Bush let the attack occur and also if Bush lied about Saddam Hussein being a threat to justify his preemptive attack on an innocent people. The independent investigator's budget should be at least equal to a one-month budget for the Iraqi war and large rewards should be approved for any whistleblower who reveals facts about Bush's machinations.

It is said, "the truth shall set you free," but in this instance it might set a few people "unfree." Is that why Bush censored the report?
Joe Boyett
Montgomery 36111