Can you spell r-e-p-u-d-i-a-t-i-o-n?

That’s the resounding verdict of the voters of Peachtree City to the two incumbent City Council members running for another four-year term.

I eyeballed the whole slate of Peachtree City Council candidates at the recent forum at McIntosh High School and came away impressed with the strength and substance of the field.

Faced with the imminent expiration of their publicly funded slush fund for profligate governments, the Fayette County Commissioners convened an urgent gathering, inviting all mayors in Fayette to bring in their Santa Claus wish lists for a big “renewed” SPLOST.

Last Thursday, I emailed political position questions to all candidates in council races for Peachtree City, Fayetteville and Tyrone.

Deadline for email responses to questions is 5 p.m. this Wednesday, Oct. 14.

Since there has been loud opposition to President Obama’s address to America’s students, I thought I would give them the antithesis of his speech so that they can read this to their children and deliver the exact opposite message.

On healthcare, I’m just one of the ‘mob’

My laborious page-by-page reading and opining on the 1,000-plus-page House healthcare bill has been rendered moot by events and my slow reading pace.

It’s now obvious that HR3200 is dead on arrival and likely will never get to even a vote in the House of Representatives.

What happened?

Governments erode as they exert control that sooner or later diminishes human rights.

I think that, unless it is altered, our future will see past governmental/societal models morph into something relatively new and better suited for today’s more technologically-proficient systems of mass control.

“Where is America headed?” and “Who is in control our destiny?” As before in our history, these questions are being asked by some today. Everybody’s got an opinion. Here’s mine in abbreviated form.

I passed another major milestone in my life a couple of months ago. I have been the official religion editor for The citizen for 10 years — one seventh of my life. Before that, I was a graphic artist here at The Citizen, starting in 1993.

Part 2 of the continuing horror

I’m reading the thousand-plus-page House healthcare act from the perspective of a small-business person running a business of under 20 employees.

I’ve downloaded the healthcare reform act known as HR 3200. I’ve read the first 170 pages of the 1,017-page bill (probably about 170 pages more than most members of Congress).

My initial impression: God save us from Democrats. Unlike many pieces of legislation, this bill is worse even than its opponents are depicting it.

My son starts Pre-K next Monday. As most parents out there probably can guess, especially if they have gone through this themselves, my wife and I are more excited and nervous than Colin is. We have been running practices to get up and out of the house earlier so he makes it to school on time, have gone back to school shopping and are going to an orientation tonight. I’m glad we get to meet the teacher because I’m not sure exactly what Pre-K involves. Pre-K is pre-kindergarten, but I never really thought that children needed preparation for kindergarten. I had always assumed kindergarten was preparation in itself.

On the issues facing Fayette: Where are the adults?

What should we think of local officials whose response to declining tax revenues is to seek higher tax rates?

I have been telling friends and anyone sitting still that when your oldest child becomes old enough to join AARP, then you are really old.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: As of Thursday afternoon, the rezoning vote on Callula Hill has been postponed to mid-July.]

Once upon a time in Peachtree City’s history (like up to about 10 years ago), the volunteer Planning Commission served as the diligent, sometimes picky, but always faithful guardian of the city’s land use plan.

Scene: The Fayette County Commission goes behind closed doors for an executive session devoted to “personnel matters.”

I’ve been thinking about my comments in this column back in April when I argued for supporting the tea party initiatives across America.

Regarding the article by Steve Brown, The Citizen, May 13, I must take issue with his premise.

Brown, a parvenu if there ever was one, has evidently decided that living in a community means being divisive and questioning well-established historical facts. As a native of the area, one would think Brown would not want to do this.

All the discussion lately about swine flu and quarantine reminded me of a time in my past, one that took place before the war, as they say. I was living in the Kenmore community of Akron, Ohio.

Lauren Leak, a homeschool student, last week emailed me the following questions for her thesis:

“I just have a couple of questions about factors that are playing into the current death of the newspaper and where you see the future of journalism going:

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Well, not me. At least not right now. That’s a quote from the film “Network.”

[Editor’s note: A version of this column originally appeared in The Citizen in 1998.]

What if the mainstream media had been around approximately 1,976 years ago, this week after Passover? Return with me to sample today’s media coverage back then, courtesy of the Jerusalem Constitution and CNN (Centurion News Network) ...

I would start writing this column from the beginning, but I wouldn’t really know where to start. Being born in Salem, Mass.? Living in Swampscott? My life on Swan St. in Beverly? Being king of my elementary school for three years? There are plenty of stories about growing up in Massachusetts, but I think it is far more relevant to discuss my life in the South, which started when I was 17, because over the years, a lot of people from all over the country have moved to the Fayette County. Things are different down here, even though they probably get more similar to the rest of the country every day.

This week, I’m printing the second part of a Fayette County resident’s prescriptions for cutting the school system’s budget.

The purpose of this column is to facilitate a detailed — but anonymous — critique of the Fayette County School System’s leadership.

Colin had just turned two when the Imagination Movers came to Fayetteville. The year was 2007 and everything was hunky dory. At least, as far as I can remember. The Imagination Movers were performing at the Villages Amphitheater on a Saturday evening in May and, as sponsors of the show, The Citizen had some tickets. We decided to invite some friends and their kids to take in the concert with us, even though we had only seen one short video from “The Movers” on the Disney Channel a couple of times.

“Just victims of the in-house drive-by. They say jump, you say how high?” Aside from some of their seemingly anarchist lyrics, of which I don’t approve, that line from “Rage Against the Machine” is as close as any I can find to fit the current day and generations-long condition of the American experience existing between “We the people” and the Congressional/Administrative branches and the “financial element” whose will politicians dutifully obey (c.f., Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, Jackson, Garfield and Wilson).

It's time for all of us to brace ourselves for some hard facts.

When you tell employees layoffs are inevitable, there is no joy for anybody.

Dear local government officials and public employees, I feel your pain.

The local economy has gone rotten, and tax revenues are far below what you’d ever thought you would experience.

As promised, this is my annual thank-you column — a small thing for the humongous amount of help offered by our local churches in sending their news throughout the year.