Wasted time, effort, dollars

I find it interesting how much time, effort and money both sides of the major political parties expend trying to convince each other that their ideologies are the best to lead our nation.

All to what end? Is anyone satisfied with where our country stands today after decades of political decisions from the economy to education? It’s the result of so many falsehoods told to benefit one side or the other at the expense of truth and simply doing the best, right thing.

Count me among those who also believe the vast majority of citizens who contribute to candidates and make the effort to vote have made up their minds how they feel about candidates. No amount of media spin, badmouthing or spending to discredit the other side will change their visceral feelings.

In this polarizing age of widespread mistrust, Americans as a whole either believe Congress is performing its job well, or they don’t. They also have decided whether they believe President Barack Obama (and his party’s supporters) has lived up to his promises and expected performance. The polls reflect those answers.

For me, this means no TV attack commercials filled with intent to smear on either side will change anyone’s mind. Well, not enough to make any significant difference.

That’s pretty much my admittedly dim view on the state of politics in America today.

The biggest winner from the approaching muck-slinging elections will, as always, be the major media and the avalanche of advertising they will sell to promote the fray. We can’t fault anyone else but ourselves for buying into such a self-destructive process over the decades.

Missouri it is

The deadline for the Arkansas Public Service Commission to agree or disagree with Administrative Law Judge Connie Griffin’s decision to allow SWEPCO to build its 345-kilovolt transmission line from Benton County through 25 miles of southernmost Missouri then downward to a station near Berryville passed last week without the commissioners making any changes.

That means the judge’s choice among multiple proposed routes stands, and the state of Missouri will continue moving to legally protect its sovereign interests from a potentially encroaching neighbor who never even bothered to seek permission.

To me, this fork in the road likely means a long stalemate that could wind its way through the courts before finally being resolved. I can’t say I blame the surprised folks in Missouri for being upset after being chosen as a route for this 150-foot-wide Arkansas power line without so much as a please or notification.

I (and thousands of others) still hope this unnecessary and untenable transmission line will be scrapped altogether in favor of a new, innovative and wholly nondestructive idea. That’s the clear choice to best serve the citizens of Northwest Arkansas and our beloved Ozarks.

Truth and justice

First, let me repeat this morning how badly I feel for 50-year-old former Fayetteville High School basketball coach and athletic director Barry Gebhart and the nostril-deep muck he finds himself wading in today after Benton County deputies arrested him last fall on charges of stalking a child on the Internet.

He pleaded innocent the other day to the Class B felony, which carries a prison sentence from five to 20 years. The courts, of course, ultimately will decide his guilt or innocence.

Still, the charge against him and his plea of innocence again raise an admittedly naive point of valuing “truth and justice” in a courtroom that has troubled me for decades.

Gebhart knows better than anyone (even the officers who built a case against him) if he actually committed the crime with which he’s charged. And while no one in our system of jurisprudence is ever forced to testify against himself, we readily accept a standard in our courts where those who know they are guilty are allowed to plead that they are not.

And that glaring contradiction where truth is concerned has always struck me as well beyond ironic. It seems to me to be hypocritical to what we should honor in such a setting. Why isn’t anyone who knows that he or she is guilty as charged also committing perjury by swearing they are not to a court of law? I’m speaking here in the name of reason and ol’ Mike’s law of puredee common sense.

In Gebhart’s case, say police, a deputy posing as a 14-year-old girl bantered with Gebhart on the Internet after discovering a post he’d made. A probable-cause affidavit in his arrest says Gebhart called himself a teacher, made sexual suggestions and sent photographs of himself and his private parts to the fictitious girl. The documented back and forth over a matter of weeks led to a meeting with deputies at the Promenade mall in Rogers on Oct. 22 where Gebhart appeared and was arrested.

Three days later, Gebhart resigned from his $101,917 position with the school district. The school board subsequently accepted his departure.Growing every day

The Northwest Arkansas Council reports that the Interstate 540 corridor of cities I call Ozarkopolis is swelling at the rate of 23 new arrivals a day. With such growth, it estimates the population will reach 500,000 in August. Who’d have imagined those kinds of numbers back when I returned home in 1995?

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 17 on 02/22/2014

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