Georgia Gazette

You I'm Bruce Dorton and this, coming up on today's program, you do have a sense when you're at Augusta that they feel they're better than you. Author and NPR sports commentator John Feinstein dissects the game of golf and takes a critical look at the Augusta Masters tournament. There are agents now who pay commissions they pay bounties to the parents. They basically buy their daughters. The ugly, hidden side of the fashion model industry is exposed. And in the third part of a four part series on teen pregnancy in Georgia, the moms themselves

talk about their lives. Those stories plus an update on how Mercy University's entry in the Sunday's 95 is doing and a lot more. Good afternoon and welcome to Georgia Gazette, I'm Bruce Dorton. On today's edition, teen mothers tell their stories and the third of a four part series on teen pregnancy in Georgia. The girls are beautiful, but it's an ugly business says an author who's written an expose of the fashion model industry, adds several more stories, sports with her wife and a commentary

of two and you've got Georgia Gazette, it's her radio magazine, enjoy it and pass it on. The Southern Baptist Convention was born in the mid 1800s out of a split between the North and the South over slavery. This week in Atlanta, Dr. James Henry, the president of the convention, read an apology to blacks for slavery and he condemned racism. The apology was accepted by the Reverend Gary Frost of Youngstown, Ohio. Frost is the only black who have served in the Southern Baptist leadership. As I stand to respond to this great statement, I wish that I could say that I speak on behalf of all African Americans, I do not. I wish that I could say I speak on behalf of all African American Christians, I do not. But I do speak on behalf of those African American believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who are committed to be obedient to the Word of God and long to see healing and

unity in the body of Christ. On behalf of my black brothers and sisters, we accept your apology and we extend to you our forgiveness in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 31 and 32 say, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake, half forgiven you. Because of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and His great love toward us, we extend that same love, forgiveness, grace and mercy towards you. We pray that the genuineness of your repentance will be reflected in your attitudes and in your actions. We forgive you, but that said, an ascended the convention of the Georgia Dome early this

month, the 76 year old evangelist collapsed during a revival in Toronto. said he was basically healthy but exhausted and recommended he take a rest. Graham however decided to postpone his vacation so that he could attend the convention which he called historic. In his closing speech, he thanked the Southern Baptist for the apology. I've been heartened that in this convention you have been dealing with the struggle of racism and the issue of slavery in our history. Like when we individually, as a corporate group, renounce racism in all of its forms and repent of all transgressions, will God choose to use us in the future to reach all people throughout the world? This week's gathering in Atlanta marked the 150th year celebration of the Southern Baptist Convention. Georgia Gazette has been following the progress of sunscreen 2.

Mercer University's entry in a national solar powered car race. Sun Race 95, as it's called by organizers, involves 38 engineering schools from all over North America. Mike Savage tells us how Mercer's car is doing this week. Sun Race 95 began Tuesday in Indianapolis and is scheduled to finish June 29th in Golden Colorado. The solar powered cars are competing against each other, covering a distance of 1,150 miles. Mercer University's sunscreen 2 is Georgia's only entry in the race, and they began competition Tuesday in 37th position. Team officials say they are pleased with their progress so far, as of Thursday, sunscreen 2 had moved up from next to last in the competition to 23rd position. Several newmire is a Mercer official traveling with the racing team. He says the team is working hard, and hopefully their patient's strategy will pay off. What they want to do right now is pace themselves.

It's similar to a runner you don't want to necessarily open up until you need to. So I think we're pacing ourselves right now, and I think the team really has their eyes set on hopefully breaking into the top 10 in the early part of next week, and it will be hard, there are some great cars here this year that doing some phenomenal things. The first vehicle to come in today from MIT was doing an average speed of over 40 miles an hour, which first solar powered vehicle is very powerful. Sunscreen 2 has been averaging just under 24 miles per hour, with top speeds reaching 55 miles per hour. According to Mercer Crew Chief Todd Klein, the solar car has made a few pit stops during the race because of a problem with the rear wheel. The Klein says minimal racing time was lost, thanks in part to the efficiency and speed of the pit crew. In addition to learning valuable racing skills during the race, Mercer official Amanda Marshall says the team is getting a unique opportunity to see rural America. It was just cornfield everywhere, and the rolling hills, and all of the different onlookers

on the side of the racetrack have been interviewing from this front porch, and from the front porch, we've had farmers say no more than that, but it's really dangerous. With less than one week to go until the finish of the race, Mercer hopes that luck goes their way, and the sun continues to shine. If you want daily updated information on the progress of Sunscreen 2, call Mercer's fan line at 912-781-3560, and enter the code 1454. Next week we'll tell you who won Sun Race 95, I'm Mike Savage. Once again, it's time for Georgia to give us that sports talk with sports commentator Herb White. How you doing Herb? Great. Good to be here Bruce. Let's talk about Dubraves. They're doing well. They are doing well. All along we've said this is going to be a streaky team, and they put together quite a

streak, seven straight games on a road trip, pretty awesome by the braze. They've lost two in a row now though, the bullpen fell apart last night, and now they're coming back home, so playing the bets, I expect them to win several of those. Well, let's hope they look for your wounds and whatever anger they had after losing those two games, they take them out on the next team they play. Yeah, be interested to see what kind of crowds they have now that they're playing well, and the pitching has been superb, just to say the least. NBA Lenny Wilkins Atlanta Hawks coach is going to be coaching the Olympic team. Yep. He's got a local guy going with him too. He's picked Bobby Cremons out of the college ranks to join him as a local guy. Bobby will be coaching right here in Atlanta, and Bobby thought he wasn't going to have a chance to coach the Olympics after they let the professionals in, but they are still taking one college coach and Lenny offered it to Bobby, and of course he jumped at the opportunity. I feel real good for Bobby Cremons who'll represent the United States well, and I know it makes a lot of Atlanta people proud, isn't that the truth? And speaking of local coaches, Georgia coach Tubby Smith is out recruiting. He's going to be with us in a couple of weeks on Georgia Gazette.

Yeah, we're really looking forward to that. I know you've known Tubby for many years, and just from my talking to him on a couple of occasions, he's a wonderful, wonderful guy, and we're going to look forward to that in a couple of weeks. NBA, labor negotiations, what do you think? What's going on? Kind of strange, of course, the player's representative for the league was fired several months ago. Now they have a new ensign in Gordeen. He has evidently made some of the agents of the high-priced players, the superstars mad, and they said they wanted to decertify the union, which of course for the superstars is no problem. But for the everyday player, the guys that are struggling to get by, if you can call me an air struggling to get by, those guys need the union, and it's going to be interesting to see, but they have approved a new plan and it's going to be voted on by the representatives today, I believe. It's also going to have some effect on the upcoming NBA draft. And we've got a big golf tournament nationwide coming up here in Atlanta this weekend. Yeah, the seniors are coming in, and for guys, your age and my age, it's a wonderful time

to get out and see some of the heroes that we watch grow up on the golf course. Tom Wyves-Coff, always one of my favorites, is going to be here, Jim Dent, Big Hitter, still hitting you. Lee Trevino, yeah. Chichi is not going to be here, unfortunately, one of the most colorful guys. Dave Stockton, the past winner, is going to be here. So there's going to be a lot of great players here, and I tell you, Jim Dent, even though he's in his 50s, average is about 280 yards off the tee, he's some kind of player. One last quick thing, Wimbledon starts. Yeah, Wimbledon will begin this weekend, and a lot of people say it's the greatest tennis tournament in the world. Some people say it's the least of the majors because it's turned in pretty much to a serving contest, especially for the men on that fast grass. But you never can be sure, sometimes a baselineer can get in there and do well. We remember what Bjorn Borg did for five years. Okay, heard white sports commentator, that's all the time we have, we'll see you again next week. Sure thing. Each week, usually on Tuesday, millions of listeners of National Public Radio's morning edition get an update on what's happening in the world of sports.

The information is provided by the show's host, Bob Edwards, and one of this country's leading sports journalist, John Feinstein. Feinstein, who works for both the sporting news and ESPN, has covered every major sporting event in the world. Well, it was in Atlanta this week, promoting his new book about professional golfers and life on the PGA tour, he talked with our James Argroves. A good walk spoiled is the seventh book written by Feinstein. All except one, our sports related. His first and most famous book, season on the brink, chronicled a year in the life of college basketball players at Indiana University. The book was a runaway bestseller and made headlines because it infuriated Indiana's head coach, Bobby Knight, who blasted Feinstein and his book at every opportunity. In two more books, he wrote about baseball and tennis. He gathered his information for them by following the sports and their athletes through an entire season. And Feinstein says that's what he's done in his new book on the PGA tour. I grew up working in a golf course, my mother taught me the game.

We used to watch the pros play together on Sunday afternoon. She had very definite opinions about who she liked and who she didn't like. And I thought, well, I'd really love to do a golf book. I've covered golfed enough to know golfers are the most cooperative group of athletes in the world. So let's take a shot at it. But let's do it a little differently instead of trying to interview 100 golfers the way I did in tennis and baseball and basketball. I picked a group of 15 and I said, these guys are going to be the book, and I picked some super stars like Greg Norman and Nick Faldo and Nick Price and Paul Azinger and Tom Watson and then some people that nobody'd ever heard of who were in qualifying school are trying to get on the tour or fading away from the tour. And said through their eyes, I'm going to try to give people a look at what this life is really like because what we see on television is just a tiny slice of it. Feinstein followed the players from tournament to tournament and interviewed them at various times on the tour to get their insights into the game. He said he was surprised at how open and accessible the players were. I was fortunate, I think, in that they're all such big sports fans.

Most of them were familiar with my work in other sports, so I wasn't like somebody coming into golf who they looked at me and said, who the hell are you? And they gave me hours and hours of their time. I still remember my first long interview for the book was with Davis Love, who of course grew up here in Atlanta until he was 13 and then moved down to Sea Island. His dad was a golf pro and usually athletes when you're trying to get a longer interview, the first question they ask you is, how long is this going to take? And Davis and I sat down and we started talking and after a while I said to him, how are you set on time? And he looked at me and said, well you said you were doing a book, so I just blocked off the whole afternoon. And I said, I've died and gone to heaven, I've found people who get it. Once Feinstein decided to focus on golf, he had to come up with a title. So he decided to borrow a phrase from noted humorist and golf critic, Mark Twain. I learned early in my career, Jimmy, I learned you steal from the best. And it was Mark Twain who said golf is a good walks boil.

Then what I found when I started talking to all these guys was that the one thing they share in common with we hackers is that they have days when they hate the game, wish they'd never heard a golf, wish they'd never seen a golf course just as much as we do. And I was telling my brother about this one night and he said, well that's why Twain said golf is a good walks boil. Then we kind of looked at each other and said, that's the title. And I said, okay, now I need his book to go with it. In his book, Feinstein details the locker room jealousies that make Greg Norman and John daily unpopular. He also talks about the universal respect players feel for Arnold Palmer, who Feinstein calls the most important golfer in history. The author also devotes part of the book to the four major golf tournaments, including the Masters, which is played in Augusta each year. Feinstein says the Masters is one of the world's most prestigious tournaments, but some people, including himself, have mixed feelings about it. It is a great, great golfing event. It is a beautiful, beautiful place to be in April. The back nine is the best back nine there is for a major championship because with the

two short par fives and the water that you have to deal with at 11, at 12, at 13, at 15, at 16. You can't just go along and make parts and win the tournament. You have to go for those greens at 13 and 15. You have to be reckless at times. It creates great drama and great finishes. And we've seen great finishes at the Masters year in and year out. But I also think that you're talking about a very autocratic society there. The men of the Masters, as I call them in the book, and I call them that to note that there are no women of the Masters or women of Augusta National. They're their own rules. And if you don't want to play by their rules, their attitude is, so what, don't come back. You will do it our way or you won't do it at all. We saw it with Jack Whitaker in 1966 when he made the mistake of calling the crowd a mob during the playoff. And we saw it again in 1994 with Gary McCord when he said the greens were bikini waxed and that there were body bags behind the 17th green, which is a reference to, if you

hit it there, you're dead in golf vernacular. I didn't think either comment was terribly offensive, but they used their power to force CBS to dump McCord from their Masters telecast this year. It is of course not a place that has been terribly hospitable to blacks, except in as employees until recent years when the Shoal Creek incident forced the PGA tour and the U.S. Golf Association to insist that all their clubs have some minority membership. And they are up to two African-American members, which is slow progress, but progress. Still no women members. And there is, you do have a sense when you're Augusta that they feel better than you. I think the players feel it, I think the fans sometimes feel it, I think the media feels it. And it's not a comfortable place to be, it is a beautiful place to be, it is a great golf tournament. I love going there. But when I walk out the gate on Sunday night, I go, okay, 51 more weeks until I have to come back here.

So I do have mixed feelings about it. But Feinstein says, despite all the criticisms of the tournament, most players love it and desperately want to win it. Greg Norman, who has not won the Masters, says the Masters is the greatest tournament there is. And I think that's to his credit, because it'd be very easy to say, well, the British Open is the oldest and most traditional event, and I think it's the most important having won it twice. The Europeans, I think the British Open is still the biggest title for them. Although Nick Fowler was an exception to that, because the first time he saw golf on television it was Augusta. It was the Masters. And he remembers Jack Nicholas, Nicholas and the long shadows of the towering trees. And that was the place he wanted to go to play golf. Some of the Americans, like a Curtis Strange, say the US Open. So it's either 1-1-A or 1-B depending on who you talk to. John Feinstein's new book, A Good Walk Spoiled, is published by Little Brown in Company. I'm James R. Groves. Well, you know the name, Slaren Hutton, Jerry Hall, Christie

Brinkley, Kate Moss, just a name or few. But what you might not know is what these and thousands of other women have had to go through to be high fashion models. Off the Michael Groves will tell you, he talks with Sid Hoskinson about his new book, Model, The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women. Michael Groves says the first models were really little wooden dolls that European dress makers used to sell their creations to the royalty of the 16 and 1700s. The first agency that used live models was created in the 1800s. But it wasn't until 1911 Groves says that the first fashion photographs were taken.

By 1923, the commercial photography market had grown to the extent that in New York, they were hiring out-of-work actors to pose for pictures. And one of these fellas was a guy named John Robert Powers, and he was a spear-thrower. You know, he was one of the guys who would be at the back of the stage, and he knew he was a lousy actor. And one day, he was, according to the legend of the Times, he was walking down Broadway when someone had cost him an estimate if he would be interested in making 30 bucks to pose for, or maybe it was three bucks at that point, to pose for a picture with Mary Pickford, the great silent screen legend. And he said, sure, and he showed up the next day at the studio of this photographer, who was, I believe, Baron Demire, who actually preceded Stuykin as the first contract photographer vote. And Mary Pickford didn't show up, but they took Powers' picture, and they paid him. And as he put it, a great light smoked me in the face, and he realized that there was

a viable business here. And so what he began doing was collecting the phone numbers of all of his out-of-work actor friends. And what was great about modeling was he didn't have to be a good actor. All he had to be was interesting looking, and photogenic, which is a slightly lower threshold of achievement, shall we say. And so within a matter of years, Powers had organized this into an agency called the John Robert Powers Agency. Gross says the early models were nothing more than living mannequins, who critics, at the time, said, were not particularly attractive. They were elegant, many were from old, established society families, and they sold expensive designer fashions that only about a dozen women in the world could afford. The early-fashioned photographers were also an elite and artistic bunch, and counted among their numbers several titled royalty. Gross said that's how things were until the mid-1960s, when fashion stopped filtering down to the masses, and began filtering up from the streets.

Instead of the rather high-fashion Jean Trimpton, you got the very street-like twiggy. Everything changed at that point. And fashion began its devolution from the most rarified to the most common. And what's fascinating is that as this happened, as models became less aristocratic, less snooty, less elitist, as their boyfriends transmogrified from playboys, and the richest men in the world to brat-pack actors and sleazy rock-and-rollers, the money got bigger. Their fame got bigger because, of course, they were dealing with a much bigger market. In that period from about 1967 until now, you saw amazing changes happen. You saw fashion became a much bigger thing. Models became celebrities. Different agencies opened to sell models to the fashion business. Discos opened, and in Discos models were princesses.

They were the queens of Disco society. All of these things happened at once. Simultaneously, also designers went on television for the first time. And it wasn't just Bill Blas showing the latest shifons as a sort of joke on the today's show. It was Calvin Klein, Hawken Jeans, using models, putting their names on the commercials. And suddenly you had fashion being sold into the mass market in a way that was unprecedented. And that's how you ended up with the supermodels of today. But Gross says there are only a handful of supermodels at any given time. And for each name we know, there are hundreds of names we don't. Women driven by biology and environment to succeed in what Gross calls the ugly business of beautiful women. It's a conspiracy, he says, in which everyone in the fashion industry is involved. You know, let's talk about a perfectly pretty five foot seven girl who's just never going to be Cindy Crawford. And yet she's got this driven need to be a model.

And so she goes to Milan and she's 17, 18, 19 years old and she's put in a pulsion. And the agency charges her for her plane ticket, they charge her for her room and she's building up this debt because she's not working because she's not good enough. But the agency is keeping her there because they need fodder, they need bodies, they have to have bodies. There has to be a certain number of bodies to pass through the agency to keep the machine running. You need the bodies. And this girl is getting more in debt and more in debt and more desperate to make it every day. And then one day she goes to her agency and they say, we're going to send you home because you're not making any money. And by the way, you owe us and we're not giving you a plane ticket. And she goes back to her hotel and suddenly the vampire playboy sitting in the lobby with the roses in the cocaine who looked horrible to her when she first arrived in Milan is beginning to look a little better because all she has to do is give them what he wants and he'll buy her dinner and pay her hotel bill.

And that's how they get into trouble. Gross admits the fashion industry eats its young and models are young. They have the faces and bodies of women but their children and the people who are supposed to protect them, their parents often don't. You would think that gross who heard story after story of exploitation, rape and illegal drugs from models themselves would have some compassion for the young women instead he holds them and their families partly responsible for what's happened to them. You know take the example of Stephanie Seymour who was 14 years old whose mother took her to a modeling contest where she met John Casablanca's who had a crush on the mother. But the daughter kept writing letters to John Casablanca said his agency in New York. And at age 16 she went to Europe and she started having an affair with John Casablanca's who was 41 or 42 married and the family of a child.

And that Thanksgiving John Casablanca flew to San Diego to meet her parents. State up all night getting drunk with her father who at the end of the evening said well I think you're crazy but if you want my daughter take her. Now what a fine way to treat your parents who's the victim there is Stephanie who wanted to be a model victim or the parents bad people is Casablanca's a bad guy I think there's blame to go around and this whole system of modeling feeds on these ill-begotten dreams of mothers of fathers and of their children. I mean there are agents now who pay commissions they pay bounties to the parents they basically buy their daughters. Sister Michael Gross talking about his new book model the ugly business of beautiful women. I'm Sid Hoskinson. Gives that commentator and make an attorney Audrey Balloon is back how fitting that today she takes Cinderella's case.

Okay here's a letter from Cindy Rella dear Miss Lloyd. I am now happily married to a principal guy. However not having much to do because I am so rich and all I have been sitting around looking at my many pairs of glass slippers comparing them with a Melda Marcos' collection and thinking. In so doing I am getting pretty darn angry about my childhood and my dysfunctional family my question is can I sue my wicked stepmother and my two ugly step sisters for something I've heard of called intentional inflection of emotional distress sincerely Cindy Rella. Dear Cindy from your biography which I have read in detail there is no doubt that you had it rough as a child and so Miss Lloyd does indeed sympathize with you however it's time to grow up rather than sitting around thinking of ways to make yourself continually

miserable my suggestion to you is get yourself some sensible shoes listen to it's those glass slippers that you had are liable to make you break your neck remember how you almost fell down some stairs running in them when that happened you got very lucky lost the slipper and as a result married the headhuncho and got more money than you would have had you sued the palace for the winding staircase next time you might not be so fortunate so walk don't run to the nearest sensible orthopedic shoe imporium then invite that wicked stepmom and those two ugly step sisters of yours to the castle and show off all of your shoes remember the best revenge is living well and being oh shoe very rich illegally yours Miss Lloyd Audrey Baloo and otherwise known as Miss Lloyd practices law in Macon

so to come on today's job because that and then the fact that they're sticking out and all my friends just looking around you in the third part of our four part series on Georgia's rising to some young mothers tell their own stories we'll meet an ass of the musician who takes the lowly dust summer to new artistic house brown head of president Clinton's war against drugs was recently in Georgia these stories plus a commentary by a journalist and prodigal son and gardener Lee May stay with us Georgia has one of the highest teen pregnancy thousands of teenage mothers in Georgia raising their children on their own and as Susanna

Kapaludot tells us in the third part of her four part series on teen pregnancy the girls wives are as biffons as the birth of them 20-year-old Brynn fits the couple of the stereotypical teenage mother she has two children one and two years old each from a different father she is on welfare and lives with the children in low income health but she says while growing up she had guidance from her mother Brenda's mom is disabled and can't help it much now Brenda says there is no specific reason why she got pregnant a second time it just happened she says now she spends her

days playing with her children she says she has tried to get off of welfare by becoming part of the peach program a state-funded job program for welfare recipients I've been in it but now you have to you have to be a certain age it's on how many kids you have now have to wait because I got two kids and they get the people that just have one kid or a certain age to get in the peach so I have to wait Brenda's only dream for the future is to get a house and to get out of tifton and she doesn't want to get married why don't get married just have you seen some bad examples a lot of bad example like a lot of girls they get married they boyfriends still cheat on the son there's no use to get married and then when you have get married has so many kids I already got two and then get married a two or three more and then the divorce move and we live without each other so I read this day with me and my two kids they get a survey then after a day as soon as Brenda

became a teen mother she dropped out of high school the problem is often the unavailability of child care but there are some schools in Georgia that are trying to keep these girls in class by providing daycare in the middle of the home economics wing adult in high school in North Georgia sits the student daycare center a big window separates the ten toddlers and babies from students walking the halls looking in and making faces and waving at the children one of the children is three-year-old Rahim whose mother Teresa is now a senior she remembers her worries when she first got pregnant oh god and I'm going to be able to finish high school and then the fact to come to school and I'm pregnant this big belly sticking out and all my friends just looking around you know they're all slim and everything but I did it so in order to take advantage of the daycare center at school Teresa had to attend parenting classes the school's program is

called second chance and one of its goals is to prevent repeat pregnancies and get the girls ready to support their little families on their own Teresa for example works 40 hours at a local carpet mill while going to school and caring for her son she doesn't have a lot of spare time and out of the day 40 hours a week how do you do all that what does your day look like well I'll get up at seven o'clock and get myself dressed for work for school and get him dressed for school bring him a school I get out at 1220 then I go home and eat me something and if he's awake I'll play with him but if he's not I'll sit and rest and then get ready to go to work and get out and do my homework go to bed Teresa has a very positive outlook for the future she loves her son but says his birth was an accident she doesn't want to repeat and when she hears other girls her age and younger talking about having sex and wanting babies she says she doesn't hesitate to

set them straight and everybody do not do not do whatever you do go get you some birth control I'll take you because when I got free I couldn't talk to my mama about birth control you know so I'm like if you want to talk to you know if you want to get some birth control I'll take you myself you know because I do not it makes me mad when I see other people have babies because I know how hard it's going to be and I'm like God if I can talk to them and tell them you know look how hard it's look at me I have lost couldn't I mean it's hard we have to decide if you're going to buy a new pair of tennis shoes or buy pamphlets or anything you know and it gets it gets you down and some people can't handle it and they begin to abuse the kids and everything but I'll just tell them just talk to me I'll tell you I don't make you change your mind if I want to have a baby I hate when other people have babies even with a lot of help and public support some teenagers adjust unable to take on the responsibilities of motherhood for them there's the alternative of adoption 18 year old Rebecca is

from a small town in South Georgia my son was adopted last December he was eight months old and I realized you know I was unable to take care of him to the best of my ability and I felt like it was best that he would be placed into a motherfather home that would you know give him things that he needed Rebecca is part of the Genesis program a ministry sponsored by the United Methodist Church its goal is to help pregnant teenagers through the first two years of motherhood but that wasn't the program's original intent says it's director Dina Bethay we were developed as an alternatives to abortion said that if a young woman wants to carry the pregnancy to terms she has the support so that she can do that responsibly when we developed our mission statement and decided how we were going to do this program we said we want to serve young women who are in crisis pregnancies and it wasn't too long to figure out that the crisis lasts longer than the pregnancy and that first two years after the baby's born is a very critical critical time because that's

statistically now the time when if they don't get their feet on the ground and they don't get the support that they need they get pregnant again currently the mostly volunteer staff of Genesis is helping 70 girls throughout South Georgia the volunteers serve as mentors counselors and some even open their homes to take in a pregnant girl adoption and abortion are hard choices especially for young girls who while not exactly planning to get pregnant like the idea of having someone to love them these are the girls who decide to keep their children sometimes there's family around to help out but often a teenage mom is on her own with little education and even less job experience these girls turn to their communities their churches and many times too well fair the state of Georgia spends about 500 million dollars a year to support families started by teenage mothers and as the teenage pregnancy rate continues to rise so will the money this state spends it's a problem that affects everyone and it will likely be with us for a long

time I'm Susanna Capeluto they have their own thoughts they have them you can have their bodies but not their souls for their souls well in a place up to a row which you cannot visit not even in your dreams you cannot make them just like you try to be like them but you cannot make my guess now in Georgia is that Dr. Lee Brown head of the federal government's drug control

policy Dr. Brown first let me thank you very much for taking time and being with us well it's my pleasure the light to be with you the federal government is refocusing its efforts to combat drugs the war against drug can you give us a little idea of what the plan is well the president's required to annually submit a national drug control policy to the Congress then to the American people he did that in February this year his strategy was based upon the drug problem as we see it today and I can probably best summarize that by making three points number one we've seen a substantial reduction in casual or if you would not addicted drug use number two we've seen no progress in the chronic hardcore addicted drug user population and third we're very concerned because children are using more drugs and not viewing drugs as as dangerous as has been the case in the past based on that the president submitted his plan to the Congress which has as this overarching goal to reduce the demand for drugs in America and we feel the best way to do that is through prevention education treatment a renewed emphasis

in that area while not neglecting enforcement interdiction international programs in essence we have a comprehensive approach to addressing the drug problem yet a more balanced approach to carry out his strategy he requested from the Congress a record fourteen point six billion dollars to implement his 1995 national drug control strategy you came to Georgia along with a number of mayors from around the state as part of assigning of the Atlanta resolution can you tell us a little about that this is the American studies against drugs conference which is modeled after a similar conference held in New York the mayors are coming here to make a strong statement that we are opposed to drug use we're going to work hard to implement a national strategy to deal with the problem and we are unequivocally opposed to any a measure that would increase drug use that means we are unequivocally opposed to those who call for the legalization of drugs from my own personal perspective coming from a 30 year career law enforcement now serving

as the nation's drug policy director I believe that the legalization of illegal drugs will indeed be the road to destruction of our nation what we have to do is to follow the path that we laid out for ourselves that is recognizing that we have to stop young people from using drugs to begin with that calls for prevention programs educational programs for those who unfortunately addicted to drugs we have to get them off and the best way to do that is through treatment programs we know that treatment works all the research tells us that for one dollar invested in treatment we say the taxpayers seven dollars in return we can cut down on crime and violence and fear by getting those hardcore chronic drug users off of drugs and into a productive life so our message here is very clear that the American city mayors are not going to give up on our cities we're going to protect our children protect our cities and therefore protect our future and to accomplish that we're saying no to those who are advocating the legalization of illegal drugs what about the

source these states and these countries that allow that are producing and allowing production of drugs what is the federal government going to do about that well we have a strategy to address that as well are the president's strategy calls for a control shift from interdiction in the transit zone but not ever leaving our borders open to the Pablo Escobar's or the world to bring their drugs in with impunity but doing a control shift to the the source countries themselves to to me these strategies is quite clear very logical if you want to stop something you're better off going to the source for example if we were concerned about harness flying throughout a community we're better off going to the harness nest and stopping them there rather than waiting until they spread out throughout a larger environment the same thing is true with drugs for go to the source where they grow the drugs and we can stop it there we're better off than waiting till the drugs leave the country and trying to stop them in the fast ocean air and land that comes into the United States all right I know you're very very busy man but just one final problem money does

the federal government have the money to effectively fight the war and drugs it's not a matter of whether we have the funds or we want to do it it's something we cannot afford not to do it's very simple you pay now or you pay later as I indicated earlier the president has requested a record 14.6 billion dollars now my concern is not the request from the administration what happens at the Congress I was outraged for example when our Congress our House of Representatives voted to take back 472 million dollars out of 482 million dollars for our safe and drug-free schools programs I think it's it's an outrage at a time where we find our young people using more drugs that the Congress would vote to take a back to funds from the only federal program we we had that would help 94% of the school districts address the problem fortunately the Senate has voted to restore the full amount and now they're going into a House Senate conference committee and it's my whole in fact it's my prayer that the Senate version will prevail I attended the school

in Washington DC a few weeks ago a junior high school myself and the secretary of education we were there talking to young people about their safe and drug-free schools program a little young lady junior high school lady got up and raised her hand she asked us a question she said if you take the money that we have available to prevent drugs and use it to build more prisons what message are you sending to the children of America I think I think the Congress has to answer that question we can't arrest our way our bill our way out of the problem we have right now we're going to have to provide an opportunity through education and prevention program to keep our young people from using drugs for those who are already addicted we have to address their addiction and that's through treatment programs and we'll have the same time maintaining an aggressive enforcement maintaining an interdiction program they'll keep drugs from coming across our border as well as working with our allies and international programs but I think the real answer

has to come from the local government I think people will have to want to change from within that means that parents are going to have to assume responsibly for their children individuals are going to have to assume responsibly for their own actions and indeed people will have to come together to neighborhood level put aside their differences and take back their neighborhoods blocked by block our religious leaders have to play a more important role we can't overlook the fact that 70% of the people who use drugs go to work every day so drug-free workplace programs are extremely important an equal important media plays a critically important role we can't continue to glamorize drugs through the entertainment industry I'm convinced from when I see in this country that if we put our minds to it we work together we can and we must make a difference the future of our country depends upon it dr. Lee Brown director of the federal government's drug control policy thank you very much for being with us and taking your time force it's my pleasure delighted to be with you

this year a dozen Athens artists received individual artists grants from the Georgia council for the arts Mary K. Mitchell of member station W. UGA profiles one of the recipients Peter Luce who started with the functional form of the dulcimer and transformed it into something fresh and new a dulcimer is a string musical instrument that produces soft sweet sounds the hammer dulcimer was invented more than 5,000 years ago in the mid east and was popular in medieval Europe the strings were stretched over a large sound box and played with two padded hammers the mountain dulcimer is a development unique to the United States it evolved from the dulcimer's brought over by European immigrants the mountain regions of Tennessee North Carolina and Georgia

are still home to creative artisans who craft these instruments by hand this wooden instrument has an hourglass or teardrop shape and is held on the musicians lap and played by plucking the mountain dulcimer has remained an important element of folk music in many parts of the country in part because of its simplicity but some modern day artists are now trying to adorn that musical simplicity with greater aesthetic values artists such as Peter Luce of Athens are taking handmade dulcimer's a step further and turning them into truly visual as well as auditory art Luce describes what makes his instrument different this is is truly a separation from that whole thing and that it's shaped like an animal I know there have been carvings of animals on them and animal images but this is a snake and it curves like a snake it has a box that most of them do with sound holes and the sound that comes out is just a real airy quality string sound that's really appellation southern mountain it's definitely a stretch though this is changing it

quite a bit his changes include fashioning the instruments into animal configurations and painting them with geometric shapes and words in vivid colors it was an innovation that Luce embarked upon purely as a grand experiment when applying for the individual artist grant from the Georgia council for the arts when I wrote the grant I told the grant panel that I would I would take the many and I would learn something about this idea of a dulcimer really didn't tell them I would be able to do it and so they were going to be sculptural as the form and I thought snakes and and the others a fish those shapes lend themselves to the instrument itself but the fact that when they got strung the sound was just beautiful and real surprise I kind of owe it to the accident of it all please just a little ditty so you can get us an idea of what that sound is like it's just a real plucky happy sound it's strung in a lot of ways it's picked you can cord

the instrument you can do a lot if you're a musician and play this it's an amazing instrument I'm real excited about getting into the hands of people that really love to play it's very new I mean I've just did done this in the last couple months so this is really a exciting change for my work and it was a stretch for my work that grant really allowed me to have a new future I mean I'm going to be doing this for probably the rest of my life in experimenting with those sounds sounds and art together yeah the whole idea of the form of those antiques is sculpture always intrigue me I love violins and I love fiddles and all of those incredibly carved beautiful instruments but this it's the only way I could kind of get in on it and I'm in on it now loose got in on it in a roundabout manner he first came to Athens as a naturalist for the Sandy Creek Nature Center his art began as a very personal way to surround himself with color he painted fish ties and built elaborate birdhouses the inspiration for his artwork definitely came from his day job

working as a professional naturalist is something that I'm going to be the rest of my life as well I mean animals need people in lots of ways these days and people need them I'm one of those people and so we have animals from all over dogs and chicken turkey a pig in the yard things that people couldn't take care of any longer and they they do inspire me just their daily habits in life loose added research to his animal observations as he created three dalsamers with his grant award he applied the knowledge he gained to one work entitled the walking catfish when he looked in an old fish book for aquarium keepers a real old one it had a text on catfish and it said banjo catfish and walking catfish are related and I thought oh that's so great that's so funny and then I the words that are written on it are from that book mostly the walking cat fish is an animal that really lives in Florida in the swamps of Georgia and they truly can get out of the water and walk on a rainy night when they want to move they do it and he's doing it loses to snake-shaped alcimars also look like they could just slither away on their own

these are by no means your menacing type of serpent they too reflect loose is fun and joyful quality including the title painted directly on the work on the side it's painted in big big letters it says wish we all could be amazed and that's just kind of the highlight of most of my work this year was just I wish people would take time just to simply be amazed not to work at it just to react to the way things look to them and enjoy things and my life's a good life and I wish other people could live that way I should amaze you and whether that person is one that can amaze you in the sars of the world or in learning about how dark things can be or how incredibly positive they can be that's really vital artists vital and and I feel like as long as I'm happy it'll be happy if I got sad it would probably be sad but I'm not a sad person the artwork of happy person Peter Luce and the other Athens grant recipients will remain on view through June 30 in the grand

show at the Lyndon House Art Center in Athens for Georgia Gazette I'm Mary Kay Mitchell Georgia Gazette commentator Lee May can make friends with just about anyone including collars who get the wrong number each time I've moved and changed telephone numbers I've gotten a new set of collars seeking somebody who used to have my number or one close to it most times I felt no connection to the would-be recipients of these wrong number calls but that has changed for about six years now my wife Lynn and I have gotten wrong number calls for two people over and over and those calls have gotten our attention the first time a call came in for mother Harris I said hold on thinking it was somebody asking for Lynn by her former last name after all she is a mother Lynn quickly determined the caller was looking for someone else then there

is little Courtney I say little because these calls all came from children who sounded about seven or eight years old mother Harris's callers sounded elderly or in great distress over the years we have begun feeling some kinship to mother Harris and to Courtney when I take a call for either of them I don't feel aggravated the way I do when somebody calls looking for a stranger mother Harris and Courtney are family mother's calls seem to surge on Sunday and Courtney's come in late afternoon and before nine o'clock at night their collars are always polite they never slam down the phone as if they blame us for they're getting the wrong number I've asked collars to tell me what number they're calling so I do know the correct numbers for both mother Harris and for Courtney and I did think of calling them and introducing myself but I decided against that this way they're

like characters in a book I know their names but not much else I can paint any picture of them I want unrestricted even by their voices time really does fly I'm amazed at how long we have known mother and Courtney given the fact that nobody stays in one place anymore or keeps the same telephone number now they could leave our lives at any time of course so I've been thinking more and more about whether to pick up the phone and call them here's what I'd say hello mother how you doing just thought I'd call to say hey you're going to church having something special for dinner today do you garden if I called Courtney I could find out how classes are going what young people think and feel these days stay in school I tell Courtney learn all you can will I ever make those calls

have those conversations no I know I won't the mystery is just too good to end leave me as a journalist with the Atlanta Journal and Constitution he recently published his first book well as Georgia Gazette for this week our program produced by Susanna Kapiluto edited by Sid Hoskinson with help this week from James Argrove's Mike Savage and Mary K Mitchell coming up next week we end our four part series on teen pregnancy in Georgia with a look at teenage fathers I'm Bruce Dorton have a nice day and a nice week broadcast of Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens if you have questions or comments about this program please write to Georgia Gazette

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