In the news: Five Questions

So far this week, two news organizations have reprinted part of the August and September Five Questions interviews we did with two former Southern governors.

Yesterday, the Gwinnett Daily Post was one of several Georgia newspapers to reprint a comment by Gov. Roy Barnes on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

Barnes: Fire everybody
“We should use Katrina as a learning lesson that we will never be this unprepared again. We should insist that co-operative efforts of federal, state and local governments be established with a direct liaison between individual governors and a close representative of the president as an integral part of the plan. Finally, I found as governor, you have to have accountability for performance at the highest levels, otherwise you would have no accountability at all. Whoever is responsible for this failure, whether it be the director of FEMA or the secretary of Homeland Security, needs to be fired.” — Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes in an interview with the Center for a Better South foundation in Charleston, S.C. (Note: FEMA director Michael Brown has resigned since Barnes gave his interview.)

And Tuesday, the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance-Star printed an editorial on Southern lands, that included an observation by former Mississippi Gov. William Winter:

Land is, axiomatically, sacred to Southerners. ... But it isn't lasting much in these parts and many other parts of the South, where development is a Second Reconstruction, upending settled life and creating The New and Different! Ironically, the governing institutions of our state--its lawmakers, its courts--aid and defend this onslaught of speculation and despoilment, this essentially Yankee world view, often because they fail to distinguish land, "the only thing that lasts," from mere real estate conveyed for commercial gain. ...

Another former governor, Mississippi's William Winter, interviewed by the Center for a Better South, paints the challenge: "Already in our fastest-growing areas we are seeing the problems which reckless development can cause. Clogged highways, foul and unhealthy air, overtaxed [i.e., overburdened] utility systems, and the consumption of some of our prime open spaces and productive farm land by urban sprawl threaten the quality of life for many people. We must work to preserve the livability of our region."