LETTERS
To the Editor:

To all of those individuals and businesses who helped Union General Hospital Auxiliary with a special fundraising event and saved many ink jet and laser jet cartridges for us we would like to say " Arigato, Danke, Gracias, Grazie, Merci. No matter what the language we want to say "thank you" for all the help you gave to us.

Unfortunately the company we were using (Kash for Kids) had to re-evaluate their program and due to such market volatility have had to terminate this program, therefore we will no longer be collecting any ink jet or laser jet cartridges.

Please continue to donate any cartridges you may have to other local organizations participating in this type of fundraiser and keep these cartridges out of the landfill which benefits us all.

Thank you,

Linda Garrett, Coordinator

Union General Hospital Auxiliary

To the Editor:

Oh my! It seems I have offended one of your readers by being so audacious as to suggest citizens should know for whom they are voting. A Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey was apparently offended, not only that I listed some of Barack Hussein Obama's background, but that I had the gall to use his entire name. I certainly never suggested he was a "closet Muslim" (her words). Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey then goes on for the next sixteen sentences rambling about names, ending with a quote from Shakespeare. With her childish "gotcha" and "the South shall rise again" statements, we can only wonder if she is perhaps showing a bit of that bigotry she claims "conservative Blogs and talk show hosts have." If one is a conservative, I suppose in Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey's eyes that must mean they are bigoted. I did say my letter was for Southerners in general and native Georgians in particular, so I don't really think the letter was directed at Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey, though she seems to have taken it quite personally. The statements I made regarding Barack Hussein Obama are all true facts which can be easily verified. They are, by all means, not the whole story. He was also entertained in the home of his friends Bernadette Dohrn and Bill Ayers, (thugs of the notorious 1960's Weather Underground) where they introduced some of their Chicago liberal friends who would support him in a run for state senator in 1995. No, Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey, there is a whole lot more to Barack Hussein Obama than has been made public by all of those nasty conservatives. And, it is all verifiable.

You didn't know what "left of pure socialism" meant to me. I am sure you know what "left" means. Lenin referred to Western "left" apologists for communism as "useful idiots." And, you certainly must be familiar with the term "socialism," possibly very familiar. Because I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out some of the truths regarding Barack Hussein Obama, Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey now seems to have the convoluted idea that I "have a moral duty" to furnish readers with "an expose" about John Sidney McCain. Oops, I used his middle name. I believe I shall leave that "expose" to the learned Miss Ruth Elizabeth Ramsey. She, after all, remembers someone, "an older military man," (she doesn't know who, but he reminded her of someone else) standing before cameras almost 50 years ago saying "John McCain" (whose father and grandfather were the first father-son four-star American Navy admirals) "was no hero." Bless her heart.

Dorothy McIntosh To the Editor:

I'm tired of politics. I need a sabbatical from all the hubris of the hustings vitriol. So for my sabbatical, I'll be changing gears and thinking about my favorite subject: history! As to the history of what, my favorite exploration into the past involves a one time race of people known as the Celts. Somebody sent me a book on the Celts, and I must admit that I perched it on our coffee table and then ignored it; until one day when I casually picked it up, expecting nothing, and found instead a goldmine of history. Being of Irish descent, I became interested in genealogy some years ago when it was all the rage. My name, McKevitt, means 'Sons of David.' The 'David' of interest was one David O'Doherty, chieftain of the O'Dochartaig Clann, in County Donegal, in 1208 ad, slain in battle with the O'Cahan (O'Kane) Clann, and honored with the creation of a sept, a unit of a clan, honoring him and declaring his six sons and all male progeny thereafter to be known as the 'Sons of David.' One variation of the name is 'McDevitt,' while another is McDaid, or McDade. McDade lives on, both in Georgia and Florida, as Dade County. But all that was just about the Irish until the broader story of the Celts emerged and captured my imagination and unfettered attention. So who were they- those Celts? Get set for a shock! They were one of three races of people populating the Steppes of Russia, roughly 6,000 years ago. The three races were sharply distinguished in their physical characteristics, but spoke the same language, which was what philology refers to as Proto-Indo-European. Unless our European ancestors were Etruscan, Basque, Finnish or Hungarian, we all speak a language deriving from what is called now the Indo-European mother tongue.

Those speakers of Proto-Indo-European, in 6,000 bc, may have responded to some great catastrophic event, because they left the area north of modern day Kazakhstan as if chased by the very devil himself. One race migrated due west and wound up in what we call Scandinavia and northern Germany. They were quite tall, had blond hair and blue eyes, and spoke an Indo-European language branch called 'Germanic.' Another race of Proto-Indo- European language speakers moved south. They were swarthy of complexion, had dark hair and brown eyes; they became the Persians, and spoke another branch of Proto-Indo-European called Indo-Iranian. The third race of people was especially interesting to me; as with the ancestors of northern Germans and Scandinavians, they were quite tall- the men were over six feet, and the women about six feet; they had either flaming red hair and green eyes, or jet black hair and blue eyes. Each, it would seem, sported a prominent proboscis. And where did they go? Well, their Indo-European family branch was called Indo-Aryan. Adolph Hitler conceived of Germans as the Aryan super race, identified by their iconic symbol, the swastika. Adolph was astray; the Aryan race of people came from eastern Russia, and migrated to what we would call today northern India, probably by way of the Indus River valley; and the swastika to them meant 'well being.' Indus is also known in northern India as Hindu, or Sindhu; so what had they to do with the Celts? Well, the Aryans left India and migrated to a place in Upper Austria known as 'Salzkammergut.' Archeology showed them to have been there in 1200 bc, and Salzkammergut meant 'Good Salt Mine.' They went on to mine tin, copper and precious metals such as gold and silver, got very rich, and exploded in growth all over Europe, becoming known to history as the 'First Europeans.'

Want to know why in the Iberian Peninsula they came to be called Celtiberia? Or why in France people were called Gaulish? Was Belgium a place name for a Celtic tribal confederation? What had the Celts to do with the Egyptians and Cleopatra? Or the Greeks? Or how about the recipients of letters to the Galatians'? And what was the story of the Insular Celts? And note, too, that when the Celts met the Greeks for the first time, and the Greeks asked, 'Who are you? they replied that they were the 'Hidden People.' In Greek, that was 'Keltoi,' and from it came "Celt.' Also from it came the word 'kilt,' an object used to protect the vulnerable.

And why do I know all this? Because beginning Friday, April 18, from 1 to 3 pm, I'll be teaching a six-week, twelve classroomhour, non-credit course on 'The Ancient World of the Celts,' on behalf of the Institute of Continuing Learning (ICL), at Young Harris College, in Young Harris, Georgia. It will be afternoons from 1 to 3. Its cost will be $17 for the entire course. Any interested in learning more about the course, or enrolling, should call ICL's Bob Langenbacher at 706-379-2660. Or e-mail me at tommckevittsr@ tds.net.

Tom McKevitt