• Thank you to all the volunteers

Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful would like to thank all of the volunteers that came out Saturday, Oct. 3, to help out with Rivers Alive and Hands on Georgia Day.

We had four extremely successful cleanups. 188 volunteers gathered at the Little River off of St. Augustine Road, One Mile Branch at VSU’s Main Campus, Two Mile Branch at VSU’s North Campus, and the Alapaha River at Old State Road to help clean our city and county’s waterways.

This effort was sponsored by Keep Lowndes/Valdosta Beautiful, and it was part of Georgia’s Eighteenth Annual River Cleanup. One ton of debris, including hundreds of bags of trash, furniture, three tires, small appliances, televisions, shingles, and a wheelbarrow were among the items pulled from the waterways.

So a whole-hearted “thank you” goes out to all who volunteered, all of the sponsors, and all of the media that covered the event. All of our annual cleanup events are about more than just picking up trash. They are about education and learning by doing, building community and forging organizational relationships, and just about doing the right thing.

A total of 26 clubs and organizations, including the Valdosta High NJROTC, Lowndes High Environmental Club, Brooks County H.S., and several fraternities, sororities, and organizations from VSU participated in Rivers Alive. I am looking forward to another successful Rivers Alive event next year. The citizens of Valdosta and Lowndes County once again came together to help keep our most valuable resource clean and beautiful.

Be on the lookout for some of our future projects including Make-A-Difference Day on Saturday, Oct. 24, and the Electronics Recycling Event on Saturday, Nov. 7.

Please call either (229) 671-2497 or (229) 671-2499 to volunteer for Make-A-Difference Day or for more information on the Electronics Recycling Event. Thanks again, and remember that litter never picks itself up.

H. Aaron Strickland,

Executive Director

• President Obama not above criticism

I am writing in response to a recent letter to the editor titled "Divided we fall."

The letter writer, an Obama supporter, bemoans the fact that the president has been "attacked." He goes on to make the preposterous allegation that the criticism of Obama is unprecedented. I wonder where the writer has been for the past eight years of the Bush administration. George W. Bush was demonized by the media and the Democrats from day one. During the presidential campaign, the day after John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, the media descended upon Alaska like a pack of jackals. Although they didn't have time to investigate Obama's radical past, they dug up every bit of dirt they could on Gov. Palin and her family, including her children. Meanwhile, the mainstream media have been completely in the tank for Obama.