http://www.theeagle.com/stories/111105/opinions_20051111007.php
If you're going to take time to reply, here are a few hints:
1. Research the facts. Find out about the intricacies of the burn ban and how exceptions, if granted, are evaluated.
2. Eschew emotional responses. You want to convey the image of mature leadership for Student Bonfire. Personal attacks and hotheaded replies go against what you're trying to do.
3. Keep your letter within the Eagle's 300-word limit. If Student Bonfire will reply as an organization, designate one author and circulate his draft among the principals of your group. Newspapers have editors to provide a second set of eyeballs for their reporters' work. Get somebody else's opinion before you press that send button.
4. Realize that this guy has an agenda, and it's not air quality, fire safety, or little guys who want to burn trash in their back yard. He's anti-Bonfire and he's trying to hit an emotional cord with the towns people who have horrible memories of November 1999.
In responding, you too have an agenda. That is to soothe fear. Write about your professional engineer. Write about the safety procedures you've instituted. Write about the spirit of compliance you've observed in previous Student Bonfires.
5. You can work this to your advantage to publicize Bonfire if you do it the right way.
[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 11/11/2005 12:16p).]
quote:
What burn ban?
Have I missed something, or have we had drought-ending rain in the past month that I apparently missed? I thought the countywide burn ban was still in effect. Or have the students trying to rekindle A&M's bonfire tradition been given "above to law" permission, by county administrators, to actually light a bonfire consisting of more than 2,000 poles when its a fineable offense to even burn your trash in the open in your own back yard?
If the students can have permission from the county, why can't others, or do they have a magic formula in mind to create enough moisture in the surrounding area to protect farm and ranch land - even homes - from burning caused by a spark from the bonfire? And exactly how do we get permission to burn our own trash? Aren't the county commissioners in office to "protect" all residents?
And speaking of burn bans, wasn't the county in a burn ban in 1999, the year of the disaster at A&M? Maybe a few lives (12, to be exact) could have been saved. Or were the students and the university above the law then, too?
CHARLES RAY
Bryan
If you're going to take time to reply, here are a few hints:
1. Research the facts. Find out about the intricacies of the burn ban and how exceptions, if granted, are evaluated.
2. Eschew emotional responses. You want to convey the image of mature leadership for Student Bonfire. Personal attacks and hotheaded replies go against what you're trying to do.
3. Keep your letter within the Eagle's 300-word limit. If Student Bonfire will reply as an organization, designate one author and circulate his draft among the principals of your group. Newspapers have editors to provide a second set of eyeballs for their reporters' work. Get somebody else's opinion before you press that send button.
4. Realize that this guy has an agenda, and it's not air quality, fire safety, or little guys who want to burn trash in their back yard. He's anti-Bonfire and he's trying to hit an emotional cord with the towns people who have horrible memories of November 1999.
In responding, you too have an agenda. That is to soothe fear. Write about your professional engineer. Write about the safety procedures you've instituted. Write about the spirit of compliance you've observed in previous Student Bonfires.
5. You can work this to your advantage to publicize Bonfire if you do it the right way.
[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 11/11/2005 12:16p).]