ALABAMA VOTERS AGAINST LAWSUIT ABUSE Skip Tucker blasts Jere Beasley for fees  .... .l ,  &lt; ,, ,   f-i.c s.  • d  .... .....  ...... ,.-'. ,. ....... I __.:.,.._ . .......... .............. .,, . - ...... . ,..  .... : .... , ......  ...... .-~ By Jean McCrady and Skip Tucker but that the firm "might" ask to be paid for Against Lawsuit Abuse say he got about • "  +-- < .... f.-'  ": ::',- ' ..'.. ..... e" When you take a close look at the class its time and expenses. Oh, please. Beasley is $40 million while the great majority of his .... . ..... .+ ,, _-. ...... : ........ . .......... _( action lawsuit filed by Alabama personal after millions, If I were forced to wager on "clients" got a fewthousand. Crumbs. -" < ....... "s :: ..... . .2 >' injury trial lawyer Jere Beasley s law firm whether the sun will come up tomorrow or In fact, in personal injury cases, rather • .: :i<7 - : j;.,. ::;. 7  :..  .f , .,--, ¢ against laco Bell, you begin to realize that that Beasley will seek millions in compensa- than the 33 percent that author John ..... -"::":" , :::i ";"':"' , , ,::< /" ......  ! ..........  , several aspects of this case are hard to swal- don for this lawsuit, I would play it safe.and Grisham says is the national average for .... -'--. ....... :f#m-, r , , 01jD low. The class action lawsuit claims a laco bet on Beasley. By the way, it's not laco contingency fees, Beasley often gets 40 per- b ;==_.-,  ,) n ........... o . Bell taco doesn't contain enough meat, and Bell who would be paying these millions; cent. Then he generously allows his "client" i- e'" ["  ,: /ll'liql/t!   has drawn national ridicule all the way from it s the customers standing in line paying for to pay court costs, which can run to 20 per- : ....  ........ -  I,ll ¥ m_. ¢ ' Lend to Letterman. their Taco Bell meals, cent. If a "client" gets 50 cents on the dollar • ...... F':-',- IN LIBYA, .' First, class action lawsuits are little more . Fourth, the Beasley lawsuit is being from the Beasley firm, he is lucky. This is :WiZ;.Z't.<:::  ' -- than an avenue to make personal injury trial brought in one of the very worst climates for crumby. lawyers wealthy at consumers expense. As class action lawsuit abuse: California. Every year, some of the nation's most of 0bama0000Var 3 mments by the editor are opinions, reasons, or recommendations... ,nct your written and signed opinions to the Editor, P. O. Box 480040, Linden, Alabama 36748 lfust be commission cover-up From the wide spread loss of fuel from the arengo County shop, from the voice of former com- {ssioners who knew fuel was missing, and from me of the thieves themselves, nobody took respon- )ility to report it to the sheriff or district attorney or the commission in a public meeting. Cover up is what this appears to be. To cover up like President Richard Nixon did in the. atergate scandal drove him from office. The definition of Abet is: to incite, sanction, or lp, especially in wrongdoing. Sanction means to prove, authorize, or allow. Can we, after reading Webster's definition of those )rds, conclude that the people who knew about this d did not report it are just as guilty as those who tually committed the thefts? Some are under a supervisor who tells them what y can and cannot do as an employee. This does not empt them. If the supervisor in charge of the fuel at county shop fails to report the losses to the com- ission, then he is guilty of aiding and abetting as well. If he reports it to the commission and the com- missioners do not file theft of property report with the sheriff, then the commissioners themselves are aiding and abetting. The next step for the supervisor is to report the thefts himself. The sheriff said he has had no reports of thefts. The best we can surmise is cover up. We move around in a world where common sense prevails. What kind of world is the commission in if it cannot understand that stealing is stealing and does not initiate action to halt it and collect retribution from those who stole it?... Did the people of this county elect a bunch who knows nothing about right and wrong? Do they know the difference between stealing and honesty? It is down to the lick log now. They'd better 'tess up now because if they don't, it will get much worse later. The disgrace this has brought to Marengo County is something the public will never forgive. towns must look ahead There is not enough time to dance around the zeties when the future is looking at us in the face. Remembering the past is wonderful. We do so ery week when we print the Joel D. Jones Old mes column. Remembering when Linden and Demopolis and omaston and Sweet Water and the other towns had ze shade trees on their main streets brings cool 3ughts during summer's heat. Current thinking is to revitalize towns with urban restry. Is .this looking backwards or into the future? Both,  think. Also looking forward is a river boat landing at the d of Washington Street in Demopolis. The town ew up around this old landing and even flourished ore when the railroad came through. This is both king back and looking ahead. When the county courthouse was on Center Street in Linden, the town clustered around it. The it moved to the next hill on the Jefferson Road and the town really thrived around that. Then the railroads came through and town moved to the railroads. After the baroque courthouse was completed in 1904, town moved to the middle of Linden. More than 50 years ago, planning consultants reported to the Linden mayor and council that city hall should be where the elementary school is. Use that building, he said. Today, that is still the advice of city planners who explain that having all the governmental build- ings located in one central area makes it easier for the public to take care of its business. This is looking ahead, We can learn from the past how to make things bet- ter in the future. |ronner uses junior, Hitler writer Shameful attack on public employees is one article avid Bronner put on the front of his March edition 'The Advisor, published by the Retirement Systems 'Alabama. The sheet claims it serves 330,000 mem- ,,rs. That's a lot of public workers, but it also dudes floor moppers, orange juice openers, and des for teachers who can't control their students. e prime servers are the judges, teachers, and state ap!oyees. Bronner's radical left wing Democrat friend Robert ich wrote the Hitler-istic attack on the people with ,mmon sense. We know they have common sense :ause they know the state is spending more than it going to take in. Apparently Bromaer and his ,mocratic cronies do not understand this. Bronner has used his retirement system to load up a llion and a half bucks for himself and about the me for his marching through the state coffers Paul Hubbert of the Alabama Education Association, the uptown name for a labor union of teachers. Reich babbles around a declares that public sector workers earn. far less than private sectors workers with the same number of years of education. Like the Blue Collar comedian Ron White said, "You can't • stupid," and the people of Alabama have voted to say •you can't fix illiterate or incompe- tent teachers. Writer Reich says the Republicans are behind all this, creating class warfare between the educated in government and teaching jobs and the educated in the jobs where people actually produce something worth- while for the people. Bronner should know better than to get a fifth Reicher to helP him become our fuhrer. Seig hell, David! we've seen again and again over the years, a company or institution gets sued over what often seem to be trumped up charges, then the trial lawyer gets millions and we the supposed "aggrieved customers" get coupons, or dimes on the dollar. Crumbs. This is a solid fact that cannot with truth be denied. Second, a Taco Bell taco has far more meat in it than Beasley's lawsuit, with which there are myriad things questionable. Beasley is after the deep pockets of the food industry, with evidence of his own manufac- ture. He admits that his firm produced the "study" that says Taco Bell is shorting the public in regards to beef in its taco, but he refuses to say who actually did the study. Call me cynical, but 1 find it suspicious when a trial lawyer produces the very evi- dence over which he is bringing suit. Third, the Beasley firm loudly asserts that its plaintiff is not seeking monetary damages Personal injury lawyers say they are filing lawsuits to help average citizens. Consider this history: In the infamous Anniston PCB case, a chemical company which developed PCB let some of it escape into the ground- water and folks in the area, mostly poor and black, were affected. I mention that the folks were black because Beasley associated the late Johnnie Cochran, of OJ fame, to recruit about 15,000 plaintiffs. When the case settled (not even a trial) and the smoke, of which there was much, cleared, Beasley walked away with $36 million, Cochran with $29 million and their 15,000 "clients" got less than $8,000 each. Crumbs. And then there's Vioxx. Beasley was the lead plaintiff lawyer in that national case. When it settled, Beasley refused to release information about how the money was dis- tributed. He admitted he used a self-devised "secret formula." Those are his words. What a guilty secret! Sources for Alabama Voters notorious personal injury trial lawyers hold a "secret" meeting to discuss businesses on which they will concentrate their job-killing  lawsuit fire in the coming months: guns, the auto industry, chemicals, energy, etc. A few years ago, they chose the food industry. Criminal trial lawyer Dickie Scrnggs, who now rightfully resides in the federal pen, boasted that "ultimately, we will bring the food industry to its knees." It looks like Beasley bought in. Ay, Chihuahua! Taco Bell is not sup- posed to be Ruth's Chris. Get ready for your coupor Your crumbs. P.S. Be sure to hide the Alabama bar- beque and cheese biscuits -- they may be the personal injury lawyers' next target. (Jean McCrady and Skip Tucker are directors of Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse, Montgomery, AL. McCrady is small business owner/operator of Mountain Lakes Resort in Guntersville. USPS 153-380 Published every That',day ut The Demot.'rat-Reporter at I08 East Coats Avenue. Linden. Marengo Cnty. Alabmlll 36748. Ptmaster, plet nd chges of addl'e-ss to: P. 0. Box 480(1+ Liflden, Alabanu136748 Telephone 334/2-95-5224 Linden Reptnler eslabllshed 1879. Marengo Democrat eslublished 188q. Consolidated 191 I it The Dnl,tI-Reporler. Periodk:als postage paid at Denpolls, Alabamm, Sub,'riptiou prices ill:lude sales tilx plus potuge and handling. In MilrellgO. Clarke, Chtlilw, Sunlier, Greene, Hale, Perry• Dallas, lind Wilcox Cc nties, annual ub'=ripllons lane $35.00. ()u i idi I lli , ilhove nol twJ counties in AIilbJn1l, ..'0.00. Editor-Publisher Goodloe Sutton Office Manager Barbara Quinney Sports Jim DeWitt Advertising Amy Cave Production Manager Henry Waiters Production Assistant Angela Compton OlD TIMES BY THE LATE JOEL D. JONES ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JANUARY I0, 1935 Women not allowed in Mason00 it is secret order, they can't keep secrets In a letter from a lady saying that she is very much interest- ed in masonry and said she enjoyed a piece I had written about masonry and requested me to write more on the subject if possible to tell why women were not.allowed to join the sect. Masonry is founded on this belief and it forbids that women shall be a mason. However, the chief knowledge is that women cannot keep a secret, and this is a secret order. Although women are excluded from the acts of masonry, she is yet its only beneficiary. Acknowledging to her for implanting and fostering those first principles of truth and virtue on which its duty depends, it renders to women the chivalrous protection of a loyal brotherhood. Masonic work, the unwritten traditional explanations of the symbols of masonry are important barriers to exclude them from the inner shrine of our temple. Believing by the legends of the sect which extend to remotest ant-American origin and progress of it is to be traced in the evolution of the social and moral instincts and relations of our race and the relations of man to his creator and his fellows and to himself. It has no new principles or reason precedent to its extent but broadly bases itself upon it at a fundamental principle of brotherhood, of God, and brotherhood of man. Masonry does not assume to be a system of relition suffi- cient in that it is yet the prac- tical, active, and tangible expression of the natural ele- ments or principles which underlay the social and codes and religions of all civilized enlightened people. It is the law of the religion of nature, universal, fixed and unalter- able as of creature to crea- ture, of man to creator. A system of ethics'thus founded universally acknowledged natural as revealed relationed is simple grandeur and grand in its simplicity free from the prej- udices which divide bodies into sects and array of the same general faith and antag- onism with each other. Here one common bond-the blood of man; one common father- hood of God; one common ideal aim or purpose-the ful- fillment of "'.: perfect manhood. Our faith in God hope in immortal mankind, charity for all mankind the spirit of masonry is optimistic in things. It looks up through nature and nature's God and in touch with the mark of the Supreme Architect distinctly realized in him the perfect God of revelation. It sees in man a brother for whom all good things of a beneficent father are provided. It recog- nizes no need of salvation for any creed, righteously opening the door for persons and in the fraternal spirit of the Perfect The late Joel Desaker Jones Man who went about manhood, extends a brother's hand in an appeal of sorrow and want, of much woe. We have a profuse display of masonic acts, discussing reli- gious platitudes and discoursing of the masonic rights of,. brotherly love and truth which treats the brother mason and - christian in business transformed as though he were a brother to a mason. As well claim the wolf clad in the skin of the lamb he had last devoured brother of the flock he seeks by his wily device to deceive and destroy. The presence and fellow- ship as such brings discredit and dishonor upon church and lodge alike. His imperfect moral sense cannot comprehend the spirit of Christianity, nor grasp the great ideas of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. His little soul is capable of no Masonic work; his whole life a fraud, a moral failure. He deceives himself and thinks he deceives others, and expects at least to cheat the Supreme Architect hour of the choicest refreshments of the Grand Celestial Lodge in exchange for his miserable little hypocrisies in the lodge below. We have such here in Linden, and about everywhere Masonic Lodge is located. "We are taught that the lambskin or white apron, is the badge of a Mason, and should be worn, it come to use the emblem of that ideal purity of heart, that innocency of life, and spirit of brotherly love, realized only in the perfect Man, the meek and lowly, the gentle loving Jesus, the Man- God of Nazareth, who in his human life went about doing good to those whom as God he came to save. Let us then, brethren, wear it always in honor and purity and never give it to be defiled by touch of the vile and depraved. Each one' of us is, by his obli- gation, a special guardian in his lodge of the purity of the lambskin; let no unworthy motive then influence us in withholding a pure ballot from him who is worthy, and let us not fear, favor, or affection' deter us from fixing the black seal of condemna- tion and •rejection upon him who is unworthy to be admit- ted to the lodge. "As a Mason progresses the symbol s lead him on with still advancing lessons of life and duty adapted to his growing strength and expanding intellect, until in the maturity of wis- dom the Master Mason learns to look with calmness and com- posure beyond the dark and gloomy emblems of death to the evergreen and ever-living spirit of faith in the merits of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. So long until next time. Akini' UpholIterM We upholster: Call: ]Furniture • Vhid • ot 1-34-289-99Z7 603 S. Cherry St. Demopolis, AI 36732