“Huntsville Observer” editor and publisher, Bob Sablatura, was awarded the periodic Huntsville Patriot Award by WWW.AMERICANPATRIOTS.ORG for his outstanding contribution to bringing journalistic integrity to Huntsville and standing up for The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

American Patriots founder, George H. Russell, in announcing the award, said, “Bob represents the great tradition of honest independent journalism which has long been forgotten in Huntsville by the monopolistic “Item”, which he believes represents the whims of the oligarchy rather than truth, fairness, objectivity, ethics, and concern for our citizenry.

When the awards committee read Sablatura’s December 12, 2001 article, “Large retailers move in while small businesses pack up”, they immediately knew that they had found the Huntsville citizen most worthy of receiving the current award.

In addition, Bob printed an extremely important patriotic column by Jim Hightower, entitled “We are at risk with Bush’s military courts”. “Obviously Sablatura has both guts and integrity”, proclaimed American Patriots committee member, Dr. Kenneth L. Russell.

George Russell, who happens to be both editor and publisher of the competing HUNTSVILLE NEWS, said that he recommends Bob’s paper as Huntsville’s best source of accurate reporting and hopes that local merchants advertise in “The Huntsville Observer”.

“I welcome the competition from Bob”, mused Russell. “When there is only one news source in any community in America the citizenry almost always loses.” “Fair competition is what America is all about”, he continued. “Bob has exposed what the “Item” never would, that is the unfair use of tax dollars taken from hometown business and using those tax dollars in an un-American form of corporate socialism to reward outside mega-corporations so that they may more readily destroy our locally owned businesses”, Russell added.

Russell recommends an investigation into what personal benefits may be accruing to politicians and bureaucrats who are obsessed with the destruction of the small businesses which built this community. “Something doesn’t smell right”, fumed Russell while pinching his nose with his fingers.

Every year the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, their puppets at City Hall, and their mouthpiece, The Huntsville Item, cry, demand, whimper, cajole and encourage all of the citizens of Huntsville to shop locally.

Every year the Chamber of Commerce, which Historical Commission Chairman, James Patton calls “The Chamber of Carpetbaggers”, spends far more money in “Yankieland” than in our own community.

This year, for example, they and their cronies at City Hall spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring folks from Washington to tell us we have too many trees in our City. One year some ‘snake oil salesman’ was paid a small fortune to tell them to drop ping-pong balls off of the Courthouse. They City has paid over a million for design help while our own design team was paid to watch outsiders do their job. We are obviously too stupid to design something as simple as 18 holes in a cow pasture to knock little white balls into.

Between the City and the Chamber, millions of dollars have been frivolously exported to other States for the hire of so-called ‘experts’ of dubious quality and qualifications to tell us why we appear so stupid to the rest of the world and why tourists pass us by to go to San Marcos, or Austin, or San Augustine, or Kerrville or other places where quality of life still seems to matter. Most of the folks we hire are probably considered incompetent in their own communities since so many Huntsville folks who our leaders consider stupid get lucrative jobs in other States telling them how to run their towns.

This rampant hypocrisy is especially nauseating at Christmastime when we are made to feel like some kind of traitors if we spend a nickel outside of Walker County, while the big shots at the ‘Chamber of Hypocrites’ run off to Houston to shop, because poor little Huntsville only caters to the tastes of poor people. Since our leaders are socially and economically way above the average poverty-line citizen of Huntsville, they are FORCED to seek solace at the Galleria or Woodland’s Mall. And anyway, there are no Lexus or Mercedes dealerships in Huntsville.

“Child abuse in America takes many forms”, according to George H. Russell, CEO of Educational Video Network.

“I have spent much of the last 48 years helping America’s youth expand their intellectual horizons and when I see children warehoused under jail-like conditions where their little minds atrophy, causing their boredom to turn into hyperactivity, which is usually treated by drugging the children, I seethe with anger”, he continued. Drugging kids to be able to control them, leads to later drug abuse Russell believes, and leading kids down the pathway to educational and emotional failure is another avenue to later drug abuse he also believes. 

“The November 2001, issue of TEXAS MONTHLY made it perfectly clear to me that the children warehoused in Samuel Houston Elementary School, under what I consider an abusive environment, are going to suffer the negative consequences the rest of their lives”, Russell went on the say.

The issue of TEXAS MONTHLY to which Russell refers indicates that Stewart Elementary with its access to natural light received the highest possible ‘Five Star’ rating, while Sam Houston Elementary received the lowest possible ‘One Star’ rating. As the appreciable difference in the two schools is the learning environment, Russell contends that parents wishing their children to make good grades, get into the college of their choice, and achieve success in life, should demand that they be transferred to Stewart.

“I would not wish Samuel Houston Elementary on even the most hardened criminal, much less a precious innocent child”, fumed Russell. “Perhaps it could be sold to TDCJ for use as a warehouse or other storage facility”, he continued with finality.

EDITORIAL COMMENT by ETHICIUS I, Prelate, Universal Ethician Church

How can adults who become school administrators and citizens who indicate that they love children force those children into unhealthy and abusive environments? Is there some psychological motivation that prompts persons who actually hate children for some twisted reason to run for school board or become school administrators?

Should candidates for school board be obligated to prove their true love of children and their honest dedication to their welfare by undergoing a battery of psychological tests before being allowed to run for office? And what about school administrators who demand plush offices with huge windows with expansive views yet punish whole generations of children by forcing them to endure unnatural conditions removed entirely from God’s Creation?

I suggest that they visit our church’s web-site, WWW.CHILDABUSERS.ORG and then take heed and reflect and repent.

Children who attend the public schools on Highway 190 East come within inches of being maimed or killed on a daily basis. Many of the children walk to and from school and as there are no sidewalks or crossings of the busy five lane highway, the children must run across the lanes and then walk in the traffic lanes in order to arrive at their destinations without having to slosh through mud.

Dr. Kenneth Russell, Professor Emeritus of Education, has for over 20 years attempted to get either the school board or the City of Huntsville or local civic clubs such as Rotary, or the Editorial Board of the Huntsville Item concerned about child safety. His continuous pleas to protect what he calls “out most precious asset” has not only been met with a total lack of concern but the latest City Manager was quite rude when Dr. Russell expressed his fear about child welfare in Huntsville.

It was reported to this paper that during raining weather last week, four small children with umbrellas, raced from lane to lane, dodging cars and trucks until by some miracle they arrived at the far side of the busy highway.

Our contact said that they attempted to contact the Editor of The Huntsville Item but got the school reporter instead who stated that she doubted that the editor would be interested. He then left a message with the Publisher who never responded.

EDITORIAL COMMENT by George H. Russell, Publisher

How sad indeed that no one in authority in Huntsville seems to care about anything but their own power and prestige, leaving the poorest children of Huntsville at the mercy of their own survival skills. We are spending millions of tax dollars, building golf courses and subsidizing multi-national predatory corporations which destroy local business, yet we never seem to have any money to protect our youth from harm. No wonder that the International Press refers to Huntsville as “The City of Death”. Our gutless City fathers and mothers seem much happier catering to the whims of any shyster who happens by wearing shiny snake skin shoes and driving a new Mercedes than in showing any genuine concern about our own children.

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