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5tie Aiiuancg The ADVANCE, Moy 5, 2021 /Page 5A OPINIONS “I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his repute for the freedom to think, And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak.” —James Russell Lowell editorials Fried Chicken for Breakfast The hostess showed us to the large table and mo tioned for us to have a seat. “I love family- style restaurants/’ I said to my husband as I surveyed the ta ble set with fourteen plates of different patterns, fourteen glasses, and fourteen sets of silverware. “You never know who you’re going to meet.” Gene plopped down at the end, I sat down in a ladderback chair to his right, and we both scooted up to the table. We had driven up to Nashville for the day to see the Picasso exhibit at the Frist Museum, but our first stop was Monell’s on the Manor for a hearty breakfast to fuel our day. Our waiter reappeared with two strang ers and seated them next to us. We exchanged “Good mornings” with the couple as the waiter transferred several items from a serving tray to the table — a pitcher of sweet tea, a basket of piping hot buttermilk biscuits and cinnamon rolls, a bowl of peach preserves, and a big bowl of gravy. “We haven’t been here before,” I said to the man, who identified himself as a doctor who splits his time between Pennsylvania and Nashville. “What’s good?” “Everything!” he replied. His wife bobbed her head in agreement. “But you’ll remember the fried chicken forever. It’s ex ceptional.” The stranger’s eyes grew large and hap py when he uttered the words, “fried,” and “chicken.” Within minutes, other strangers crowd ed our table — a military guy and his wife, two college friends with tattoos, and a fam ily with two small children at the end. The waiter and a helper unloaded more Southern classics to the table — thick-cut bacon, sausage patties, country ham, cheese grits, pancakes, corn casserole, and fried ap ples swimming in a thick glaze of cinnamon and sugar. Lastly, he set down a large platter heaped high with fried chicken taken just out of the grease. The chicken was a showstopper. Every one at our table stopped talking and gazed at the golden, glistening pieces. Its heavenly aroma wafted across the table and found my nose. “Fried chicken for breakfast?” I whis pered. “Why not?” my husband said. He stabbed a piece with his fork and placed it on my plate before he passed the platter to his left. I ladled peppery gravy over a butter milk biscuit and ate it. It was good. Next, I took a small bite of the chick en. Oh, Lord! My heart skipped a beat. It was delicious — divine, actually. The taste transported me back to my childhood. I saw my grandmother standing in her kitch en draped in an apron trimmed in colorful rickrack. She faced a large black cast iron skillet the size of a truck tire and carefully dipped out pieces of piping hot chicken from popping oil. One by one, she placed each succulent piece on a plate lined with napkins. I could smell her kitchen in my memory — bursting with the great smells of South Georgia cuisine. I snapped back to the present and took another bite of Monell’s chicken. The skin was crisp and crusty. The meat was warm and juicy. The flavor was simply perfection — just the right amount of salt and season ings. I glanced around the table and wit nessed every diner eating chicken in the rather hypnotic trance that had temporarily suspended me. Then my eyes met the eyes of the stranger across the table. He grinned at me with his super white teeth. “I told you you’d never forget it. You and your husband will be talking about that chicken for the rest of the day,” he laughed. “In fact, you should wrap up a wing or leg in a napkin and put it in your pocketbook. You might get hungry while you are looking at those Picasso paintings.” We feasted on fried fare and washed each piece down with tea so sweet, it tasted more like syrup than a beverage. When we could eat and drink no more, we pushed ourselves away from the table and said our “Goodbyes” to the band of strangers who had become our friends. Our dining partner was right. My hus band and I talked about that fried chicken for the rest of the day, and for the rest of the weekend. Actually, we are still talking about it, and today, I’m writing about it. “Howwas the Picasso exhibit?” a friend asked me this morning. “It was alright,” I answered. “But let me tell you about the fried chicken we ate while we were in Nashville...” From the Porch By Amber Nagle Biden vs. Biden on ‘Is America a Racist Country?’ By Pat Buchanan “Hear me clearly: America is not a rac ist country.” So declared Sen. Tim Scott, a Black Republican, in his televised rebuttal to Joe Biden’s address to Congress. Asked the next day what he thought of Scott’s statement, Biden said he agrees. “No, I don’t think the American people are racist.” Vice President Kamala Harris also agreed with Scott, “No, I don’t think Amer ica is a racist country.” What makes these rejections of the charge of racism against America signifi cant is that Biden and Harris both seemed to say the opposite after Derek Chauvin was convicted. Biden had called George Floyd’s death “a murder (that) ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic rac ism... that is a stain on our nation’s soul.” Harris had said much the same: “Amer ica has a long history of systemic racism. Black Americans — and Black men, in par ticular - have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human.” But which is the predominant view of Biden and Harris about the moral character of the country they were elected to lead? Is it a vicious slander, as Scott implied, to call America a “racist country”? Or is America’s soul, as Biden and Harris said, so stained by “systemic racism” that this coun try has treated Black Americans “as less than human” for the 400 years of her exis tence. Has America been a curse for the 40 million Black people whose numbers have multiplied 10-fold since the abolition of slavery in 1865, and whose freedoms and material prosperity have grown accord ingly? Or has America been a blessing to Black people? This is not just a gotcha question. For the clashing commentaries of Biden and Harris reflect an ideological di vide within their own coalition over a most basic issue: Is America a good country? We have been on this terrain before. Between LBJ’s landslide in 1964 and the breaking of his presidency in 1968, the Democratic Party had split into three fac tions, all at war with one another. There was the Lyndon Johnson-Hu- bert Humphrey establishment that con trolled the presidency and the party ma chinery. There was the Robert Kennedy- Gene McCarthy-George McGovern anti establishment and anti-war left. And there was the populist-right George Wallace bloc, containing millions of flag-waving blue-collar Democrats in northern industrial states and Southern Dixiecrats who detested the leftist radicals on cultural and patriotic grounds. That Democratic Party disintegrated in the convention hall and the streets of Chi cago in August of 1968, opening the door to the GOP era of Richard Nixon and Ron- Please see Buchanan page 8A When It Comes to Politics, Sir Isaac Newton Is One Smart Cookie I have a feeling that few of our intrepid public servants under the Gold Dome are familiar with the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton, except that he was the guy that got conked on the head with an apple or maybe the one that invented the cookie with figs in it. Chances are none have read Newton’s Philosophise Naturalis Principia Mathematica published way back in 1687 and better known as Newton’s laws of motion. In it, his third law of motion states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That brings me to the brouhaha that has occurred with the passage of S.B. 202 in the last legislative session, changing the rules on how we will vote in Georgia going forward. Republicans say it was to make the election process more secure. That was the action. I assume they had considered the equal and opposite reaction that was to come. At this point, it has been more than equal. Opponents of the measure have cowed a host of Georgia-based organizations — Delta Air Lines and the Coca-Cola Company specifically — with all sorts of threats of boycotts if they don’t speak out against the new law, which they claim discourages minorities (read: Democratic supporters) from going to the polls. So far, it seems to be working. Major League Baseball has moved its All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver. Moviemaker/actor Will Smith announced he would not be filming his latest movie in Georgia, prompting an unimpressed State Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-Cobb, to observe, “That will be one less film tax credit we have to pay. I’d say we’ll be money ahead when he leaves.” Zing! While the actions of opponents of the measure have been long and loud, what about an equal and opposite reaction from supporters of the bill? All I have heard so far is a lot of mumbling and grumbling. Mumbling and grumbling have no impact on a company’s bottom line. It takes action. Democrats, including the President, are referring to the voting rights bill as “Jim Crow 2.0,” inferring it is racist. That very term scares the dickens out of companies who envision picket lines and bullhorns at their doorstep. Republicans badly need to refute the Democrats’ accusations with an equal and opposite message to these companies, but I’m not hearing it. Is there any effort on the part of supporters to call for a boycott of Coca-Cola to make the point that voting bill proponents also have clout? Anybody going out to Delta’s headquarters and picket? Anybody going to resolve to fly Southwestern instead? If so, nobody has told me. I don’t think Sir Isaac covered this in his Principia, so let me. (We scientific geniuses must stick together.) There are only two ways to make a political decision — the application of pressure or the absence thereof. In this case, it is the opponents who are applying the pressure, and the result is that companies are speaking openly against the new law. And please don’t tell me Coke and Delta and others are doing this out of some altruistic motive. Remember, Delta even bragged about having helped write the bill before they got blowtorched by the bill’s opponents. It is all about protecting the bottom line. These are publicly-owned companies with shareholders looking for a satisfactory rate of return on their investment. They are going to sway in whichever direction the strongest political wind is blowing. Right now, Democrats and their allies are applying gale force winds. The companies are guessing that there will be no equal and opposite reaction from supporters of S.B. 202. In truth, Republicans in Georgia are so busy fighting among themselves and threatening to retaliate against each other over who is responsible for the lost presidential election that they seem to have lost sight of who the real enemy is. American humorist Will Rogers once said he didn’t belong to an organized party, he was a Democrat. There is no question that given what is going on today, ol’ Will would be a card-carrying Republican. It will be interesting to see what kind of action, if any, Republicans will take to counteract the Democrats regarding the voting rights bill. They had better do something equal and opposite and do it soon. Right now, they are losing the battle. And don’t say they haven’t been warned. When it comes to politics and physics, Sir Isaac Newton knows what he is talking about. And his fig cookies aren’t too bad, either. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ dickyarb. “"Abuance (The Advance Publishing Co., Inc) PO Box 669, 205 E. First Street, Vidalia, GA 30475 Telephone: (912) 537-3131 FAX: (912) 537-4899 E-mail: theadvancenews@gmail.com The Advance, U. S. P. S. #659-000, successor to The Advance and The Lyons Progress, entered weekly at Vidalia, GA Post Office. Periodical Postage paid at Vidalia, GA 30474 under Act of Congress, March 4, 1886. P.O. Box 669, East First Street, Wm. F. Ledford, Sr. Publisher. Subscription Rates per year: $40.00 in county, $55.00 out of 304 zip code. (POSTMASTER: send address changes to The ADVANCE, P.O. Box 583, Vidalia, GA 30475). Copyright © 2021, Advance Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. The design, concept and contents of The Advance are copyrighted and may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission from the publisher. R.E. "LID" LEDFORD, PUBLISHER 1924-1976 WILLIAM F. “BILL” LEDFORD SR., PUBLISHER 1976-2013 Publisher & Managing Editor: WILLIAM F. LEDFORD JR. Vice President: THE LATE ROSE M. LEDFORD Regional Editor: DEBORAH CLARK Pagination/Typography: LEANNE RICHARDSON Quality Control MILLIE PERRY Graphic Design: MATTHEW WATERS Sports Editor/Graphic Design: MIKE BRANCH Director of Advertlslng/Sales: DANIEL FORD Office Manager: GAIL WILLETT Financial Manager: CINDY LAWRENCE Contributing Writers: JOE PHILLIPS, JOHN CONNER, DICK YARBROUGH & AMBER NAGLE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION Member of the Georgia Press Association and the National Newspaper Association
