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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.
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