About Barrow journal. (Winder, Ga.) 2008-2016 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2016)
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2016 BARROW JOURNAL PAGE 5A On becoming a birder I’ve always liked birds, but it wasn’t until my youngest son became enamored with them that I started to pay more attention to them. Children have a way of making the world new and exciting for you, and what’s more, they teach you how to relax, if you let them. Birding is not only infectious, it takes you away from all your troubles. Now everyone in my house is a “birder," and for me, I think this hobby will outlast my son’s interest in it. But you never know - he may never lose inter est in the birds either. Birds are some of the most beautiful and interesting creatures to watch, and I’ve learned that we get quite a variety of birds in our wooded subdivision. Some of the most familiar birds I already knew the names of - cardinals, bluebirds, blue jays, tufted titmice, and Carolina wrens. Carolina wrens are small brown birds, but they aren’t like the spar rows you might find in the grocery store parking lot. They are a reddish brown, and whenever I hear birdsong in the morning, it’s usually a wren signaling to the other birds right outside my window. When I hear the wren, I know it’s time to get the binoculars. On more than one occasion, if a wren is outside, other birds soon follow. Cardinals might appear in the tree, and as the male watches, the female will fly to the ground to forage on seeds in my flower garden. The tuft ed titmice might arrive to forage on the ground too. These are birds that we see here year- round, but lately I’ve seen some win ter visitors too. My whole family was thrilled to find a pair of golden-crowned kinglets in the yard one day because that’s one of my six-year-old’s favorite birds. He thinks it’s so cute that when we came across its picture in our bird app, he wanted to have a picture of it on his bedroom wall. The male golden-crowned kinglet has a bright yellow and orange stripe on the top of its head. The female looks exactly the same except her stripe is yellow minus the orange. It’s a very small bird, almost as small as a chickadee, and it never stops moving, so it’s hard to spot without binoculars. We also spotted what we think is a pine warbler. It doesn’t come through our yard often, but when it does, it gives us a wel come splash of color because its feathers are a beautiful green ish-yellow. The phoebe is much more plain with its brown and pale white feathers, but it’s still an elegant bird. It gets its name from the sound it makes: “FEE- bee!” Very occasionally, we get to spy woodpeckers. We’ve seen downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, and once, long ago, a pileated woodpecker, which is very big and gorgeous. Most recently we’ve discovered that a yellow-bellied sapsucker has claimed one of the trees in our back yard as a regular feeding station. Larger birds do travel through our area, but we rarely see them in our yard. Once when I woke up my eldest son in the morning, we looked out his window to see a red-tailed hawk sitting in a nearby tree! My husband has taken our dogs outside during the night and heard owls, and once he heard something large take off from the ground in our backyard, but it was too dark to see much. There was one night my husband heard a pair of owls, and he quickly woke up my eldest son. They stood on the back deck for several minutes and listened as two great horned owls spoke to each other from either side of the woods. We so easily forget that the wilderness is right in our backyard. We’re lucky to glimpse the flash of a wing or hear their elusive calls, but as my sons have taught me, if I take just a few minutes each day to pay attention, I am always delighted by what I find. If you like watching birds, you might enjoy participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, a citizen science project which asks you to count the birds you see for just 15 minutes over the weekend of February 12-15th. See https ://www. audubon.org/content/about-great-back- yard-bird-count for more information. Winder resident Shelli Bond Pabis is a contributing columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at writeto- spabis@gmail.com or visit her blog at www. mamaofletters. com. letter to the editor... The conspiracy against cannabis and hemp Dear Editor: Of all the plants God created few have as many beneficial uses as the genus cannabis. In Genesis God gave every herb (plant) for food. Consuming natural ly grown food is the best way to be healthy. As the US Declaration of Indepen dence states our rights come from God, not government. Therefore government has no lawful authority to tell people how to live as long as it doesn’t adversely affect others. If people want a real eye opener they should read the history of hemp in America. The first drafts of the Decla ration of Independence, the first American flag, and the first Guttenberg Bible (in Europe) were made from hemp. Cannabis and hemp are related but entirely dif ferent. At one time hemp was one of the most important resources in America and it was against the law for farm ers not to grow it. Watch on Youtube the USDA govern ment film Hemp for Victory of 1942 promoting hemp production. Hemp became a threat to certain financial tycoons and hence had to be outlawed to protect those interests. Just as cannabis is a threat to pharmaceutical compa nies today which the FDA protects. Those with the money have the power to get what they want. Can nabis has many medicinal uses. Many people have cured their cancers with cannabis. Cannabis has been used to foment the phony war on drugs which does nothing but perpetuate small need less crimes, furnish cheap slave labor for America’s prison system (the largest per capita in the world), and furnish the cover for building America's milita rized police state as well as provide them substantial revenue. Properly administered prescription drugs kills far more people than ille gal drugs yet politicians do nothing to stop it. They think nothing of preventing ill people from obtaining healing from can nabis yet in their hypocrisy many get their own drug fix from their legal booze. Yes. many users abuse cannabis but far more abuse alcohol and with much greater harm to society. If you want another eye opener check out the web site http://www.leap.cc/. It’s law enforcement against prohibition. If government truly wanted to war against illegal drugs they would tar get the CIA and the massive drug running of hard drugs they have been doing for at least 50 years, with pres idential approval. People need to understand the truth about cannabis, hemp, and the many myths that have built up over the years. The health component CBD can be obtained from hemp on the internet and is legally available in all 50 states but since hemp produces so little of it com pared to cannabis it takes much more to make it and is inferior in quality. Canadian politicians are evidently less insane and corporate owned than those in America so hemp is legal there. Ground hemp seed is one of the most nutritious and delicious foods there is. Grown worldwide it would greatly lessen world hunger. If hemp were to be legal ized in America again it would likely provide the biggest boom to the econo my in decades but of course the powers that be cannot allow that to happen. I neither drink, smoke, and rarely even use pre scription drugs but people have a Constitutional right to live as they want to in private. If the financial interests of Georgia lawmakers against medical cannabis were to be discovered I'm sure it would be quite revealing. Others have simple been brainwashed by myths. So Mr. Buffington I truly hope your civil disobedi ence is sincere and success ful for your son’s sake. We need a lot more of it if lib erty is not to be totally lost in America. P.S.: Upon saving the first draft of this letter at Yahoo it was gone when I went to retrieve it. Fortunately I had a copy on my computer. I am sending two copies from two sources. Sincerely, Steven Garren Winder Class of 1962 plans next mini-reunion The Winder-Barrow High School graduating class of 1962 will continue to have its mini reunion luncheons. The next mini-reunion will be on Monday, Feb. 22, at 1:30 p.m. at Longhorn Steak- house off Hwy. 316 in Bethlehem. All members of the class are invited. Those wishing to attend contact Dianne Fleeman at dfleeman@windstream.net or call her at 678-425-2531 so reservations may be made. Governor, don’t stand in schoolhouse door on cannibas Dear Governor Deal: When I began growing my medical marijuana plant last month as a polit ical statement about Georgia’s need to make cannabis oil available for medical use, I had no idea the kind of nerve it would hit. Dozens of people from all across Georgia have contact ed me in support of making medical grade cannabis oil available in Georgia. Governor, it’s a huge issue, much larger than I ever imag ined. This issue has, in just a few years time, jumped from the political fringes into the political mainstream. It’s an issue that crosses political party bounds in a way that a few years ago, was unthink able. Some of the strongest sup port I’ve had comes from very conservative Republi cans, your core supporters, Governor. Ministers have called me in support. The current runs deep and wide. So how did a conservative state like Georgia go from being closed to any debate about the medical use of mari juana to having a majority of citizens support it? Governor, a little background for you to consider: Cannabis has been used for over 3,000 years, partly for its medical and psychological impact and also for its fibers to make ropes and cloth. By 1850, the medical cannabis oil was being used in a variety of drugs in the U.S. A lot of that was for pain control. But in the early 1900s, cannabis got caught up in the prohibition movement. It continued to be used medicinally, but its recreational use, like recreational alcohol use, came under increasing government pressure. In 1930, Harry J. Anslinger became commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger began a crusade against cannabis, claiming it caused insanity and led to crime. It was at this time the term “marijuana” came into use rather than cannabis. That was an effort (led by the Hearst newspapers in California) to stigmatize cannabis as a drug used by low-class Mexi can immigrants. “Marijuana” sounded more Mexican than “cannabis.” The anti-cannabis hysteria of that era led to the (now campy) 1936 film, “Reefer Madness” that demonized can nabis as making women sexually lose and driving people insane. At the same time this cultural assault was hitting cannabis, newer drugs were coming into the marketplace for pain relief. In 1937, the federal government began to tax cannabis prescriptions. The use of medical cannabis extracts subsequently fell and in 1942, it was removed from medical use in the U.S. In 1970, the federal government clas sified cannabis/marijuana as a Sched ule 1 drug, the highest classification along with LSD and heroin. In that classification, a drug is supposed to have no medical value. The practical impact of that was to make it almost impossible for anyone in the U.S. to study cannabis for med ical use. The reason it was classified as Sched ule 1 wasn’t based on science; it was, many believe, political payback by the Nixon Administration against the pot-loving “hippies” he detested. The “war on drugs” of the 1980s and 1990s further demonized cannabis. But that had an unintended consequence: It pushed illegal production of can nabis indoors to become an industrial manufacturing process which in turn led to new hybrids whose compounds could be manipulated. All of that has proven important to medical research of cannabis oil. Follow the progress of my medical pot plant with a live-streaming video at dadsmedicalpotplant.com. By the mid-1990s, a backlash was brewing to the war on drugs. Many came to believe that marijuana wasn’t as dangerous as the federal government had led them to think. In addition, a 1990 study by an Israeli scientist had found the medical con nection between THC, the most active compound in cannabis, and the brain. Slowly, people began to revive the idea of using cannabis for medical pur poses. In 1996, California legalized medical canna bis. Over the last 20 years, other states have followed in defiance of federal law. Last year, the federal government removed its review process for canna bis research, making that research a little easier. Governor, three important things you need to consider about Georgians’ atti tudes on this issue: First, most Georgians no longer believe that cannabis/marijuana is as dangerous as its law enforcement crit ics have claimed. It is certainly much less dangerous or addictive than the powerful prescription painkillers that fill many of our medicine cabinets. The tide has shifted. Second, 20 years of experience in other states has given rise to a body of work that shows clear medical benefits of medical cannabis for some very seri ous medical conditions. Third, the experience in other states demonstrates that if the cultivation of medical cannabis is legalized, the world doesn’t come to an end. The old stigma of “evil marijuana” has lost its sting. Today, polls show that Georgians support in-state manufacturing of med ical cannabis oil. Many state legisla tors also support in-state production, although there are some minor differ ences of opinion about the details. It’s ideology, not science that is standing in the way of the production of medical cannabis in Georgia. So Governor, your opposition to the manufacturing of medical cannabis oil in Georgia is behind the curve. The train has left the station on this issue and it isn’t going to stop. Hundreds of Georgians are now buying medical can nabis illegally because there is no other way to get it. That isn’t going to stop. Wouldn’t it be better for our citizens to make medical cannabis available here in a regulated atmosphere rather than force it to stay underground? Why should we make some of our sickest citizens criminals? Governor, if you had a sick grand child whose body was wracked with seizures, you would see this issue dif ferently. Come with me the next time my son has a seizure and I have to do CPR to keep him alive until the seizure stops. If your wife suffered from severe Parkinson’s or MS, you would see it differently. If you were sick from harsh chemo treatments, you would see it differently. Governor, it’s 2016. It will be embar rassing to our state and destructive of your own legacy if you block the schoolhouse door on this issue. Your Friend, Mike Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike @ mainstreetnews. com. mike buffington Star Student banquet scheduled Feb. 17 The Barrow County Chamber of Commerce will host the STAR Student and STAR Teacher Award Breakfast on Wednesday, Feb. 17, at 7:30 a.m. at the Park Avenue Event Center located at 138 Park Avenue in Winder. The breakfast will honor Bethlehem Christian Academy’s STAR Student, Aaron James Gano, the system winner, and his chosen STAR Teacher, Jennifer Proch; Apalachee High School’s STAR Student, Cassidy Eden Hayes and her chosen STAR Teacher, Amy Cronic and Winder Barrow High School’s STAR Student. Bradford John Hagin and his chosen STAR Teacher. Jerry Pharr. The breakfast is sponsored by Park Avenue Event Center and Georgia Power Com pany. For information on becoming a table sponsor or to purchase tickets, contact Missy Milner at the Chamber of Commerce at 770-867-9444. Independent Filmmakers tour in Winder The City of Winder and the Winder Cultural Arts Center will present Art and Craft with directors and producers Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman as part of the South Arts Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers at the Winder Cultural Arts Center on Sunday. Feb. 7, at 4 p.m. Following the screening of the film, director Sam Cullman and film subject Mark Landis will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and their work. Admis sion is free and open to the public. The Winder Cultural Arts Center is located at 105 E. Athens Street in downtown Winder. Subscribe today: 770-867-6397 for award-winning local news
