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BARROW JOURNAL • BARROW COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
Opinions
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press,
and that cannot be limited without being lost.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
Georgia Press Association, first place, Best Editorial Page; first place, Best Serious Column
Memories of
past summers
Despite the seemingly oppressive heat
we’ve dealt with in recent weeks, there
is, and always will be, something unique
about summer.
It probably stretches back to our child
hood. Summer as an adult is just like
any other time of the year. We wake up
in the morning, go to work, come home
and prepare to do
it all again the next
day. It can become
like a record stuck
on the turntable at
times.
However, sum
mer as a kid
always seemed to
be so much more
meaningful. Even
for someone who
enjoyed school
(or at least parts
of it) summer was
always welcomed with open arms.
The reason: It allowed for more time to
do the things you enjoyed most.
For me, those things included swim
ming, riding motorcycles, attending 4-H
camps and having friends stay at my
house overnight or, in turn, staying at
their place. Admittedly, there was still
plenty of time to watch some favorite
television shows of the era. The morning
often meant game shows which lasted
until noon. It was time to venture outside
at this point as nothing better than soap
operas was available. (My house didn’t
have cable at the time so the number of
stations was limited.)
Trips to the local swimming pool was
also a social event as many schoolmates
were there as well. Swimming for two or
three hours had a way of zapping your
energy, even when you were young.
Once we made it back home it was
more time outside. Riding my motorcycle
was a favorite hobby in those days. The
hot Georgia summer days made ideal
riding conditions, which I often would do
until there was literally no daylight left.
When I was a small child, my paternal
grandparents still lived on their massive
farm and it wasn’t uncommon to make
week-long visits to stay with them. Being
less than 10 years old at the time, their
farm was like a world unto itself. This was
a time when I really was outside most of
the day. My grandparents didn’t have a TV
so my eyes had a break from watching the
big box I often was glued to at home.
It didn’t take a television though for a
youngster to be entertained, however.
Their farm provided such a large area that
there was always plenty to explore. From
walking through a shallow creek to trying
not to get lost in the massive rows of corn
which towered over me, the only time
during the week we would leave the farm
would be to go to church.
My grandparents retired from farming in
1980 and moved from the place they had
worked and lived for decades. Still, more
than three decades later, those summer
memories are still just as vivid as the days
I enjoyed them.
While work marches on for me today,
even during the summer, it’s still nice to
get home on many days when there is still
plenty of sunlight left. Recently I noticed
it was still clearly daylight even at 9:15 in
the evening. The humid air remained as
thick as it was hours earlier, but the slowly
fading sun did cause it to drop a degree
or two.
This week we entered August and while
that used to mean another month of sum
mer vacation for students, a new school
year began locally on Monday. Certainly,
Aug. 1 seems mighty early to start a new
school year, but students today do have
the benefit of winter breaks and such that
did not exist once upon a time.
Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t
allow for much swimming these days, at
least not for recreation. Most of my swim
ming is spent at the Winder YMCA, used
as part of my exercise program. I haven’t
been on a motorcycle in years and I don’t
want to think about how long it’s been
since I attended a week of 4-H camp.
(Reading about the activities of our local
4-H students today, however, does help
keep those memories alive.)
Yes, it is definitely too hot and my mind
is looking ahead to fall, which probably
won’t be felt until late October. However,
there will always be a special place for
summer. If nothing else, summer has the
power to take us back to a simpler, less
hectic time. We can’t truly go back, but we
can reminisce.
Winder resident Chris Bridges is editor
of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him
at cbridges@barrowjournal.com.
1 LIVE IN A HOUSE
BUILT BY SLAVES.
I LIVE IN A HOUSE
BUILT BY JILTED
CONTRACTORS
a
MELANIA
What color will your state be?
As the last of the two conventions
finished its business of nominating a
presidential candidate last week, the
Clinton and Trump campaigns were
quickly shifting into high gear.
Before all of the balloons in
Philadelphia had been picked up,
Donald Trump supporters were already
chanting “Lock her up, lock her up” at
a campaign event. Meanwhile,
the Hillary Clinton campaign
was embarking on a bus tour of
the key states of Pennsylvania
and Ohio.
As the nominees fight their
way through a grinding, nasty
campaign, the question we’ve
heard so much in recent years
is again being raised: Is this the
year when Georgia makes the
transition from red to purple
and becomes a battleground
state?
The answer to that question
since 1992 has been no. That
was when Bill Clinton became the
last Democratic presidential candi
date to take Georgia’s electoral votes.
Clinton lost the state in 1996, finishing
27,000 votes behind Bob Dole, and
Republicans have had a tight lock on
Georgia ever since.
Georgia Democrats have been like
Chicago Cubs fans, responding to their
long title drought with, “Wait ‘til next
year.”
Democrats are expecting things to
be a little more competitive this year
and kept making that point through
out their convention. Jason Carter
opened his introduction of his grand
father, Jimmy Carter, with these words:
“Greetings from the battleground state
of Georgia!”
Several recent polls also suggest that
the race between Trump and Clinton
is close enough that the state could be
considered a tossup.
Republican pollster Mark Rountree
made the same observation as other
political analysts when he noted:
“Georgia has a larger minority vote
than almost anywhere else.”
As with California, Texas, and
Florida, Georgia’s population is steadi
ly becoming more diverse because
of a growing black population and
a steady influx of Asian and Latino
residents.
It was not so long ago that Georgia’s
pool of registered voters was more
than 80 percent white; today, it’s barely
above 58 percent and keeps drop
ping. Basically, the state’s percentage
of white voters declines by about a
percentage point each year while the
portion of non-white voters increases
by a point.
“Georgia demographics continue to
change,” Rountree said. “But so many
GOP activists are blind to this and sim
ply assume that since the GOP has run
things here for a decade that they are a
lock to continue to do so. No.”
Voter registration statistics and poll
numbers are obviously indications that
a state could be more competitive, but
they are not a guarantee that it will be.
The real marker of a
state that has attained
“battleground” status is
that both of the pres
idential nominees are
battling for it. That isn’t
happening here just yet.
When Trump and
his aides met with
GOP congressmen in
Washington prior to the
national convention,
they disclosed that the
Trump campaign would
be targeting a total of 17
states this fall.
The remaining 33 states were con
sidered to be either so Republican in
their political leanings (like Utah and
Oklahoma) or so Democratic (like
California and New York) that there
was no point in devoting campaign
resources to them.
One of the states on Trump’s list was
Georgia. After going Republican in five
consecutive presidential elections, you
would think that Georgia was one state
a GOP candidate could safely assume
would be in the red column again.
The fact that Georgia is on Trump’s
list tells us that his campaign is con
cerned about the state’s growing diver
sity, or has seen polling numbers that
show it really could be up for grabs.
Otherwise, why spend a penny of
scarce campaign money here when
there are so many other competitive
states?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, on the
other hand, has not yet committed to
the possibility that Georgia could be in
play. If that were the case, they would
be dispatching campaign operatives
here and opening up field offices to
work on get-out-the-vote efforts. So far,
that hasn’t happened.
The Trump campaign is planning to
go to war over Georgia, but the Clinton
campaign is holding back.
Since you can’t have a battle unless
there are two sides to fight it out,
Georgia is still not quite a battleground
state. Perhaps that will change in a few
weeks.
Tom Crawford is editor of The
Georgia Report, an internet news ser
vice at gareport.com that reports on
state government and politics. He can
be reached at tcrawford@gareport.
com.
Barrow Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
Merged with The Barrow County News, 2016
Mike Buffington
Scott Buffington
Chris Bridges
Susan Treadwell
Jessica Brown
Legal Organ of Barrow County
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What banning
Milo means
Feuds have been breaking out across social
media platforms as of late. None are more import
ant than the battle between Leslie Jones, Twitter
and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. The petty
internet feuds between reality stars and singers
matter very little in the world, however Milo’s per
manent Twitter ban is a discussion worth having.
Recently, actress and
comedian Leslie Jones was
hounded on Twitter with
racist and offensive tweets
for hours. The messages
ranged from anger over the
Ghostbusters remake (in
which she was a lead) to
horrible racial slurs. Jones
engaged with the internet
trolls who sent her these
tweets. She responded to
them, and she retweeted (or
re-posted) the messages to
her account so her follow
ers could see them. Several
hours go by and then Milo
his review of the Ghostbusters film. The result?
Milo gets permanently banned from the popular
platform.
Now, of course there is more to the story. Milo
didn’t just write a review of this film; he wrote a
negative review. For those who might not know
about Milo, he is British, gay, and a conservative.
Though he is ostentatious, he does not fit the
homosexual mold. He does not pander to the
leftists and social justice warriors who base their
“arguments” on nothing but hurt feelings. Milo
is interested in rational debates with facts and
reason.
So, when he reviewed Ghostbusters July 18, he
had much to say about it. In his lengthy article
he briefly discusses each lead character (just a
sentence or two) then moves on to his larger argu
ments. His commentary on Leslie Jones’ charac
ter Patty was “Patty is a two dimensional racist ste
reotype by even the most forgiving measure. Patty
is the worst of the lot. The actress is spectacularly
unappealing, even relative to the rest of the odious
cast. But it’s her flat-as-a-pancake black stylings
that ought to have irritated the SJWs.”
While Jones fought with “the haters” for several
hours, here comes Milo posting this review and
gets on Jones’ radar. She asked who this Milo
guy was, and a fan responded. She retweeted
that response which is what caused most of
this mess. “He’s basically the Uncle Tom of Gay
[people]. Huge Trump/alt-right fanboy who is
gay,” she retweeted. Milo responded, albeit, with
a tweet calling Leslie Jones a man. Then he was
permanently banned after having received several
warnings in the past.
Twitter released the statement: “People should
be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on
Twitter. But no one deserves to be subjected to tar
geted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting
or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment
of others. Over the past 48 hours in particular,
we’ve seen an uptick in the number of accounts
violating these policies and have taken enforce
ment actions against these accounts, ranging from
warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets
violating our policies to permanent suspension.”
This opens a can of worms because Milo was
presumably banned for “inciting or engaging in
the targeted abuse of harassment of others” but
there were no tweets posted by Milo inciting his
fans to go after Leslie Jones. He posted his review
hours after her battle with angry Twitter users
began. But, by this statement released by Twitter,
Leslie Jones has violated it as well. In an interview
with Seth Myers that was posted on YouTube May
12, 2015 she stated: “Yes, if you call me a name I’m
going to call you a name back. 1 don’t care how
famous I am or how popular I am, if you call me
a gorilla I’m going to call your mama one. And I’ll
blow you up, too, so if you tweet me and you’re
thinking I’m the only one who is going to get it,
1 retweet it so all my followers can see it and get
on your punk.”
Stating that you retweet offensive messages for
the sole purpose of having your followers go after
the original poster is inciting harassment, is it not?
That’s what many Milo supporters are asking.
How can Milo get permanently banned with no
evidence he ever stated to his followers to flock
Jones’ with offensive tweets when she has stated
on record she is guilty of the same crime?
Jones is still on Twitter and Milo is banned. Milo
isn’t too broken up about it though because this
incident has made him a martyr for free speech.
Whether one agrees with him or not, Milo rep
resents a fight for free speech on the internet.
His silencing only draws more attention to his
cause. He was banned right before the Republican
National Convention where he had media in his
face ready to call out Twitter for banning a gay
conservative journalist.
For those who support Milo and free speech,
Twitter has made a huge mistake as this now
opens many debates on what free speech on their
platform entails. Though Twitter wanted to shut
down the massive amount of racist tweets direct
ed to Jones, they failed to act upon the Twitter
accounts run by Islamic terrorists who are recruit
ing for ISIS. They failed to act upon the accounts
praising the deaths of police officers in Dallas.
According to Milo, Twitter is not a place for con
servatives. Unless Twitter acts to curb all of these
sects of harassment and hate, then Milo is right.
Winder resident Jessica Brown is the staff pho
tographer for the Barrow Journal. You can reach
her at picsbyjessical@gmail.com.
jessica
brown
Tiannopoulos posts
