Page 20 March 17, 2024 StarNews www.starnewsgaonline.com
Comment ary
Sanctuary Georgia: Governor Brian Kemp at home
D.A.
KING
PRESIDENT
The Dustin
Inman Society
404-316-6712
The heart-wrenching national story around
last month’s murder of the University of
Georgia nursing student Laken Riley needs to
be filled in with background that many
Republican politicians in Georgia hope will
never see daylight. Readers should remember
that the latest estimates from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security show that
only six states host more illegal aliens than
Georgia.
At about 400,000, we have more illegal
aliens than “green card” holders.
The GOP has had control of every state
constitutional office and a legislative majority
here for two decades.
We think an easy way to keep score is to
realize that some people are pro-enforcement
on immigration, and some are anti
enforcement. Let’s examine examples of
“who’s who.”
Shortly after taking office in 2021, Democrat
Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens invited a
mariachi band to celebrate his announcement
to end the jail’s 287(g) (Google it) partnership
with federal immigration authorities.
On the other side of metro-Atlanta, at his
swearing-in event in Gwinnett County, the
newly elected Democrat sheriff, Keybo Taylor,
stood before a large audience - including media
- and boasted that he, too, had ended the jail’s
287(g) agreement with ICE. He went further by
announcing “what we will not be doing is
notifying ICE of anybody’s immigration status
in the jail or any of our facilities.” To make his
professional position on the inherent dangers of
“criminal illegals” set free on our streets crystal
clear, Taylor added “We will not keep anyone
in jail under an ICE detainer.”
As Georgia Rep. Jesse Petrea pointed out
when he presented his pro-enforcement bill HB
1105 “The Criminal Alien Track and Report
Act”, the definition of “sanctuary” policies in
state law OCGA 36-80-23. “...means any
regulation, mle, policy, or practice adopted by a
local governing body which prohibits or
restricts local officials or employees from
communicating or cooperating with federal
officials...”
While illegal immigration is the number one
issue in the nation, until last week’s news of the
murder at UGA, the same was not tme in
Georgia’s “Number One for Business” politics.
Broaching the issue with a Peach State focus
under the Gold Domed state Capitol did not
result in long or welcomed conversations. Rep.
Petrea is a genuine leader. He should be
thanked: jesse.petrea@house.ga.gov
River in the sky
Sybil
ROSEN
THOMAS
River Rambles
syllabiH 7@aol.com
Much has been written in the news lately
about atmospheric rivers, especially after the
bmising rain southern California got pum-
meled by in early February. So, I began to
wonder: what is an atmospheric river anyway
and why are they so destructive?
Coined by research scientists from the
Masschusetts Institute of Technology in the
early 1990s, the evocative term ‘atmospheric
river’ also goes by the name tropical plume,
tropical connection, moisture plume, water
vapor surge, or cloud band, all of which makes
me think of ice cream flavors or alcoholic
drinks with tiny paper umbrellas. Any of these
titles can be used to describe what is basically a
giant conveyor belt of water in the Earth’s
atmosphere, capable of
spanning 2000 miles
long, 500 miles wide and
2 miles deep. Occupying
a (relatively) narrow cor
ridor in the sky, a single
plume can flow from the
Phillipines to the American West Coast or,
similarly, from the Caribbean to the United
Kingdom. Try taking a restful cmise down one
of those sky-high rivers.
Despite their awe-inspiring size, three to five
tropical plumes can actually be present at one
time over a single hemisphere. Most common
in winter, they’re found in mid-latitudes around
the world, originating above warm tropical
water and guided toward coastlines by low-
level jet streams ahead of cold fronts, like
flocks of birds chased south by an Arctic blast.
Maybe you’ve heard of the Pineapple
Express, so-named for the surge of heated
water-vapor that forms over the Hawaiian trop
ics and follows varying
paths to California or
the Pacific Northwest,
British Columbia or
southeast Alaska.
The long meandering
plumes of concentrated
water can convey more H20 than the planet’s
largest terrestial river, the Amazon in South
America, a fact I find impossible to wrap my
mind around.
When these heavy cloud bands move inland
and encounter mountains or local weather
dynamics, they are forced to rise, causing the
moisture in them to cool and condense, thus
producing intense rain or snowfall. An atmos
pheric river can bring on sustained heavy pre
cipitation responsible for flash floods, land-
Maybe you’ve heard of the
Pineapple Express, so-named for
the surge of heated water-vapor
that forms over the Hawaiian
tropics and follows varying paths
Jerry, my Peddler boss: Part 2
Bill
BOURIS
digi@mindspring.com
In Part 1 (February edition) I described my
Fridays as a peddler in New York City between
the ages of 20 and 21. That summer, I worked
6 and 7 days of the week. The work was excit
ing, I was earning good money, and it all hap
pened because of a guy named Jerry, the
peddler-boss.
During the earlier hours of a typical non-
Friday, I would push my ice-cream cart, from
Jerry’s store-front, a couple miles north, to
around the Museum of Natural History, which
borders on Central Park. Gradually, through
the day, I’d work the neighborhoods and the
Park, going South, until I had reached the
Park’s southern boundary, where I’d work the
famous hotels, from the San Moritz, going east
to 5th Avenue, and concentrating around the
classy Plaza Hotel.
I soon had discovered a wonderful little
neighborhood. It ran from the recently-opened
Wollman Skating Rink (which was at the cor
ner of the Park across from the Plaza), to 58th
Street, across from the back-side of the Plaza.
First, the area of the Skating-Rink: At night,
the newly planted shrubbery that shielded the
Rink from gawkers, also shielded hotel-guests
who would rendezvous with their girlfriends.
It took a few days for me to realize what was
going on. First, I was tmly surprised at such
quiet and civility in the bushes. And the tipping
was incredible. Then I began to figure out why
these men were buying two of what I had! (...
often more.) What was going on in bushes,
there, in the hot night, between the San Moritz
and the Rink? With the busy and hot Fridays at
the Bus Terminal in mind, I say it was “Hanky-
Panky in the bushes without air-conditioning!”
All that was taking place on 59th Street.
Later, I would meander to the back-side of the
Plaza, onto 58th Street, and there I discovered
a most interesting collection of businesses. My
favorites were the Paris Theater (a movie
house that featured the world’s best non-
Hollywood films), a jewelry shop (whose dis
play actually showed me what I felt was beau
tiful jewelry!), and a Flamenco night club
(which featured the phenomenal Carmen
Amaya!). It was a tiny piece of neighborhood
that gave me much rest and pleasure, a wrap-
up of the long hot day’s work. Usually, I would
head back to Jerry’s after that...
Carmen Amaya, I believe, had a Broadway
show going at the time. And she spent her off-
days and free hours at this flamenco club. The
performers would come out to the street and
buy my ice cream, where I had been taking in
the show, outside, near the entrance, in my
“working-whites”. Once, I sent a sandwich in
“Para la Senora Amaya”. The situation became
something like “peddling-thru-the-bus-driver”,
as described in Part 1.
Another show that I’d discovered, “My Fair
Lady” with Rex Harrison was a few streets
away. After the Flamenco stop, I might drop by
there. But that spot yielded the poorest sales,
almost none. Harrison would msh out from a
stage-door, a crowd of fans would cheer and
scream as he dashed to his waiting MG and
drive off. He signed fewer autographs than the
ice-creams that I sold.
Little did I know, for many decades, that my
summer as an ice-cream peddler would be the
beginning of the end of my being a native of
New York City. In a few months I would
become a commuter to a city to the north, my
first computer job. And after a few years,
finally to Georgia... Whitesburg, where, oddly
enough, I feel neighborhood connections and
ties that echo my childhood on the Lower East
Side of Manhattan! And, recently, I realized
something else. It’s about money.
In my new professional life I got paid each
month by check, which was taken to a bank, or
automatically deposited into my checking
account. As a peddler, I handled cash, mostly
in silver, and stashed it until there was enough
This writer has spent considerable time over
the last several years speaking with law
enforcement officials and collecting responses
to open records requests that show many
Georgia jailers do not obey the laws against
sanctuary. Complaints filed with various
officials and agencies in an effort to force
compliance - or at least coverage in “the news”
- went nowhere.
It is sadly accurate to say that much of
Georgia is a sanctuary state.
This brings us to Republican Gov. Brian
Kemp. As noted by the left wing Atlanta
Journal Constitution newspaper at the time,
candidate Kemp’s first TV ad in the 2018
Republican gubernatorial primary cited
Americans who had been killed by illegal
aliens and portrayed him as “tough on illegal
immigration.” The widespread belief then was
that he meant tough on illegal immigration in
Georgia.
See D.A. KING page 22
slides, and hurricane force winds, taking a toll
on all life in its path as we’ve watched happen
over the past few years on the West Coast.
Regardless of their recent sinister cast, these
tropical connections play a central role in the
global water cycle. From weak in strength to
exceptionally fierce, they can be beneficial or
hazardous, depending on the amount of mois
ture they hold and the duration of that water’s
release, which can last from less than 24 hours
to up to 48 hours and longer.
What’s more, they account for 90% of the
Earth’s north-south water-vapor transport and
contribute to 22% of total global runoff. These
may sound like dry numbers but they add up to
an obvious truth: Atmospheric rivers have
always been with us.
So why, suddenly, have they become bad
news?
Many of you can probably guess where this
is going. The simple fact is that warmer air
See RIVER RAMBLES page 23
to make a decent deposit. That world of cash
and only a savings account was much more
reflective of the working class and immigrant
neighborhoods where I had been raised. Now,
without realizing it, I had begun to make my
way into a professional and middle-class
world. Also, during that summer, when I was a
peddler, I managed to do something that I’ve
always considered very important.
During my rest periods, when I’d take a
break, say at a park-bench under a tree, or sit
ting atop the low stone wall that surrounded
all of the rectangular vastness of Central Park, I
would read. The two novels I read that summer
were “East of Eden” and “Moby Dick”.
Because Steinbeck’s novel was made into a
really good movie that I’ve seen several times,
his novel has stayed with me. Moby Dick was
made into a so-so movie, but my ice-cream
cart was colored white and felt like a whale.
So, the thought of that great novel stirs deep
feelings and memories in me. In tact, until this
writing, whenever I’ve thought of the time I
was an ice-cream peddler, those novels would
immediately come to mind. And then, ... the
police. They would come to mind...
Back then, New York City’s laws about ped
dling first required a “peddler’s license”.
Therefore, whenever a policeman had reason
to stop a peddler, the question was first asked,
“Where’s your license, kid?”
See BILL BOURIS oaae 23
