About Upson beacon. (Thomaston, Ga.) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2024)
opinion Wednesday, June 12, 2024 • Page 4A Send your letters to: Editor, Upson Beacon, 219 Thomas Street, Thomaston, Ga 30286 or email to: dlord@upsonbeacon.com The opinions expressed on this page are not necessarily the opinions of the Upson Beacon staff. Please limit letters to 400 words, and limited to two letters per month. All letters must be signed and accompanied by a telephone number for verification purposes. Telephone numbers will not be printed. Radicals to the Left, Radicals to the Right, Here I am, Stuck in the Middle Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Palestinian, (D) Michi gan, Ilhan Omar, (D) Minnesota, and Cori Bush are members of the squad. These radicals and their fellow progressive trav elers have taken the cry of “racism” to a new high, or low, if you will. They, and their ilk, contend that Abraham’s bestowing upon the Jews the status of the “Chosen People” is racism personi fied. By extension, would that not mean that God, as well as Abraham, are racists, and by further extension, Jesus? One, among many, scriptural al lusions to “the chosen people of God” are found in scripture (KJV), “For you [Israel] are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession,” Deuteronomy, 7:6. This result of this prophetic Biblical inclusion is the exact opposite of a racist construct, in that God’s plan was for Abraham and his descendants to extend love to the entire world through God. The Jewish people do not suggest exclu sivity. The term “chosen people” merely implies that God chooses Israel and ultimately Jesus as messengers, ergo; the results are the exact opposite of God favoring one group to the exclusion of all others. One of the contributors to this newspaper posited this un informed analogy: “One thing that did get stuck in our craw were the memes on social media comparing Trump to Jesus in being wrongly convicted...” First, Jesus did not have a trial, simply an interview that ended badly but required to pro mote the Biblical (New Testament) tripartite Christian agenda of birth, death, and resurrection. There is simply no nexus between Trump and Jesus, beyond the fact that both were treated shabbily, Trump by a partisan judge, a partisan prosecutor, and a partisan jury. Jesus, though treated shabbily by a temple priest without a jury (no juries in 33 AD), freely admitted who He (Jesus) was and the purpose of His mission. My fellow contributor goes on to further compound the inanity of the analogy by suggesting that the treatment of Jesus and Trump shows, “a real disregard for the Word and for our criminal justice system...,” then cites Luke 23 as the authority for the proof text. And this showstopper, the mother of doltish, errant anal ogies, “to even equate Trump with Jesus is taking the Lord’s name in vain and quite frankly blasphemous...” Duh? I don’t get it. Maybe I should revisit my seminary course on the syn optic gospels; who knows, possibly the Trump legal team can use Luke 23 in their appeal. And this doozy of a loose ends denouement from my fel low contributor. Rationalize it if you can. Trump/ Jesus com parison... “It's proof to the world that you simply don't care about how it makes the church look publicly and insinuates that our faith is tied to political rulers and parties...” It leaves me intellectually breathless. I don’t know who to believe, the radicals of the squad or the radicals of the church. James Studdard, B.A., M.A., JD, D.Rel TFD Chief's Corner: The following monthly Thomas ton Fire Department report for the month of May was provided by Chief Shane Foster: Total Number of Incidents: (131) These include the following: •Medical (94) •Motor Vehicle Accidents (4) •Helicopter Standby (14) •Fires (7) •Automatic Alarms (2) •Service Calls (6) •Hazmat (3) •Roadway Hazard/Other (1) TFD completed a total of 69 pre-fire plans/building inspections which assist personnel with knowledge of building layouts if there is ever an incident. TFD completed a total of 458 training hours among three shifts, which include in-service hours and hours at the Georgia Fire Academy and the Alabama Fire College. This also includes the completion of all hose testing, at tending the Paradigm Pipeline Emergency Response and Damage Prevention Class at Southern Crescent Techni cal College, and assisting the Upson County Volunteer Fire Support Class with its physical agility test. TFD participated in a number of public relations and fire safety education events, such as career day at Upson- Lee Middle School, attending ULHS graduation, and nu merous blood pressure screenings at West Central Georgia Bank and the Walmart Shopping Center. The department attended and assisted Thomaston- Upson Chamber of Commerce with its Rock the Block Concert, as well as assisted in the Emancipation Parade and block party. During the month, Lt. Josh Akins was sworn in by the Mayor J.D. Stallings. Lastly, TFD was presented with an Outstanding Pub lic Safety Award by Thomaston-Upson Rotary Club. TFD Chief Shane Foster The Upson Beacon Shining Light & Keeping Watch on Our Community 706-646-2382 • upsonbeacon.com 219 Thomas Street Thomaston, Ga., 30286 Damage Done Predictably... inevitably... now, their number-one opponent and excuse for every corrupt, treacherous deed they do, Donald Trump, is a CONVICTED FELON! We’ve heard it a million times and will hear it a zillion times before it’s done. Guilty of putting down a payment to a lawyer as a “legal expense;” the dim-witted, Marxist, fascist, Nazi, rad ical Democrats are realizing the vast majority of Americans prefer a CON VICTED FELON as President over the muttering, creepy, corrupt UN-CON- VINCTED FELON and TRAITOR Joe Biden. It’s hilarious to watch them squirm and screech as they try to explain/lie about ALL polls showing Trump kick ing Biden’s butt in every battleground state and national polls. Frantic... NOW, Democrats claim, which is obviously just another LIE, they are going to FIX the BORDER! Yeah, right. After allowing 10... 20 mil lion across the border, handing out cell phones, credit cards, plane tickets for the dream vacation of their choice (ex cept, of course, Martha’s Vineyard), to stay forever in $300/$500 a night ho tels at OUR expense, NOW... they’re going to fix the border. That’s right, and men get pregnant. After keeping their foot on the throat of working people with gas prices that cripple anyone without a chauf feur, those that haven’t pumped their own gas for 20 years are going to tem porarily lower prices to get elected, then... well, you know the rest of the story... been there and done that. Then there’s the so-called FBI direc tor at the Senate trying to justify in creasing the FBI’s budget by basically enumerating their failures as reasons to give them hundreds of millions more. The following is FBI Director Wray's opening statement to the Senate Appropriations Committee. My attend ing comment(s) are in parenthesis. The point is to illustrate how oblivious the so-called leadership in the FBI/DOJ are. His comments would leave one thinking that Wray was an innocent by stander when in fact his agency and the DOJ and Attorney General Merrick Garland are at the ROOT of EVERY problem and, due to their treachery, corruption, and incompetence, are many times responsible and the CAUSE. - Wray states: “We’ve seen the threat from for eign terrorists rise to a whole 'nother level after Oct. 7; But, now, increas ingly concerning is the potential for a coordi nated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K[horasan] attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall in March.” - “We continue to see the cartels push fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into every corner of the country, claiming countless American lives.” (All a direct result of Biden and Democrats’ Open Border) - “We’ve seen a spate of ransom- ware and other cyberattacks impacting parts of our critical infrastructure and businesses large and small.” (Can you say, “Chinese balloon?”) - “Violent crime, which reached alarming levels coming out of the pan demic, remains far too high and is im pacting far too many communities.” (Can you say, “Defund the Police?”) China - “We’re up to something like 2,000 active cases across all 56 of our field of fices focused on the [People's Republic of China's] efforts to try to steal our in formation and our technology. We need funding to continue countering the threat.” (Why not stop plotting to frame Trump with bogus Russia, Russia, Russia BS and focus on REAL THREATS?) Cyber - “We’re investigating more than too different ransomware variants — each impacting scores of victims — and that’s just ransomware. We need fund ing to continue disrupting all kinds of cyber threats — certainly those from China, but also from a crowded field of sophisticated criminals and other hos tile nation-states like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.” (Are these foreign actors a greater threat than the FBI/CIA controlling so cial media companies as they did dur ing covid and with the Biden Laptop?) The Fentanyl Epidemic - “We’ve got close to 400 investiga tions just into cartel leadership. We need funding of threats emanating from the border — fentanyl, gangs like MS-13, and human trafficking.” (Close the damn border.) *** One question... WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN??? Myself and many others have been warning about everything you mention and more for years. Instead of plotting to overthrow and imprison Trump, instead of plotting the Jan. 6 Capital riot, which scores of FBI agents and your stooges were involved in instigating... Do your JOB. ALL these things have exponentially increased since Biden and the radical Democrats seized power with the assis tance of you and the FBI/DOJ by hid ing Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained evidence of Joe Biden and family’s illegal activities while Vice President for months before the 2020 election to help steal the election. This past week the laptop was veri fied as being REAL by your own agent/agency in Biden’s trail. And while you’re at it, explain why the 51 traitors/intelligence officials that lied and said the laptop was Russian disinformation have not been arrested for obstruction of justice. Trump supposedly was convicted because he hid information that af fected the outcome of the election. Why haven’t those that hid the laptop been convicted? Could it be because JUSTICE no longer exists in America? Alan Landers It's Not What You Don't Know That Will Hurt You: It's What you Know That Isn't So A popular running back on his high school football team was paid $10,000 to use his likeness in a tele vision commercial. He was so proud of himself; he framed and proudly displayed the check over his bed until it expired. Fortunately, when the local bank heard about it, they helped him re cover the funds and convinced the school superintendent to promote money literacy. While there is much that is laugh able about this young man’s folly, I remind myself that I too was once even more naive and got burned sev eral times. Hopefully by sharing ex amples of these missteps, mistakes, and bad decisions, you will be more alert and not lose your hard-earned cash. My grandmother told me that ev eryone is somebody’s fool. I imagine that all of us lost cash by not recalling where we left it, lost our wallets, loan ing money to family and friends, buying lottery tickets - not to mention losses on the stock market, gambling, bad investments, or just trusting someone or something too much. Never accept a bet when someone says to you, “I bet you $10 I can...” Don’t be a sucker, no matter how im possible it sounds. You do not have to be so gullible that you believe you won a lottery or inherited money in Nigeria, sending money to process your winnings or inheritance, but it is a true that a fool and his money are soon parted. You do not have to be a fool to in vest unwisely or trust too easily. What is true is that everyone, and I mean ev eryone, will be made a fool of and it will not B. Waine Kong, necessarily Ph.D.JD come about at the hands of a “con” artist. A gentleman from New Jersey told me that when he was a young man, he was on his way to deposit the $200 he earned as tips for two weeks when he met a sailor who asked him to help him out. The sailor was away at sea for six months and was home to see his girlfriend but was carrying a lot of cash that he did not want to take to his girlfriend’s house as she would take it. Would the gentleman mind hold ing onto it for him and meet up later? Oh, just one thing, just for good faith, could the gentleman place his money in the bag as well? Obviously, there would be no risk as the gentleman would be holding the bag with all the money. But when the gentleman went to their meeting place at the appointed time, the sailor did not show, and when he finally looked into the bag, it was empty. The sailor had pulled a fast one. Some years ago, I was walking from the parking lot to attend a meet ing at the Ritz Carton in Atlanta when I was approached by a gentleman who said, “Please sir, can you help me out? I just need $5 to get something to eat.” I checked my wallet and only had 20s. “I am sorry, but I only have a 20.” “I can give you change.” While I was suspicious that he could make change, I handed him the 20 and he ran off. Fortunately, that was all I lost. I suppose he could have robbed me as well. I bought a subscription to the New York Times and agreed to a monthly charge to my credit card, but when I wanted to cancel, I found out that the only way to stop the monthly charge was to cancel my credit card. How See Kong, 6A
