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DawsonOpinion
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2020
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
GOP campaign
slamming Collins
could backfire
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist
What a differ
ence a decision
makes. Wasn’t it
just the other day
that Georgia
Republican
Congressman
Doug Collins of
Gainesville, the
ranking member of the House Judiciary
Committee, was the hero of the hour for his
unwavering defense of President Donald
Trump during his Kangaroo Court impeach
ment trial?
Now we are being told that he is just
another tax-and-spend Washington politi
cian, soft on crime and good buddies with
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What in the
world has happened?
It seems Collins has had the temerity to
say he intends to run for Johnny Isakson’s
seat in the United States Senate, currently
held by Gov. Brian Kemp’s appointee, Kelly
Loeffler. He must have a pretty good chance
of winning because Club for Growth, a
Washington-based group, is spending rough
ly $3 million trying to disparage him and his
record in Washington.
David McIntosh, the club’s president, said
in a statement that “Club for Growth will
educate Georgia voters about Doug Collins’
record on economic issues and demand that
he change his ways.” Oh, please. He must
think folks here in Georgia are dumb as
rocks and need some Washington special-
interest group to tell us how to think.
I don’t know Doug Collins personally. I
met him once at a speech to the Gainesville
Kiwanis Club and, as I recall, he is a chap
lain and a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force
Reserve Command and was deployed to Iraq
for a period of time. Even though I wowed
the crowd that day with my usual dazzling
wit and wisdom, I have a feeling he
wouldn’t remember me from a tree stump.
Politicians being politicians, maybe
Congressman Collins thought his defense of
the president would be the ticket to getting
him Trump’s endorsement for the Senate
seat. After all, polls say that the president
enjoys the approval of more than 90% of
Georgia Republicans. But it didn’t happen.
Despite being lobbied by Mr. Trump, Gov.
Kemp appointed Loeffler instead.
The consensus of political navel-gazers is
that Loeffler’s appointment is an attempt to
broaden the party’s appeal with suburban
women who are being heavily courted by
the Democrats. This is a critically important
constituency since Georgia voters will cast
ballots for both of the state’s Senate seats in
November — Sen. David Perdue is also up
for reelection — and Democrats expect to be
competitive. The fact that reports say
Loeffler is willing to spend $20 million of
her own money on her campaign doesn’t
hurt.
I am grieved to report that Gov. Kemp,
following the lead of several of his predeces
sors, didn’t seek my counsel before making
his appointment. If he had, I would have
cautioned him that We the Unwashed are the
final decision-makers on who represents us
in Washington, not political insiders.
Just ask Jimmy Carter. When Sen. Richard
Russell died in 1971, Gov. Carter appointed
his buddy David Gambrell, a political novice
like Loeffler, to fill the seat.
Gambrell hardly got the seat warm before
he was ousted in the next election by a little-
known state representative from Perry
named Sam Nunn. The same thing could
happen to Loeffler. As for appealing to sub
urban women, I know a bunch of them and I
have yet to have one tell me they identify
with a zillionaire who owns a women’s bas
ketball team, has her own private jet and
lives in a $10.5 million, 15,000-square-foot
house in Atlanta. Maybe I hang out with the
wrong crowd of suburban women.
About owning a basketball team, Jim
Galloway, the respected political observer
for the Atlanta newspaper, says “the WNBA
has a history of appealing to black and
LGBTQ fans, both groups far from Trump’s
base. Plus, the league has a reputation for
supporting progressive causes like a 2018
initiative that allowed fans to donate a por
tion of ticket sales to Planned Parenthood, an
abortion rights group.”
That could be a problem for Loeffler.
Remember that Jimmy Carter in his shame
ful racist campaign for governor in 1970 had
pictures circulated to rednecks around the
state showing his opponent, Carl Sanders, at
the time a co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks,
with his arm around Bill Bridges, a black
basketball player. Sadly, it seemed to have
worked.
Meanwhile, I have a feeling the
Republican establishment’s ham-handed
smear campaign against Doug Collins is
going to backfire. I don’t know about you,
but the more I see of it, the more I say: Run,
Doug, ran.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dick-
yarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at wvwv.facebook.com/dickyarb.
"Oh, look. The government is finally
releasing the hurricane relief funds."
Lessons from the pogo stick
Sometimes, I
am amazed I
made it through
my childhood
without any bro
ken bones.
Maybe it was
because my
clumsy and awk
ward self was well padded with
a layer of chubbiness to cush
ion the falls.
I desperately wanted to take
ballet, longing to be lithe and
graceful.
Mama, always eager to crush
any dreams that didn’t involve
law school even at an early age,
reminded me I was doing good
to balance on my feet, let alone
my toes. She also mentioned
something about gravity and
how it was not my friend.
I moved on to music, some
thing my poor piano teacher
had to suffer through for eight
years until I realized I had zero
talent. I’m sure she realized it
after the third lesson.
But in between the ballet and
the piano, I thought I was
going to be a basketball player.
I talked about it and talked
about it - my then barely 5 foot
self was going to be a female
basketball star.
Until my grandfather put a
basketball hoop up above my
playhouse.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Your hoop,” he stated mat-
ter-of-factly.
And out of nowhere, he
tossed me a ball.
“Have fun, Lil’Un.”
It was not fun though.
Usually, the ball would
bounce back and hit me in the
face.
Mama didn’t
want me to be on
any kind of team
- nope, that
meant I’d have to
go to away
games and
Mama was not
having that. She
truly had nothing to worry
about however.
But Mama has always had
that annoying trait that made
her think if I started something,
I needed to finish it, or at the
very least, try until I was
exhausted. She wanted to instill
some follow through in me,
and if I was going to quit, I
needed to form an educated
decision as to why I wasn’t
going to do it, like proving I
was a hopeless cause.
“I am horrible at basketball,”
I whined.
Mama couldn’t argue that
point.
“I need something though,” I
declared.
“Like what?” she asked.
Problem was, I didn’t know.
I wanted to do something
new and had some crazy notion
it shouldn’t involve reading a
book as an added change.
So, what did my family do?
They went and got me a pogo
stick.
A death weapon on springs
for an awkward, clumsy, chub
by kid.
Child Protective Services
apparently let kids get on these
things and bounce around the
yard on them, just as readily as
they let us fling ourselves off of
trampolines without nets in the
‘80s.
I was terrified of the thing.
“Try it out,” my grandfather
encouraged.
“I don’t know how it works,”
I said.
“It’s easy,” he said. “Just hop
on it and hold on.”
I wasn’t so sure about this.
Keep in mind, I was as round
as I was tall.
My uncle decided to hop on
to give me a demonstration.
It looked easy enough, or at
least my uncle made it look
easy. He po’ed and go’ed
around the back yard effortless
ly. I got on and off I went, into
the grass and dirt.
“Try it again,” my grandfa
ther encouraged.
“I think I am done,” I said,
brushing pebbles off my knee.
“You’ve only done it once,”
he said. “You haven’t done it
enough to know whether
you’re done or not.”
So, I tried it about four more
times.
Each attempt had the same
result, with me ending up in the
grass.
It could have been worse if I
had actually tried to pogo around
the yard. This was just me put
ting my feet on the pedals and
then promptly falling over
because I could not balance.
My foray into the world of
being a pogo athlete, if that’s
such a thing, taught me some
valuable lessons.
When you fall, you get back
up.
Tailing at something doesn’t
mean you’re a failure. It just
means you aren’t good at that
particular thing.
And there is absolutely nothing
wrong with that.
We can’t all be good at the
same things. We can’t all be the
star; we can’t all be the one that
makes the big win or is the top
dog.
A lot of people don’t learn
from the winning either. It’s
from failing - and sometimes
hard - that we learn the most
grace and how to make it in life.
I also learned that apparently
men don’t factor safety into
buying toys for kids.
When my grandmother and
mother found out about the
pogo stick, they both had indi
vidual and combined hissie fits.
“What in the devil were you
thinking?” seemed to be the
resounding question they both
asked.
“Do you even know your
grandchild at all?” was the next
question, followed by com
ments about how I often fell
down the back doorsteps at least
twice a week and wasn’t there a
weight limit on pogo sticks.
My grandfather and uncle
took the criticism quietly. They
thought they were helping but
quickly discovered just giving
me a book and a Twinkie was
about all the adventure I could
handle.
I never did have any athletic
prowess or learn how to play
musical instrument very well.
My greatest lesson out of all
of it though? Just because you
see someone else doing it and
they make it look easy, doesn’t
mean it is.
Sudie Crouch is an award
winning humor columnist and
author of the recently e-pub-
lished novel, "The Dahlman Files:
ATony Dahlman Paranormal
Mystery."
SUDIE CROUCH
Columnist
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Is climate change
really a problem?
Is climate change really a problem?
After all the climate on this planet is
always changing. In fact, over the billions
or years we have had this Earth we have
gone from Ice Age to hot and in between!
This is true, but the facts are that these
changes usually take hundreds of thou
sands of years. In addition, scientists
have said through research that we now
have the highest amount of C02 in our
atmosphere than ever before. And this
increase in C02 has taken only 120 years
instead of hundreds of thousands of years.
Scientists, medical professionals, and
business leaders are warning us that we
must act soon or the effects of climate
change will be unstoppable. In fact,
human life as we know it could be threat
ened by climate change, economists at JP
Morgan have warned in a hard-hitting
report on the “catastrophic” potential
of climate change.
In an alarming document sent to clients,
they said that deaths, immigration and
conflicts will soar as the planet heats and
water supplies dry up. Lamines will
increase and species will be wiped out.
The impact of climate change has been
massively underestimated, they said,
and all this will have a devastating impact
on economic growth and the stock mar
ket. The economists call on world leaders
to introduce a global carbon tax to prevent
a meltdown, saying no other measure is
likely to be enough.
But there are things we can do our
selves to cut carbon emissions. Lirst be
aware of your carbon footprint and do
things like turning off lights, lowering the
thermostat, driving less, buying an electric
car and many other things listed on our
North Georgia Conservation Coalition
check list. But also, be aware that your
elected officials must make laws that help
us to cut carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, many are ruled by the fos
sil fuel companies because they give them
money to get re-elected.
Ask your candidates what their stand is
on climate change. If they say it is not a
problem, then don’t vote for them. The
planet and your children’s lives depend on
you.
Virginia Matteson
Dawsonville
The Flu
98 years ago, my future life hung in the
balance as my grandfather sickened and
almost died while in the Army. He got the
Spanish Flu, an H1N1 virus that killed as
many as 100 million people worldwide.
In the U.S. about 30% of the population
got the flu and over 500,000 people died.
Grandpa lived but the flu killed a lot of
people mostly young adults in their prime.
If you study any history, you learn pret
ty quick that sickness always kills more
people than war. I walk on ground every
day here in north Georgia that contains
millions of graves of the mound builder
Indians that lived here before the
Cherokees. Desoto wandered through the
Etowah River valley with his troops and a
hog herd. They carried European diseases
that spread through the Indian tribes and
darn near killed every one of
those Indians.
Once we connected all the people of
the world together with ships after
Columbus, not only did people move
about but plants, animals and little tiny
critters found new homes everywhere. So
did the germs. We homogenized the
world. Some of that exchange improved
the lives of humans like say potatoes.
Some did not, like smallpox and malaria.
Once we got good planes, we have
almost instant worldwide mixing of every
new bug throughout the human family.
The ancient response of blockade and
quarantine to disease does not work so
well, try as we might. The only reason
that the Spanish Flu did not kill twice as
many, according to germ experts, is
because it mutated into something less
lethal. Keep in mind that sometimes
mutation moves the other way and things
get a lot more dangerous.
This Coronavirus could be a huge killer
or maybe just another flu without much
impact. We really do not know yet.
So here is what we need to do.
Do not keep hogs and chickens in your
bedroom, keep them out in the bam.
Do not shake hands or hug everyone
you see.
Wash your hands with soap and water a
lot.
Do not kiss a lot of people just for fun.
Avoid big crowds indoors in the winter
time.
You have done just about all you can
do. Maybe I will be tough like my grand
father but you never know.
Gary Pichon
Marble Hill
