About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (March 16, 2022)
PAGE 7 A Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com. DawsonOpinion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2021 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. If Ga. is so bad, why is everybody moving here? You may be interested to know that you reside in a dumper of a place called Georgia. That revelation comes courtesy of TOP Data, a mar ket research com pany with offices all over the world including Atlanta, the capital city of what they consider to be the 35th worst state in the nation in which to live. That’s us. According to TOP Data, “The pandemic enabled millions to work remotely for the first time ever causing a once in a generation reshuffling of how Americans work and where they choose to live. To determine which states have adapted best to serve this remote world, the market research company conducted an in-depth analysis of the Best and Worst States to live in 2022.” TOP Data compared the 50 states across eight dimensions: affordability; crime and safety; economy; education; health care; infrastructure; opportunity and quality of life, using 76 “relevant metrics” that are, to be kind, eye-glazing. As a result of their number-crunching, they say, “Georgia ranked as one of the worst states to live in with 56.35 points, as it ranked in the bottom half of the rankings on nearly every indicator, despite having higher scores in infrastructure and job opportunity.” To which I say, “kiss my grits.” Before I became your modest-and-much- beloved columnist, I spent a number of years in the communications business and was pro ficient enough to have been recognized as one of the ‘TOO Most Influential Public Relations People of the 20th Century.” OK, so maybe it was a slow century for influential public relations people, but I must have done something right. What I didn’t do was send out a release to people like me who love Georgia and who write a weekly column that runs from one end of this great state to the other, informing me that Georgia ranks as one of the worst states to live in. What I would have done is to fire whoever at TOP Data came up with this stupid and pointless and insulting exercise. If this is a new business pitch offering to extricate us from the morass in which they find us, they missed badly. I wouldn’t hire them to orga nize a corn-shucking. Here is one example: In the quality of life category, they measured the number of peo ple employed as bartenders and related drink services per 100K people. We come in 25th. Evidently, they failed to give points for a sun rise on St. Simons Island, which beats how many bartenders we have by a mile. Not to mention Vidalia onions or “Georgia on my Mind,” as sung by Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia. By contrast, TOP Data ranks Wyoming — which has fewer people than Gwinnett County and, according to World Population Review, a negative growth rate of 0.60% per year — as the best state in which to live. Vermont, which is less populated than Cobb County and also has a 0.60% negative growth rate and who I seem to recall was recently paying people to move there, is their No. 2. New Jersey (No. 7), Connecticut (No. 12) and New York (No. 19) also are showing negative growth rates, says the World Population Review, while 35th ranked Georgia is the eighth fastest growing state in the nation, adding more people last year than North Dakota’s (No. 6) total population. I have carefully examined TOP Data’s 76 relevant metrics (inhale) graded on a 100- point scale with a score of 100 being the max, which determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score, and used the resulting scores to rank-order its sample (exhale). Nowhere could I find a metric about peo ple moving here from places where it snows 10 months a year and all their buildings are rusted. Long before there was a TOP Data to inform us how Georgia and our Southern neighbors are some of the worst states in which to live, my daddy observed how many tax dollars we wasted painting lines down the middle of our highways. That was because nobody moved north. They all came south. They still do. TOP Data finishes its analysis of the Best & Worst States To Live In by informing us that it “delivers business, consumer, and mar keting insights at the speed of breaking news.” Here is some speedy breaking news for TOP Data: In my own in-depth analysis of the Best and Worst Pieces of PR Rubbish to come across my desk, yours is the worst. And it didn’t take me 76 relevant metrics to figure that out. You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dick- yarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb. SPECIAL PELlVEKf Love a hobby or leave it, your choice Mama asked me the other day how long I took piano les sons. “Eight years,” I said. “Are you sure?” “Pretty sure.” “I don’t think that’s right.” “I started in first grade and quit at the beginning of ninth.” “Hmmrph,” she chirped. “So you took it that long and can’t play a note?” I wouldn’t go that far. I know where middle C is. But that’s about it. Despite taking piano for all those years, it was not some thing in which I excelled. Granny had called and begged my music teacher. Mrs. Roberts, to let me take lessons, promising her I was musically inclined and a dedi cated student who would devote my life to piano. I remember sitting on the foot of Granny’s bed as she made the call and thinking at the time she was going a wee bit overboard. I wanted to take piano, but wasn’t so sure about all this lifelong devo tion. Mrs. Roberts relented, and I started my classes the next week. It was pure bliss at first. She came and got me out of class and we walked down the nar row hall where an upright piano took up a room about the size of a closet where she taught piano lessons at school. She commented I did seem to have a natural ear for music and gave me some music to take home. The following week, she asked me if I had practiced. “What?” “The music I gave you last week? Did you practice?” I was shocked. I thought that was like some sort of prize. “I don’t have a piano at home.” I said. “You’ll need one to prac tice.” “How often will I need to practice?” I asked. “Every day.” I had no idea there was homework involved in this. What had Granny signed me up for? “I need a piano.” I announced when Mama picked me up. “What do you mean?” “For my classes.” “Can’t you play the one at school?” “I have to practice at home.” Mama wasn’t happy about having to shell out the money for the piano, but let me tell you something, I was even less happy about having to practice every day, too. So that monetary pain was minimal compared to that. “You can get in there and practice instead of watching t.v.,” Granny told me one morning before school. “But She cut me off with her glare that would stop a rhino in its tracks. “You heard me. Your mama is paying good money for these lessons, she bought you a piano. You get yourself in there and practice.” I whimpered. My morning routine was easing into my day with a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and watching some Three Stooges. She gave me the glare again and I whined out an “alright” in agreement. “Bob, go listen to her,” she ordered my grandfather. He sighed, not knowing why his routine of watching t.v. had to be disrupted, too. I sat on my bench and start ed picking out the keys from the music. When I stumbled to find my notes, he asked almost too eagerly if I was done. “No. I messed up.” “Oh.” He was looking for his exit route. “Bobby, come listen to your niece play!” Always supportive, my uncle came into the living room, ready to listen. After a few notes, he said, “Oh, heck.” That’s the closest to a swear he ever uttered. “I gotta go do something real quick.” “What have you got to do?” my grandfather asked. “Just something else.” “Did I do good?” I asked. “You did, baby, real good. Keep practicing.” My grandfather and I locked eyes, a certain under standing growing between us. “You tell your grandmother I sat here and listened to you play a whole book of music and I’ll tell her you sat here and practiced. Deal?” I nodded slowly. I was six. but I knew a dang good deal when I heard it. “Deal, PawPaw.” He got up and went back to watch TV and drink some more coffee. I heard him ask Granny if Mama was really paying for me to take lessons. “She needs to get her money back,” he muttered. “What?” Granny asked. “Nothing. She’s doing good.” Even though I love music, it was not something I ever got the hang of. When I showed up for a lesson shortly after the beginning of my freshman year, I could tell my music teacher was a bit disappointed that after so many years, I wasn’t further along in my abilities than I was. I looked at the bench, the sheet music, and the keys and decided then and there, it was time to quit. “How can you quit after you’ve been taking lessons this long?” Mama asked when I told her that afternoon I wasn’t going to continue. I sighed. Sometimes, just because we’ve done something a long time, doesn’t mean we have to keep at it if it’s not right for us. Sudie Crouch is an award win ning humor columnistand author of the e-published novel, "The Dahlman Files: A Tony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery." SUDIE CROUCH Columnist COVID cases drop; Ukraine faces dire conditions By Dr. Larry Anderson Anderson Family Medicine The good news first. Our metro Atlanta flu activity is minimal, only a 1 out of 1-13. We have no outbreaks in our area. Good job on taking the flu vaccine and wearing the mask. The other good news is our COVID cases are still coming down. We still have people in the hospital with COVID. It is still with us so we do not need to encourage it to stay any longer. Get your vaccine and wear your mask. It is not over until what’s her name sings. Now the bad news. Health issues in the Ukraine. Death. The news footage looks like it is out of WWII. Digging a trench and throwing the bodies in. Some are in body bags and some are not. The morgue is full. There is no storage room. You have to do something. Disease from exposed dead bodies could be rampant. No other choice. Shelling hospitals and killing pregnant women. You are a monster and must be stopped. Call your US Senator and Representative and tell them what you think and tell them to stop this madness. Pray for them and for us. Thanks for reading. LETTERTOTHE EDITOR On the edge Seems to me that we are on the edge of a major change in the USA. It is likely that we will go over the edge. The edge is the edge of abundant ener gy. Is our national energy policy going to drive us into critical shortages of fuel and electricity? If we run out of electrical power we will go without light, food , water, sewer, and all kinds of transportation. We will return to a life style of about 1890. It will not be as bad as the dark ages but it will be an uncomfortable dim age. We are led by a political class that is convinced that we have to move away immediately from burning carbon in all forms in order to save the planet. That means no more drilling for oil or natural gas and certainly no coal min ing. They believe that the tooth fairy will provide some sort of new giant batteries so we can go completely green with wind and solar. That political class is busy disrupting carbon fuel supplies. Not only are they using beaurcratic methods to prohibit permitting, they are using the banking systems to restrict loans to drilling companies. They wish to use the tax system to choke off oil. War in Europe has disrupted an already stretched supply system. Much of our natural gas is now moving to supply Europe. Without oil, gas, and coal, electricity prices will go up and electric power will be interrupted. Without abundant supplies of natural gas, fertilizer will be in short supply world wide. If fertilizer is in sort supply, all food prices are going to go up a lot. Food shortages will happen. We can drill our way out of this if the Democrats would allow it. They will not because they think the treat of car bon is a greater threat than the threat of energy shortages. Gary Pichon Marble Hill
