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Common Sense
The Progress
Editorial
January 14,2021
From the Staff
Let’s trust in the vaccine
The COVID 19 vaccine certainly did
come quickly, but don't mistake that for
reckless haste. Consider it an example of
what teamwork between science and
government can do to meet a clearly de
fined goal. The ridiculous amounts of
funding thrown at the problem didn't hurt
either.
Throngs of people showed up Monday
morning to receive some of the first
doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for spec
ified groups among the general public
available in Pickens County.
As the number of cases here continue
their skyrocket and deaths stand at 18,
the vaccine couldn’t come fast enough.
Since the Georgia Department of Public
Health began keeping records last year,
across our state there have been 648,694
confirmed cases, 45,177 hospitalizations,
and 10,444 confirmed deaths. In Pickens,
there have been 1,795 confirmed cases
among our 32,000 residents. There have
been 20 deaths here and 123 hospitaliza
tions. In the U.S. there have been 22.7
million cases and more than 376,000
deaths.
Thanks in a large part due to heavy
funding for research, two COVID-19
vaccines have cleared the Food and Drug
Administration and are making their way
to the most vulnerable citizens. The vac
cines, one developed by Pfizer and an
other by Modema, have been found to be
more than 94 percent effective. Of
course, misinformation can rear its ugly
head, sowing seeds of doubt based on
something someone heard on YouTube
and passed along with the same credence
of legitimate studies.
Thoughtful, critical thinking about
what we put into our bodies is always en
couraged but don’t let rumors and misin
formation deter you. It is ironic that
people who will consume packaged
foods all day long without ever question
ing the safety of meat-packing plants are
now suddenly acting like zealous vegans
over what they put into their bodies. If
McDonalds can deliver 1 billion ham
burgers a day safely, surely Big pharma
can deliver the goods safely when they
are on center stage.
Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine
Confidence Project and author of the
book Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start
and Why They Don't Go Away, says we
should not be worried about the safety of
the coronavirus vaccines. According to
Larson says there are many steps on the
process of development and large
amounts of funding made the COVID-19
vaccine possible to start quicker. “We’ve
shortened some of the administrative
processes,” she told NPR in a recent in
terview. “We have new technologies, but
the steps involving safety have not been
shortened. They have not been compro
mised. And no vaccine will be delivered
to the public before it really has enough
confidence. And most importantly on the
safety, no company wants a bad vaccine.
No government wants a bad vaccine. No
individual wants a bad vaccine. It’s not
in anyone’s interest.”
Medicine has advance by leaps and
bounds in the centuries since English
doctor Edward Jenner in 1796 was cred
ited for the world’s first vaccine for
smallpox when he used material from
cowpox pustules to provide protection
against smallpox (his subjects were a
milkmaid and his gardener’s 9-year-old
son). Smallpox killed an estimated 300
million people before Jenner’s discovery.
Louise Pasteur’s 1885 rabies vaccine was
the next to make an impact on human
disease. Vaccines against diphtheria,
tetanus, anthrax, cholera, plague, ty
phoid, tuberculosis, and more were de
veloped through the 1930s, according to
History of Vaccines.
Somehow it seems safer for us to get
a recently-developed vaccine from two
of the foremost pharmaceutical compa
nies in the most advanced country in the
world than the chances a gardeners’s son
and the milkmaid took back in 1796.
Human beings have benefitted from
vaccines for more than 200 years. Let’s
trust in them now.
Tell us your thoughts with a letter to the editor. E-mail to news@pickensprogress.com
See letter submission guidelines on the Letters to the Editor page or call us 706-253-2457.
Ponderings of a Simple Man
Py Caleb Smith
The Glass
Ceiling
In my years of marriage I
have learned a few things
about women. If supper is
ready when you get home
from work, and she greats
you with a smile, it usually
means you’re in her good
graces. If she’s chasing you
around the house with a
broomstick, shrieking about
how you ruined her antique
comforter, by contrast, it
could mean that you’re in
trouble.
Just a note, if you ever
ruin anything of your wife’s
that happened to be a family
heirloom, never, and I mean
never, shrug and say “Well at
least it was old. I’ll buy you
a new one.”
It’s not often that my wife
and I are at odds, a shocking
fact given my tendency to de
stroy, bum, damage, or other
wise make a mess of our
home. She’s put up with a lot
throughout the years but, ap
parently, covering her grand
mother’s antique comforter,
not to mention the bed, pil
lows, and entire bedroom
floor, with a fine layer of
shattered glass, right before
bedtime, was a step to far.
My story of misadventure
starts, as so many of mine do,
with me trying to help. As we
got ready for bed one night, I
noticed that one of the lights
in the bedroom was blown.
“No problem,” I thought.
“I’ll just hop up there, replace
it, and we’ll be good as
gold.”
While my intentions were
pure and clean, my shoes,
which I neglected to remove
before jumping onto the bed,
were not. I had been working
in the cattle pasture that day
and had simply forgotten to
remove my shoes before
coming back in the house.
While the state of my
shoes was unknown to me,
my wife knew immediately
what I had done. She walked
in just as I was unscrewing
the blown bulb, and her
shriek of righteous indigna
tion, to appalled at what I had
done to even form coherent
words, was enough to send
me an extra foot in the air.
That wouldn’t have been so
bad had there not been only
eight inches of clearance be
tween my head and the ceil
ing at the time.
As the sound of my skull
pulverizing sheetrock rang
out, my fingers loosened on
the lightbulb where it fell
into the bed, exploding out
like a hand grenade. As I lay
on the bed, covered in min
gled layers of sheetrock dusk
and shattered glass, I blinked
through the stars in my eyes
to see my wife looming over
me.
She growled, choking up
her grip on her broom like
Babe Ruth stepping up to the
plate. “To be fair,” I choked
out. “This is partially your
fault. If you hadn’t screamed
whe-”
That night, I was pleas
antly surprised to see just
how roomy our doghouse
was.
[Caleb Smith is a long
time, award-winning, colum
nist for the Progress. Look
for his books at the Progress
office or on Amazon.]
If you spot a
mistake,
contact our
editor.
dpool@
pickensprogress. com
(USPS 431-820)
Published by Pickens County Progress, Inc.
94 North Main Street, Jasper, GA 30143
(706) 253-2457 FAX (706) 253-9738
www.pickensprogressonline.com
DAN POOL
Publisher/Editor
Published each Thursday at Jasper, Pickens County, Georgia. Entered
at the Post Office at Jasper, Georgia. 30143 as Mail Matter of Second
Class. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE PICKENS
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counties; $59.92 out of state.
OTHER VOICES
Political clarity I find in the field
By Leslie Oubre
As an 8th generation
farmer, I find answers in the
liturgy of agriculture. Order
reveals itself in the rhythm of
farming seasons - plowing,
planting, tending, reaping,
and the sacred resting season.
Comfort comes alongside in
the form of stories told by
farmers whose minds re
member the liturgy, but
whose bodies have long since
broken. These men, whose
faces look hewn from ancient
oak trees, chuckle as they re
call the relief felt when the
burden of work was lifted by
new-fangled machinery.
Their eyes turn stormy as
they relive heartbreak after
losing what was sure to have
been “the best crop ever.”
They built families, commu
nity, and purpose out of what
they grew with their hands.
They thrived, and so I find
comfort knowing I will too,
if only I can hold on through
today.
The “today” of this recent
political cycle has felt like
that other kind of holding on;
the white-knuckled-gut-
wrenching-past-my-limits
kind, not the “this too shall
pass” kind. After months of
nasty words weaponized to
divide communities, I find
myself reeling from the up
heaval and clawing for the
clarity found in my heritage.
Allow me to explain what I
mean by “political clarity”
found in fields.
If you know what
metaphorical farming season
you are in, you know which
season is coming next and in
turn can prepare. Are you in
a joyful season of plenty, har
vesting the fruits of your
labor? Great. Prepare for the
dark days of resting season,
the death of what was not
harvested, and the long
nights of a time that looks
nothing like productivity on
the surface.
Are you struggling to gasp
for air because the darkness
and silence of this resting
season of life has taken you?
You are safe here. Let the
darkness do what darkness
does. Darkness feeds the soil,
it rests the farmer’s body. It
prepares us for plowing sea
son.
Has your entire life been
flipped upside down? Does it
seem that all the things you
worked so hard to get put in
order were just unceremoni
ously ripped to bits and
thrown at your feet? Yep.
Plowing season is the most
violent and irreverent of
them all. But once plowing
season starts you must stay
with it until the field is clean
and smooth and fluffy and
smells just right. Plowing
season begins by mining the
field, then the turning, and
disking, and harrowing all
must take place in their order,
gradually breaking all the
stubborn clumps into crum
bly soil. One cannot be
tempted to skip steps, inter
vene on behalf of the red
clods that cry out for the dis
comfort to end, or succumb
to the jeers of the weeds who
resist and mock the farmer’s
plans.
Lady Liberty, our country,
seems to find herself in plow
ing season.
But then comes planting
season with its fresh starts,
and dewy mornings, and cool
water settling in seed beds. It
is pure possibility and antici
pation. But planting will
yield little without the mo
notonous, daily, ordinary,
thankless tending season.
Tending season seems end
less. Then one day, arriving
without much fanfare, har
vest season begins.
The answers I find in the
liturgy of agriculture hinge
on trusting a wise farmer, or
a political leader for today’s
conversation. Do not be
tempted to follow those who
call themselves farmers but
cannot tell you what will be
planted, do not have their im
plements ready in season,
and seem preoccupied by
hollering about what has
been plowed up. They are
miners at best, looking to
glean anything of value that
might come to the surface as
the world gets turned upside
down. A miner will only
want to plow deeper, min and
overturn a beautiful planting
bed for a chance at buried
treasure.
A worthy farmer will
skillfully make her field
smooth and ready for plant
ing. She will have her seed at
the ready, eyes set just be
yond the horizon. She will
set out in a straight-line
planting exactly what she
planned. Her face will be
weathered from holding on,
her eyes steely with memo
ries of potential harvest lost
to disease, or miners. But her
heart will be light with bright
hope because that day will
open planting season.
Leslie Still Oubre is the
wife of a teacher, a resident
of Pickens Coun ty, a mom,
and will still be a farmer to
morrow - if she can hold on
through today.
WEATHER
By William Dilbeck
HI LOW RAIN
Jan.
05
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07
42
34
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Jan.
08
36
30
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Jan.
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35
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Jan.
10
46
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M RUNOFF mt
"Those millions spent on negative ads sure worked.
Now my opinion of all politics is completely negative."