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Fact of the Week: The most deadly U.S. jobs in 2019:1. Fishing/hunting 2. Logging 3. Aircraft pilots and flight
engineers. 4. Roofers. 5. Construction trades — Department of Labor, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries
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Common Sense
The Progress
Editorial
January 21,2021
From the Staff
Get involved with local government
to help shape future of county
Normally we use this space to criticize
or encourage governments to take action
or simply point out a problem.
This week we are turning our view to
wards the public, where the public is fail
ing government.
Simply put, too few people take time
to get involved until something is at a cri
sis level - as in the ongoing school board
fiasco, regular zoning issues, event venue
turmoil, or when tax bills come out.
The public is unengaged when it’s reg
ular business at the county admin build
ing, city halls, or the school board.
When there is controversy, people ex
press strong opinion on the smallest
minute detail of what a governing author
ity may legally do, show keen interest in
how property value is assessed or budg
ets are made, and offer expert commen
tary on how SPLOST dollars may be
spent.
But when it’s time to serve on a board
or offer public input on a comprehensive
plan or volunteer for an event there’s an
eerie silence.
Our recently-elected commission
chair has discussed opening the door to
more public involvement by creating a
standard application for citizens to throw
their names into the pool of interested
parties for committee/authority assign
ments.
Several counties already do this blan
ket call, where any citizen can offer their
credentials and signal a willingness to
serve. If the county government follows
through, it will be a great step of drawing
more people into the public arena, and,
at the least, demonstrate a willingness to
see some fresh blood circulating in the
different committees here.
And that expansive attitude is needed.
Most committees, such as board of tax
assessors, planning commission, and de
velopment authority have the same hand
ful of people they have had for years.
The Jasper City Council’s committees
are mostly just their council members.
The schools, through parent groups,
do somewhat better.
Anyone thinking the members of the
various authorities use their connections
to maintain power and will fight to hold
their positions is in for a surprise. More
often than not, these different commis
sion members/volunteers keep their posts
because no one else has stepped up.
Many grudgingly agree to continue serv
ing as there is no replacement when their
term expires.
It’s hard for the average citizen to
know what committee seats up are up for
appointment and how to let someone
know you are interested. With a standard
application, that we hope county govern
ment will have available soon, that
changes. The question then becomes will
anyone apply?
To borrow/change a famous saying,
“Ask not what your county can do for
you, ask what you can do for your
county.”
One quick starting point for getting in
volved is the commissioners are pushing
their meeting time back from 5:30 to 6
p.m. to accommodate working folks.
From covering meetings over the past
decades and administrations, we will at
test few members of the public turn out
for routine meetings, regardless of the
time it is held.
As we wrote in an earlier editorial,
32,000 heads are better than the same
handful of people who serve on all the
committees and who also show up fre
quently as volunteers with the non-prof
its.
With a growing population, it’s time
to see some new faces and some new op
portunities to get these people involved
in local government.
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 Quiet
Man
It may seem shocking to
most of you, but I don’t talk
that much. At parties, back
when gatherings were still
legal, I was mostly content to
just sit around and listen. Or
at least pretend that I was lis
tening. Most of the time I
was actually thinking about
my next book or the next ar
ticle or how quickly I could
leave without causing of
fense.
I had all the tricks down
pat. The encouraging nod as
the other person spoke, the
direct eye contact, the occa
sional, noncommittal “Oh
yeah? Wow, that’s crazy.” I
was a pro.
Or at least, I used to think
I was, right up until I got
married. My wife would be
chattering away about her
day, or the new lamp she had
gotten, or maybe her new
haircut, when she would sud
denly stop.
“You didn’t hear a word I
said did you?” she would de
mand.
“Wow, that’s era-1 mean,
of course I did!”
“Then what did I just
say?”
I looked up from the na
ture documentary I had been
watching, just as a lion broke
from the grass and tackled
the gazelle. For the briefest
instant, I knew what must
have been going through the
gazelles mind at that mo
ment.
As I slunk off to the yard
to mow the grass, my punish
ment for ignoring her, I found
myself envying the gazelle.
At least the lion didn’t yell at
it before eating it.
While I certainly pay
more attention now than I
used to, at least with my wife,
I still enjoy being quiet. Fam
ily gatherings will usually
find me as the third wheel,
smiling vacantly as great aunt
Edna tells me all about her 15
cats and their individual per
sonalities.
My wife, who has devel
oped a sixth sense about
these things by this point,
will catch me beginning to
zone out. A friendly smile,
and a deathgrip on my fore
arm, usually brings me back
to reality.
It’s not that I’m being
rude, a point to which my
wife would disagree, it’s just
that I enjoy peace and quiet,
even if it’s just in my own
mind. Most of the time when
I go hunting, I’ll let the deer
pass me by, unwilling to
break the tranquility of the
woods.
I explained this to my fa-
ther-in-law once, himself an
avid hunter, thinking he
would understand.
“Sure,” he laughed, slap
ping me on the back, “You’re
not really a terrible hunter,
you just let them walk away.”
He shook his head, wiping
tears from his eyes, “I’ve
heard a lot of excuses, but
that ones a doozy.”
See? Talking is what gets
me in trouble. I guess I’ll just
remain a quiet man.
[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
COUNTY PROGRESS, 94 N. Main St., Jasper, GA 30143.
One Year’s Subscription: $39.59 in Pickens County and in Gilmer,
Cherokee, Dawson and Gordon counties; $50.29 in all other Georgia
counties; $59.92 out of state.
School
SO WHAT'S UP WITH
INSTALL!HG A REVOLVING
DOOR ?
OTHER VOICES
How do people solve global problems?
Developing a vaccine is an example of the way to tackle big issues
By Katie Cowart
University of Ga.
Media Relations
Athens, Ga. - What do the
3,000-year-old actions of an
Egyptian pharaoh say about
how we should tackle the
biggest challenges of the 21st
century?
Quite a bit, according to
anthropologists at the Uni
versity of Georgia who ana
lyzed archeological evidence
over thousands of years to
examine how societies have
approached adversity. Their
work suggests that rigid, top-
down approaches to complex
problems have been a
doomed strategy throughout
human history. Instead, solu
tions to our most complex
challenges begin and end
with cooperation and varied,
well-functioning institutions.
The researchers observed
that healthy societies tend to
have multiple institutions
that deal with somewhat dis
tinct problems - such as
health care and environmen
tal pollution — and that abol
ishing them or
over-centralizing their func
tions usually blocks the path
to critical solutions.
“Climate change and a
global pandemic are some of
the biggest problems human
ity has ever faced,” said
Stephen Kowalewski, Pro
fessor Emeritus of anthropol
ogy and the study’s
co-author. “Throughout his
tory, humans have always
solved big problems by form
ing social institutions, groups
of people organized to re
spond to a variety of issues.
Since people are always
faced with multiple, different
problems, they tend to create
institutions that are varied in
origin as well as purpose.”
But societies that swiftly
abolish old institutions or
centralize power are not
equipped in the long-term for
complex problems.
Take, for example,
Pharaoh Akhenaten (circa
1350 B.C.) in New Kingdom
Egypt.
The pharaoh imposed a
monotheistic religion
throughout his kingdom and
attempted to eliminate tem
ples and cults associated with
all other gods. He also shut
tered diplomatic institutions,
leading to the breakdown of
international relations, ad
verse military actions and
loss of territory.
Twentieth-century at
tempts to totalize — that is,
to abolish existing institu
tions or to tightly control
them as in Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia — can
build enormous power ini
tially, but that power does not
endure.
The research suggests that
if humanity wants to solve
contemporary global prob
lems, the solutions must be
social and organizational.
“Totalizing institutions do
not work. There has to be a
lot of buy-in from small
groups throughout a society,”
said Jennifer Birch, associate
professor in the department
of anthropology and co-au
thor on the study. “We need
to have effective institutional
responses that can compel
people to act in a certain way.
We can’t do it as individuals.
You need effective coordina
tion of institutions across
multiple levels of society to
reach enough people to cause
real change.”
This method of problem
solving can be seen in the de
velopment of coronavirus
vaccines.
“The speed of the devel
opment, from the biotechnol
ogy to communications to
peer-reviewed publishing,
trials and governmental ap
provals are the result of de
centralized efforts that create
the possibility, and hopefully
the reality, of a successful re
sponse,” said Kowalewski.
“This isn’t a race for a win
ner but a global collabora
tion.”
This paper is published in
the new book, “The Evolu
tion of Social Institutions: In
terdisciplinary Perspectives.”
WEATHER
By William Dilbeck
HI
LOW
RAIN
Jan.
12
42
26
.00
Jan.
13
43
25
.00
Jan.
14
52
27
.07
Jan.
15
49
29
.03
Jan.
16
37
32
.00
Jan.
17
46
28
.00
Jan.
18
48
29
.00
Correction - More research finds different
chicken number on Appalachian Trail
! : ■• "‘j .
Above / Chicken farm photo from Chattanooga Times, 27 Feb 1955
Further research on the chicken farm covered in the
Jan. 7 issue (How chickens factored into moving the Ap
palachian Trail out of Pickens County) has found that
the 150,000 chicken figure was correct, but upon further
research it was discovered that only 40,000 of them were
free range. The rest were in houses but that’s still a heck
of a lot of birds wandering loose.