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Views
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Common Sense
The Progress
Editorial
March 25,2021
From the Staff
How happy is Jasper?
By Dan Pool
Editor
I admit a tendency to follow click-bait e-
mails such as one last week about the “hap
piest cities in America,” from WalletHub.
But it’s hard to put much trust in the find
ings. Are the people in Fremont, California
really the most cheerful in this nation? More
eyebrow raising, what’s up with two North
Dakota cities (Bismark, Fargo) being second
and third? Maybe there is more going on in
North Dakota than you would believe. For
the record, the first Georgia city on the list
was Atlanta, way down at 90.
After perusing the list, I wanted to dig into
the methodology and see where Jasper might
stack up. Not that Jasper is large enough to
make a study of cities but as a yardstick,
where might we have ranked?
The indices used are not particularly easy
to follow. They boil down to three categories,
according to WalletHub’s press release, (1.)
emotional well-being, (2.) income & employ
ment and (3.) community environment. They
used 31 different indicators, everything from
suicide rate (clearly a sign a town is not
happy) to the amount of leisure time residents
have.
As someone who covers the comings and
goings in Jasper, with input from the rest of
the newspaper staff, here’s a very subjective
view of how Jasper would rank as a happy
place.
Emotional & Physical Well Being:
Life Satisfaction - Hard to see how any
one can gauge this but we would point to the
numerous civic and church groups here that
jump to help with everything from distribut
ing food to the poor to coaching youth in
sports. Clearly this is not proof that everyone
is satisfied in their daily endeavours, but does
show people are able to find some purpose
for living here. So high marks.
Sports participation rate - This is where
we take one on the chin. Other than golf and
a very small group of tennis and pickle-ball
players, some horse groups and our mountain
bike trails, there’s not much here for adults
to do. Plenty of civic clubs, but few activity-
based groups. Low score.
Opioid use - From what we report with
our police stories, painkillers and meth re
main a problem here. Not to the extent of
some urban areas, but clearly there’s work to
be done on drug addiction.
Income and Employment:
We’re confident the numbers on paper
don’t capture conditions on Pickens County
ground. This county leads the region in in
come level (see story from Jan. 14th edition),
but still has a high rate of children on free and
reduced lunches (46 percent on free and re
duced meals currently, but that number is sig
nificantly lower than normal as many
applications were not completed since
schools were not charging for meals this
year). Our CARES food pantry serves 250
families a week.
With jobs, there are help wanted signs
everywhere, but a common complaint is the
young people move away as they can’t find
the jobs they want. The disconnect is that
while there are plenty of entry level jobs and
some companies that offer really great pay
and benefits, there are not many choices for
a career-path here.
However, is a commute to the north metro
area a particularly bad thing? During a panel
discussion on employment, pre-COVID at
Chattahoochee Tech, local HR directors de
scribed how commuting a county or two
away was the new normal. So, while our
community may be lacking local jobs, there
are opportunities relatively close by.
We’d rank our economic factors as solid
but not inspiring.
Community and Environment
Our parks here are lacking. By any stan
dard from miles of walking trails to facilities
offered, Pickens is last in north Georgia. We
also are one of the few counties in the region
with no national forest or state parks, no pub
lic lake or easily accessible river.
On the other hand, Jasper is a very safe,
small town, easy to get around and friendly.
We’d strongly caution with the growth wave
rolling in that our local governments must
safeguard this small town atmosphere or
we’ll lose ground on our best feature and
quickly.
Final opinion - We’d say the quality of
life here is pretty good. How does B+ sound,
based on our great small town environment
with points deducted for lack of job choices
and few public spaces, plus overall inactive
adult lifestyle?
Feedback always welcome with letters to
the editor, articles@pickensprogress.com,
400 words max.
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.
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Ponderings of a Simple Man
Py Caleb Smith
The Silence
of the
Lamps
Most of the time there
isn’t much sunlight between
my wife and I. When one
holds an opinion, the other
does too. But on rare occa
sions when we do disagree,
we typically find a common
ground to meet. Only once, in
our entire marriage, have I
had to firmly put my foot
down on an issue.
Those dam lamps.
It was a Saturday in the
middle of summer and she
had gone off shopping at yard
sales with her mother while I
worked on my mower. I
knew she’d had a good day
when she got home that
evening and didn’t even com
ment on the fresh scorch
marks in the yard. She burst
through the door, flushed
with excitement.
The source of her excite
ment turned out to be what I
initially mistook to be the
remnants of a high speed car
crash. Two lumps of twisted,
discolored metal that turned
out to be a pair of lamps cre
ated by some obscure local
artist who, quite possibly,
was also a mental patient.
So hideous were they that
I flatly refused to have them
displayed in our house. What
ensued was the worst fight
we have ever had. There was
yelling and crying and the oc
casional wail “wait until my
daddy finds out about this.”
My wife, on the other
hand, stayed calm and col
lected the entire time.
After hours of calm de
bate, interspersed with hys
terical crying, she finally re
lented and agreed that they
‘didn’t really match our
decor anyway.’
Slowly, sadly, she
wrapped them up and stored
them in our building. As I
watched her stow them away,
I felt a twinge of foreign
emotion.
It was guilt.
I dismissed it, thinking
that it would soon go away,
but as the days progressed it
continued to grow. What had
started as a whisper was now
a roar of unrelenting shame.
She never brought it up,
she didn’t have to. I had seen
the disappointment in her
eyes when she had stored
them away. And each day my
guilt got louder and louder.
Finally, almost a week
later, I couldn’t take it any
more. At 2 a.m. I leapt out of
bed and, swearing, threw my
shoes on and stormed out the
house, ignoring her shouted
‘What’s wrong?’
When I returned, lamp
clutched in each hand, she
watched as I set them up in
our room. She never said a
word but, as I turned off the
lights and climbed back into
bed, I noticed a small, con
tented smile on her face.
The roar of guilt was
gone, and I was able to get
my first good nights sleep of
the week as I enjoyed the
blissful silence of the lamps.
[Caleb Smith is a long
time, award-winning, colum
nist for the Progress.]
(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.
OTHER VOICES
The problem with putting labels on people
By Mary Migliaro
If someone put a label on
you, what would it be?
Would it be true? Would it be
the sum of who you are as a
person?
Labeling. We’re all guilty
of it. Whether we label our
selves or others, it’s some
thing we’re all good at. Black
or white? Rich or Poor?
Smart or stupid?
Not only does labeling say
things about the people being
labeled, but a lot about the
person doing the labeling too.
Our words and tone of voice
all come together as an indi
cation of how we perceive
others and see the world as
well. A person's self-image is
strongly tied to the words and
labels they use.
Labeling is obviously es
sential in life as it’s a useful
tool we use to catalogue in
formation, experiences, and
can even be a great way to in
troduce yourself to someone.
On the flip side, however,
labels hold a lot of meaning
and as such, can be quite dan
gerous. Since they are related
to judgements, they can cre
ate stereotypes, bias, stigma,
and the inability to separate a
person from the label itself.
Anytime we refer to
someone as “a [fill in the
blank],” we are categorizing
or labeling. (“She is a racist
...” “He is a liberal ...”)
When we label people, we
neglect the complexity of the
person behind the labels -
their good qualities as well as
the qualities that may still be
a work in progress.
Labeling begins to lump
diverse groups of people to
gether and discard all sense
of individual identity. Ignor
ing the context of situations
and blindly making judge
ments on groups of people or
an individual discredits them.
It becomes the beginning of
bias and discrimination be
cause we slowly begin to de
humanize people to nothing
more than just a label.
Labeling can be particu
larly harmful for children.
You need only to look on
YouTube at the Jane Elliot
exercise in the 60s that she
did with her third-grade stu
dents.
The “Blue Eyes/Brown
Eyes Exercise” served to help
children understand what it
meant to be discriminated
against and is a stunning ex
ample of how words affected
their treatment of each other
over the two days and even
impacted their self-esteem.
If you find yourself men
tally or verbally labeling
someone as having a particu
lar trait or belonging to a par
ticular group, here are some
good reasons to stop.
Labels can be self-fulfill
ing.
Imagine someone telling
you that you are stupid and
that you’ll never amount to
anything - a common mes
sage of the emotional abuser.
After hearing it enough
times, you will begin to be
lieve it. You will assign your
self this label. Once you
believe this label, you might
never push yourself to work
on those areas where you
might be weaker than others.
And if you don’t try to grow
and improve, it will only
serve to reinforce your belief
in the label you were given.
Labels give us false ex
pectations of a person. We
tend to judge people when
first meeting them. What
they look like, how they
sound, what their job is - we
factor these and other things
in as we begin to assign la
bels to them. But those labels
alter our expectations of that
person, for better or worse,
and affect how we treat them.
Even positive labels can
backfire. The problem with
labeling someone in a posi
tive way comes when they
feel unable to live up to the
beliefs and expectations of
others, or when they feel the
label doesn’t match how they
see themselves. This can be
particularly true with chil
dren.
A parent telling their child
how ‘smart’ they are can put
pressure on them to perform
well academically. If they
struggle with a particular
subject, they may believe
they are letting their parents
down and feel upset by this.
If you have found yourself
using labels on others, think
about what you can do to re
frain from labeling people.
When you meet someone,
look at the whole person and
try to find their strengths and
good qualities. When it
comes to your children, make
sure you are not using labels
on them. They are tndy a
work in progress and attach
ing labels to them can “stunt
their emotional growth” and
impact their self-esteem.
[Mary Migliaro, M.Ed. is
an educator and parent men
tor. She may be reached at
maiymigliaro@aol.com.]
WEATHER
By William Dilbeck
HI
LOW
RAIN
March
16
49
44
1.20
March
17
57
48
.97
March
18
68
40
.00
March
19
55
37
.00
March
20
58
37
.00
March
21
62
45
.00
March
22
67
54
.00
If you spot a
mistake, let our editor
hear about it.
dpool@
pickensprogress.com
7065-253-2457.
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