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Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved
to see your house catch fire.- Wendell Berry
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Common Sense
The Progress
Editorial
March 3,2022
From the Staff
Give recycling a try.
County facility makes it oddly fun
There’s almost nothing worse than
being preached at by finger-wagging
moral elite — especially when your own
habits could use some work and you feel
a little guilty. We’re not trying to be
preachy, but we are trying to get more
people who don’t recycle to give it a
shot, and we’re also trying to get people
who recycle occasionally to do it more
often (this last bit includes us).
On a recent trip to take some of our
old papers to be recycled we thought
about how fortunate we are to have such
a nice facility. In our opinion, one of the
best recent developments in Pickens
County was when our recycling center
was relocated from Camp Road to a
large, open-air structure just off Highway
515. On Camp Road, recyclers were
greeted with a cramped, chaotic, seedy-
looking mess. The facility off Highway
515 feels like a veritable recycling nir
vana in comparison, but instead of pillars
of sun-haloed puffy clouds you’re
greeted by giant stacks of compressed
materials on the way to their recycled af
terlife - colorful blocks of aluminum
cans, solid white shredded paper, opaque
plastic jugs, and corrugated cardboard.
Not only are the baled cubes oddly
satisfying to look at, they offer some
guarantee that what you’re recycling will
actually be recycled (unlike the single
stream method used in the past where
most materials went into one bin).
And thanks to a partnership with Keep
Pickens Beautiful, which provided
graphic design work and funding, there
are 10-foot tall colorful banners above
each recycling bay that makes it easy to
understand what can and can’t be recy
cled, and where everything goes. There
are also take-home flyers available that
are color-coordinated to match the ban
ners. (Banners at the Cove Road recy
cling center are also color coordinated).
In another riff on the oddly satisfying,
it’s even fun to toss your items into the
bays with all the other loose materials
that match, then see it settle into the pile
or (if it’s glass) shatter when it hits.
There’s also plenty of room in the spa
cious open-air building for vehicles,
which are clearly directed and are under
cover so when it rains it doesn’t put a
damper on the experience. People even
drive from out of the county to use our
facility, a sure-fire indicator that they’re
doing something right.
Not to mention the staff there is
friendly and helpful.
In addition to the facility being infi
nitely more pleasurable than the muddy
pit that was Camp Road, it’s exceeding
expectations in terms of revenue from re
cycled materials. In 2021 there was over
1.3 million pounds of recycled materials
shipped out and sold from the facility.
This includes over 350,000 pounds of re
cycled metal. After the bond used to buy
the facility is paid off their bottom line
will be even better.
Of course, all of these reasons we like
the new facility - it’s pleasant, it’s not
losing money, the big compressed bales
are fun to look at - they all pale in com
parison to the primary reasons we should
recycle. When we recycle we save re
sources and reduce our need for raw ma
terials, we keep garbage from filling up
landfills, and help prevent pollution.
With an on ongoing issue involving a
private landfill in the Whitestone area,
we should all recognize the value of re
ducing waste (regardless of our environ
mental views), as handling garbage of
any kind remains an expensive and
messy proposition in all instances.
And there goes the finger-wagging
preachy vibe we wanted to avoid.
Recycling should be something that
becomes second nature, like wearing seat
belts or flushing the toilet. So, as we head
into spring and with National Recycling
Month just around the corner in April,
consider giving our nice, new recycling
center a try. We don’t think you’ll be dis
appointed.
The Pickens County Recycling Center
is located at 390 Appalachian Court,
Jasper. They are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesday through Saturday. Follow them
on Facebook or visit them online for de
tails about what recyclables are accepted.
They can be reached at 706-253-8871.
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.
Hugh Pendley unsupervised
with a word processor
The glory of
unexpected
snow days
In the '60s, weather forecasts
were nowhere near as accurate
as today. Now, it is possible to
track stonns all the way from
Texas. Then, you would look out
the window and discover it was
snowing. You did not have time
to go to the store and stock up on
vittles. And that unexpectedness
created a sense of wonder and
magic with the weather. Now,
they can get close to the exact
moment a storm will start.
When I was a kid it always
upset me when a snow would
come and then clear off. The
temp would be 24 degrees and
the dryer, colder air would make
the snow evaporate. School
would be on the next day, even
when it was cold enough that it
wasn’t supposed to melt.
In 1960, it had snowed and
mother did not let me go on the
bus to school one day. The bus
got stuck (most roads were not
paved here then) and my brother
had to walk home on Cove Road
from near Sharp Top Church. I'm
glad I didn't have to walk that far
- I was a puny kid - and it was
far below freezing. There was al
ways a danger of the bus getting
stuck when it was rainy in the
winter. Oh, how times have
changed. Can you imagine a
school saying, "we’ll haul the
kids as close as the bus drivers
can get them, and then let them
walk the rest of the way?"
As a high school senior in
1973,1 recall we missed a day or
two every single week that Jan
uary. They wouldn’t give much
advance notice of cancellations
back then, you would get up and
(USPS 431-820)
Published by Pickens County Progress, Inc.
94 North Main Street, Jasper, GA 30143
(706) 253-2457
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
PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS, 94 N. Main St., Jasper, GA 30143.
One Year Subscription: $41.17 for residents of Pickens County
or the cities of Ball Ground, Fairmount, and Ranger;
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listen to the radio to see if school
was out.
I loved snow days; it af
forded time to watch TV. There
was a rale at home - no TV till
homework was done. What
would it be like if parents said,
“No cell phone till homework is
done?”
Later, I recalled the books I
read, some on snow days:
Grapes of Wrath, 10th grade;
Catcher in the Rye, 11th grade;
1984, 12th grade. I still remem
ber them. There was nothing
easier for me than reading a
book and answering questions
about it. Snow days were pure
bliss - television and reading.
I'm still that way, one recent
snowy day, I spent a whole day
napping and watching The Three
Stooges. Ah, for a good snow.
[Hugh Pendley is a native of
Pickens County who occasion
ally contributes to the Progress.]
WEATHER
stead of your Netflix show.
Bv William Dilbeck
Microsoft recently stopped
HI
LOW
RAIN
the largest ever of such at
Feb.
22
61
53
.89
tacks, 3.47 Terabytes, in only
Feb.
23
71
53
.08
15 minutes.
Feb.
24
69
55
.14
Those are the basic ways
Feb.
25
55
32
.10
a Russian cyberattack re
Feb.
26
56
36
.91
sponse might affect us sitting
Feb.
27
47
31
.24
here in Jasper.
Feb.
28
58
33
.00
dMbe ^>cI)ool
Other Voices
How will the Ukraine war
threaten residents of Jasper?
By Ben Dyer
GA Tech’s Advanced
Technology
Development Center
The direct answer to the
headline question is the threat
of cyberattacks, but, like all
the imponderables of this war
from nowhere, there are
many risks to consider.
Probably many reading
this has been the victim of
hackers and other bad actors
in the computing universe.
“Phishing” is very com
mon and results from your
clicking on a link that sends
some of your important files
to parts unknown. That may
be easy to fix, or you may be
robbed of data or money. The
best protection is to click
only on links that you recog
nize as being from a trusted
source and are spelled cor
rectly.
The craftiest phishers are
experts who can grab a bit of
information from you, per
haps just from looking over
your shoulder when you fill
out a form requiring your
physical and/or email address
or more. Think how many
times you routinely reveal
your Social Security number
or driver’s license for med
ical services, travel permits,
bank transactions, and vot
ing. It’s hard not to have
some exposure of your most
sensitive identifiers.
Maintaining good hygiene
with your passwords is an
other preventative of cyber
disruptions. I have about 150
unique passwords, typical for
someone in the tech business.
I have friends this week
changing all their passwords
in anticipation of Russian at
tacks. You can protect your
self by using password
manager apps. And you will
always get routine alerts from
companies like Apple or Mi
crosoft when you overuse
your dog’s name on too many
passwords.
Just be careful; I’m sitting
tight - anything I change this
week may be taken from me
next week anyway.
One thing you can’t indi
vidually do anything about is
a Distributed Denial of Serv
ice (DDOS) attack, in which
10,000 or more computing
sources (“bots”) are ganged
up by the pros to flood a
major network or website
and leave you looking at the
spinning wheel of death in-
But also think about major
data breaches like the
Equifax hack in 2017 which
disclosed private financial
records of million people.
And you probably recall
the gas panic we had in 2021
when the Russian group
DarkSide used one password
to disrupt our supply through
Colonial Pipeline and re
sulted in a $4 million ransom
payment and a 5-day shut
down that took a while to
restart all along the East
Coast.
These are the handiwork
of state-sponsored actors, and
you can be sure that the US
and Russia have large invest
ments in talent and technol
ogy to fight that battle. The
Cyber Security field is grow
ing so fast that it requires its
own major within GA Tech’s
College of Computing. Every
graduate has or her pick of
the best jobs. (Hint to parents
whose high school kids are
wizards at video games!)
The US has one weakness
relative to Russia in the pro
fessional level of cyberat
tacks. We have deployed far
more sensors and general au
tomation in our critical infra
structure and major
commercial institutions than
our adversaries. That’s great
for getting the jobs done effi
ciently, but it exposes more
points of vulnerability.
If you have NEST de
vices, Alexa, or any of the
other smart home products,
you own a weak spot in the
control of information com
pared to the more archaic ap
proach of Russian designs. A
great example is the recent
hack of the systems in a
Vegas hotel via access
through a connected ther
mometer in an aquarium. We
have woven millions of “In
ternet of Things” (IOT) de
vices into our personal and
commercial products, and
we’ve thus opened many
possible entry points to at
tackers.
I initially thought that
Putin might be satiated for a
while with conventional war
fare in Ukraine, and I felt his
next logical step of escalation
would be cyber actions as de
scribed in this report.
However, the braveness of
the Ukrainians and their lead
ership, their ability and will
ingness to fight well above
their weight, the increasing
flood of material and mone
tary support from around the
world, the financially crip
pling sanctions on the Russ
ian banking system, and the
unanimous disgust at this
blight on humanity have
turned the tide. Even Elon
Musk has personally done his
share by lighting up the Inter
net in Ukraine using his own
satellite arrays.
Each day now brings in
creasing optimism that Jasper
residents will not get directly
impacted by this conflict.
Normal vigilance with our
personal tech tools will help
protect should Russia target
average Americans in a cy
berwar and from the day-to-
day threats in the digital age.
[Ben Dyer is a resident of
Bent Tree and affiliated with
GA Tech s Advanced Tech
nology Development Center.]
Spot an
error?
Let our
editor hear
about it.
dpool@pickensprogress .com
706-253-2457
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