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Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.- Wendell Berry • Opinions • Community Views • Good Old 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; $52.30 for all other Georgia residents; $62.32 out of state residents. 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 The Bath or Shower You've Always Wanted IN AS LITTLE AS 1 DAY *500 OFF No Payments & No Interest c OR for 18 Months** Military & Senior Discounts Available OFFER EXPIRES MARCH 31, 2022 Bti shower (844)947-1448 CALL NOW! Includes product and labor; bathtub, shower or walk-in tub and wall surround. This promotion cannot be combined with any other offer. Other restrictions may apply. This offer expires Mar 31,2022. Each dealership is independently owned and operated. “Third party financing is available for those customers who qualify. See your dealer for details. ©2022 BCI Acrylic Inc.