Newspaper Page Text
Page A— Wednesday, August 31,2022, The True Citizen
OPINIONS
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
The Pledge Of Allegiance
1 pledge, allegiance, to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which
*it stands, one Nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
LOOKING BACK
{this week in Burke County history}
10 YEARS AGO-SEPTEMBER5,2012
The City of Waynesboro was on alert after a carload of
Jamaican or Haitian drug dealers with semiautomatic weap
ons tried to hunt down a Waynesboro man. The FBI, GBI,
State Patrol and Richmond County officers were all on alert
or involved in the operation.
Waynesboro police stopped an out of town couple and
fount two pounds of marijuana in their vehicle. Janessa
Gibson of Grovetown and Aris Floris of Savannah needed a
total of $22,050 to post bond and get out of jail.
Anthony Todd Saxon, 38, of Burke County, died at the
Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. He was
serving a four-year term for impersonating a soldier at Fort
Gordon.
25 YEARS AGO-SEPTEMBER3,1997
The Burke County Development Authority donated
$50,000 toward the construction of the Augusta Tech cam
pus here.
Local officials took part in the groundbreaking for Pecan
Chase Apartments on Highway 56 West. Jerry Braden of
Cartersville, a general partner on the project, said the devel
opment would consist of 35 units, 24 of which would have
three bedrooms.
50 YEARS AGO-AUGUST 30, 1972
A large bronze sculpture, the work of Waynesboro na
tive John Walker, was erected at the airport in Springfield,
Missouri.
Veteran First District Congressman Elliott Hagan was
defeated by Ronald “Bo” Ginn of Millen. In local races,
incumbent county commissioners Jack Greiner and Judson
Thompson were unseated by newcomers Ray Harper and Roy
Marchman. Sam Nunn defeated David Gambrell in the race
for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Richard B. Russell.
70 YEARS AGO-SEPTEMBER4,1952
Members of Girl Scout Troop 2 took a ten day lifesaving
course under the leadership of Miss Clifford Lewis. Attend
ing were: Paulette Barnes, Peggy Bargeron, Joanne Chappell,
Harriet Story, Patricia Bargeron, Georgia Dean Newton,
Keenan Ayer Hatcher and Barbara Jean Credle.
Frank Griffin won the Evans Hardware Big fish contest
with a six and a half pound bass caught at McCullough’s Mill.
Hospital workers were unable to reach the city police
department to help with a “drunken brawl” that had bro
ken out in the emergency room. County deputies finally
responded to help break up the melee which had started at
an area night spot.
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Don Lively
“Ijust didn’t find that pari
at all believable.”
The comment was from a
regular member of our little
book club. We were reviewing
a good-but-not-great book that
I enjoyed and that got mostly
thumbs up from our little band
of readers. The book was a
work of fiction set in the wil
derness of the Northwoods of
Wisconsin. And it was true that
several events in the narrative
probably wouldn’t have hap
pened in real life.
I thought to myself, “So
what? It’s fiction.”
It was at that point that I came
up with a rare glib and succinct
response.
“Normalcy does not make
for good fiction.”
I was pretty proud of that
little ditty and later I Googled
the exact phrase to make sure
that never in the history of
mankind, or at least since the
internet was invented, had my
axiom been uttered.
It had not.
I said all that to say this:
Good writing does not have
to be believable.
Let me expound.
Some of my favorite books
when I was a kid were the
Tarzan of the Apes series. You
know the story. A one-year-old
baby is orphaned in the jungles
of Africa in the late 1800s.
The baby’s mother dies and
the father is then killed by a
wild ape. Then, inexplicably,
the same ape and his band do
not kill the baby but adopt him
into the group where he rises
through the ranks to himself
become “King Of The Jungle”.
A tiny baby, abandoned in
the jungle and raised into adult
hood by apes.
Come on!
That’s not believable!
Those books, first published
over 100 years ago, and the
movies that were later based
on the novels have made multi
millions of dollars for the estate
of one Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Anybody ever heard of H.G.
Wells?
He wrote a little book back
in 1897 about a reclusive and
mysterious man by the name
of Griffin. Griffin was not a
very nice man and he caused
all kinds of problems and got
into all sorts of trouble. Nothing
unbelievable about that, right.
Except for the fact that Griffin
is totally invisible.
Yep, Griffin could be stand
ing right next to you and you
wouldn’t even know he was
there. Of course, for Griffin to
FICTION OR NOT
be totally invisible, Griffin also
had to be totally naked, which
I found to be hilarious when I
was a twelve you old reading
the novel.
The Invisible Man.
I’ve read it at least ten times
in my life.
People still read it and it’s
spawned TV shows and movies
worth millions.
It’s not just books that don’t
have to be believable.
During the filming of the
blockbuster, Armageddon, co-
star Ben Affleck had a question
for the producers. The movie
was about an elite oil-drilling
team who are hurriedly trained
to be astronauts so that they
can fly onto a gigantic asteroid
hurtling toward Earth, drill a
hole into the asteroid and insert
a nuclear bomb, thereby avert
ing the total destruction of the
planet. Mr. Affleck asked what,
in retrospect, seems like an
obvious question.
“Wouldn’t it be more be
lievable to train astronauts
to drill than it would to train
drillers to be astronauts?”
There’s that word again.
Believable.
Young Ben was told to go
learn his lines and to keep his
mouth shut.
The reason we read, or at
least the reason I read, is to take
a break from reality. Things
don’t have to make sense, they
Michael N. Searles
A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO LIVE
Many or most of us are fa
miliar with the phrase “Right to
Life.” Right to life is the belief
that a being has the right to
live and should not be killed by
another entity. While this belief
is sometimes applied to capital
punishment, it is more closely
associated with abortion.
A reverence for life was a key
element in morality for Albert
Schweitzer who wrote: "Ethics
is nothing other than Reverence
for Life. Reverence for Life
affords me my fundamental
principle of morality, namely,
that good consists in maintain
ing, assisting and enhancing
life, and to destroy, to harm or
to hinder life is evil."
It is hard to imagine another
human value that supersedes a
reverence of life, yet this value
can conflict with other values.
As a society, we must make a
choice.
On July 4, 1776, the United
States declared its indepen
dence from Great Britain. Life,
Liberty and the Pursuit of Hap
piness provided three examples
of unalienable rights given to all
humans by their Creator, and
which governments were cre
ated to protect. It is noteworthy
that while the phrase represents
a philosophical foundation for
government, it is not legally
binding. With that reality, we
look to the Constitution of the
United States as the highest
Law of the Land. The Founding
Fathers in drafting the Constitu
tion never thought their words
were in conflict with the second
paragraph of the Declaration of
Independence. However, today
we face that dilemma.
Through an interpretation
of the United States Supreme
Court, the Second Amendment
supersedes the Declaration’s
famous phrase. The Court
has raised gun ownership as a
personal right higher than life
itself. It seems strange that the
right to protect one’s person and
property has become a denial
of life.
While the Court has inter
preted gun ownership as a per
sonal right, it is not an inherent
human right. Human rights are
rights inherent to all human be
ings including the right to life
and liberty.
In 2020,45,222 people died
from gun-related injuries in the
U.S., according to the CDC.
That figure includes gun mur
ders and gun suicides, along
with three other, less common
types of gun-related deaths such
as unintentional, those involv
ing law enforcement and those
that could not be determined.
The U.S. has the highest gun
suicide rate of any country on
earth at roughly 24,000 deaths
per year. Some might say those
who commit suicide with guns
would find other ways to kill
themselves. Yet, suicides by
gun are 90% fatal, while suicide
attempts by cutting or drugs are
only 3% effective.
We can directly point to the
ownership and availability of
guns as a significant factor in
the loss of life in America. It
also represents a significant
failure of government to protect
the lives of its citizens. Were
we less safe when the Second
Amendment literally meant,
just have to entertain.
I, myself, have on occasion
been accused of stretching the
truth in my columns and my
books. If you were raised in
the Blessed South like I was,
you probably grew up hearing
tales, some tall, some not, told
and re-told at family gatherings.
The best stories get better with
age, and with embellishments,
to the point where some of them
are worth documenting.
In other words, “tall tales”
is just another way of saying
fiction.
I encourage friends and kin
to write down their own stories
and to write them however they
see fit.
It’s worked well for me.
I just found one of my books,
signed by me, for sale on Ama
zon for $62 plus $3.99 for ship
ping . That’s over three times the
price for what one copy, which
by the way I still have plenty
of, costs brand spanking new.
Apparently, somebody who
read my book thinks highly
enough of it to jack up the price
but not highly enough to keep it
themselves.
That doesn’t seem like nor
mal behavior.
But, “normalcy doesn’t
make for good fiction (sto
ries)”.
You heard it here first.
“A well regulated Militia, be
ing necessary to the security
of a Free State, the right of the
people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.”
While there are an estimated
436.4 million guns in the United
States, how many of us can say
we feel safer. The leading story
each night on the news is often
the latest shooting. Do we as
Americans have the right to a
life without the fear of being
wounded or killed by a gun?
Should we be afraid to visit a
mall, restaurant, a movie, or
a social gathering without a
concern that someone carrying
a gun might open fire? Should
our children spend part of the
school day learning to react to
an active shooter?
The issue is not guns in the
hands of criminals; the issue is
guns in our hands. Law-abiding
citizens get angry, get drunk,
act irrationally, and sometimes
experience mental breakdowns.
Guns in our homes are subject
to theft and provide access to
children. Acci
dental shootings
by young people SEARLES,
are all too com- 8