About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 2020)
11A OPINION Sttnes gainesvilletimes.com Midweek Edition - Sept. 30 - Oct. 1,2020 Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. LITERS Explanation of shooting involving police way overdue Thank you for the update on the Gainesville Police shoot ing of Adam English September 2019 near the Northeast Georgia Medical Center that is long overdue. Why has it taken so long for this report? The investigating agencies, the GBI, had it over three months, and the district attorney has had over nine months to find out and report to the public exactly how this happened — a very busy street, hundreds of people witnessing and one taking a video of the entire thing, which was posted on YouTube. I viewed the video, now removed, that clearly show five Gainesville Police with guns drawn in a shooting stance, with Mr. English stand ing with his back turned a few yards away with no apparent weapon. The impact was edited of course, and the next frame has him lying on the ground after several shots were fired. Now, Mr. Darragh, our D.A., is quoted as saying “should I determine a grand jury is necessary this may take months or years because of the virus.” If this quote is correct, and I’m not an attorney, but it cer tainly seems clear to me that a grand jury is necessary and the quicker the better. The public has a need to know why this shooting was necessary and who was responsible and what is so complicated that it has taken this long on a case that appears very simple to solve. Let’s say that Mr. English was a Black man instead of white, how long would it have taken? An explanation is way overdue. Gene Cobb Gainesville This era of Republican is not conservative In today’s political climate there are two words that should not be used together: conservative and Republican. There’s the national debt. Beginning with the Reagan administration, Republicans cut taxes and increased borrowing to fund the government. As a result, the national debt increased by close to 180%. More tax cuts during the George W. Bush administration led to an increase of about 100% in the national debt. The debt increased again during the Obama years by 78% as the Republicans blocked efforts by Obama to repeal the Bush tax cuts. More tax cuts under the current administration have brought the nation to the verge of bankruptcy. There is certainly nothing conservative about Republican fiscal policy. There’s global warming. The science is clear, as is the solution. Mankind’s burn ing of fossil fuels and his destruction of the world’s forests have caused a steady buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmo sphere, leading to melting glaciers, rising sea levels and climate change. The solution to this existential threat is complex, but switching to carbon neutral sources of energy and preserving forests are obvious steps to take. Republi cans have chosen to collectively ignore the problem. Hardly a conservative approach. And then there’s Donald Trump. By supporting Donald Trump, the Republican Party has endorsed the president’s lying, consorting with enemy nations, demeaning allies and all manner of corruption, incompe tence and chaos that define this administration. It is appalling how so many senators and representatives in the legislative branch of government have sworn allegiance to the executive branch, thus abdicating their constitutional responsibility to be a check and balance. There is certainly nothing conser vative about allowing one deranged individual to hijack the party. It is time for conservatives concerned about today’s most critical issues to vote Democrat. The nation can ill afford another four years without leadership. Russell England Gainesville Many choices to make when casting a ballot this election Last week, I cast an early vote in the special election to deter mine who fills the empty 5th Congressional District seat for the last few weeks of this year. Meaning no disrespect to the seven candidates who have spent considerable resources vying for this brief tenure in office, I did this mostly for practice. I wanted to check out the new vot ing machines (Pro tip: don’t fold that white sheet of paper you’re handed) and to see how COVID restrictions affected the process. There were only a couple of other people voting when I was there, but a poll worker told me there had been 70 or 80 that day. If that many people turn out on one day of early voting in one race as nearly meaningless as this, it means that a new voting pattern has taken root. We can be confident the early voting turnout for the Nov. 3 elec tion will surpass anything we’ve seen. A couple of days later, my wife and I got the absentee ballots we’d requested online from the secretary of state’s web site. That’s how we had intended to vote, and it may be that we will. But as the big election approaches we find ourselves, like a lot of voters, with several options and just a small, deeply troubling, sliver of a doubt. We could vote on Election Day, as we have in every presidential election for decades. We could during the three- week-long early in-person voting period that begins Oct. 12. We could fill out an absentee ballot and put it in one of the designated drop boxes, or we could put the ballot in the mail. Any of these options should work just fine. I don’t worry very much about stories like the one in which election officials found a programming error that could have caused a problem in the ballot for the U.S. Senate jungle pri mary. Problems like that can be corrected. But for years, from the introduction of electronic and mail-in voting to the contested 2000 election to the increas ing polarization of politics, just the smallest sliver of doubt has grown in the minds of voters about whether they really will be counted. There’s a lot of brush around the voting process to set afire, and this year President Trump lit it. “We’ve never had any fraud in Flor ida,” Charles T. Wells, who was chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court during the Bush-Gore dispute follow ing the 2000 election said on “Morning Joe” Monday. “We had mechanical mistakes.... We had a slew of things that should have been fixed which now have been fixed.” But over time a larger slew of things has gone unfixed about the way we vote, eroding faith in the system with the active encouragement of partisan voices. This sliver of doubt goes far past the most avid conspiracy theorists. Even people who have faith that the election system works will naturally ask, when faced with a variety of voting choices, which one is safest? Which one is best? Some will also ask which method is smartest strategically, although that can be a tricky question. For months, Face- book memes have exhorted Trump vot ers to ignite a viral movement around voting on Election Day, only to have the Trump campaign encourage voters in states like Florida to mail in their bal lots early. Democrats have staunchly defended the validity of mail-in voting, but as the election nears, some Demo crats are promoting early on-site voting. All the speculation about possible attempts to shut off voting after Elec tion Day has caused voters to worry that their votes may not be counted. But some states count their mail-in votes before Election Day, and not many vot ers know the situation in their states. Election Day itself will be a severe test for a COVID-affected system of poll workers and election officials, not to mention the heightened possibility of violence at some voting places. This is going to be a difficult election, but the truth is that your vote is no less likely to be counted one way than the other. We have more choices for how we vote, and most of them work pretty much the way they’re supposed to. Were it not for the insidious partisan ship that has poisoned the system in so many ways, that should be something to celebrate. Tom Baxter is a veteran Georgia journalist who writes for The Saporta Report. TOM BAXTER tom@saporta report.com "No, I'm not going to tell you who I’m voting for. It's bad enough that I know!" JIM POWELL I For The Times Choosing to be thankful “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1859. In the main focal point of my living room, I have placed a Thanksgiving decoration. It’s an adorable turkey surrounded by pumpkin and cor nucopia stickers. The words “Give Thanks” shine above in glittery charm. How silly, in September. Well, in a year that broke all the rules, I’m doing whatever it takes to give myself a positive attitude adjustment. My daughter and I head out shopping one day, and there is the glory of the fall decorations. While Christmas is my favorite holiday, fall is my favorite season. Feeling the crisp but not frigid fall air, sampling way too many pumpkin spice offerings, and now the idea of my daughter running through multicolored leaves makes me feel alive. I am at the whim of the display cases of brown and orange everything one can think of. Now Mr. Turkey is there. “Give Thanks” he reminds us. I am grateful, very much so. While the wounds of current events are still fresh, I respect that our little family could have seen much worse. I’m taking a rearview perspective of thankfulness. We went from living in an uncertain living situation to a beautiful new home. We are financially sound. I wish I could provide for those who lost everything, so suddenly, despite years of hard work. I respect that we are fortunate to know our needs will be met. I’m grateful that my child is too young to be aware that there’s a psychological tornado going on. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. While I agonize over the experiences she is not having, she has enjoyed everything about her toys and her home. I can’t imagine the challenge of juggling parental responsibilities while having to consider that my child might be struggling more than I am. I’m grateful that we have had countless magical moments. Maybe my daughter isn’t spending her second year at the park or a playground with a bunch of kids, but she has grown up quickly and amazingly. She has gone from her first step to running, kicking and throwing. She has gone from first words to chatting with all who pass. Best of all, her personality shines through the darkness. Her face lights up the room with her brilliant smile. You wouldn’t know the most shocking year had just happened to the world spending a few moments with her. So here I am, after six months of experiencing a world I never dreamed I would live in, feeling inner peace. It will be a long time before the world and our country are not in a state of chaos, certainly. If I could solve these problems, they’d be solved. Right now, the solution for me is to keep a thankful perspective. I respect that we’ve been lucky. Teresa Manuszak Flowery Branch What do we care what they say or think about our great state? It is my bounden duty to report to you on the state of the state in which you find yourself. I am talking, of course, about the Great State of Georgia. While we are blessed to be home to the Blue Ridge mountains, the Golden Isles, the Vidalia onion and the greatest state song in the history of the world, “Georgia on my Mind,” as sung by the late Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia, it seems we are only moderately happy people. That news comes from a group called WalletHub, located in a swamp known as Washington, D.C. They have rated all 50 states on happiness and Georgia comes in at 22nd. When not telling us how happy or unhappy we are, WalletHub says it offers free credit scores and personalized tips on how to save money. Bless their hearts. I haven’t talked to any Walle- tHubbsters and I suspect you haven’t, either, but I hope they are better at financial stuff than picking happy states. They have California rated as the 6th happiest state in the nation. Yes, that California — the one with never- ending forest fires, earthquakes, mud slides, high taxes and Nancy Pelosi. What Californians have to be happy about escapes me at the moment. Maybe they are happy that the San Andreas Fault hasn’t slid them off into the Pacific Ocean yet. Even New Jersey whips our tail. Wal letHub rates it the fourth happiest state. I’m not touching that one. The fear some Woman Who Shares My Name was born in New Jersey although she moved South as a wee child and speaks fluent Southern. But I know she has good memories of summers spent at her grandmother’s beach house on the Jersey coast. There fore, I am reluctant to say something snarky and run the risk of getting broccoli rammed up my nose. Before you ask — assum ing you care — WalletHub rates Hawaii as the Hap piest State in the U.S. just ahead of Utah. Poor old West Virginia comes in dead last, which ought to make Mississippi happy. So, how did WalletHub reach their conclusions? — again, assuming you care. They assembled a panel of experts (I must have been out when they called) who say happiness is more than a feeling of joy or excitement. It is about emotional well-being and job satisfaction. I am happy to hear that. My emotions seem to be well and I love my job. What I am not happy about is another survey I got right after Wal letHub. This one came from a company called LawnStarter. They don’t do free credit scores or personalized tips on how to save money. They cut grass and spray for weeds. For reasons that totally escape me, LawnStarter felt compelled to send out a release announcing the Best and Worst States to Visit this Fall. I’m not sure what that has to do with cutting grass and spraying for weeds. They rank New York as the most desirable state to visit in the fall and Alaska sec ond even though they allow that Alaska has the least number of pumpkin patches after Hawaii. Pumpkin patches in Alaska and Hawaii? One of LawnStarters’ suggestions was to “skip the South” this fall. Say what? They claim three of our neigh boring states are targets for hurricanes, although not us. Still, they rank Georgia the 41st worst on the list of 47 states. (Washington, Oregon and happy-sappy California are excluded because of wildfires. They didn’t mention that the wildfires in Oregon come mainly from thugs trying to burn down the city of Portland.) Even West Virginia beat us. That hurts. Despite a plethora of pumpkin patches in Georgia and lots of friendly folks, LawnStarters dismisses us because they say we don’t measure up in the categories of parks and for ests, entertainment, trails and natural hazards. However, we did come in 3rd in yard size. I’m happy about that, but if they are thinking about mowing my yard, they can forget it. Skip the South, remember? If this unsettling news disconcerts the emigres from the land where it snows 10 months a year and all the buildings are rusted, remember our highways are two-way. The road that brought you here is available to take you back from whence you came. The rest of us love our Georgia just as it is, thank you very much. As for WalletHub and LawnStarters and their cockamamie studies, here is my personalized tip for you both. Kiss my grass. I hope that makes them happy. Dick Yarbrough is a North Georgia resident whose column publishes Wednesdays. Contact him at P.0. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com; or on Facebook. DICK YARBROUGH dick@ dickyarbrough.com (The (Times Founded Jan. 26,1947 345 Green St., Gainesville, GA 30501 gainesvilletimes.com General Manager Norman Baggs EDITORIAL BOARD Editor in Chief Shannon Casas
