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6A
OPINION
Sttnes
gainesvilletimes.com
Midweek Edition-March 1-2, 2023
Nate McCullough Group Editor | 770-718-3431 | nmccullough@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.
Understanding MTG through literature
Politics talk with
Ryo Morning
Coffee Club
When Skeeter Skates calls, you had
better put everything on hold. He just
did and I just did. For those of you who
may not be familiar with Skeeter, he is
the proprietor of Skeeter Skates Tree
Stump Removal and Plow Repair in
Ryo, Georgia, and a legend in his field.
He is also the current presiding chair
of the Ryo Morn
ing Coffee Club, a
collection of Great
Americans which
includes Walleye,
who runs the bait
shop over in Red
Bud; Booger Bled
soe, who operates
a local roadside
vegetable stand
on State Route 136
near Sugar Valley;
and Uncle Coot,
recently retired from the porta potty
transportation industry.
It isn’t all that unusual that some topic
will arise in their morning deliberations
that will precipitate a phone call seek
ing my input. This is flattering because
Skeeter will lead you to think he knows
everything about everything.
I seem to have earned his trust over
the years, even though that requires me
listening to him explain in excruciating
detail how he can replace the drivetrain
on a high-torque, heavy-duty Stumper
model 280HD Stump Grinder and
Skid Steer mount without opening the
manual.
I have thought of telling Skeeter that
getting subjects and predicates to agree
in a declarative sentence followed by a
subordinate clause while placing com
mas in all the right places can be pretty
difficult, too. But it would be a waste of
time unless I could convince him that
doing so requires getting grease under
my fingernails. To Skeeter Skates, you
aren’t a working man unless you’ve got
grease under your fingernails.
“Hoss,” Skeeter said, “Me and the
boys was talking about you this morning.
We was discussing a little politics and we
thought of you cause you know as little
about politics as anybody.” Skeeter loves
saying that.
He said, “Actually, I’m calling
because you seem to know a lot of
important politicians and we want you
to put in a good word for us and see if we
can’t get some help here in Ryo.”
I didn’t want to tell Skeeter that I
really didn’t know that many important
politicians but I was curious what kind
of help they needed.
Skeeter said, “Ever since that old
sleepy boy took over running the coun
try, it seems we ain’t been doing all
that well economically here in Ryo.
Folks are putting off getting their plows
repaired and stumps dug. Walleye ain’t
selling near the bait he used to and
Booger had to throw away a bunch of
apples at his fruit stand over there on
State Route 136 near Sugar Valley. Even
Uncle Coot is thinking about going back
into the porta potty transportation indus
try and we’ve not yet got the smell off
him from his last job.”
Skeeter said, “How about getting hold
of them two boys that went overseas,
talking up how Georgia is a good place
to do business and see if they can steer
some of it to benefit Ryo’s economic
development.”
I assumed he was talking about for
mer Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and former
state Sen. Butch Miller and their recent
boondoggle to Europe. That will be a bit
of a problem, I said. They can’t bring
new business to Georgia. They are out of
office and out of power.
Skeeter said, “You mean out of power
like a stump grinder with no gas?” I said
that was a good way to look at it. Skee
ter asked why would they spend their
money on the trip if it wasn’t to get com
panies to come to Georgia.
I said they didn’t spend their money.
They spent ours. The taxpayers of
Georgia. Estimates are that we chipped
in about $110,000 for their excursion,
including $10,000 for a security detail
for Geoff Duncan, who nobody in Geor
gia would recognize, let alone Stuttgart.
Skeeter growled, “You mean they
took $110,000 of our hard-earned money
and went on a sight-seeing in Europe?”
That’s about the size of it, I said.
It was clear that Skeeter was exasper
ated, but had one last question. “Hoss,
why didn’t they just go to Disneyland?
It would have been a lot cheaper for us
and they could have had just as much
fun.” I told Skeeter maybe the former
lieutenant governor and former state
senator could answer that question. I
certainly can’t.
I am afraid that after this conversa
tion Skeeter Skates and his associates in
the Ryo Morning Coffee Club think less
of politics and those within it. I can’t say
I blame them.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at
dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.0. Box
725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online at
dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
To understand where U.S. Rep. Marjorie
Taylor Greene was coming from when she
called for a national divorce between the
red states and blue states, a couple of 19th
century novels are a better guide than any
of the charts and graphs her comment has
provoked.
Emma Bovary, the unhappy wife of a
small-town doctor yearning for a life of
excitement and change in Gustave Flau
bert’s “Madame Bovary,” would have
picked up on the special emotional power
of the word “divorce” right away. It was
something Madame Bovary was prohibited
from seeking by French law, despite a cou
ple of affairs and a loveless marriage. Dis
graced and in debt, she finally expresses
her irreconcilable differences with arsenic.
The title character of Leo Tolstoy’s
novel, “Anna Karenina,” is the unhappy
wife of the Russian Minister of Justice dur
ing a time of great social upheaval in that
country. She takes up with a young cavalry
officer and, unlike Emma Bovary, is able
to obtain a divorce. Like Emma, however,
infidelity doesn’t bring her happiness, and
she comes to a tragic end.
Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina,
impulsive women frustrated by the societal
barriers of their age, are closer in tem
perament to Marjorie Taylor Greene than
might appear at first. Her story is playing
out on a modern stage, and she’s had oppor
tunities those 19th Century heroines could
only dream about. But in Greene’s tweets,
we can still trace the psychological triggers
which propelled these characters.
The word “divorce” implies a rational
legal process, as does Greene when she
LITERS
Hall School District not
forgetting arts while
funding meat process plant
Editor’s note: This letter by William
Schofield is in response to a letter written
by Charlotte Arsenault (“Where’s the art?”
Feb. 22, Page 6A).
I am proud that the Hall County School
District spends between $8 million and $9
million per year on salaries for almost 100
teachers in all 37 of our schools that teach
visual and performing arts. We are com
pleting our fourth new performing arts cen
ter at a cost of over $43 million. During the
Great Recession, we refused to reduce our
fine arts programs. Our board of education
has the option to spend fine arts allotments
in other areas, but we don’t do this, because
explains what she’s
proposing: “... The
left and right should
consider a national
divorce, not a civil
war but a legal agree
ment to separate
our ideological and
political disagree
ments by states while
maintaining our legal
union.”
But underneath
the formal language
of the legal agreement, divorce stands for
the emotional chaos that comes with it.
“I’ll speak for the right and say, we are
absolutely disgusted and fed up with the
left cramming and forcing their ways on
us and our children with no respect for
our religion/faith, traditional values, and
economic & government policy beliefs,”
Greene wrote. Change just a few of the
nouns, and this could be the dialog of a clas
sic breakup argument.
The word has to have a very personal
meaning for Greene, whose divorce story
spans a decade and includes many of the
messy details you’ll find in French and Rus
sian novels. In 2012, she filed for a divorce
from her husband, Perry Greene, but the
couple reconciled shortly afterward. Last
September, the tables turned, and Perry
Greene filed for divorce. After dividing
a considerable family fortune and their
interests in the company of which Perry is
CEO, the two ended their 27-year marriage
in December.
A twice-divorced friend once said that in
we believe in the transformational impact
of fine arts.
Yes, HCSD is investing $8 to $9 million
in a meat processing plant. The funding
comes from $4 million of COVID Relief
dollars, $2.5 million of special grant state
dollars and $2 million of reserve funding
(savings) from our school food service
department. It will generate annual
income; deliver beef and pork for our
20,000 meals per day in the district lunch
rooms; provide students career pathways;
and give our community a reliable source
of locally processed protein. Currently,
four multinational companies process 85%
of the feedlot beef in this country. Two of
them are Brazilian-based. This investment
provides myriad benefits for our commu
nity and potentially is a model for our state
and nation.
Compared to our 90-plus fine arts teach
ers, we have five agriculture teachers in
the period after a divorce, “the highs are
higher and the lows are lower.” For Mar
jorie Taylor Greene, that period has been
acted out in the glare of a national spotlight,
and the rhetoric of her red-state/blue-state
tweets is more suggestive of a post-divorce
high than a rational plan for governing.
In tweets elaborating on her proposal,
Greene says that blue states would be
allowed to descend into lawless anarchy,
while red states would give police raises
and respect and gun owners free rein to
protect themselves. Blue states would prob
ably allow “illegal aliens from all over the
world to vote,” while people who moved
from blue states to red states would have to
undergo a five-year waiting period before
they could vote.
It seems obvious she had her tongue
pretty far in her cheek when she wrote all
this, but that’s where her tongue is nearly
all the time. Her divorce comment drew an
even sharper reaction than dressing up in
a white fur coat and hollering at the State
of the Union speech. So she’ll lay it on as
thick as she can, and probably raise a lot of
money as a result.
If Anna Karenina had the same rights
Greene enjoys, she might have sought
public office herself, maybe even have
challenged her ex, instead of sinking into
a depression and staggering in front of an
oncoming train. What Flaubert or Tolstoy
might have made of Greene, we can only
guess.
Tom Baxter is a veteran Georgia journalist
who writes for The Saporta Report,
saportareport.com.
the entire district. As for the artificial turf
at our high schools, the fields cost approxi
mately $8 million and allows those central
facilities to be used 24/7/365 by over 14,000
students in our middle and high school
programs. The district has purchased no
jumbo scoreboards. Any such niceties have
been provided by local donors that we
greatly appreciate.
We believe in the ongoing importance
of engaging our students in their school
activities and sports. We carefully consider
what resources can best serve our students
in agricultural and other career pathways.
And we will continue to prioritize the fine
arts with passionate teachers, arts centers,
funding, resources, and recognition, know
ing how fine arts can inspire our students
for a lifetime.
Hall County Schools Superintendent
William Schofield
Gainesville
Your government
officials
U.S. government
President Joseph Biden,
The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW,
Washington, DC 20500,
comments 202-456-1111,
switchboard 202-456-1414,
fax 202-456-2461; www.
whitehouse.gov
Sen. Jon Ossoff, Hart Senate
Office Building, Suite 825 B&C,
Washington, DC 20510,202-
224-3521, fax, 202-224-2575;
3280 Peachtree Rd. NE, Suite
2640, Atlanta 30305, 470-786-
7800, fax 404-949-0912; www.
ossoff.senate.gov.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Suite
B40D, Washington, DC 20510,
202-224-3643; One Overton
Park, 3625 Cumberland
Boulevard, Suite 970, Atlanta
30339, 770-694-7828, fax
770-612-2471; www.warnock.
senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, 521
Cannon House Office Building,
Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-9893, fax 202-226-1224;
210 Washington St. NW, Suite
202, Gainesville 30501,470-
768-6520; www.clyde.house,
gov.
Georgia state government
Gov. Brian Kemp, 206
Washington Street, Suite 203,
State Capitol, Atlanta 30334;
404 656-1776; www.gov.
georgia.gov.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, 240 State
Capitol, Atlanta 30334, 404-
656-5030; www.ltgov.ga.gov
Secretary of State Brett
Raffensperger, 214 State
Capitol, Atlanta 30334,
404-656-2881, fax 404-656-
0513; www.sos.state.ga.us;
Elections Division, 2 MLK Jr.
Drive SE, Suite 802, Floyd
West Tower, Atlanta 30334,
404-656-2871, fax, 404-463-
5231
Attorney General Chris Carr, 40
Capitol Square SW, Atlanta
30334; 404-458-3600; www.
Iaw.ga.gov.
School Superintendent Richard
Woods, 205 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive
SE, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-
2800; askdoe@gadoe.org;
www.gadoe.org.
Labor Commissioner Mark
Butler, 148 Andrew Young
International Blvd. NE, Atlanta
30303-1751; 404-232-3000;
commissioner@gdol.ga.gov;
www.dol.georgia.gov.
Insurance Commissioner John
King, 2 Martin Luther King Jr.
Drive, West Tower, Suite 702,
Atlanta 30334; 404-656-2070;
www.oci.georgia.gov.
Agriculture Commissioner Gary
Black, 19 Martin Luther King Jr.
Drive SW, Atlanta 30334; 404-
656-3600, 800-282-5852; gary.
black@agr.georgia.gov; www.
agr.georgia.gov
Public Service Commission, 244
Washington St. SW, Atlanta
30334-9052, 800-282-5813,
fax 404-656-2341; gapsc@
psc.ga.gov; www.psc.ga.gov;
Chairman Chuck Eaton,
District 3; Vice Chairman Tim
Echols, District 2; Lauren
“Bubba” McDonald, District
4; Tricia Pridemore, District 5;
Jason Shaw, District 1.
DICK YARBROUGH
dick®
dickyarbrough.com
TOM BAXTER
tom@saporta
report.com
(The fumes
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Stephanie Woody
EDITORIAL BOARD
Group Editor
Nate McCullough
