About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2024)
6A OPINION ®he £ntics gainesvilletimes.com Midweek Edition-July 17-18, 2024 John Chambliss Managing Editor I 770-718-3407 I news@gainesvilletimes.com The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com 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. What do Bulgarians know about The South? The things one learns while doing the kind of deep dive research required to provide you with cutting-edge material that you can toss out to your amazed friends at the next church social. According to QR Code Generator—whatever that is — Georgia is the least sociable state in the union. If that be true, you may not be of a mind to share this information with anyone at the next church social because you may not be feeling sociable and apparently neither will anyone else. They are just there for the cookies and lemonade. Alaska, which is the largest state in the United States — larger than the next three largest states (Texas, California and Montana) combined—and which has a population less than Cobb County but a lot more moose and black flies, is considered the most sociable. I figure since there is roughly one Alaskan for every square mile of territory — not counting the moose and black flies—just waving at another human being far off in the distance probably counts as being sociable. QR Code Generator, which promises to provide a QR code that will help you “improve the impact of your marketing, enhance customer experience and increase engagement,” doesn't mention why our sociability should be any of their concern. They are, after all, located in Bulgaria, which is right next door to Ukraine, which makes them very close to Russia, as well. I'm thinking that's what they ought to be worrying about rather than how much we say howdy and to whom. It is clear that QR Code Generator has too much time on its hands when not generating QR codes to impact your marketing, enhance customer experience and all that other stuff. They recently released a study on the most searched-for phobias on the internet in the U.S. and concluded the number one phobia is — are you ready ? — trypophobia, an aversion to small holes clustered together in a pattern. That includes honeycombs, sunflowers and fruit containing small seeds, such as strawberries and kiwis. If you suddenly start feeling sociable, you might want to drop that nugget on the group at the next church social and watch them spew their lemonade in amazement. The things I do for you. It is interesting to note that 8 of the 10 least sociable states are in the South. The only two exceptions are New Jersey and Vermont. This left the Bulgarians scratching their glavas. “While many would expect Southern states, known for their warm hospitality, to rank top of the list,” they opined, “it is interesting to see expectations flipped in the ranking.” Well, kiss my grits and your flipping expectations. We aren't antisocial in the South. We are just a bit circumspect with outsiders. My daddy didn't know much about QR codes but he knew a lot about being Southern. He used to say, “People from other parts of the country will tell you everything they know, whether you asked them or not. Southerners will tell you what they want you to know when they are ready for you to know it.” No doubt that's the case here. A bunch of Bulgarians start asking us about going to bars or music venues or sporting events or how many minutes a day we spend on telephone calls or emails and we'll sull up in a minute. That's our business and we don't see any reason to share with a bunch of strangers where we go line dancing on Saturday nights. On the other hand, Alaskans are happy to go into as much detail as you want just to have somebody to talk to and to get their minds off the swarms of black flies and rutting moose. QR Code Generator may know a lot about the digital age and URLs and the like, but they don't know much about the South. We aren't standoffish in the least. You want to talk a little football, not the kind they play in Bulgaria but real football and we'll talk all day. Tell us about Lili Ivanova, considered the greatest Bulgarian pop singer of all time, and we'll tell you about Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany, Georgia, the greatest singer of all time, period. Brag about your stuffed grape leaves and we extol the virtues of the Vidalia Onion. No contest. We are a proud people in the South. You just have to get to know us. Based on the QR Code Generator survey I just read, they don't have a clue, y'all. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.0. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139. To submit a letter Send by email to letters@gainesvilletimes.com or use the contact form at gainesvilletimes.com. Include name and city of residence; letters never appear anonymously. Letters are limited to 350 words on topics of public interest and may be edited for content and length. Writers are limited to one letter per month. Letters may be rejected from readers with no ties to Northeast Georgia or that address personal, business or legal disputes. Letters not the work of the author listed, with material not properly attributed or with inaccurate material will be rejected. Letters and other commentary express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times. DICK YARBROUGH Columnist MTG doesn’t get the unity memo All of a sudden, unity. For a min ute, anyway. President Joe Biden called for the country to “unite as one nation” in his address to the nation Sunday night, in response to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump Saturday in Pennsyl vania. Moments later, Trump posted on Truth Circle the words “UNITE, AMERICA!” Trump told the New York Post and the Washington Examiner he'd thrown out what was going to be an “extremely tough” convention speech, and was preparing on a new speech which he sees as a chance to bring the country, and maybe even the world, together. “I want to unite our country, but I don't know if it's possible. People are very divided,” he said. This probably means the Trump campaign believes the foiled assassi nation attempt has put an even bigger election victory than expected within its grasp. Trump's abrupt rejection of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, and the changes in the abor tion plank of the Republican Party's new platform, were signs there was already worry about the campaign's sharper edges. The convention in Mil waukee could be seen as an attempt to ease into something closer to a 50-state strategy, whatever that might look like in the 21st Century. The memo about this change in tone seems not to have reached U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, murdering the innocent unborn, violence, and bloody, mean ingless, endless war.... The Democrat Party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder Presi dent Trump,” the Georgia congresswoman wrote on social media Sunday. Trump's speech will have to be a doozy to turn those sentiments in unity. As for the Democrats themselves, any faint hope they'll be singing in the unity chorus for long were dashed on Monday when federal Judge Aileen Cannon threw out the federal indictment against Trump in the clas sified documents case. If there was still a Democrat who didn't believe Cannon was in the tank for the ex president, this ruling should be the final straw. Trump's call for unity does seem to have resonated at the party level. His primary rival Nikki Haley has decided she will make an appearance at this week's convention after all. If that leads to more Haley primary vot ers returning to the fold in November, it could be one of the biggest devel opments of the week. The killer who shook the nation enough to general all this unity talk remains a cipher, but a familiar one: the kid who sat by himself in the lunch room and didn't make the high school rifle team. The high school graduate who won a $500 math and science award, but ended up working in the kitchen of a nursing home after graduating from community college. The emerging profile of Thomas Matthew Crooks remains a blank slate as to his politics, and there is a good chance this will stay that way. The T-shirt he was wearing Saturday was for neither party, but a YouTube chan nel for gun lovers called Demolition Ranch. History doesn't exactly repeat itself, but there have now been two unsuc cessful assassination attempts on for mer presidents running for a second nonconsecutive term, featuring bra vura performances by the targets. The first was in 1912, when former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot while making a speech in Mil waukee. Having failed to win another Republican nomination after four years out of office, he was running as the Progressive, or Bull Moose Party, candidate. The bullet, fired by a saloon keeper who later claimed William McKin ley had directed him to do the deed in a dream, passed through a metal case and a folded speech copy in Roosevelt's coat pocket before it lodged in his chest. Declaring that “it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose,” Roosevelt insisted in finish ing his speech before being taken to a hospital. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Roosevelt lost that year's election, by the way, to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Tom Baxter is a veteran Georgia journalist who writes for The Saporta Report, saportareport. com. His columns appear Wednesdays. 9HENEMAN' HE5TARLEDSER KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN DREW SHENEMAN I Tribune News Service DANA SUMMERS I Tribune News Service (The Sfmcs Founded Jan. 26,1947 345 Green St., Gainesville, GA 30501 gainesvilletimes.com Publisher Stephanie Woody EDITORIAL BOARD Managing Editor John Chambliss
