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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Midweek Edition-July 17-18, 2024
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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.
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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
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