Newspaper Page Text
January 12, 2022
Page 5A
ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN by Don Daniel
A rough week
for Monroe Co.
L ast week I used some crime statistics from the
2021 Annual Report from our District Attorney
Jonathan Adams and it is chock full of crime
statistics. Just for your information, our district
attorney serves Butts, Lamar and Monroe Counties. In
his report, 1,890 cases were
opened for prosecution and
1,366 were closed. In our
circuit, the largest number
of cases opened was for drug
crimes and DUI. Violent
crimes composed 23 percent
of the DAs time.
I am sure DA Adams would
be more that pleased to give
you a copy of the 2021 An
nual Report. Go get one. His
office number 478-994-7652.
Reporting and writing
about crime is often a reflec
tion of a community’s social
strata and interaction with each other. Last week’s front
page is not indicative of our community but more in
common with other communities both north and
south of us.
Last week’s front page stories about the shooting
(killing) at Walmart, the arrest of the band director
for on-line sexual exploits with a former student and
the one that rattled me the most was the life or death
sentence by an insurance company denying paying for
a liver transplant by her insurance company, Blue Cross
Blue Shield. Hey, if they can do it to her, they can do it
to you.
As a former reporter and newspaper editor, I have
covered numerous “news” making events and many
with a wonderment of “what the hell is going on?”. The
hardest part of writing and reporting a news event is
applying the who, what, when, where, how with the
most difficult being the “why”. Those three front page
stories raised the “why” and made the stories even more
difficult to report. Many times, the why can never be
reported because the blame for the why is just incom
prehensible and unknown.
THE COUNTY commission meeting was most inter
esting last week with the “they think they are the high
and mighty” attempting to compromise each other with
their individual idea as to who should be appointed to
or reappointed to 13 county boards and individuals.
A couple of times, the tension was evident as one
commissioner wanted his appointee and another com
missioner his appointee and the convincing became
personal. The one appointment that was a surprise was
not reappointing Dr. Craig Caldwell to the hospital
authority and realizing the one that was appointed was
not qualified to be appointed. They decided to turn it
over to the county attorney to un-muddy the who can
and who can’t be appointed.
Here are some unattributed commissioner comments:
“glutton for punishment”; “change horses in mid
stream”; “She’s a sweet lady”; “just to clean it up a little
it”; “I’m a commissioner and I don’t have any qualifica
tions”; “to make it easy to keep it from getting muddy”;
“as easy as falling off a log backwards”; let me back up”;
“We can go around in circles all night”; She’s in the
ditch”; “I don’t have a lot of heartburn”; “I don’t want
that to be a dead subject”; and finally the best one of the
night, “We hit the snooze button”.
OVER AT the Forsyth City Council it was also ap
pointment and reappointment time with some confu
sion about the reappointment of Dr. Denise Buff to the
city Downtown Development Authority. After initially
replacing her, the council realized the replacement
didn’t want to serve. So they backed up and reappointed
her.
NO CORRECT on-time answer to last week’s The
Question. So here’s a new question: what’s the name of
the new subdivision that cut the ribbon near Boling-
broke in the Jan. 5 Reporter? First correct answer after
12 noon on Thursday, gets a certificate for a Dairy
Queen Blizzard, Whistle stop fried green tomato ap
petizer, car wash at Big Peach, dozen Dunkin Donuts,
single tip at Scoops, a Forsyth Main Street and Reporter
t-shirts, and a slice of Shoney’s strawberry pie.
BY THE time you read this, hopefully UGA Bulldogs
will be national champions.
ONE OF THE projects the Bicentennial Commis
sion undertook was the publishing of the 2022 Calen
dar History of Monroe County. It is not a “birthday”
calendar but more of an events both past and present all
about Monroe County. The photography is out stand
ing. The calendars are on now sale and you can contact
Ralph Bass, chairman of the commission, or Richard
Dumas, at the county commission office or any mem
ber of the Bicentennial Commission.
ON THE lighter side, from George Carlin:
• I wonder if a person who comes out of a coma feels
refreshed and well rested;
• They always say the vice president is just a heartbeat
away from the presidency. Don’t they mean lack of a
heartbeat?
• I finally figured out what e-mail is for. It’s for com
municating with people you’d rather not talk to.
+Reporter
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Neighbor leery of noisy crypto mine
To the Editor:
ity of Forsyth - a place you
are proud to call home ...
... that is, unless you’re
in a long - established
residential neighborhood off East
Main Street and Berner Avenue. That
location, in the city of Forsyth, places
you directly in a conflict zone, with
a very expensive, energy guzzling,
environmentally unfriendly Data
Mining Center and a revenue hungry
City Council.
Up until recent times, my family
lived to the motto adopted by the
City, proudly plastered on signage in
downtown Forsyth. We do call For
syth City HOME! Very recently, that
feeling of being ‘home in Forsyth) has
been challenged; We’re about to get
a new neighbor in our “residential”
zone, one which operates on well-
documented neighborhood disrup
tion and unacceptable, over-the-top
noise - which runs at various levels
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The
data mining production ramps up
during off-peak hours to take advan
tage of cheaper electricity costs - this
is effectively when the surrounding
community is sleeping (or trying to
sleep!)
With the approval process of
Planning and Zoning to rezone the
affected area from Multi-Family to
Industrial now completed, the Data
Mining facility approval request
moves to the City Council for public
comment and/or vote. That comment
and vote is scheduled for 6 p.m. on
Monday Feb. 7 at City Hall. Interest
ingly, I noted while reading through
their re-zoning request, there was no
mention of the anticipated noise-
levels to be generated by such a plant,
which appears to me, to be a deliber
ate omission.
New investment is usually good -
this type of facility though, is an ob
trusive constantly noisy, energy con
suming monster, that has a significant
impact on the local environment
and surrounding neighbors. The
noise generated from these facilities
has been likened to 2,000 hairdryers
running simultaneously, a jet engine
warming up on a tarmac, a swarm of
drones, etc. These descriptions come
from news articles of existing re
ports of litigation happening around
the country, including Canada, of
residential neighborhoods affected by
existing data mining operations of the
same nature.
A little research also demonstrates
a common thread among these data
mining centers, their local-affected
communities and city officials. Once
approved to commence operations,
the company completely ignores
any and all requests and concerns
about the constant, unbearable noise
output. That is, until litigation is com
menced with demands of shutting
down the operations entirely - then
and only then, do the companies re
spond, with, at most, what appears to
be lip-service communications only.
The City of Forsyth noise control
laws are almost nonexistent. Vague
and unenforceable at best. The World
Health Organization (WHO) lists
constant sounds, much lower than
those anticipated by the data mining
center, to adversely affect the lives
of the people in the surrounding
residential neighborhood. At least,
PRIOR to the potential of passing
the vote to accept the data mining
center, the City should be thoroughly
re-writing the city noise control ordi
nances to something measurable and
enforceable. Something that protects
the taxpaying residents who will be
forced to live with an inappropriately
zoned-industrial neighbor.
At the time of writing, only ONE
City Councilor was able to be reached
for comment - Thank you Councilor
Gregory B. Goolsby!
Darren Latch
Forsyth
JUST THE WAY IT IS by Sloan Oliver
Critical thinking is... really critical
S everal years ago I
attended a lecture
on climate taught
by a local TV me
teorologist. This weather
“expert” made
the statement,
“central Georgia
averages 120 days
of below freezing
temperatures.”
That statement
was 300%
incorrect.
Macon only
averages
41 days of
freezing temperatures.
Among an audience of
college educated people,
I was the only one who
called B.S. to his 120 days.
Not that I’m smarter than
the other 50 people, but I
think critically and know
that Macon does not get
freezing temperatures, ev
ery day, for three straight
months. How was it that
I was the only one able to
detect the lie told by an
“expert?”
THE INABILITY of
people to perform any
type of critical analysis
is proof of the failure
of our education sys
tem. Americans simply
don’t know when they’re
being lied to. In other
words, we’re easily BS’d.
Daily we are lied to. Even
worse, people have no
idea (and don’t seem to
care) they’re being lied to,
leading them to accept
almost anything - a man
is a woman, a woman is
a man, President Trump
colluded with Russians
to steal the 2016 election,
the U.S. withdrawal from
Afghanistan (last August)
was smooth and orderly
$3 trillion in additional
government spending
won’t create inflation (told
by Biden), masks work,
Covid vaccines work, the
500+ riots of 2020 were
“mostly peaceful” (said
while buildings burned
in the background), Joe
Biden received 80 million
votes, and January 6th was
an insurrection. Anyone
with any critical thinking
skills realizes those are
complete lies.
EACH EXAMPLE
above is untrue, yet each
one is completely
accepted by every
Dem, regurgitated
by the entire media
but easily refuted
with a modictun of
critical thinking. I
say accepted
by Democrats
because not
one Dem
refutes those
lies - ever. Instead we see
Dems accepting the lie
that a man can be a wom
an or a woman can be a
man by simply declaring it
so. Biology is straight for
ward about the male and
female of a species. They
aren’t interchangeable.
Last week we had another
example of the media
trying to force the gender
lie onto society with the
headline, “Amy Schneider
- First woman to win $1
million on Jeopardy’ Fox
News went on to state that
she holds the record for
most wins by a woman.
Problem is that Amy is a
man, not a woman.
LOOK, IF he wants to
pretend he’s a woman,
call himself Amy and
wear dresses, who cares?
But calling himself a
woman does not make
him a woman. He’s a
man, science is science,
and facts are facts. I don’t
understand how or why
women are allowing men
to steal their accomplish
ments. But it’s happening
in the swimming pool,
on the track, academi
cally and now on game
shows. Question for
you women, when will
you start pushing back?
When will you finally say
enough is enough? What
about you Dems, when
will Warnock, Ossoff or
Stacey Abrams stand up
for women and call B.S.
to men stealing women’s
accomplishments? Not
only are Dems refusing to
stand up for women, it’s
Dems who advance the
lies against women.
DEMOCRATS TELL
lies and accept those lies
even when there’s video
evidence to prove other
wise. Last July Biden told
us the Taliban would not
take over Afghanistan.
In August they did, yet
Biden (and the Pentagon)
insisted that our Afghani
stan surrender was, in
fact, well planned, orderly
and successful. Biden
expected us to believe his
lie despite videos show
ing complete chaos and
Afghans so desperate to
flee the country that they
clung to the outside of
departing aircraft and
plunged hundreds of feet
to their deaths. Even after
a suicide bomber killed
13 Marines, the Pentagon
insisted the disaster was
going exactly as planned.
Amazingly Dems proved
they are unable to discern
a lie even when given
video evidence showing
the lie.
OR TAKE the entire
Coronavirus fiasco. Ev
erything about it screams
“Lie.” Biden and Fauci say
“Covid-19 originated in a
“wet market” in Wuhan,
China.” The wet market is
one mile from the Wu
han Institute of Virol
ogy (WIV) - a Level 4
research laboratory doing
experiments on coronavi-
ruses. Any logical person
would ask questions about
why Fauci authorized
money to the WIV for
“gain-of-function” re
search on coronaviruses.
However, if you ask such
questions, the Fauci,
Biden, and media cabal
accuses you of telling
lies. If you think the virus
could have originated at
the WIV, you’re called a
conspiracy theorist and
will be mocked. The same
Fauci/Biden cabal scream
“wear a mask” to stop
the spread, insisting that
masks work. They never
explain, if masks work
so well, then why don’t
masks work? Why do
mandatory masked-up
states (New York) have
more China virus cases
than unmasked states?
THE BIDEN cabal
makes the same claim
about the vaccines. The
Biden insists there are
two, and only two, meth
ods to stop the spread of
the WuFlu - mandatory
masks and mandatory
vaccines. They demand
you believe that masks
work and that vaccines
work. First off, masks
don’t work because the vi
rus is thousands of times
smaller than the pores in
the mask. Second, it’s a lie
to call the Covid shots a
vaccine. Vaccines prevent
someone from getting a
disease or from spread
ing the disease. Think
smallpox and polio vac
cines which, once taken,
prevent the person from
getting or transmitting the
disease. The Covid vac
cines do neither. People
who have received both
injections and booster
shots are still getting sick
and are transmitting the
virus, such as AOC (D-
NY) last week. Despite
that fact, Biden’s only
response is wear a mask
and get the vaccine.
ANOTHER LIE cur
rently being told - Joe
Biden is cognizant and
knows his surroundings.
Sometimes he does, often
times he doesn’t. Last
week, Joe claimed it was
year 2020.
FINAL THOUGHT:
Be skeptical of everything
you read or hear, includ
ing my articles. Do your
own research and you’ll
quickly discover that pub
lic education has failed
America. The proof is our
inability to conduct criti
cal thinking.
A retired Army officer,
Sloan Oliver of Bolingbroke is
a columnist for the Reporter.
Email him at sloanoliver@
earthlink.net.
YOU can contact Donald Jackson Daniel, the founder of
this newspaper, at tullaybear@bellsouth.net.