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& EDITORIALS
Declare among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not. - Jeremiah 50:2
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 winner: Editorial Page excellen
2019, 2018 winner: Best Headline Writing
2019 winner: Best Community Service
2019 winner: Best Layout and Design
2019 winner: Best Serious Column - Don Daniel
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
A Jekyll Island mystery
The man who runs the bike rental shop at the Jekyll Island Club
is a retired New York borough police chief. He was doubtful my
key was stolen.
“Fve been heah 20 yeahs and we’ve nevah had a kah break-in,”
he said. With no public housing or poverty, Jekyll Island does
seem like the safest of places.
I could not recall whether I had left my truck key in the truck,
per my custom, or had taken it to our hotel room. All I knew was
it was gone. We had turned the truck upside down, pulling every
item out of my center console including an iPhone stand, a stack
of business cards, an old cigar and a face mask that said “This
mask is as useless as Joe Biden’! Still no key. The bad news is that
we didn’t have a backup. The truck only came with one key when
we bought it. Car makers have made it very expensive to make
copies of keys. No longer can you walk over to Ace Hardware on
the square and have Lee McGee copy your car key for $3.
The good news is that we didn’t really
need a vehicle on Jekyll Island. We ride our
bikes everywhere and the hotel has a shuttle
as well But we did need a way to get home
on Saturday.
Later, on yet another search through the
truck, I discovered that something else was
missing too. My 38 special was gone from
my center console. The only good news was
that it seemed to confirm that I didn’t
lose my key. It was definitely stolen. Or
so it seemed.
I called the Brunswick Ford dealer on
Friday morning hoping and praying I
could get a key made. They referred us to a locksmith. The lock
smith said he no longer did that but referred us to another lock
smith. Finally that locksmith said someone could come around 6
pm. and make a key for us. Cost? $400. Are we having fun yet?!?
The friendly locksmith lady arrived early. She needed my driv
er’s license number, which created another problem. I hadn’t seen
my license since I had voted on May 24. Thankfully the Monroe
County sheriffs office was able to look it up for me. “We can
make an extra key for you for $35, Mr. Davis,” the lady offered.
“Yes make three please!” I replied. Won’t have this problem
again.
And so the episode seemed to be resolved. Until Saturday, as
we packed to leave. My wife was standing in the back of my truck
where she was organizing our luggage (not my strong suit) and
motioning for me to come over. She had a perplexed look on her
face. She had found a grocery bag tied at the top in the back of the
truck When she opened it she found my gun. And inside was a
note, written on Jekyll Island Club stationary
“Someone found your keys mentioned they were on the table,”
read the note. “Got a little drunk & grabbed this. I don’t know
what I was thinking. Sorry I wanted to return it But didn’t know
how. Put keys back and I guess someone found them again.
Nothing else touched. Very sorry’
The handwriting was small, slanted forward right and in simple,
print letters. I would guess it belongs to a young male. Given it’s
on the hotel stationary, I’m guessing he was a hotel guest.
And so the mystery of the stolen keys and gun was solved.
Sort of. I never got my keys back Here’s what I think happened:
I dropped my keys somewhere between my truck and the hotel
around 10 p.m. Wednesday night. Someone found the keys and
rather than turning them into the hotel, set them on an outdoor
table. Then this young man came along, drunk, saw the keys and
had a bright idea. He went to the closest parking lot and pressed
the remote to see which car they belonged to. My truck lights
came on. So he went inside, got the gun and eventually made it
to his room and passed out. The next morning he realized that in
his drunken state he had committed a felony. He put the key back
where he found it on the table and stewed about what to with the
gun. Finally he decided to put everything back in my truck But
when he went to get my key from die table, it was gone. Whatever
the case, at least he had a conscience. If I could find him I would
warn him that the last guy who stole a gun from my truck, at
home in Forsyth in 2009, is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Our family has stayed at the Jekyll Island Club for 20 years for
the Georgia Press convention. We love that place and won’t let
one guy’s mistake ruin it. But next time I’m there I might drop
by the bike shop and warn my Yankee police chief buddy that
a drunken hotel guest has broken the 20-year streak of no “kah
break-ins”
is published every week by The Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, President • Robert M. Williams Jr., Vice President
Cheryl S. Williams, Secretary-T reasurer
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Publication No. USPS 997-840
DRAWING ON THE NEWS by AF Branco
REECE’S PIECES by Steve Reece
Whats that lurking in the darkness?
W hat kind of world would
it be if there wasn’t just a
bit of weirdness? I’m not
referring to the weirdness
of beings such as ghosts, Bigfoot, or the
Chupacabra that we all love but rather the
things we come across in the daily news.
It seems that every day there’s someone
somewhere capturing some new image on
a security or phone camera that just can’t
be explained.
Such as the image captured inside the
fence at the Amarillo Zoo out in Texas in
the early morning hours of May 21. The
now nearly famous creature seen in the
zoo’s security grainy photo stands upright
much like Bigfoot but appears not to be
nearly as large. Michael Kashuba, director
of Parks and Recreation in Amarillo said
“We’d love to hear feedback from the com
munity on what they think it might be. It’s
a very unique picture, and were excited
to see what the community thinks. The
photo is absolutely real.” But is the crea
ture? For now, it is known as the Unidenti
fied Amarillo Object (UAO) and the city
of Amarillo is asking the public to submit
ideas for what the mystery figure could be.
If you want to make a guess, just search
for the Unidentified Amarillo Object,
and take a gander. It’s all over the internet
and should be easy enough to find. If you
know anything about its origins, please
let me know right away so I can get some
sleep.
In other news, a hospital worker filmed
a long-lasting soap bubble as it bobbled
its way down a hospital corridor, as if it
had a mind of its own. While watching
the video, I kept expecting it to pop at any
second, but it never did. It just kept bob
bing and weaving, floating up then slowly
back down. Occasionally it speeds up then
slows back down again. Even more amaz
ing was how the bubble could go around
corners, never touching any obstacle as
it continued its search for something
unknown. Weird is all I can say. In the
description area of the video, the hospital
worker claimed it finished its journey at
the nurses’ station. I assume it hung out
awhile before taking off again. I never saw
it pop even though a normal soap bubble
usually will be gone within less than a
minute. They say you can add glycerin to
soapy liquid to create bubbles that last for
several minutes but I’ve never heard of one
that had a built in GPS system.
In yet another strange clip, there is a
man sleeping on his couch who is sud
denly awakened by a loud banging that
sounds like it’s coming from the next
room. He gets up to investigate what you
might assume is a ghost but then suddenly
out of nowhere, we hear the Amazon
Alexa in a voice we’re all familiar with, say
“She was my wife.”
The confused man beats it back into his
living room where Alexa appears to try to
strike up a conversation with its tiny little
speaker, claiming, “You took her from
me,” and “I found her here.. .my wife.” I’ve
heard of a few cases about Alexa being
hacked but I’ve never heard of one being
involved with a poltergeist before.
Alexa is like a spy that that I willingly
placed in my home to listen to everything
I say just to give me the temperature
outside and to call my phone when I have
no idea what I did with it. If you own one
of these gadgets, you’ve probably grown
used to it answering questions that wasn’t
asked. I used to think this was a harmless
glitch, but if I was the guy in this video, I’d
probably find me another place to live.
Cameras are everywhere. Ring cameras
on nearly every front door, dashcams
sticking to nearly every windshield and
trail cams are watching more than just
grazing deer it seems. There are some
strange things in this old world and some
of them are bound to end up on video.
Being a videographer, I know how easy
it is to fool someone into thinking what
they’re watching is reality but some of
these videos just can’t be faked. Just ask
the government. A military database of
UFO’s (which are now called unexplained
aerial phenomena - UAPs) now includes
around 400 separate incidents which is up
from 143 from a report released just a year
ago. The 2021 report from the military
said no evidence of aliens has been found.
Scott W. Bray the deputy director of Naval
intelligence, told congressional lawmakers
that they still haven’t uncovered anything
“non terrestrial in origin,” but there are
many incidents that can’t be explained.
None these so-called UAPs have made any
attempt to communicate with American
flyers and we haven’t tried to talk with
them either. What would we say?
Steve Reece is a writer for the Reporter
and a known crime fighter. Email him at
stevereece@gmail.com.
GUEST COLUMN by Dr. Wenyuan Wu
Dems seize crisis to take away rights
N ever let a good
crisis go to
waste. In the
wake of recent
mass shootings in Buffalo,
New York and
Uvalde, Texas,
political pun
dits have once
again exploited
our national
vulnerabilities
to virtue-signal
and oversell
hateful ideolo
gies. President
Biden quickly
condemned
the Buffalo
shooting as an example
of “poisonous white
supremacy’ His parti
san base band-wagon to
regurgitate this talking
point and even generalize
the Uvalde tragedy into
the same national course.
Social media influenc-
ers callously dug into the
political backgrounds of
Uvalde shooting victims’
parents to drive home the
point that Texans’ vocal
advocacy for the Second
Amendment was why they
lost their children!
Rather than inves
tigating often com
plex and multifac
eted causes behind
rising gun violence,
political elites and
cultural bourgeois
rush to pin the
right-wing philoso
phy as the culprit.
The pattern is
painfully predictable:
1. Find a red herring
- white supremacy and/
or ideology on the right; 2.
Blame the conservatives for
encouraging the ideology
directly or even indirectly;
3. Manufacture a moral
panic; 4. Do nothing that
actually works to tackle the
real issues; 5. Wash, rinse,
repeat. We have reached
a new low point where
divisive politics overtakes
societal cohesiveness.
Needless to say, there
is a public safety crisis of
unprecedented proportions.
By May 30,2022, America
has seen 229 mass shoot
ings and 17,798 gun deaths
(including 9,900 suicides).
Many compounding factors
are at play: mental health
issues, cultural degradation,
spiritual starvation, social
isolation, family breakdown,
and a lack of coherent legal
frameworks regarding the
firearms market. Frequent
mass shootings plague big
cities and small towns and
affect states with strict gun
control and those without.
These senseless acts of
violence impact all walks of
life and are perpetuated by
anti-social individuals re
gardless of race or ideology.
If we don’t confront these
thorny issues, we are bound
to repeat the same mistakes.
Aside from the often-
bifurcated policy debate
on gun control, we must
come together as a nation to
explore middle-range policy
solutions that strengthen
local law enforcement,
encourage family integ
rity and personal respon
sibility, rebuild a true
liberal democracy culture
and improve public educa
tion as a pillar of political
and social stability. Most
importantly, we must realize
the inherent limitations of
our government, the role
of which is not to legislate
virtue or replace family and
civil society, but to protect
its citizens. And to those
who hijack tragedies for
politicking: if you can’t be
the change, don’t be the
problem.
Dr. Wenyuan Wu of
Forsyth writes about
educational topics at www.
rejectcrt.org.