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Declare among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not. - Jeremiah 50:2
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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
The Guidestones gone
A sa ‘
■
s a boy I spent a week each summer on my grand
parents’ farm in Hartwell, Ga.
Ralph and Mary White Parker worked hard to
ceep me entertained. We fished in my Papa’s pond.
We picked and shelled butter beans. They took me on pon
toon boat trips on Lake Hartwell. And one summer they also
threw in a trip to the Georgia Guidestones, a.k.a. America’s
Stonehenge, in nearby Elberton, Ga.
The Guidestones are, well, they were,
an odd monument erected in 1980
and made of that famous Elberton
granite. Elberton is the Granite Capital
of the World. The local high school,
the Elbert County Blue Devils, plays
football in, of course, The Granite
Bowl. Most everyone in Elbert County
works in the granite industry. So when
a mysterious person wanted to erect
a monument in many different lan
guages parroting some vague, New
Age type rules for living, he settled
on Elberton to save on transporta
tion costs. The rumor is he had originally wanted to erect
the monument in Perry, but shipping the granite would have
been too expensive.
How big is the granite deposit underneath the soil in Elbert
County? One source claims that Stone Mountain, perhaps the
most famous natural granite formation in the Deep South, is
a mere 1 percent of the volume of granite waiting to be mined
in Elberton.
Anyway, I don’t remember being wowed by the strange,
roadside Guidestones. In fact, I had all but forgotten our visit
to them until this spring, when then gubernatorial candidate
Kandiss Taylor announced that she would destroy them.
Taylor noted that the Guidestones were exactly 666 miles
away from the United Nations. I assume she thinks this
fulfilled some kind of prophecy about the anti-Christ. Taylor
lost, but last week, someone fulfilled her promise anyway, and
bombed the Guidestones. And before the dust had settled,
Elbert County, which had taken ownership of the Guidestone
property, decided to bulldoze the whole thing.
For 42 years the Guidestones drew tourists and travelers
to the roadside in Elbert County, Ga. And now they’re gone.
Gone with the wind, a Georgian might say. It’s sad to think,
but honestly we have all taken the Guidestones for granite.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
A friend from Forsyth who works for the GBI bomb squad
was among those dispatched to Elberton to investigate the
bombing. He said contrary to some reports he does NOT
have new granite countertops in his home. He still asked not
to be identified, just in case.
I have real mixed emotions about the end of the Guide
stones. Elberton is located just a stone’s throw (ha ha) from
Athens. And so I recall that the Guidestones were erected the
year that Herschel Walker and UGA won the 1980 National
Championship. And the Guidestones were destroyed in
2022, the year that Stetson Bennett and UGA finally won the
national title again. Coincidence?
But actually, there is a serious point here. For two years now,
leftists and communists have toppled statues of some of the
great heroes of our nation. New York City removed a statue
of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall. Washburn University
tore down statues of Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin at its
law school. These are the American heroes who founded
the greatest nation in the history of the world. They secured
freedoms and liberties that have brought more prosperity to
our nation than any other in the history of mankind. And
the thanks they get from some of their descendants — bitter,
hateful leftists — is to be tossed aside like a piece of garbage.
And now, in a rare turnabout, the right has destroyed a
monument to leftism, the Georgia Guidestones. The Guide
stones encouraged eugenics, through careful breeding. They
encouraged population control through capping the popula
tion at 500 million. The current global population is estimated
at 8 billion, which means 7.5 billion of us would have to die.
These are evil ideas. I don’t condone violence against private
property. But I’m glad the Guidestones are gone. For two
years leftists have hijacked this nation through violence and
bullying and threats. Now right wingers have torn down a
leftist monument, the Georgia Guidestones. For my leftist
friends, I give you this assurance: it was a mostly peaceful
explosion in Elberton.
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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I DON T,
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DRAWING ON THE NEWS by AF Branco
REECE’S PIECES by Steve Reece
Americans love a conspiracy theory
A mericans love conspiracy
theories and believers don’t
always wear hats made of
wrinkled tinfoil. Maybe
it is because of our own humdrum
reality or a time of paranoia, but these
whoppers have grown in the count
and in the level of ridiculousness. Such
as the persistent local rumor that there
exists a gas mafia in Monroe County.
The truth is our gas prices are deter
mined by giant corporations out in
Oklahoma and elsewhere. That little
independent station down the street
from the Quik Trip sets its pump price
accordingly. That station’s owners
hope that people will come inside to
buy beef jerky, boiled peanuts,
and drinks, where the real
profits are.
Conspiracy theories are not
a recent creation. An early one
was when Andrew Jackson
left a congressman’s funeral in
1835, and a would-be assas
sin, Richard Lawrence, an
unemployed housepainter,
pulled out a pistol and
pointed it at the presi
dent’s back but the weapon misfired.
Lawrence then quickly pulled out
another weapon which also misfired.
He was then subdued by Jackson’s cane
and several nearby bystanders which
included Rep. “Davy” Crockett. Thus
created a theory that Jackson had staged
the assassination attempt to gain sup
port and show what a strong man he
was by soundly beating his attacker with
his walking stick And some said Sen.
John Calhoun of South Carolina was
involved as well as Mississippi Senator
George Poindexter. Lawrence was later
found “not guilty by reason of insanity’!
Presidential assassinations have
always been a good source for those
who indulge in believing in wild ideas.
Although it is widely believed by
scholars, historians, and the general
public that John Wilkes Booth assas-
sinated Abraham Lincoln,
there were folks back in 1865
who thought that the deed was
too great a project for a lowly
actor. They found it difficult
to believe he was able to lead
his band of 8 fellow conspira
tors to murder the president
and attempt to kill cabinet
members, Vice President
Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State
William H. Seward simultaneously. Not
surprisingly, suspicion immediately fell
on Confederate President Jefferson Da
vis and Confederate Secretary of State
Judah P. Benjamin, who allegedly had
connections to the Rothschilds’ bank
ing empire that was concerned about
Lincoln’s trade policies. And
since Mary Surratt and other
convicted and hung conspirators
were of Catholic faith suspicion
was cast upon the Pope or at the
minimum high ranking church
officials by many skeptics.
Supporters of that crazy
theory point out that
John Surratt, Mary’s son,
fled the United States
and, strangely enough,
was located later at the Vatican.
President John F. Kennedy was mur
dered on the morning of Nov. 22,1963,
in the streets of Dallas, Texas and nearly
six decades later Americans continue
to be fascinated by the events that fol
lowed in the days afterward. Even after
the Warren Commission investigated
the assassination and found it to be
the act of a lone gunman, Lee Harvey
Oswald, many scoff at the findings.
They remain convinced JFK “was killed
by CIA agents acting either out of anger
over the Bay of Pigs or at the behest of
Vice President Lyndon Johnson,” by the
KGB or by “mobsters mad at Kennedy’s
brother for initiating the prosecution
of organized crime rings,” according to
Time magazine.
Another presidential conspiracy
theory is one by “birthers” who say
President Barack Obama wasn’t eligible
to be president as he was born outside
our borders. They make this claim even
though his birth announcement was
published in two Honolulu newspapers,
and even after Obama produced his
birth certificate.
Of course, conspiracy theorists have
many alternative explanations for the
horror that happened during the Sep
tember 11 terrorist attacks, including
that the U.S. government plotted to take
down the World Trade Center so that
the country would be taken into war
in the Middle East. Some of these nuts
say a missile was fired at the Penta
gon rather than a commercial airliner
nosediving from the sky. Others present
an unconvincing argument that United
Flight 93 didn’t crash and burn in a
field near Shanksville, Penn, after brave
passengers stormed the cockpit but was
blown out of the sky by an Air Force
jet. All these claims are easily debunked
with real evidence and common sense.
But that won’t stop some people from
truly believing in such crazy ideas.
Even our money can’t escape the scru
tinizing eyes of conspiracy theorists.
Many point to the hidden messages on
the back of the lowly dollar bill such as
the Eye of Providence gazing out from
a triangle set above an unfinished pyra
mid with 13 steps saying it symbolizes
Big Brother watching us or has ties to
the Freemasons and the Illuminati.
In this age of fake news, we need
to take all unsupported claims with a
mountain range of salt.
Steve Reece is a writer for the Reporter
and a known crime fighter. Email him at
stevereece@gmail. com.
CAROLYN S CORNER by Carolyn Martel
This generous gift is yours for the asking
’ve been studying the Book of in making the right choices in life. heart... that they may know... Chr:
I ’ve been studying the Book of
Proverbs and the word “wise” or
“wisdom” is used no less than
125 times.
The aim of the Book of Proverbs is
to help us acquire and apply
God’s wisdom in all aspects of
our daily lives.
If ever a generation needed
the wisdom of God, it’s this
one!
THIS WEEK a friend of
mine said, “I need
more of God’s wis
dom.” My friend has
a house full of teenag
ers who are rebellious
and are being indoctrinated with this
world’s anti-god mindset and god
less morality. The wisdom of God is
needed to teach them to avoid the pit-
falls of this world, and to guide them
i making the right choices
IN PROVERBS 2:6 we read:”For
the LORD gives wisdom.” To start
acquiring God’s wisdom, read God’s
word and seek His coun
sel. Did you know that the
Bible is the only book you
will ever read, where the
author is present as you
read what is written? Think
Ay about that the next time
you read your Bible. God
draws near as you seek
, His wisdom.
NEXT, CON
TINUE to cultivate
your relationship with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Within Him is a treasure chest
of understanding, knowledge and
wisdom. The Apostle Paul wrote: “My
goal is that they may be encouraged in
... that they may know... Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge” Col. 2:
2-3.
IN 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30, Paul
expands our understanding of the
true riches found in Christ by saying
that,’’Jesus is our wisdom!” So wisdom
is more than a “something”-ifs a
“Someone!” Jesus is wisdom personi
fied!
SO DEAR reader, get wisdom! It’s
a gift from God, and it’s yours for the
asking. “Now if any of you lack wis
dom, he should ask God, who gives to
everyone generously without rebuke,
and it will be given to him” James J:5.
Carolyn Martel of Forsyth is the re
tired long-time advertising manager for
the Reporter. Email her at carolynmar-
tell@bellsouth.net.