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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2008
Editor: Angela Gary
Phone: 706-367-2490
E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com
Website: www.mainstreetnews.com
Opinions
“Where the press is free and every man
able to read, all is safe.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Winter storms still
compared to past
S ometimes, the plants just won’t listen.You
tell them to not start budding for the spring
just yet — but they don’t listen.
You warn them that despite a couple of days of
warmer temperatures, another freeze is destined to
strike — but they don’t listen.
“Oh no,” I said when the Bradford Pear trees in
my neighborhood started blooming their early buds
last week. “Don’t you guys know that a winter
storm will ruin you?”
That’s what happens in
Georgia (and most of the
South) this time of year. Just
when you start believing the
groundhog’s advice that an
early spring is eminent, Mother
Nature decides to throw anoth
er winter storm.
It’s hard to believe that
we recently had the 15-year
anniversary of the “Blizzard
of 1993,” the “Storm of the
Century,” at least by Southern
standards.
The winter storm dumped inches of snow on
unsuspecting Georgia. It was one of those events
that we still talk about today.
At the time of the blizzard, I was living in Texas.
Along with my middle school classmates, I was
sitting on a plane bound for Washington, D.C.,
when the engine was turned off. The pilot then
announced that due to a massive winter storm on
the East Coast, most of the airports were closed and
our flight was canceled.
It took several attempts, but we finally made it
to the nation’s capitol a few days later. I remember
seeing mounds of snow piled up on the side of the
roads. Being deprived of excessive snow in Texas,
we played in the snow at every opportunity while
in Washington, D.C. Those northerners must have
thought we were weird.
The possibility of another “Blizzard of 1993” the
past few weeks has been lackluster.
The local weather forecasters get excited about
the potential for a few flurries in North Georgia.
The TV news stations start throwing out potential
names for the storm, and produce graphics and
sound clips to accommodate the major news story.
And those ridiculous-sounding weather radars on
local TV (“Weather Monster 3000 plus”) can begin
providing forecasts for any specified street in the
region.
Then, nothing happens.
Well, maybe a few flurries float through the air
— but nothing sticks to the ground. It’s enough to
disrupt those plants that were trying to spring to
life, but not enough to justify our concerns about
another “Blizzard of 1993.”
Spring officially starts next Thursday. Tell the
plants they can start to bloom then.
kerri
testement
Kerri Testement is news editor of The Braselton
News, a sister publication of The Banks County
News. E-mail comments about this column to
kerri@mainstreetnews.com.
The Banks County News
Founded 1968
The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher /Ad. Manager
Angela Gary Editor
Chris Bridges Sports Editor
Sharon Hogan Reporter
Anelia Chambers Receptionist
April Reese Sorrow Church News
How to silence a liberal — and lose an election
I f Sen. John McCain shocked
the world and decided to pick
disgraced New York Gov. Eliot
Spitzer as his running mate ...
If the price of gasoline skyrocketed
to $6 a gallon and the Dow fell below
8,000 ...
If the Iraq war blew up again, and
the dollar’s worth continued to plunge
It doesn’t matter whether any of
those things happen. The Democratic
Party — the so-called party of
change — is on its way to defeat in
the November presidential election.
Republicans are all but certain to main
tain the presidency.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
have embarked on a path of mutual
destruction. They may have already
passed the point of no return.
John McCain would have to commit
the ultimate act of stupidity to lose this
election. It’s hard to think what that
might be. The Democratic contenders
have beaten him to it.
First, of course, the designers of the
Democratic primary and caucus rules
must have been Republican saboteurs.
How else do you account for the
impenetrable math and complicated
delegate selection process? No one try
ing to pick a nominee to win an elec
tion would ever have dreamed up such
a mess. The Republicans conducted
their primaries right. They picked their
candidate and stepped out of the way.
Second, the Obama way is bombing,
even as the candidate appears to be on
a dazzling roll. To be sure, Obama has
piled up impressive numbers of del
egates and votes.
He has become to black Democrats
what FDR was to white Democrats in
the 1930s — an inspiring leader and
political savior.
However, many of Obama’s spec
tacular victories have occurred in
the Deep South with record num-
bers of African
Americans going
to the polls.
No Democrat
— not Obama,
not Hillary, not
even William
Jennings Bryan’s
ghost — could
win Georgia,
South Carolina,
Alabama or
Mississippi in
November 2008.
The GOP has those states locked up.
That Obama rolled up 70, 80 and 90
percent of the black vote in those states
in the primaries does not matter. White
voters will outnumber black voters in
November.
In my judgment, Obama has made a
fatal political mistake. His campaign
planners thought they had finally
found a way to shut up Hillary’s white
supporters, just label every remark
remotely critical of Obama as racist.
Then watch the white libs backtrack,
apologize and sit down and shut up
even if what they said happened to
be a self-evident truth. There are half
a dozen examples, the most recent
being the bland remarks of onetime
Democratic vice presidential nominee
Geraldine Ferraro.
Poor Ferraro must have thought she
had been hit by a truck after she said,
“If Obama was a white man, he would
not be in this position. And if he was a
woman of any color, he would not be
in this position. He happens to be very
lucky to be who he is. And the country
is caught up in the concept.”
In other words, he is the right guy
at the right place at the right time. The
same could be said of Jimmy Carter
in 1976 or Ronald Reagan in 1980.
If either Carter or Reagan had not
run when they did, their times would
have passed. They likely never would
have been president. Yep, the country
was in the Carter mood in 1976, and
it appears, so far, to be in the Obama
mood in 2008. The country may lose
its yen for “the first black president”
by November if Obama’s people con
tinue to shout “racist” at every turn.
As soon as Ferraro uttered her
evaluation of Obama, the candi
date’s top supporters began hurling
epithets. Hillary Clinton took sharp
issue with Ferraro who tried unsuc
cessfully to fight back, acknowledg
ing that even she would not have
been the Democrats’ VP nominee in
1984 had she not been a woman. She
dropped out of the Clinton campaign
Wednesday. “Every time that [Obama]
campaign gets upset about something,
they call it racist,” an embittered
Ferraro said. “I will not be discrimi
nated against because I am white.”
Let it be noted that Ferraro is a certi
fied Long Island liberal with a long
history of supporting black causes and
black candidates. She undoubtedly
would have wholeheartedly supported
Obama as the Democratic nominee.
Let it also be noted that health care
goes begging, the war is heating up
and the economy is turning cold. All
is not well in the USA as the leading
candidates for change and the political
media spend most of their time trying
to sort out meaningless charges of sub
tle racism. A year ago, a Democratic
ticket looked a cinch to win the White
House. Now it seems headed for the
wall. The Democratic Party could even
be on its way to becoming marginal
on the national scene, as it has already
become in much of the South. And
race is the reason.
You can reach award-winning col
umnist Bill Shipp at P. O. Box 2520,
Kennesaw, GA 30156, e-mail: shipp1@
bellsouth.net, or Web address: billship-
ponline.com.
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Homer Office Fax 677-3263
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Sports Fax 367-9355
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The Banks County News has estab
lished a policy on printing Letters to
the Editor.
We must have an original copy of
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with questions on the policy
is asked to contact editor Angela
Gary at AngieEditor@aol.com or by
calling 706-367-2490.
News department contact numbers
Anyone with general story ideas,
complaints or comments about the
news department is asked to call edi
tor Angela Gary at 706-367-2490.
She can also be reached by e-mail
at AngieEditor@aol.com.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to the
county board of commissioners,
county government, county board of
education, Maysville City Council
and crime and courts is asked to
contact staff member Chris Bridges
at 706-367-2745 or by e-mail at
chris@mainstreetnews.com.
Bridges also is sports edi
tor of the paper and covers local
high school, middle school and
recreation sports.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to
Alto, Lula, Baldwin and Gillsville,
should contact Sharon Hogan at
706-367-5233 or by e-mail at
sharon@mainstreetnews.com.
Calls for information about the
church page should go to April
Reese Sorrow at 706-677-3491.
Church news may also be e-mailed to
asorrow@mainstreetnews.com.
The Banks County News web
site can also be accessed at
www.mainstreet.news.com.
Expect the
unexpected with
Georgia weather
I ’ve lived in Georgia for each of
my 36 years on this mortal rock.
During that time I’ve learned
few things are guaranteed. Perhaps one
of the few things you can be assured of
is the fact the weather in the Peach State
is downright bizarre.
We can go from one extreme to the
other in a matter of hours. We can liter
ally need sweatshirts and jackets one
day and be able to wear shorts the next.
We can have a day of violent thunder
storms like we did Saturday and the fol
lowing morning go outside and see the
nicest shade of blue sky you can remem
ber in months.
Crazy and unpre
dictable weather:
it’s hard to top
what we have in
Georgia.
I didn’t realize
how bad things
had gotten Friday
night until I tuned
into the Georgia-
Kentucky basket
ball game in the
SEC tournament at
the Georgia Dome.
I guess I should say I attempted to tune
it in. When I flipped to the station the
game was supposed to be on I found the
previous game was still being played.
I found it somewhat odd since Georgia
and Kentucky was scheduled to begin an
hour earlier. I knew rain was likely on
the way as I could see lightning streak
outside my home, but I didn’t realize
things were going to another level in the
downtown Atlanta area.
I laughed to myself at how late the
UGA-Kentucky game would begin and
decided to call it a night. A long work
week had taken all of my energy and
I figured I could drift off to sleep with
the game on the radio. I’m probably one
of the few who still enjoys listening to
sporting events on the radio.
As I tuned in Scott Howard, (I had to
find the game on an FM station because
the lightning was causing too much stat
ic and popping on the AM dial) I began
to realize just what had been taking
place at Georgia Dome and in Atlanta. I
listened to Howard and the UGA broad
cast team talk for approximately an hour
before we finally knew there would be
no game Friday night. (By this time it
was close to Saturday morning).
When the producer told Howard to go
ahead and end the broadcast things were
still undecided about when the game
would be played or where. It actually
made for fascinating listening.
The bad weather continued Saturday
afternoon as I watched more of Ken
Cook than I cared to. Many of the bas
ketball tournaments were reduced to
only part of the screen as Atlanta sta
tions aired non-stop coverage of the
weather telling viewers exactly where
thunderstorms would be in the next 15,
10 and five minutes.
Of course, by late Saturday afternoon
the sun was shining brightly through
the blinds at home. I knew things were
ready to take an upturn. From down
right scary to blue scare within a matter
of minutes. Leave it to the weather in
Georgia for something like that to actu
ally be common.
By the time I walked out my front
door late Sunday morning I knew the
day would be a much easier one for the
Atlanta weather forecasters. The sky
was that nice shade of blue I described
earlier. There was a slight chill in the air
but nothing that made me reach for my
jacket.
When Monday rolled around and I
trekked back to work, it seem it had
been weeks since the bad weather had
rumbled through when, in reality, it had
only been a few hours. Yes, Georgia
weather keeps you guessing from week
to week, even day to day.
While spring is trying to show signs
of life, I’m not ruling out a few more
battles with old man winter. This is,
afterall, Georgia and we can’t seem
to ever completely leave one season
behind.
chris
bridges
Chris Bridges is a reporter for The
Banks County News. Contact him at
706-367-2745 or e-mail comments to
chris@mainstreetnews.com.