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Scene: City Council chambers in a small southern town in America. Act I: Citizens file into Council Chambers, pausing only to have a police officer check them for weapons.  They talk about the days – not long ago – when none of this was deemed necessary: when a Council meeting was an occasion when one could catch up with friends, talk to elected officials and partake in that singularly beautiful event known as “participatory democracy.” Feelings are running high and before the opening crash of an energetically-wielded Mayoral gavel, the people speak to one another about the issues that are dividing and consuming ...

I got a telephone call today informing me that George T. Smith had passed away Monday evening.  I am grieving for his widow, who is a friend of mine as well, and I am grieving for myself, and I am grieving for the State of Georgia. George T served as the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Georgia, as well as a Judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals.  Following his public service, George T practiced law into his 90's.  He was a great Southern Gentleman. I first met George T when I was a Senior in high school in 1970.  My sociology ...

How healthy is Georgia? Not very. According to recent reports Georgia finishes near the bottom of state-by-state rankings of overall health. Georgia ranked 43rd in 2009 for overall health performance, dropping from 41st in 2008, according to “America’s Health Rankings,” a joint effort of United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention. The rankings are based on health determinants and health outcomes. Determinants refer to behaviors, community and environmental factors, public and health policies, and clinical care factors that influence future health outcomes of the population in a state.  Georgia ranked 47th in determinants. Outcomes traditionally have been measured using mortality measures ...

The easiest way to write an article is to castigate your opponents and avoid their arguments. The easiest method to deal with political differences is to deride opposition arguments as ill-informed, stupid, unsubstantiated opinions, and illogical. The easiest path to frame your opponents in a bad light is to pick out the inconsistencies in their position and highlight them. When you consider that the majority of elections, including Presidential ones, are decided in the 52% to 48% range, it is not a stretch to say that the country is, primarily, divided into two significant political ideologies. However, the composition of ...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is rarely subtle but there was an important subtext to his recent comments about the Mosque scheduled for construction in lower Manhattan on Fox & Friends. Gingrich said the following: “You know, Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." The false parallel hidden in plain sight is between ‘Nazi’ and ‘Japanese.’ Gingrich was a history professor ...

Sarah Palin, in 2009, said: “The United States Constitution is one of the greatest founding documents in history because it charted a bold new path in the realm of political theory.” Senator John Cornyn, also in 2009, said: “The Framers created a written Constitution to make sure our constitutional rights were fixed and certain. The state conventions whom represented ‘We the People’ looked at that written Constitution and decided to adopt it. The idea was that our rights would be written down for all to see.” The late Jerry Farwell’s group in Virginia wants to amend the US currency “to ...

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances." President Obama Damn! There’s that inconvenient First Amendment thing cropping up again as American citizens attempt to exercise their Constitutional right to build a mosque on privately held ground two blocks from “Ground Zero.” Of course the fact that 9/11 was masterminded by al Qaeda and not all Muslims is lost ...

I was called for jury duty this week. Having polled the 300 jurors-in-waiting for Fulton County Court, our judgement was unanimous: if the price of voting is jury duty, we need to demand better candidates. It is a tradition to bitch and moan about being called to jury duty, but with almost no exception, those of us summoned, recognized that jury duty is a humbling honor. Plus, it is a once a year chance to be in a room for a day filled with your peers. I was again reminded of how diverse our citizen peers truly are. Beautiful people of all ...

Nathan Deal has out-hated Karen Handel to become the Republicans’ choice for the next governor of Georgia. Proclaiming to represent conservative values, which of course means profiling Hispanic citizens and demonizing gay people who happen to want committed relationships, Deal questioned Handel’s hate bona fides and won. Karen Handel left tell-tale signs she didn’t hate quite enough. Gay people are awful, terrible, sinful, Godless heathens and their desire to love, honor and obey each other threatens to wreck the marriages of heterosexuals who would henceforth look at their own marriages and say, what’s the point of being married if gay people ...

Maybe you remember David Stockman. He was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan. Mr. Stockman wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times last week which raises a significant question about the relationship between tax cuts and the national debt. The theory goes that tax cuts pay for themselves and, in fact, generate more revenue for the government than if they had not been enacted. If we dig a little deeper we can see that this “tax cuts equals increased government revenue” is based on supply-side economics. According to Martin Wolf, chief economics ...

The Damnitudes: Now when he saw the ratings, he went up on each of the networks and sat down. His disciples tuned in to him, and he began to teach them saying: Damned are the poor and unemployed, for theirs is the kingdom of the street. Damned are those who mourn, for they will be mocked. Damned are the meek, for they will inherit the nothing, though it will be tax free. Damned are those who hunger and thirst for leftedness, for they will suffer and starve. Damned are the merciful, for they will be shown no mercy. Damned are the pure in heart, for they will ...

The speech below is an excerpt from that which was delivered by Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, during an I am an American Day gathering in New York's Central Park. Ickes spoke these words during a fragile and terrifying period in history: May of 1941 - when Hitler stood upon the precipice of world domination. On this day in 1941 the countries that had fallen to the Nazis included Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and areas in North Africa. England was under incessant and devastating air attack from the Luftwaffe while Nazi U-boats ...

The highest public office in Georgia is under the Gold Dome, and it is to be held by the next duly elected Governor. It is important that the person who holds this position understands the sacred trust that is put in to their hands. The service rendered is the power of the sword as defined by the Georgia Constitution. The official not only swears to uphold a legal oath to defend the Constitution, but the Governor-elect swears to defend the state against the encroaching powers of the Federal Government. It takes a person of integrity and discernment. Unfortunately, Karen Handel ...