For too long, I've been cowed into submission. I've been afraid to speak my mind for fear of being called a racist. As a "white" male who's basically spent my entire life in the Deep South, it's more or less assumed I'm racist if I say anything that can possibly be construed as negative about a black person. If I oppose Barack Obama for re-election, I'll be called a racist. Will it matter if I support Lt. Colonel Allen West or Herman Cain instead? For the record, I would vote for either of them in a heartbeat. How can you not love West's straight talk? And Cain looks serious about running for president. If both men run, I'm really going to have a tough time making a decision. Over the years, it's been my experience to meet some of the nicest people I've known, and their skin color is considerably darker than mine. I used to go so far to refer to these friends as "black", but soon discovered that to many people, the term is politically incorrect. Too lazy and stubborn to say "African American", I often find myself in a quandary on how to describe my friends who naturally exhibit a darker hue. I've sort of gotten away from using any sort of descriptor. I've come to decide there is no "us" and "them". Black and white differentiation is largely irrelevant. We are the same species, no different physiologically. Our blood is interchangeable. During a transfusion, one doesn't get blood sorted by skin color but blood type. It really is time to move past this hangup about skin color. That's why several recent events involving public officials and … [Read more...]
My new hero
I don't know him personally. I've never met or spoken with Patrick Rodgers of Philadelphia, but he is my new hero. Online reports tell the story of Patrick's battle against his mortgage company, Wells Fargo. The bank demanded Mr. Rodgers purchase a homeowner's insurance policy with a replacement value of $1 million dollars on a home for which he paid $180,000. The resulting disagreement led Wells Fargo to issue "forced placement" insurance, adding about $500 per month to his mortgage payment. When Rodgers' letters to the bank were ignored, he sued under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and won a default judgment against Wells Fargo for $1,000. The bank didn't pay, so Rodgers went to the Philadelphia sheriff's office for collection. Foreclosure proceedings are currently scheduled to conclude with a sheriff's sale of all contents of the Wells Fargo branch on N. Delaware Avenue on March 4th. Turnabout is indeed fair play. … [Read more...]
Gutter politics
I'm socially a little more liberal and fiscally rather conservative, which means I prefer to vote for candidates as opposed to blindly following a party affiliation. Since I don't live in the particular district in question, I've remained blissfully ignorant of this story...until now. I don't know any of the people involved. I didn't vote for Congressman Austin Scott or his opponent. So why do I even care? Because gutter politics threatens to drive qualified candidates away from seeking public office. For the record, Republican Scott defeated Democrat Jim Marshall last November in a race for a district that contains Macon. This despicable tactic of intimidation and character assassination has to stop. And to which tactics do I refer? Scott and his wife were granted a divorce in 2001. Their young son was caught in the middle of a custody fight. It is not unusual for people experiencing the trauma of separation and the dissolution of their marriage make accusations that aren't completely true and say things they don't really mean. Three years ago, a judge sealed the court records of their divorce. "Democrat activist" Amy Morton filed a lawsuit to have Scott's divorce records unsealed so she could dig for dirt on him to use in the campaign to get Marshall reelected. Now an elected Congressman, Scott and his ex-wife agreed to drop their opposition to the lawsuit and let Morton satisfy her prurient interests. The muckrakers have been busy digging through the records, but so far all they've managed to find are unsubstantiated claims that Scott … [Read more...]
Executive pay
The Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting that current Governor Nathan Deal has increased the payroll in his office by thirty percent over the benchmark set by the previous administration of Sonny Perdue. The additional salary expense is attributed to ten more employees working for the new governor. With our economy struggling and already a bloated government budget running a deficit, the last thing we need are more government workers. The size of government should be reduced, not expanded. Curiously, the AJC article lists the governor of Georgia's salary. Nathan Deal earns $139,339 per year to run the entire state. Why the added emphasis? The Savannah Morning News website SavannahNow.com has reported that interim city manager Rochelle Small-Toney is making a whopping $190, 575 to manage a city a fraction the size of metropolitan Atlanta. How and why does the interim city manager of Georgia's 4th largest city make over $50,000 a year more than the governor? Why are we paying anybody in government this kind of money when states are going bankrupt? … [Read more...]
Internet Anonymity
The Internet is a wonderful resource. It offers a worldwide database of instantaneous information, available at the click of a mouse. Of course, there are drawbacks to using the Internet as a primary source of information. Anyone can post virtually anything they wish with impunity. As hard as some people work to research a subject and publish useful and pertinent information into this ethereal database of knowledge, it can be deliberately polluted by false information by a few insidious individuals acting with malicious intent. For example, my writing as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner has inspired comments by brave readers who call themselves names like "Pastafarian" and "Blackout". Using the cloak of an alias, these self-professed intellectuals regularly call me a liar or idiot for daring to write material expressing an opinion critical of evolution have no effect on my self-esteem. Their remarks might be intended to hurt my feelings, but I've become immune because I've learned to ignore them. Their mode of critical analysis seems a bit cowardly, but so what? The comments appear to reflect more on the source than their subject. The best way to deal with a childish insult is to simply ignore it. I've stopped responding to the large majority of the comments from people who routinely insult me, unless someone says something clever.... I've learned to stop simply reading after the first insult and skip ahead. Why waste my time and energy? I have books to write. Any human being on the planet may pose as a reliable source of information (or, as it … [Read more...]
