Politics Through A Rural Lens
The Friday Photo
August 22, 2014
We paddled to Factory Shoals last Saturday, where the Alcovy River joins Lake Jackson. Chase shouted, “Awesome! Do it again” after he managed to tip himself and his grandfather out of their canoe at the bottom of the rapids.
My friend Karl Stephan posted a gorgeous piece of art work yesterday inspired by the ALS Ice Water Challenge. Karl is stepping up to the challenge too. This is what he posted on Facebook:
I will donate ALL proceeds from the sale of this painting after my expenses*: half to ALS and half to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Message me to make an offer. Anything over $75 (plus MA sales tax) will be divided between the two worthy causes. Karl
Contact Karl today before the 24 hour challenge runs out and then “chill” for the cause.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution and Raw Story are reporting that a Texas woman visiting Helen, GA was killed by a stray bullet outside a bar over the weekend. According to Raw Story, 53-year-old Glenn Patrick Lampien, from Jasper, GA was outside the Old Heidelberg bar and restaurant on Helen’s crowded Main Street when he accidentally shot himself.
Police arrived after a call was placed concerning gunshots to discover that a woman across the street had been struck by Lampien’s bullet. She didn’t respond to first aid and was pronounced dead at the scene. Lampien will be charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Georgia’s HB 60, known as Georgia’s “Guns Everywhere” law, went into effect less than two months ago. This bill, which drew strong opposition from law enforcement officials and ministers, allows guns in public places including bars, government buildings, TSA lines at Atlanta’s Jackson Hartsfield airports, and schools.
Businesses may prohibit guns by posting a sign stating that they do not want guns brought into their establishment. What HB 60 doesn’t do is restrict law enforcement officers from going into an establishment that prohibits guns. HB 60 does stop police officers from asking to see a permit unless a crime is being committed. At that point asking to see a gun license is moot, isn’t it?
I talked with several local businesses I frequent, or used to, about HB 60, and was stunned to find out that they know very little, if anything, about HB 60. Some owner/managers said they thought it fell apart during the session because it was so “crazy.”
“Crazy” is a law now, and a woman from Texas who visited our state is going home in a coffin as a result of Governor Deal and the Georgia General Assembly’s insistence that we need guns everywhere.
This was posted on the Teachers Rallying Against Insurance Change (T.R.A.G.I.C.) group page. It is an open group, so if you want to stay current on what the state and Governor Deal are doing to teacher’s health coverage join the group and do your part to protect one of Georgia’s most valuable resources, our public school teachers!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TRAGIC4GEORGIA/
***ACTION ALERT***
By now, you should have seen the 2015 Rate Comparisons for both the Active and Medicare Advantage plans. While we are pleased the Department of Community Health has offered choices for 2015, these choices are just as unaffordable as last year! The premiums and deductibles are way out of line with state employee and teacher salaries, and mean financial ruin for school support personnel and other state employees.
The newspaper headlines have been mainly positive, telling a very different story than the unaffordable reality that we will be dealing with next year. There are numerous lobbyists and pubic relations people working for the other side, spinning the story and getting their side out. We have only our voice (and our vote!).
We are strong when we speak as one, and it is time to speak up!
Call the Governor’s Office tomorrow and the DCH. Send emails. Contact your Legislators.
Here are some sample questions, but feel free to ask your own!“ Can you explain how I am supposed to afford this insurance and pay up to $28,000 on my salary of $___________?”
“Can you explain why the BCBS Medicare Advantage plan costs 300 – 700% more than it does this year? Why is it so much higher than United Health Care?”
“Why is the United Health Care HMO 25% more than the Blue Cross HMO?
What are members getting for that additional money?”
“Why are the Board of Regents, with fewer employees and a smaller risk pool, able to offer so much better insurance than the State Heath Benefit Plan?”
Office of the Governor: (404) 656-1776
Email the Governor: http://gov.georgia.gov/webform/contact-governor-domestic-form
Call the DCH: (404) 656-4507.
Email the DCH (use both addresses): [email protected], [email protected]
Find your Legislators:
Georgia House of Representatives: http://openstates.org/ga/
Georgia Senate: http://www.senate.ga.gov/senators/en-US/FindyourLegislator.aspx
The Friday Photo
August 15, 2014
Yesterday I had to meet someone at Georgia College in nearby Milledgeville. I snagged a great parking spot facing the campus quad shaded by tall trees and surrounded by beautiful buildings.
I happened upon sorority Bid Day announcements, a ritual that is taking place across college campuses now.
I’d never seen a Bid Day because my alma mater, Guilford College, doesn’t have Greek organizations.
A throng of young women stood together while shrieks and cheers erupted among them. They were standing in groups with matching t-shirts and tank tops while the newest members pulled their new shirt over what they had worn to the quad. Women around them hugged and smiled.
They were a homogenized group-slender attractive young white women, most with long hair, standing on suntanned legs below short shorts. They looked excited in their uniform colored groups.
I wondered about the young women who didn’t get their first choice, who couldn’t participate because of the cost (it is easily thousands with dues, clothes for social events, etc), who thought they were too heavy, not pretty enough, too dark skinned, had no legacy to claim as leverage, or who didn’t make it to Bid Day at all.
A social worker told me she once worked shifts for the suicide/crisis phone line in Athens during Bid Week at UGA. The phones rang off the hook with young women who were falling apart due to the outcomes of rushing a sorority. What a hard way to begin a college career.
I hope leaving the quad with a much coveted t–shirt won’t keep those young woman from really stretching themselves well beyond the confines of their sorority house and Greek life.
Shepard Smith isn’t the only one making completely inappropriate comments at Fox News this week. Yesterday psychiatrist Dr Keith Ablow, a member of the cable channel’s “Medical A- Team” said First Lady Michelle Obama isn’t qualified to advocate for improved children’s nutrition because she needs to “drop a few” pounds.
This is wrong on so many levels, but I’m short on time.
Ablow is another man criticizing a woman and her intellect by saying her weight makes her unfit (no pun intended) to advocate for better nutrition. (I guess a Harvard law school degree and being a concerned parent aren’t enough to understand the basics of nutrition and exercise.)
Albow’s larger mistake, literally, is to criticize an obviously fit women while his own gut strains against his shirt buttons and spills over his belt.
The women surrounding him aren’t any better about Ms Obama’s nutrition advocacy. One complains that the First Lady sounds like a duchess (is that code for she speaks like Kate Middleton?) while another envies Ms Obama’s “booty.”
But like I said, I’m short on time.
Hancock County and Georgia lost a beautiful building early this morning when the Hancock County Courthouse burned. Last year the building was placed on the Georgia Trust’s “Places in Peril” list. Hancock County is the poorest county in Georgia, and the 55th poorest in the country (US Census data).
I visited the courthouse many years ago to look up a piece of property. The courtroom reminded me of the one made famous in To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a huge loss not only for the citizens there, but for the architectural and historic value of the building, in addition to any records lost since it was built in 1883.
The Friday Photo
August 8, 2014 
This looks like a lot meetings do, with PowerPoint presentations and charts that are hard to read from the back of the room. It was the first public meeting held by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to discuss how Georgia will meet the EPA’s carbon pollution rule. Georgia’s Plant Scherer is the biggest carbon spewing coal plant in the country, so the task ahead of the state’s regulatory agency is steep. They didn’t seem very enthusiastic.
For those of us who have spent years advocating for reducing carbon pollution, yesterday was no ordinary meeting. The rules of the game are changing, literally.
The Friday Photo
August 1, 2014
We’ve been very much out of our regular routine at work and home due to an illness in our family. The dogs couldn’t believe it when David left late Sunday afternoon to spend another night in his mother’s hospital room.
My mother-in-law is much improved, but will be staying in the hospital’s extended care area for a while.
We’re wading into whatever the new normal will be for us now. What passed as routine for us 10 days ago is gone forever.
The Friday Photo
July 25, 2014
About two years ago a woman newly relocated to Sandersville from New York State readily made friends with a group of women who like to begin their day with a 5:45 aerobics classes.
Just a few months after settling in arthritis problems flared up and she required a second hip replacement. She was determined to cook and freeze food so her family wouldn’t have to care for her and cook.
We told her not to bother but she looked puzzled. Our collective response was, “In the South you don’t cook when there is a serious illness or death in your family. We’ll bring you meals. That’s what we do for each other.”
This Southern tradition continues with my family this week. Within just a few hours of letting people know there is an illness in our family (manageable but disrupting our regular routines) I got a message asking when we needed food, and for how many people.
Last night my father-in-law went home to fresh vegetables and homemade chicken and dumplings for dinner from a much-loved family friend, Joy Pendry. She insisted that all I need to do is raise my hand again if we need help.
Because that is the way we do things here, y’all.
Yesterday Nathan Deal’s campaign operatives launched a new slogan complete with t-shirts and bumper stickers, #weknownathan. And yep, the Democrats, with the always keen work of Better Georgia, co-opted it and made it ours. Even the Conservative Peach Pundit scolded the Deal campaign for its utter cluelessness about social media.
A quick search of #weknownathan shows that Deal’s campaign wasn’t even savvy enough to secure the Twitter handle @weknownathan or register the domain weknownathan.com.
#weknownathan but wish we didn’t. That’s exactly why I am voting @carter4governor in November.
The Friday Photo
July 18, 2014
Jody Hice and Mike Collins, the Republican candidates vying for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, expound on the rights of citizens above big government. Eager supporters of both campaigns have let their enthusiasm trample the property rights of private citizens.
Both campaigns have placed signs on private property belonging to my family without our permission. We destroyed the one belonging to Hice before I could get a picture, but I found another one just like it, in the public right of way on Hwy 15, where it doesn’t belong either.
Both campaigns are doing more than wasting donor dollars on signs that will be thrown away as soon as they are found on our property; they are trespassing.
A man commented to me that it has been hot and dry as we waited in a line together last week. A reusable water bottle is a constant companion with me year-round, so I held up the blue metal bottle I had filled up before leaving the house and said I can’t drink enough water on hot days. He responded that he also drinks a lot of water and buys it by the case. He asked me if I buy a lot of water. I replied that we have several reusable bottles which we fill and take with us, so we rarely buy bottled water. He smiled and said that he buys water by the case and tosses the empties, “because it is so cheap.”
Two days later a cashier handed me a bottle of water with her business logo printed on it, saying they were complimentary for customers. My blue water bottle was on the check out counter, so I replied that I had my own bottle, but thanks anyway. She suggested I pour the water she had offered into my own bottle. I said I didn’t mind refilling my well-worn bottle at their water fountain instead. Her expression told me she didn’t understand why I preferred the water from the fountain. I told her my goal was to create less plastic waste. By refilling my own bottle she could save the one she offered to me for another customer and I was happy to refill my own. Rinse, refill, reuse. Drink up folks-it’s hot outside!
If someone says, “I went to UGA” or any large college or university, most people can readily identify something about that school (football, agriculture, technology, etc). When someone asks an alum of a Quaker school where they went to school, sometimes the person asking the question looks kind of lost if they follow-up and ask what type of school that is and the answer is a simple, “Quaker”. (I have on a few occasions extolled about one benefit of being an alum of a Quaker school is the lifetime supply of free oatmeal. I should not prey on the innocent.)
Quakers are not Shakers (but they can and do shake things up sometimes), or Mennonites, or Amish. Quakers are Quakers just like Methodists are Methodists. They come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and varieties. Flaming Liberals-yep. Middle of the Road-got plenty of those. Conservative- there are some of those too.
If you are wondering who Quakers are and what they do, The Huffington Post ran an article in June, “4 Things We Can All Learn from One of America’s Oldest Religious Communities” which does a good job of explaining some of the ways Quakers work together as a faith community (and as a result in their communities beyond their church).
There is a new family living in Ragsdale House, where the President lives at my Quaker college alma mater, Guilford College. The search to hire our ninth president was unusually transparent when compared to how many schools hire their administrative leaders. When the College announced that Jane K Fernandes had accepted the offer to join the Guilford community, there was a huge outpouring of genuine and heartfelt excitement. Jane said she truly felt called to Guilford, and her passion for the values of Quakers, a Quaker-based education, and Guilford are palpable.
Why am I calling Guilford’s Ninth President “Jane” instead of “Dr Fernandes” or “President Fernandes?” Rule 5 of 22 things only someone who went to a Quaker school would understand, written by a Guilford alum, explains it (slight NSFW language).
Rule 1 about bumper stickers? So true, as a Friday Photo from Rural and Progressive a few years ago demonstrates:
The Friday Photo
July 11, 2014
I’ve been at a loss as to what I can sew for my grandson. This week I realized I could make a pair of cargo shorts for him. His mother told me if I got Star Wars fabric he would never take them off. We’ll know soon how the Young Jedi Knight likes them.
A couple of months ago I began posting links to news items on Rural and Progressive’s Facebook page. I was sleepless in the wee hours of the morning so I skimmed the news and found some interesting things that I shared there.
If you are on Facebook please like the page, and share or comment. If you aren’t on Facebook, you can check my Twitter feed @kghcummings I also post there, and the two platforms don’t always overlap.
Here’s what I found at o’dark thirty today:
Republicans complain to state ethics commission they eviserated
The Friday Photo
July 4, 2014
Georgia’s Guns Everywhere law went into effect at 12:01 this morning. A few weeks ago I made some calls to businesses I frequent to find out if they would allow guns beginning today. A coffee shop I really like reacted like I was making a prank call. I doubled back today. They were honest and said they just didn’t know much about it, but would hustle now and get an answer back to me. They serve beer and wine, so they can’t stay on the fence on this one.
Alcohol and guns didn’t mix in Georgia, until now. Guns Everywhere means patrons at any 
establishment serving alcohol can bring a gun in, unless the business posts a sign telling patrons they can’t bring a gun in.
As of midnight last night, the Rosa M Tarbutton Memorial Library, a beautiful library in Washington County used by everyone in the community, will have to allow guns in the building. My county, like many others, can’t afford the additional security staff or detectors required to keep guns out of the building. All the county buildings in my community, with the exception of the courthouse, where they are adding additional staff for security, will have to allow citizens to bring guns inside.
The Georgia General Assembly and Governor Deal think we need more guns in public places but less funding for mental health services and public schools. Do legislators expect them to have a bake sale to cover their costs?
The Friday Photo
June 27, 2014
