Peanut Proud brand ready for its debut
Opinion Column
Blakely’s 5th annual Peanut Proud festival is set for Saturday, March 23, on the Courthouse Square, but you would be wrong to assume that this will be just a one-day celebration of the noble peanut plant on which Early County thrives.
More political chicken is sure to come
Opinion column
I am often confused over what goes on in the nation’s capital, no doubt due to my constant switching of TV news channels that lean left and right.
Vicksburg discovers itself in mighty tall company
Opinion Column
Many Southerners consider it the worst day in the region’s history: July 4, 1863.
Sparsity fund cancellation a bad gamble
Opinion column
I have never seen a place — yes, Georgia — where the k-12 public education system takes more turns for the good and then just as broadly takes giant steps backwards.
Health care a hot issue under Gold Dome
Opinion column
In a news disseminating career of four decades-plus, I have seen my share of hospital- and medical care-related controversies. Health-care companies’ attempts to overtake one another or, on another angle, governments trying to put more taxes on hospitals to help fund certain services come to mind.
There's a new sheriff in town in Blakely
Opinion column
There is a new sheriff in town in Blakely and Early County, a phrase that has not been uttered in this community in almost three decades.
New year opens with a great many promises
Opinion column
The new year, 2013, is heavily upon us. There is almost nothing more promising than a new year because of the opportunities it presents to the world.
Rural America picks bad time to nap
Opinion column
Results were posted earlier this month on the latest survey of our region of the country. I wish I had two versions of the report to offer ("first, the good news, and then the bad"). But I have only one and it's not a pretty picture.
Fears over gun control just shooting blanks
Opinion column
The looming “fiscal cliff” is getting most of the page one attention in newspapers across the land. Talking heads on television and radio can’t seem to stop discussing whether President Obama and Congress will soon make the plunge — or whether they’ll avert the economic death drop. On Main Street, however, there is another issue dominating the political talk — gun control.
Being thankful doesn’t stop with the holiday
Opinion column
Thanksgiving Day has come and gone but certainly we are not prohibited by law from continuing to express our thanks for all things great and good.
Statesmanship a lost art in Congress
Do members of the United States Congress ever stop and consider what their legacies might be upon leaving office?
America would benefit from being united
Opinion Column
The host of a popular sports talk radio show in this region of the country often advises would-be national champion football teams that fall by the wayside to “sit down and shut up.”
Pocketbook will be deciding factor Tuesday
Election consultant James Carville’s watchword for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election will likely go down as the most effective campaign slogan ever used in American politics.
Hillary Clinton poised for 2016 run
Wouldn't you like to see a record turnout in the Nov. 6 presidential election?
Romney off target hunting Big Bird
Opinion column
I came to know Big Bird and his Muppet friends due entirely to a former work station. So trust me when I opine that Jim Henson’s characters are all about education and almost zero about federal spending.
Getting older isn't much fun
Opinion column
Somehow, I knew this would happen. I should have seen it coming. Just my luck.
Romney scores Round 1 win in debate
Opinion column
President Obama was supposed to deliver a final staggering blow to challenger Mitt Romney Wednesday night on the way to a second term. But in their debate, Romney scored epic upset.
Reinstate teacher bonus program
As a native of Mississippi, the economically poorest state in America, and a resident of Georgia, the South's tower of financial stability, I am often given to myriad comparisons between these provinces.
Dear GOP: A penny for my thoughts
I can’t tell the Republican National Committee that my check is in the mail.
Georgia should consider Medicaid expansion
Georgia is among a handful of states yet to decide whether to expand its Medicaid program.
Old meets new in hunt for 'black gold'
I don't guess anything can cause more of a commotion -- or general excitement -- than the prospect of an oil boom in a small community.
Rain gives crops a heavenly start
My wife and I moved back to Georgia almost exactly two years ago. The night we arrived, we brought with us from Mississippi a bounteous, torrential rain. (Mary Lee still cannot believe that she drove a U-Haul truck, pulling a vehicle, 400 miles through it from Jackson, Miss. I wish I had a picture.)
Will Georgia go for big casino payoff?
Mississippi needed casino gambling when the state Legislature made it legal in 1990.
Florida knows how to smooth out travel
I never expected to become enthralled with an interstate highway, but if there is a better roadway in the Eisenhower interstate system than I-10, I have yet to put the metal to the pedal on it.
Newt, it's all over except for the typing
All the indicators point to a decision by Georgian Newt Gingrich to give up his presidential campaign and return home and leave the Republican contest to Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.
Older Americans deserve our tribute
Watching the recent Peanut Proud Parade move around Blakely's old Courthouse Square got me to thinking about the things that are really important to small-town citizens, our fellow Georgians and, dare I say with trepidation, a vast majority of Americans.
Famed Clower beer joint soon to disappear
Not long ago, they closed the Garland Inn. If you are a man or woman of the South and don't know about the Garland Inn, maybe you never heard of Jerry Clower.
'The Card': I won't leave home without it
The Class of 1965 turns 65 this year -- a historic occasion despite it being only the 47th anniversary of our cap-and-gown ceremony.
State charter schools not the answer
I have yet to buy in to all this hooey over the supposed greatness of K-12 charter schools, a movement that appears to be sweeping a large portion of our national landscape.
Peanut research pays dividends for region
The federal and state governments pay for all sorts of enterprises designed to improve our daily lives, but few offer a better return on investment than agricultural research.
Alabama immigration law out of bounds
It appears that Alabama officials are slowly but surely realizing that the tough anti-illegal immigration law they passed in 2010 is out of bounds.
This year, I shall resolve to not ...
Mitch Clarke, Blakely native, good Methodist and esteemed editor of a daily newspaper in North Georgia, took a radical approach for his first column of 2012. Instead of listing resolutions and hopes and dreams for the new year, he wrote about things which he has no plans to do. I like that idea. So with apologies to Mitch, please swim with me in this sea of negativity:
It is never too late to right a wrong
Albany State University recently conferred honorary degrees on more than two dozen former students who were expelled from the college in 1961 for their participation in civil rights activities.
Compromise a lost political art
Legislators at the federal and state levels of government are taking verbal beatings around this country almost like never before. Much of the criticism is well deserved, even they will admit.
Gifts pouring in for Obama
We are in the midst of two seasons that are supposed to bring hope to the world. I have no doubt that one of them — the Christmas season — offers exactly that as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no greater season and no greater hope.
Always pray, search for a cure for cancer
A few days ago, my father would have been 102. He died almost 30 years ago of pancreatic cancer.
U.S. has to return to making products
Americans of a certain age well remember the halcyon and prosperous days of the 1940s through the ’70s and ’80s when most towns possessed at least one textile manufacturer and possibly a heavier industrial plant as well.
Lives filled with many blessings
It is that time of the year when we say “thanks” for our many blessings. Following are a few of mine.
Is it too late to start again?
I knew I was in the wrong business. Why didn’t I have the foresight to become a historian?
Job markets unfriendly to today's vets
To say that the jobs situation when I left the service was different from the employment scene facing veterans today is a gross understatement.
Like Perry, we all have our ‘senior’ moments
We are all human — even people who want to be president of the United States of America. That’s why Rick Perry, a candidate for the Republican nomination, stepped in “it” (his own words) during the recent GOP debate on the budget and other financial issues. And by “it” he wasn’t referring to ice cream, either. At least he had his boots on.
Republican field has GOP cringing
People with no plans anyway to vote for the eventual Republican nominee for President in 2012 are enjoying laughs galore watching the GOP circus tent unfold before our very eyes.
Protests are as American as it gets
America is a land conceived from protest. Surely we have not forgotten the fervor of those involved in the original Boston Tea Party, who tossed the Brits' tea into the harbor over high taxes and lack of legislative representation?
Voting transgressions still haunt South
Past transgressions in voting rights for blacks continue to haunt the American South — or at least haunt those people who fought against blacks having any voting rights.
Voting discrimination myth of Democrats
Past transgressions in voting rights for blacks continue to haunt the American South — or at least haunt those people who fought against blacks having any voting rights.
Commitments to retirees must be honored
The average reader may not have gotten the memo, and perhaps could care less anyway, but deer, dove, turkey and other wild animals aren’t the only species that are squarely in the sights of hunters this autumn. It is open season on retired government employees and their pensions — the fixed incomes that enable millions of Americans, who gave their working lives to public service, to make their contributions to the nation’s struggling economy.
Civil rights reaching milestone anniversary
This country has been in the grips of a 10-year remembrance of the attacks that rocked our nation on Sept. 11, 2001. We have undergone a heartfelt, gut-wrenching recollection of those events, all fully warranted.
Region should be ‘timber proud’
Perhaps “Timber Proud” would be an appropriate theme for an event to honor Southwest Georgia’s timber industry and the people who make it go — the growers, those who gather it and haul it to the mill and the paper makers who turn it into a fine commercial product sold across the world.
Jobs plan now responsibility of Congress
Okay, Congress, then do nothing. That is Congress’s option to President Obama’s jobs recommendations in his speech to the nation Thursday night.
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