Articles by Section - Columnists
You only live once
Last month, I got caught in the massive hail storm while teaching in Stockbridge. I took a picture of the larger than a golf ball-sized hail that pummeled the houses and cars in the Monarch Village neighborhood.
Morgan: Authors turn lives into fiction
Take a life, any life, even your own. Write down all the known facts and documentation of that life, much but not all of it taken from public record: birth, parents, hometown, siblings, education, college transcripts, career, titles, marriage, children, divorce, volunteer positions, achievements, military service, address, church membership, diaries, daybooks and perhaps old letters retained by the sender or recipient.
Cushman: Goodness over evil
My sister Kathy texted the news of the Boston Marathon bombing not long after it happened.
Random thoughts on random topics
It turns out that you can go home again. I recently established a chair in crisis communications leadership at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications at my beloved University of Georgia. UGA President-elect Dr. Jere Morehead, along with Dink NeSmith, chairman of the Board of Regents came for the ceremony and both made my family and me feel warmly welcomed on campus.
Spring into the yellow season
I suppose it is never a normal spring. But it does seem like we have gotten more rain than usual this spring. Not that there is anything wrong with that as Seinfeld would say. I am sure we will be hearing dire predictions of drought soon enough, and all the rain we have had lately will be forgotten.
Spring fever mind games
I wish the weather would stop playing games with us here in the South. It wasn't more than a few weeks ago that I slipped into a pair of short pants for puttering around the house.
Gun debate highlights voter distrust
Gun control advocates sound puzzled by congressional resistance to relatively modest gun control legislation. Many cite a poll showing 90 percent of Americans support more background checks and suggest the National Rifle Association is the only reason Congress won't implement the will of the people.
The mortgage complaint window is open
Got a beef with your mortgage company or loan servicer? Lots of people do, and thousands of them have been turning to a federal complaint hotline for action - or at least a quick response from the lender.
Black unemployment
A couple of weeks ago, Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, speaking at The National Press Club, said the nation "would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent." Black unemployment has been double that of white Americans for more than 50 years. The black youth unemployment rate is more than 40 percent nationally. In some cities, unemployment for black working-age males is more than 50 percent. Let's look at this, but first let's ...
Carter: For all who persevere
This isn't as easy as it looks - this putting together of ~750 words with a coherent thought every week.
Morgan: The astronaut and the fire truck
An imaginative sort who spies a bright red fire truck parked outside a church might think one of two things: Either the congregants are burning up with the Holy Spirit and keep a fire truck on hand to cool things down once in a while, or the truck is a warning the fires of hell are close unless they toe the line.
Thatcher's death marks end of an era
When Margaret Thatcher was elected England's first female prime minister in the spring of 1979, I was 12 years old and my father had been a congressman for less than four months. To me, it seemed as if it would be only a short while until my own country followed suit and elected a woman to serve as president.
Yarbrough: UGA's best-kept secret
They are the best University of Georgia athletic team you have likely never heard of.
The dumps of home improvement
My husband and I have lived where we are now living for more than 40 years. More than half my life.
Carter: Bike for your health
I enjoy my bicycle. There's nothing like the freedom of rolling through the countryside propelled only by the power of my own legs, feeling the warm sun on my skin and the cool wind moving over my body, engaging the world with all five of my senses.
Archive By Section - Columnists
The end of the world as we know it
As the 20th century closed I was still toiling as a middle school social studies teacher. I recall archaeologists, in 1999, unearthing pottery shards in a remote area of Pakistan. Primitive writings evident thereupon were carbon-dated to approximately 5500 B.C., and linguists subsequently determined the etchings originated within the extinct Indus civilization.
Robert Redford
I've never told anyone this before. I turned down Robert Redford - not once but several times. Oh, his pleadings were sincere. And passionate. He dangled beautiful possibilities before me, were I to return his ardor, but waxed equally eloquent about the sadness and wasted opportunities, were I not to respond. I savored each distinctive flourish of his signature. I imagined him at his desk in the mountains of Utah, picking each ...
The days grow short on political campaigns
Congratulations, dear reader. Silly Season, aka, the 2010 political campaign, is nearing the end. Most of the wannabes have been shunted aside and we are in the short days of the campaign. On Nov. 2, it will all be over. Can December come soon enough?
Thanks for your support
Our campaign for the Georgia Public Service Commission came to an end on August 10 when Tim Echols garnered 52 percent of the vote. Between May 1 and Aug. 10, we drove nearly 20,000 miles across Georgia, met wonderful people and shared our ideas on making this state better for all of us. Working hard to have been the first Newton County resident elected statewide was both gratifying, rewarding and eye opening, ...
A Bold Spirit of Adventure
I'm a planner. When I worked in finance, I loved planning the budget process - how would it unfold, who would be involved, how we would ensure we met our target. I was most satisfied when we had made all the plans and were ready to begin.
Big Country, Jawjuh, and Newt
Remember the nursery rhyme of three blind mice? The children's fable of three little pigs? Perchance, might you recall "The Three Stooges?" If not, evidence suggests that all of them now serve as elected officials.
Never-ending seasons
My head is spinning. I'm caught up in a vortex of seasons that have become indistinguishable because of the speed of their circling around me. They all seem to blend into one, with no beginning or end. I don't know where I am or where I'm going. Might you have the same feeling this time of year?
What about discretionary spending?
"This debt is like a cancer. It's truly going to destroy the country from within." These two sobering words were spoken by the heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission as reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The 2011 federal debt is estimated to amount to $47,000 for every U.S. resident or $14 trillion. Nine-hundred twenty billion in U.S. IOUs is held by China.
Just call me SugarNat
Once upon a time, way back in 1969, this tender, sheltered kid from a really small town went off to school, landing in Statesboro. That's where Georgia Southern College, a tiny camp of some 6,000 students, was located. And that was it. There wasn't even a McDonald's! Fast food was an emporium on Fair Road called Burger Chef. No kidding.
Murder, mayhem and an old song
Do you ever wonder why children aren't completely insane by the time they're adults?
Separate but equal seems to be back
I never thought the days of "separate but equal" would return. It was well settled that Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) was bad law. I wake up one morning to find that both liberals and conservatives both support "separate but equal," at least for Muslims.
It’s hard to stay cool and calm
It started a few days ago. And, yes, it was one of these just too hot and humid days when tempers can get a little short. All our days these days are that way, but that comes with living in Georgia in August.
The outspoken leader
I had considered the recently-constituted Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians just so much political hooey until I saw who was elected chairman of the council: Adolphus Drewry Frazier, Jr.
Running away from the president
When Sarah Palin endorsed Karen Handel prior to the Republican primary, Handel embraced that support and has been attached at the hip to Palin - figuratively speaking - ever since.
Can Fenn win in 2010?
A race against all odds. Fenn Little, a middle-aged, white male, is running against 22-year incumbent Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the African-American civil-rights icon who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the bridge in Selma, Ala. Since first winning office in 1987, the closest Lewis has come to having a real challenger was in 1994, when the Contract With America was ...
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