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Recipe for disaster
Imagine you are a 16-year-old girl, waking up in another person's house, unclothed and unable to find your underwear or earrings after a night of drinking. Unsure of what happened, you go home and go on, but in the days that follow, you see on social media photos of yourself drunk and unresponsive.
Archive By Section - Columnists
First Amendment responsibilities
I am a rabid supporter of the First Amendment. For 40 years in the broadcast news biz and half a dozen teaching, I have exercised that right and taught it with vigor. But this "right" of free speech carries with it some obligations.
Agents train to keep us safe
Two things that keep me awake at night: The threat of terrorism and wondering what, if anything, our federal government is doing about it.
Palmer-Stone more than a name
The Newton County School System is building a new, massive (1,500 student capacity) elementary school on Ga. Highway 142 and Airport Road. Consequently, Palmer-Stone Elementary School, one of the last in-town schools, will be closed; its students are within the proposed district for the new school. Ficquett Elementary School will transition into the theme school
Communication breakdown
"What we've got here is a failure to communicate," said the warden of the rural Georgia prison as he stood looming over Luke, the prisoner who he had just knocked into a ditch.
Feeling insecure about the TSA
Have you noticed we are becoming like the Taliban? First, facts don't trouble us. The Transportation Security Administration has yet to stop a single terrorist. You read that right, not one. Even so, the TSA assures us that the "terrorist threat" is real. If terrorists are everywhere, you would think even the TSA would have run across at least one by now. But we are supposed to ...
Sonny’s disposition not so bright
The year 2010 came in on winged shoes and never stopped running. It dashed past us in a flash, and here we sit, disbelieving this year is almost at its end but grateful for the sweetness that always brings a year to its close. It is the season when we turn out attention to others, be they our own family and friends or those we do not know - but yet ...
Effort required to be positive
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states clearly that nobody can infringe on my right of free speech. You can get in serious trouble for that.
Thankful for great leaders
With Thanksgiving this week, I have been reflecting on the many things for which I am thankful: family, friends, pets, home, church and school. But I am also thankful to be a citizen of the United States, and am thankful for the leaders that our country has had throughout our history: President George Washington, President Thomas Jefferson, President Abraham Lincoln, President Theodore Roosevelt, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Ronald Reagan, to name ...
Clean old-fashioned hate
Yesterday's gridiron tilt between the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Georgia Bulldogs provided, I hope, another chapter in a great book of stories. Deadlines being what they are, this column was submitted well in advance of the game; I can only hope the Dawgs whipped the Humble Bumbles. The late Lewis Grizzard was the quintessential Georgia Bulldog fan. Among his many colorful contributions to Southern literature, he coined the phrase "clean old-fashioned hate" describing ...
Dog person can recant on cats
"Cats," one of Broadway's longest-running musicals, was playing at the Fox Theatre some years ago. Friends proposed a night out, and I accepted, despite not feeling even the least bit warm and fuzzy toward the subject cats, to put it mildly. Not long into it, I walked out. A stage full of human beings crawling about on all fours in cat costumes just didn't cut it, gave me heebie-jeebies, in fact.
A big day for small business
The Newton County Buy Local initiative is gaining momentum. In recent years, the community has come to understand the incremental impact of voting locally with their consumer dollars that help build a stronger local retail economy. In turn, this makes Newton County a more viable and desirable location for retail investment. Testimony to this fact is the announcement in the past few months of Cracker Barrel's decision to develop a new store, the ...
Celebrate life this season and laugh
I've got a new home. Donna and I have found a cottage that's in the heart of Oxford but feels as if it's in some fairy tale forest. It's a hidden getaway. The hardwoods have spread a multicolor carpet on the roof and lawn and the landscape shrubbery fronting the roadway has gone decades unclipped so it's hard to tell there's a house there at all. Critters seem to ignore the house's existence. I ...
There is much to be thankful for
Thanksgiving is that time of year when we consider our manifold blessings, not the least of which is that the bald eagle won out as America's national bird. Ben Franklin proposed the turkey to symbolize the nation, and if the turkey was now protected, who knows what we'd be baking and slathering with giblet gravy on Thursday.
Films put Newton in the spotlight
This column is in response to several previous letters that have been submitted to The Covington News, to clarify what the facts are about the impact to our community concerning the film industry presence in Newton County.
Grace Notes: See the place where God dwells
I rejoiced with drunkenness those who said to me, "Let us go to the house of the Lord" (Psalm 122:1).
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