In case you were rearranging your sock drawer and missed the big announcement, filmmaker Michael Moore, who is about as relevant as a female appendage on a boar hog, is asking "all Americans with a conscience to shun anything and everything to do with the murderous state of Georgia." I can hear the shudders from Aragon to Zebulon.
Moore didn't approve of the execution of Troy Davis, convicted a couple of eons ago for the murder of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail, the father of two young children and a former Army Ranger, and has decided to take it out on us.
Who cares what this liberal weenie thinks? His opinions belong in the Pantheon of Pompous Pontificators along with Our Ambassador to Outer Space Cynthia McKinney, Ted "Looney Tunes" Turner and President Peanut. Taken all together, their collective views on anything and everything don't amount to a jar of warm spit.
However, as one who sees the good in everything and everybody - one of my many redeeming qualities - I hope there are those who will take Moore's advice and stay away from Georgia. High on my wish list is Al Sharpton.
Moore is so angry he has demanded his publisher pull his book, "Here Comes Trouble," from every bookstore in the state, and if they can't, he says he will "donate every dime of every royalty my book makes in Georgia to help defeat the racists and killers who run that state." Dang, the man means business. That could run into the tens of cents.
Gov. Nathan Deal's office is taking Moore's threats with the seriousness they deserve. Says Brian Robinson, the governor's spokesperson, "We think it is cute he thinks anyone in Georgia would buy his book, but if any Georgian does, I'm happy to double the royalties and buy a pack of gum for a charity of Michael Moore's choice." I think I like this guy.
I asked Junior E. Lee, general manager of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company, located in Greater Garfield, Georgia, what his opinion polls were showing on the damage that Moore's comments could have on future economic development in Georgia. Junior doesn't believe anybody in Georgia gives two hoops and a holler what Moore thinks. He says Moore should have stay married to Bruce Willis instead of taking up with that silly kid with the beard on "Two and a Half Men." I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was thinking about Demi Moore, not Michael Moore. I fear Junior has been inhaling too much cypermethrin, trying to get the cockroaches out of Arveen Ridley's basement.
Nobody likes being fussed at, but as my daddy used to say, "consider the source." In this case, being criticized by Michael Moore is like being called ugly by a frog and the only people that would take him seriously we wouldn't want in the state anyway.
His crowd probably thinks Social Circle is where you sit around and puff a toke and Thunderbolt is where Captain Marvel lives and that if you go to Alamo you may see Davey Crockett. I wouldn't begin to try and explain Montezuma and Arabi to them. It would just hurt their brains.
If they have even set foot in our great state it was probably to change planes in Atlanta and as we all know Atlanta - aka Malfunction Junction, where the sewers don't work and neither do a lot of its citizens - is really not a part of Georgia. It's just a place to send our legislators every year to get them out of our hair so we can get some work done.
There is always a chance that Michael Moore was misquoted. (I told you I try to find the good in everything and everybody.) When he was talking about racists and killers, there is the possibility he might have been referring to his hometown of Flint, Mich. Flint has had a long and sordid history of racism and last I looked, the FBI says the city has the seventh-highest homicide rate in the nation. The city's most redeeming quality is that it makes Detroit look like Xanadu. But being the nice guy I am, I'm not going to ask all Georgians with a conscience - and that is most of us - to shun the state of Michigan like Mr. Puffenstuff wants to see happen here. Michigan has more than enough problems already. It has Michael Moore.
Reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139.
