SAY
GOOD-BYE TO 2010 AND HELLO TO GOOD FRIENDS
Good
grief! I haven’t gotten used to writing 2010 yet and 2011 is here.
I don’t
know about you but I was pretty much ready to pull the plug on this year
along about July. One more self-serving political candidate in one more
boring debate intoning a platform of lower taxes, better schools,
smaller government, peace on earth and a partridge in every pear tree
and I would have been ready to vote for a bullfrog just to get rid of
them.
Just
think: We get to do this all over again in 2012. This time it is a
presidential election. Be still my beating heart.
We threw
a bunch of the bums out this past year in Washington – mostly Democrats
–but whether or not the new crowd can avoid catching Potomac Fever is
problematic. Politicians can get quickly insulated from the real world
by all the bowing and scraping of the moneyed special interest groups in
Washington. It’s pretty heady stuff. Same thing is true in the
Legislature.
In a few
weeks, former Congressman Nathan Deal, from Gainesville, will be sworn
in as our 82nd governor. We can then say adios to Gov.
George E. Perdue, who seemed more interested in feathering his own nest
with land deals, tax breaks and lobbying state agencies on behalf of his
business ventures while still in office than he did working for us.
Even
legislative leaders in his own party tell me they can’t wait for him to
leave. One Republican committee chairman told me he has already talked
to Nathan Deal more in two months than he did to Perdue in two terms.
I wish
the new governor well. He has a bucket load of issues confronting him.
Fortunately, our expectations of state government are so low that
anything positive will be a nice surprise. Maybe Mr. Deal can start by
persuading members of the Legislature to put the ban on micro-chipping
our body parts somewhere down the list of priorities behind education,
the water wars, transportation and tax relief.
The new
governor needs to tell them also to cease fire on their plans to allow
preachers to have guns in church. I love Dr. Gil Watson, the World’s
Greatest Preacher, but I’m not anxious to see him locked and loaded in
the pulpit. As previously stated, he is liable to get excited during
one of his sermons and shoot a hole in our pipe organ.
The
University of Georgia, the nation’s oldest state-chartered university
located in Athens, the Classic City of the South had a banner year in
2010. We had more student-athletes who did not get arrested than ones
who did. We got our 19th Rhodes Scholar. I got my portrait
hung at my beloved Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications
and the Dawgs remain reigning state football champions. Lord, it’s hard
to humble when you are perfect in every way. Woof! Woof!
2011 will
mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks of Islamic radicals on the
World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in which thousands of
innocent people were killed for no good reason. Nothing surprises me
anymore but in the past decade, our country has adopted an astonishing
double-standard toward Muslims. If you listen to the mainstream media
and their liberal weenie friends, the Muslim people are the victims, not
us. Sorry, I’m not buying that nonsense. They started it. We didn’t.
They are going to have to earn my trust and friendship in the year to
come.
Okay,
that’s enough ranting for one day. There will be plenty of time for
that in 2011. As is the tradition, New Year’s Eve is a time to be
shared with good friends stuffing our faces full of corn-fried shrimp
and other assorted delicacies at the exquisite little Georgia Sea Grill
on St. Simons Island.
We are a
diverse crowd. Our numbers include a judge, two ministers, CEOs,
retailers, teachers, developers and spouses. Most of us are retired.
We all have worked hard at our chosen professions and survived. Now it
is time to enjoy the fruits of our hard-earned labors. We laugh a lot
and tease a lot and thoroughly take pleasure in each other’s company.
If our children should see us and admonish us for our lack of decorum,
we will threaten to spend their inheritance. That should keep them
quiet while we party down.
Happy New
Year to one and all.
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