Gadzooks! Can it really be 2020? That sounds more like what I wish my vision was than an actual year. Wasn’t it only yesterday when we sat holding our breath awaiting Y2K and wondering if all the computers in the world would go crazy and die? The only thing that happened was that a bunch of consultants got rich telling us our computers would go crazy and die if we didn’t hire them. Of course, nothing happened. The consultants and the computers are still laughing at us.
Let me start with some good news. No boring, self-serving New Year’s resolutions. I have discovered over the years that most of my well-intentioned intentions were intentionally shot by halftime of the Slice-O-Matic Vegetable Slicer and Chopper Bowl.
Frankly, I haven’t mastered my current list, like learning to put commas where they belong, not to mention antecedents and syntax and all that other grammar stuff. Besides, why do I want to waste time in a gym with a bunch of sweat hogs trying to lose a few pounds that I packed on with joy by eating copious amounts of barbecue and Texas toast? Oh, and did I mention banana pudding?
For me in 2020, it will be business as usual. And as usual, I will continue to seek out the humor-impaired, which I am proud to say comes in every size, shape and color. They include especially wingnuts on the left side of the political spectrum and wingnuts on the right.
Depending on which wing they plop themselves, they either want boys and girls to be able to twittle in the bathroom of their choice and think Donald Trump is guilty as sin and should be removed from office or they want the right to tote their AK-47s to church and think Donald Trump is a victim of sore-losing Democrats and their sycophants in the national media and plan to reelect him to a second term as sure as the sun rises in the east. Mix the two sides together and collectively they will produce the sense of humor of one mid-size cumquat.
As in past years, our intrepid public servants will gather under the Gold Dome and proceed to give us more government that we want or need. One of the first orders of business will be to offer praise and platitudes to Georgia’s public schoolteachers and then promptly hose them and the schools in which they teach by pushing for more private school scholarships, using public dollars. Last year, they sent out a freshman senator, three weeks on the job, to lead the charge. This year it may be Daffy Duck.
Proponents of the scheme say if their kid isn’t going to public school, why should they be paying that portion of their taxes for public education? I don’t plan on going to prison, so why are a portion of my taxes going to the Department of Corrections?
Schoolteachers around the state are beginning to wise up and figure out the difference between rhetoric and results. Gov. Brian Kemp is touting teacher pay raises, but I think public schoolteachers would prefer a state government committed to supporting them in the classroom, rather than encouraging parents to abandon them. To the governor and Legislature: Fix the problems outside the classroom and you just might solve the problems inside the classroom.
To the teachers: Private school scholarship proponents are going to gussy up their schemes this session and make them sound a lot different than what they really are. I plan to cut through their B.S. like a hot knife on butter and will keep you posted.
The year 2020 will be an election year and Republicans in the General Assembly have seen their margins shrink like a cheap pair of drawers. Riling up teachers is not a wise political ploy. And if teachers let cut-and-run legislators get away with private school scholarships using public funds and then vote this November to reelect them, they will get what they deserve.
As with any new year, 2020 will produce surprises – both good and bad. There is no use worrying about things yet to come. We should live each day to the fullest, remembering that there are two things we can’t control – yesterday and tomorrow.
Laugh a lot. Love a lot. Hug a lot. Forgive a lot. And be grateful that we live in the greatest country on earth and in the Great State of Georgia. Ready or not, 2020, here we come.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb
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