Opinion

By Walter Geiger

We are in the midst of a pandemic. Coronavirus kills! It will continue to kill. There is only so much we, as individuals, can do.

Yes, we can wash our hands until they are red and raw. Yes, we can stay away from school, church, sporting events, weddings and funerals but, when it comes to actually dealing with this virus, we are at the mercy of government in its various manifestations. Expect even more draconian measures this week - namely a shelter in place order for all Georgians. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Many Christians observe the forty days (not counting Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday as the season of Lent. The name “Lent” comes from an old word meaning “to lengthen,” and, since the days get longer in the spring, it came to name that season. Lent is a season of repentance that is often accompanied by fasting.

It being that time of year, I’ve been thinking about what I need to repent of. (Some of you will say that I need to repent of ending that sentence with a participle. I’m sorry, but “about that of which I need to repent” is too highfalutin for my taste.)

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By Walter Geiger

The old man walked out onto the railroad tracks where so much history has been made and observed. The trestle over River Road seemed a little worse for wear than it had on his last visit over 40 years prior. He took his time crossing on the creosote railroad ties that he had scampered across in his youth. The asphalt below seemed a much more perilous plunge.

He was accompanied by his youngest daughter now one amongst the legions of beautiful coeds the town is famous for. They stopped and turned to the east and looked over the expanse of Oconee Hill Cemetery. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

As I hope you know, the Georgia Presidential Primary election will take place on Tuesday, March 24. Advance in-person voting is now underway.

The primary (pardon the pun) piece of advice I’d like to offer is this: Vote!

But I do have some more advice.

And all the people said, “Of course you do!”

If you plan to vote in the Republican Presidential Primary, you will have only one name on your ballot: Donald Trump. He is, as you are probably aware, the incumbent. So if you’re going to vote in the Republican primary, you’ll vote for Trump.
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Editor’s note:
This column was written by Bill Torpy and published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on ajc.com on Feb. 19. Torpy is a highly-respected roving reporter/opinion columnist for the Atlanta newspaper and its online platforms. This is his long view of the happenings within the Griffin Judicial Circuit, which includes our neighbors in Pike, Spalding, Upson and Fayette counties, over the years. His views are his - not ours - and received the approval of the AJC editorial board.

What do you think? Is Torpy on target or is he way off base? You may respond via a letter to the editor or by commenting on our website at barnesville.com.

By Bill Torpy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ten years ago, I headed south to the Griffin Judicial Circuit to cover a brewing scandal in which two of the district’s four Superior Court judges had to resign suddenly in disgrace.

The sordid escapade centered around a bitter court case and the proclivities of two veteran judges, to wit: Judge Johnnie Caldwell was accused of repeatedly harassing a woman lawyer with crude sexual comments. I mean really raunchy stuff that would make a salty bailiff blush.

And then Judge Paschal English — who was beloved as “Pappy” on the TV show “Survivor” — pulled the rip cord after it was revealed he was having a fling with a public defender who routinely appeared in his courtroom. A cop caught them having sex in a car.

The small-town ties, the conflicts, the secretive doings and the raging gossip all turned this circuit, which includes Fayette, Spalding, Pike and Upson counties, into a version of another old TV show: “Laugh-in.”

Well, they’re not done in the Griffin Circuit, not by a long shot.

In 2010, Superior Court Judge Mack Crawford, a former state legislator and mule dealer (No, I am not joking) was appointed by the governor after the other two judges were bounced. This month, Crawford tendered his resignation in a sweet plea deal that let him largely off the hook and leaves the door open for him to get back on the bench.

What was Judge Crawford pleading to? Well, he was charged with stealing $15,675 that was lying around in the court’s registry and using the money to pay off some debts. He repaid the money once the GBI started snooping around but was still charged with a felony in late 2018. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Sometime in the fifth century BC, not too many years after Jewish exiles returned to Judah from Babylon and several hundred years before Jesus was born, a preacher delivered a message preserved for us in the fifty-eighth chapter of the biblical book of Isaiah.
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By Mike Ruffin

A few days ago, Debra and I had the privilege of joining our beloved friends, college roommates, and fellow travelers Randy and Jennie Berry at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur to hear Jimmy Webb talk about and play and sing some of the wonderful songs he’s written during the course of his career.

And boy howdy, has Webb written some great songs.

He wrote three of Glen Campbell’s biggest hits: “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and my favorite Campbell recording, “Galveston.” He also wrote the Fifth Dimension’s hit “Up, Up, and Away,” Brooklyn Bridge’s “The Worst that Could Happen,” and Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know.” That list barely scratches the surface of the pile of songs Webb has written.
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With the growth and expansion of social media, memes have become more and more popular. Though there are serious memes, most are humorous and it dawned on me the other day they are the modern version of the tall tales of yesteryear.

Memes are everywhere - Facebook, Twitter and on various message boards. When a good one pops up, it spreads fast. Facebook is the birthplace of many memes though, like everything else there, they are full of poor grammar and pitiful spelling.

People routinely text or e-mail me memes they consider funny. One recently made me laugh out loud. It arrived the morning after an American drone took out Iranian terror leader Qassem Soleimani. It bore a picture of the general with the words ‘Last week nobody knew who he was. Got famous fast. Blew up overnight’.
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By Mike Ruffin

War… What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

Some of you will recognize those words, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong,
from Edwin Starr’s 1970 hit single “War.” Released while the war in Vietnam was still raging, it was a bold anti-war statement.

Maybe we need to listen to it again.

I was twelve years old in 1970 when the song was blasting from radios and jukeboxes, so the possibility of my being drafted was six years away, which at that age seemed so far in the future that I could scarcely imagine it. As things turned out, by the time I turned eighteen, the draft had been abolished. In fact, I didn’t even have to register for the draft, as no men born between March 29, 1957 and December 31, 1959 were required to do so.
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By Laura Geiger

It’s every parent’s nightmare. Our daughter Livia had just called to tell me she was leaving Athens for Christmas break after a grueling week of final exams at the University of Georgia. “Be careful, the weather is terrible,” I said.

Thirty minutes later I got another phone call from her. She was crying. “Mama, I’m okay but I’ve been in a wreck – it wasn’t my fault – but my car is really messed up.”

“I’m on the way. Where are you?” She was outside Madison. It was Friday, Dec. 13 and it had been raining for days, saturating the roads and obscuring driving conditions.
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By Mike Ruffin

I was sitting in a classroom at Gordon Grammar School in the late 1960s, reading an article in my Weekly Reader about the future of space travel.

My fellow students and I were living through the era of pretty regular space missions. Our teacher would sometimes turn on the classroom’s big black-and-white television that sat atop the big stand that always looked to me as if it were ready to tip over from top heaviness so we could watch a rocket launch.

If I’m remembering the context correctly—it was a long time ago in a Barnesville far, far away, after all—I was reading the article at about the time of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

But this article was about what might come next, and what it suggested might come next was a program that would involve spacecraft that could go into space, come back to Earth, and then do it again. In fact, the article said, these vessels would be used over and over. Plans to develop such a craft, one main purpose of which would be to transport personnel to and from a planned permanent space station, were underway.
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By Mike Ruffin

I was born in 1958, so most of my childhood occurred during the 1960s.

Each Christmas Day in that decade followed a set schedule.

First, I would wake up very early in our little house on Memorial Drive in Barnesville. The house rule was that I had to wake my parents up before going into the living room to see what Santa Claus had brought me. This was so my father could arm himself with his Brownie 8mm movie camera, equipped with its panel of spotlights, to film the spectacle. We would then enter the place of wonder, where I would receive the first installment of my Christmas bounty.

Second, we would get dressed and go to the home of whichever Abbott was hosting my mother’s family’s Christmas celebration. If we were hosting it, we’d get dressed and stay home. After enjoying a delicious Christmas lunch, we’d open presents, and I would receive the second installment of my Christmas bounty. [Full Story »] 

Coming up in the public school system in Savannah many, many moons ago, I got a strong base education in Latin. It was referred to as a ‘dead language’ then and it has certainly flatlined now - gone the way of cursive writing.

I was able to master Latin somewhat but cursive writing? Not so much. I cannot read my own handwriting after a couple hours so I have my own code - unbreakable by anyone, including me.

But back to Latin. It steps to the forefront at Christmas. I love to watch the Christmas mass from the Vatican with all the ceremonial flourishes, the processionals and swinging incense. The readings are in Latin and, though I cannot understand them, the language adds weight and credence to the importance of the birth of Jesus Christ. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

The church is in the middle of the Advent season. The word Advent means “arrival.” During Advent, we anticipate the arrival of Jesus Christ.

There are four Sundays of Advent. The fourth and last one is the Sunday before Christmas Day. So Advent is a season to anticipate the arrival of Jesus Christ in his birth, which we celebrate on December 25, the first day of the twelve days of the Christmas season.

Jesus was born 2,000 years ago, so we aren’t actually waiting for him to be born. We are rather waiting for our celebration of his birth.

On the other hand, we might keep in mind the prayer request in the Christmas hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: “O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.”
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