Opinion

By Walter Geiger

Part reunion, part homecoming and pure Americana, Barnesville-Lamar County is in the throes of the 44th annual Buggy Days it has hosted.

A group of community leaders, searching for a way to bring visitors - and their money - to the community came up with the idea of the festival honoring Barnesville’s heritage as the center of the Buggy manufacturing industry before the horseless carriage put an end to it all. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

I wrote some of my deepest secrets on a piece of notebook paper, carefully folded the sheet, placed it in an empty Mason jar, and screwed the lid on tight. I then dug a hole about a foot deep out behind my father’s utility house, placed the jar in the hole, and filled the hole with dirt. My plan was to return to it at some unspecified time in the future to see if my fears had come to pass and if my dreams had come true.

Being ten years old and having homework to do, baseball games to play, clover to lie in, a creek to play in, books to read, baseball cards to collect, Braves games to listen to, a dog to pass the time with, and a bike to ride, I soon forgot all about the jar that was buried in our backyard. [Full Story »] 

Geiger’s Champale Jenna January came into our lives in 2007. We knew her as JJ. She was born in the shadow of Phipps Plaza in Buckhead and located for us by Jenny Woodlee, thus the last portion of her registered name.

JJ was a yellow Labrador Retriever weighing in at just under 100 pounds in her prime. Our daughters May Melton and Livia Lanier, now 21 and 17 respectively, grew up with JJ.
[Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Legend has it that a relative of mine named Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot on Fort Sumter. I visited there last summer and there are exhibits that support the claim. So a Ruffin may have fired the shot that started the Civil War. I’m not ashamed. But I’m certainly not proud.

Sometime during my boyhood, I was telling a friend how proud I was that our country had never lost a war. He said, “Well actually, Georgia was one of the Confederate states, so we lost the Civil War.”
[Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

I sat through two public hearings about a proposed increase in property taxes the other day and they went about the same as the many others I have endured over the years.
Some people arrive well informed and ask good, articulate questions. Some are not so well informed. Of those, some listen to explanations and some do not.

Those who do not listen leave such events just as uninformed as they were when they got there but feel good about having spoken their minds and I guess that is a good thing. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

I was recently working on a story in the Gospel of Matthew (14:13-21).

Jesus has just learned of the execution of John the Baptist, his kinsman and forerunner. He understandably wants to be alone, so he gets into a boat to travel to a deserted place. But when he arrives, the place isn’t deserted. A large crowd is waiting for him because they have needs they believe Jesus can meet. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

In the advertising realm of my long-ago youth, I recall very few ads across any medium for pharmaceuticals.

Sure, the makers of aspirin, Ex-Lax, Alka-Seltzer and various tonics pimped their products but they just hinted as to what your need for them might be. Constipation, hangovers and a lack of iron in the blood were not discussed in the media just as Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and Ricky and Lucy Ricardo never slept in the same bed. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

Dear Sullivan, Welcome to the world!

I am so glad you are here. I hope you will be free to become the best possible version of who you are meant to be and of who you want to be. You can rest assured that we will always love, embrace and support you. I also hope the world in which you will grow up and live will progress toward being an even better world than the one into which you have been born. I hope you will join with people of good will to contribute to that progress. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

Big Brother’ made his first appearance in George Orwell’s 1949 novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’. Orwell also wrote ‘Animal House’. Both are commonly required reading in high school and college classwork.

In Orwell’s book, Big Brother was the leader of Oceania where the dominant political party was all powerful and maintained iron fist rule over the citizenry ‘for their own sakes’. Citizens were watched constantly through television screens thus the birth of the phrase ’Big Brother is always watching’. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

The other day I was listening to the excellent Georgia Public Broadcasting program On Second Thought. As Athensbased singer/songwriter T. Hardy Morris talked about the 1959 song “Try Me” by James Brown and the Famous Flames, he praised the “perfect mistakes” in Brown’s vocals. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

“The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, the less selfreliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law, and people become honest. I let go of econom-ics, and people become prosperous. I let go of religion, and people become serene. I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass.”

- The Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

As we celebrate Independence Day it pays to reflect on just how independent we really are. We remain free of the tyranny of British rule which our forefathers shook off some 240 years ago and which we celebrate this week but just how many more freedoms could we enjoy if we were better governed? [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

The time between Memorial Day and Independence Day is a good one to think about the value of patriotism. So let’s ponder the valuable and healthy role that patriotism can and should play in forming, preserving and enriching a sense of community among Americans.

“Patriotism” as I define it is a healthy love for, respect for and devotion to one’s homeland, whether it is one’s homeland by birth or by adoption to its people, its traditions and its principles and a commitment to protect it and to work with all other citizens to make it even better. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were convicted of espionage at the height of the cold war.

They were the ringleaders in a spy ring that provided secrets about America’s atomic bomb program to the Russians. There were bleeding hearts back then, too.

They argued the Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of anti-communist sentiment in the United States. President Dwight Eisenhower disagreed. [Full Story »] 

By Mike Ruffin

We ain’t going anywhere. Neither are they.

“Who is ‘we’ and ‘they’ in those statements?” you might be asking. Well, “we” is whoever we are and “they” is whoever they are. “We” is those who are like we are and “they” is those who are different than we are. “We” refers to our kind and “they” to their kind. [Full Story »]