An appalling lesson in ethics and the Ga. Legislature
In the last two hours of the very last day of the 2012 Georgia General Assembly, with scores of proposed bills flying back and forth between the House and Senate, a handful of powerful state legislators tried to take advantage of the confusion. The conspiracy they launched demonstrates just how contemptuous they have become of the people whom they were elected to serve.
The goal of their little plot was to further weaken Georgia’s already lax ethics laws. Had it succeeded, it would have prevented voters from learning the identities of elected officials who had failed to meet deadlines established in state law for filing ethics disclosure and campaign finance statements. It also would have allowed fines levied against legislators for violating those laws to simply disappear, without payment and without anyone even learning they had existed.
And believe or not, the means by which legislative leaders attempted to accomplish that deed was more sordid than the deed itself.
We begin with House Bill 875, a harmless little piece of legislation meant to ensure that the Department of Natural Resources did not have to release personal data of applicants for hunting and fishing licenses, such as Social Security numbers and drivers’ license photos.
However, in what now looks to have been a well-orchestrated scheme, this innocuous little bill was passed in slightly different versions in the House and Senate. That forced the appointment of a six-member conference committee — three from each chamber — to work out the differences.
In hindsight, the membership of that conference committee should have signaled trouble, because it was oddly high-powered for such a little bill.
In the Senate, it comprised Don Balfour of Snellville, the powerful chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and a prominent foe of ethics reform. John Bulloch of Ochlocknee and Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, also members of the Rules Committee and influential legislators in their own right, were also appointed.
In the House, Ethics Committee Chairman Joe Wilkinson of Sandy Springs was named to the conference committee on HB 875, along with David Knight of Griffin and Tom McCall of Elberton.
Meeting in private in the last hours of the session, those six legislators agreed to dramatically revise HB 875 by adding the ethics-related language outlined above. They knew that such provisions would be highly controversial, but they were counting on the fact that in the last hectic hours of a session, members were much too busy to read the piles of legislation flying across their desks.
Under such circumstances, legislators casting votes are forced to rely on assurances from their colleagues that the bills coming before them are worthy of support. It is an act of faith and trust, and in this case, that faith and trust was betrayed.
After the conference committee concluded its work, Bulloch went to the Senate chamber, told his fellow senators that a deal had been worked out on little ol’ HB 875 and urged their support. It passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 46-4, but a look at the four “no” votes suggest that word of the bill’s true intent had already begun to leak out.
One of the four “no” votes was Josh McKoon, a freshman Republican from Columbus who had angered his party leadership by daring to sponsor ethics-reform legislation. Another was Democrat Jason Carter of Decatur, who earlier in the evening had tried and failed to force a floor vote on legislation imposing a $100 limit on gifts from lobbyists. The third was Democrat Gloria Butler, secretary of the Senate Ethics Committee; the fourth was Mike Crane, a freshman Republican from Newnan.
With time ticking down in the session, the bill now moved to the House, where it was introduced to legislators with no mention of its revised content. By then, however, AJC reporters and others had caught wind of the changes made to the bill. As House members began to vote, word was spreading. Alarmed legislators who had initially voted “yes” on the bill quickly began changing those votes to “no”, and in the end the bill was defeated by a vote of 25 to 143.
Wilkinson, the House Ethics Committee chairman, later tried to defend the rejected language, calling opposition to it “disgraceful.” As he saw it, the public has no right to know when legislators miss legal deadlines for filing ethics forms.
“Why should [a politician’s] name be up there if he didn’t do anything wrong?” he said.
That is wrong on so many levels. First, it is wrong as a matter of process. If the only way to enact your “good idea” is by smuggling it into unrelated legislation at the last minute, then maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t really such a good idea.
Second, let’s think about what really happened here. In the past, Wilkinson has defended Georgia’s ethics laws by stressing the importance of disclosure. If legislators and lobbyists disclose everything as required by law, he has argued, we don’t really need laws against gifts and conflicts of interest, etc. The voters will have all the information they need to discipline their elected officials.
In reality, however, some legislators are going years without filing required disclosure forms; they also aren’t paying the required fines, because the state ethics commission lacks the resources and gumption to take action. As a result, the only remaining incentive to encourage legislators to file disclosure by the legal deadline is public exposure if they do not.
Last week, Wilkinson and other tried to reduce public disclosure about legislators’ failure to publicly disclose, and they tried to do it without full disclosure. That is not open government.
That is, to borrow Wilkinson’s word, “disgraceful.”
– Jay Bookman
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682 comments Add your comment
Jm
March 31st, 2012
4:15 pm
I can report that the 1% are doing just fine
carlosgvv
March 31st, 2012
4:17 pm
Black helicopters fly over my house a lot.
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
4:17 pm
If it is truly this bad with the Republicans in charge, think how
bad it would be with the Democrats in charge.much better things would be if our Republican voters actually gave a ____?jo, I’m not interested in any ongoing low level Civil Wars. We won the last one and that is good enough for me! (Rock, chalk, Jayhawk!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDQrelRFdVQ
DETROIT IN THE GOOD OL' DAYS! 1961 Chevy TV Ad in Color
March 31st, 2012
4:18 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQOJ34bFbas&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL2035EB31543922F0
getalife
March 31st, 2012
4:18 pm
Notice how our cons are quick to deflect blame to the other party.
This will make them feel better about marching lock step with their corrupt party but does nothing to address the problem.
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:19 pm
carlosgvv,
it may be the sentiment
‘they’re S.O.B.s but
they’re our S.O.B.s’
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:21 pm
Jm,
who told you the 1%
are fine?..getalife?
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
4:23 pm
frog, I was only 19 when Nixon left office in disgrace. The man was a train wreck as a person, but later in life when I learned more about his presidency, I realized that he was not altogether one as a president.
And compared to the last Republican president that we endured, he was a veritable Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln all rolled into one…
getalife
March 31st, 2012
4:23 pm
frog,
It is common knowledge that the 1 % are doing better than ever.
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:27 pm
JamVet ,
Unfortunately Nixon
was a lawyer thus
ethically challenged.
Cheney would’ve shot
him in the face.
Jm
March 31st, 2012
4:27 pm
Frog
My eyes and ears
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:29 pm
getalife,
Jm’s knowledge is pretty
common.
josef
March 31st, 2012
4:29 pm
ZamVet
You fired the first shot today, Beauregard!
Nixon,
No big fan by a long shot and was glad to see him go into well deserved ignomy, but fact is he’s the best (and only) friend the Nobel Savage has ever had at 1600 and he gave us the EPA…
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:31 pm
Jm,
I thought maybe the
IRS let it slip.
getalife
March 31st, 2012
4:31 pm
As far as the civil war, we can put the south down again.
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
4:33 pm
Why would people vote for those who have nothing but contempt for them?
Because they have been convinced that the alternative would be even worse. That’s the current state of affairs all across the country.
Jm
March 31st, 2012
4:34 pm
Frog
IRS is on the side of the 1%
marko
March 31st, 2012
4:35 pm
Newt’s contract on America had a provision for term limits. He promised to bring the matter up for a vote,and he delivered . They voted down term limits by a huge margin. Forget term limits Or ethics legislation. They’d sooner give up their heath care and pension plans than accept nonsense like that. Just who do those uppity voters think they are anyway? Did it ever occur to the insufferable ingrates out there in Voterville that these hard working public servants deserve their meager perks? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? What if they went on strike? Who’d protect us from the Boogie Man? I shudder at the thought.
josef
March 31st, 2012
4:36 pm
getalife
“We can put the South down again…”
Why would that be necessary? History has shown that all imperial powers eventually crumble from within…all Southerners have to do is bide their time…
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:36 pm
getalife,
might be tough,
the south has all
the factories and
they’re all owned
former US enemies.
Jm
March 31st, 2012
4:36 pm
Frog / getalife
It must be a lot of work toggling
josef
March 31st, 2012
4:38 pm
Don’t Forget
“…across the country…” being the operative phrase.
getalife
March 31st, 2012
4:38 pm
Well, if we collapse like the USSR, the south can break away and form their own countries.
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:41 pm
Jm,
IRS is on the side of 1%
what?
What’s toggling? some
perverted sexual innuendo?
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
4:42 pm
Josef,
Absooooluuuutely, we deny ourselves the value of the opposing opinions by the demonization of the persons voicing them.
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:44 pm
Don’t Forget demonization
works.
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
4:48 pm
josef, damn the torpedoes! (I know, I know. Wrong war.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ytcQW93yrU
Jm
March 31st, 2012
4:49 pm
Frog. IRS loopholes
Forget toggling.
1% gave a lot of money to charity today
josef
March 31st, 2012
4:49 pm
getalife
They’re already their own countries, that type of collapse would make it feasible to form their own nations…same for the Pacific Northwest (i.e. Ecotopia, New England (the cradle of secessionism and where polls show a greater popular support for separation than in the South, then there’s California, where the idea floats from time to time, Alaska and Hawaii where secessionists anti-colonialists actually have brought the matter to the public, political fora. That leaves the Mid Atlantic and Midwest…
Walter Miller in “A Canticle for Leibowitz” drew a pretty accurate map of what could (would?) emerge from such a collapse…
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:50 pm
getalife,
we don’t do a good job
of forming our counties,
let alone countries..
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
4:50 pm
Unfortunately Nixon
was a lawyer thus
ethically challenged.
Cheney would’ve shot
him in the face.
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:52 pm
Jm, yeh ..on their 1040s
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
4:52 pm
Yes is does froggie, and so we have a number of feeble minded souls who buy the bs.
Whahema
March 31st, 2012
4:54 pm
No such outrage Fromm Bookman with house skulduggery in passing Obamacare on Christmas Eve with arm twisting, bribes, kickbacks and secrecy. Seems Bookman’s moral sense is very selective.
josef
March 31st, 2012
4:55 pm
ZamVet
Nope. Right war. Admiral Farragut (the Union’s token Hispanic, but Southern born and bred) during the Battle for Mobile Bay in reference to the torpedoes pioneered by MOT David Lopez. Mobile was not captured until the last days of the war due to the land defenses engineered by Loreta Janeta Velazquez. The lesson? “Our” Hispanics can beat “your” Hispanics!
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
4:55 pm
Speaking of the modern day Spiro Agnew, did Cheney’s new heart reject his body?
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
4:55 pm
DDR,
Sorry. de rigueur..
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
4:55 pm
If the south were a country it would soon split up due to difference’s over college football. Without SEC unity it would all fall apart.
0311/8541/5811/1811/1801
March 31st, 2012
4:57 pm
Headline (New York Times): “Fighting Terrorists French Style”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sunday-review/the-french-way-of-fighting-homegrown-terrorism.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFxGPkPTyw
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
4:58 pm
Jamvet,
funny but that IS a possiblity. Transplanted organs have “resident” white blood cells and “graft vs. host” is one of the ways that transplants can fail. Hopefully that won’t happen.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
4:59 pm
Well, if we collapse like the USSR, the south can break away and form their own countries.
Yes – they can call themselves the United Baptist Holiness Better Than You And We Ain’t Dumb States. They can build a fence around themselves a’la China, kick out all the “ne’er do wells” and keep their confederate flag without anyone b8tchin about it.
Then they can completely turn over all government functions to corporations and the govenors and other lawmakers can move up North.
pogo
March 31st, 2012
5:02 pm
Dem’s and Repugs in Georgia’s state government are both bought and paid for by the farming and timber industries (and all of those industries associated with them). While the timber industry denudes the state of hardwood trees (which take about a century to regrow) the pol’s do nothing. Hardwood logging in Georgia is an ugly thing but it makes one hell of a lot of money. The loggers will go into wetlands and river bottoms to get the product they are looking for, which is old growth hardwood (Oak), and in the process they destroy everything that lives there, both flora and fauna. Take a look at the landscape on 341 between Eastman and Macon some time and see what it looks like and take a look along the Altamaha river sometime. There is a thin line of trees next to the river but behind it is a wasteland which used to be hardwood trees. Now it is planted in fast growing pines which do absolutely nothing to help the environment whatsoever. And all of this destruction of bio-habitat lies solely at the feet of the politicians in this state and the greedy loggers and saw-mill owners who feed them money. The farmers are just as bad. They pump and pump and pump out of a public aquifer for their crops and meanwhile people are starting to run out of water for their houses in South Georgia.
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
5:02 pm
DF, yep. I’d like to see him hang around for awhile so he can make some more spectacularly stupid statements. Just to further secure his awful legacy.
Whahema must love his dirty Georgia legislators. He can’t get his ODS red herrings out quick enough!
Well, jo, as I’ve utterly botched this excursion against the confederates topic, I’m moving on!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE-F5vuQJjo
Ho-Hum
March 31st, 2012
5:03 pm
Looks like it was right out of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Healthcare Law playbook!!!!
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:04 pm
DDR
Don’t forget the Republic of New Africa! The first Provisional President Imari Obadele was an old running buddy and mentor of mine back in the day. He DID have some files!
****
And SEC and the split up
Once again organized religion raising its ugly haid!
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:04 pm
no worries froggie! it WAS funny, and, dare i say it? somewhat accurate!!
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:05 pm
ZamVet
You always do!
Meanwhile...
March 31st, 2012
5:05 pm
“The past seven brutal days will go down as one of the worst weeks in history for a sitting president. It certainly has been, without any doubt, the worst week yet for President Obama.
Somehow, Mr. Obama managed to embarrass himself abroad, humiliate himself here at home, see his credentials for being elected so severely undermined that it raises startling questions about whether he should have been elected in the first place — let alone be re-elected later this year.
Consider”… see the following link
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/29/hurt-was-week-was-obama-style/print/
TaxPayer
March 31st, 2012
5:07 pm
Republicans took over Georgia by campaigning on their claims of cleaning house and family values and such. Defending their failure is a failure on the part of the defender to acknowledge that history and the fact that the Republicans are now the lying no good hypocrites regardless of whatever the ones they ousted did in the past. Saying that they are no worse than their predecessors is a lie in and of itself. It’s a copout.
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:08 pm
ZamVet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTXb-ga1fo
barking frog
March 31st, 2012
5:09 pm
Where is Kamchak??
We have a moonie times
quote.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:10 pm
josef – Really? You’re not joking you’re serious?
With that type of a life as a resume, WTF are you doing in Georgia? seriously?
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:13 pm
Meanwhile…
President Obama has done a pretty good job of steering a middle of the road, moderately conservative-moderately liberal course for his country and that is where the bulk of our population is, the fringes (of which I am a left wing one) who have hijacked the public discourse notwithstanding…imuo
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:15 pm
Taxpayer at 5:07 — Word.
It makes me wanna move away but unfortunately is there really a better state for me to move to? Well besides Oregon……..
vuduchld
March 31st, 2012
5:15 pm
You shills voted these idiots in office so I sure as heck don’t feel sorry for you so shut your pie holes, dimwits
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:16 pm
DDR
Seriously? The South is my home. I’m a Southerner. Among my own, I owe no further explanation. That’s why I came home after fleeing North thinking things would be different there…what I found was the same dance to a different tune…
JamVet
March 31st, 2012
5:18 pm
Meat that is maybe the third or fourth time you posted that tripe, so I decided to take a look.
Last Friday, Mr. Obama wandered into the killing of Trayvon Martin. Aided by his ignorance of the situation, knee-jerk prejudices and tendency toward racial profiling…
What buffoonery! And to proffer it as a substance free, quote free fact? Otay.
By most accounts, Mr. Obama and his stuttering lawyers were all but laughed out of the courthouse. They were even stumbling over softball questions lobbed by Mr. Obama’s own hand-picked justices.
Yeah, riiiight. That’s exactly why he provided examples, transcripts and quotes. Sheesh.
While in South Korea he was caught on a hidden mic negotiating with the president of our longest-standing rival on how to sell America and her allies down the river once he gets past the next election.
Sell down the river? Really? This is truly sixth grade stuff.
As for embarrassing, Mr. Hurt had a terrible week himself it appears…
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:19 pm
josef that was regarding your knowing Imaari Obadele and basically all the people you’ve known, do know, etc. You should write a memoir…sort of like that lady who wrote about being the world’s greatet groupie who didn’t get VD. (joke)
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:19 pm
DDR
Oregon? The Northwest was a wonderful place and we have many fond memories…but no place for an Indian…
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:25 pm
JamVet I clicked on it too–saw that it was an opinion piece, read the first paragraph and immediately lost interest.
This part here:
So, in one week, Mr. Obama got caught whispering promises to our enemy, incited a race war……
……….was probably meant to be a comedy piece written by a 3rd grader since it was neither accurate NOR was it even remotely truthful.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:28 pm
why is the northwest no place for an indian? are you speaking metaphorically, historically (Sakachewa); or being tongue in cheek?
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:28 pm
DDR
That autobiography is on the back burner for retirement. I’m calling it “Growing Up Human…reflections of an unrepentent Southerner…”
Provisional President Obadele and I had several late night talk sessions in which we came to agreement on the central issue that when you have groups of people who form the majority populations of a given geographical area who do not feel to be accepted by the imperial population, then it is best for them to go their own way, to rise or fall as per their own endeavors and in control of their own destinies. Then they would have no one to blame or credit but themselves.
And the people I’ve known…just being in the right place at the right time…or maybe in some cases, the wrong place at the wrong time, right place at the wrong time, or wrong place at the right time!
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:30 pm
oh and josef I thought this was you at first
Cops: Teacher, student had sex in exchange for ‘A’
until i remembered you teach elementary school. My bad.
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:35 pm
DDR
Unmentionable’s experience there was not at all good…open attacks on the street, told to “go back to the reservation,” denied professional advancement…we were there at the time of the Boldt decision upholding treaty fishing rights and got a good view of their white sheets and hoods…had a lot of Pesky Savage friends who filled in the gaps for us…
One of my vignettes for the memoir has to do with when I was the “white Southern Jewboy” special guest of the Nooksack Nation…an honor, it was, but in its outplay, well, let’s just say I was made “welcome” by the Tribal Elders and Youngers alike! Think Lion’s Club through the haze of Yakima fireweed and one fine looking brave!
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:39 pm
DDR
Well, true I do teach elementary school and that doesn’t enter there…BUT, another of the vignettes DOES have to do with my A in Algebra I, my track coach and the history course from hell! And another with a certain principal who, bless his heart, just couldn’t understand that my turn down had nothing to do with his charms, but with my incurable romantic sense of fealty to my current boyfriend…so, he got scared, and the rest you’ll have to wait for the book to find out!
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:46 pm
The most interesting people that I’ve ever met were Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz. I did a paper on them when I was I high school and was lucky enough to get an interview with both of them, a couple of months apart; but just in time for me to turn in my paper for National Women’s Day.
What was so interesting about them was that they were two “supporting” women on different ends of the same stick so to speak.
I may do an article and/or commentary about those interviews with them one day; but this time from a woman’s perspective rather than a young girl’s.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
5:54 pm
Boldt decision: For years preceding the Boldt decision, the state of Washington had attempted to limit the treaty fishing rights of the tribes. The federal government filed suit in the support of Native American rights. Non-Native fishermen in the state opposed the decision.
You know i went to school in Washington, you know i NEVER learned about that decision in history classes!! I had to google it to try to figure out what you were talking about. Amazing what was missed in NOT teaching this in school.
josef
March 31st, 2012
5:58 pm
DDR
As you might imagine, Black women have had a strong impact on my life and world view, having stood by me as a gay boy and providing, well, a good balance between recognition of the harsh realities of your being, but having a good time along the way. Most of them are unknown, everyday people. The one, however, who is my role model, heroine and someone I was blessed to have spent time with is Fannie Lou Hamer. One of my biggest ranh-ranhs with the black hagiologists is that they all but overlook her and, in my uppity opinion, she was more courageous and more rightous than the whole Black History Month pantheon of notable civil rights icons combined…
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
6:01 pm
This is all really appalling.
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:13 pm
DDR
The Indian just doesn’t count in history beyond those first few pages on the pre-Columbian and a token mention here and there of, say Pocahontas, Sacajawea, Black Hawk, Geronimo, or Sequoyah, at least in the national mythology. Being from Mississippi and having had Mississippi history, I got a bit of a better understanding of at least the Southeastern nations since they and their notables were so prominent in the general history of the state.
But women? Oh, we get, as I said a dose of Pocahontas and Sacajawea, but ne’er a mention of Mary Musgrove, Nancy Ward or Betsy Love Allen, women who literally turned the tide of history.
One of my buds back in college was a Colville who was working on a history of the Colville Nation and its response to the efforts of the federal government to do away with tribal self determination. He was in Washington reading the testimonies and there in one of the more spirited arguments was his Grandmother! He said he knew she had gone to see the “Great Fathers,” but he had no idea of just how bold she was…his memories of her were her playing poker with the white men who came to her juke joint and fleecing them roundly! He used to demonstrate card palming as taught him by her!
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
6:18 pm
Josef, get workin on those memoirs, or at least a good outline. You never know what you might forget or how your thoughts/perceptions might change.
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
6:18 pm
Be careful of cheating at cards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCPutYaGFlE
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
6:20 pm
Or dice that is.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
6:25 pm
sad to say but I had to google Fannie Lou Hamer too!!
I liked the part where she was quoted as saying civil rights should be for all. Coretta Scott King adn Betty Shabazz believed that too. I always believed that Mrs. King must’ve been frustrated with Bernice for her standing with the in the closet “Bishop” Eddie Long.
Mrs. King didn’t believe in the persecution of homosexuals she felt, rightly so, that it was the same type of discrimination that blacks have had in their existence in america.
she probably always knew, as i have always suspected, that long as well as berniece are closeted — that’s why they fight so hard against the inevitable.
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
6:27 pm
Recon, same story told a little differently. Love the way they tell it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbwDgbw1yuQ
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
6:28 pm
oh and those memoirs!! josef was hot for teacher!! I’m looking for that song now! please DO writ stuff down josef……….your life is like a rainbow, so full of different colors and experiences!!
George Zimmerman
March 31st, 2012
6:28 pm
I AM GEORGE ZIMMERMAN!!!
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:29 pm
DDR
Oh, I’ve got them collected…not that anyone other than me would be interested…but what you say about changing thoughts and perceptions is much the case. It’s one of the reasons I like coming here to Jay’s Place. Can’t tell you the number of times something somebody will say will jar a memorie loose from the filing cabinets of the memory and it will take on a completely new and hitherto unconsidered significance…
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
6:29 pm
Don’t Forget,
That one was a really good oldie too.
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:31 pm
DDR
My favorite quote of hers and something of a life’s credo for me was “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.” It got me through the early days of the AIDs epidemic when no one cared…
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
6:31 pm
here ya go josef:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMQLrnbBgE
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:35 pm
DDR
A bit afield here…are you familiar with Sweet Honey in the Rock? They did a great ode to Ms Hamer…I went looking and couldn’t find it…
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
6:40 pm
Josef: The Indian just doesn’t count in history beyond those first few pages on the pre-Columbian and a token mention here and there
Word. It wasn’t until I read “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” did I get a BETTER perspective of how Indians are NOT portrayed in American History. They say the victor writes history and I had no idea how skewered most history really is.
It’s amazing isn’t it?
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:41 pm
DDR
@ 6:31
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
6:42 pm
not familiar with them; oh well back to google!
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:48 pm
DDR
One of the reasons I beat the tom-tom the way I do here is to try and dispell first the over-romanticized version of the Noble Savage and second the nearly complete lack of any knowledge of the real history and third the contemporary issues in Indian country…
I don’t know if you’ve been following mine and St. Simon’s exchanges but in case you have or have not, they go back to mine and his inside jokes about “Indian things” and what other Americans think…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVGdAGjOItM
Jay
March 31st, 2012
6:49 pm
To reply to Josef and others who asked earlier, and sensibly enough, “who is watching Jay and the other watchers?”
You are.
This is an open forum. If I have any part of this wrong, if someone out there knows something I got wrong or misinterpreted or twisted into something that is untrue, they are free to post here and expose that mistake or even worse, that willful error.
Nobody’s perfect. Every viewpoint or perspective can benefit from another viewpoint or perspective. This is mine; others are welcome to contribute theirs.
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
6:49 pm
Josef, the value for much of what you know is “the rest of the story”. Our own little Paul Harvey
josef
March 31st, 2012
6:52 pm
DDR
I got to cook dinner for them one night!
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
6:54 pm
Recon, glad you liked it.
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
6:58 pm
We’re having Lobster Tails, baked potato and salad tonight. No real occasion, we just do it every now and then.
josef
March 31st, 2012
7:00 pm
JAY
I was afraid you might take that the wrong way…one of the reasons I like and respect you personally (at least as far as I may make such a claim) and your blog is that you are sensitive to your watchers…I can call you sensitive, can’t I?
And, yes, you will admit when you got something, if not exactly “wrong” from a perspective that may be misinterpreted. That takes cajones and, more importantly for me, integrity…
Is that enough flattery to bring in Dusty…
josef
March 31st, 2012
7:01 pm
Don’t forget
I miss Paul Harvey…
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
7:05 pm
I miss Dusty.
DebbieDoRight - Doing The Right Thing
March 31st, 2012
7:05 pm
anybody watching the game? man! it’s like a slug fest!! I’ve got Kentucky by 3 and thats gonna be a buzzer beater shot by the guard.
any takers?
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
7:07 pm
Go Kentucky!
Don't Forget
March 31st, 2012
7:09 pm
josef, that was hilarious. “spirit of the extension cord”.
Recon 0311 2533
March 31st, 2012
7:10 pm
Jay, why so apologetic?
Jay
March 31st, 2012
7:11 pm
Josef, I don’t believe I took that the wrong way. No offense taken at all — I acknowledge that we all need to be watched.
One of my qualms about doing this blog thing several years ago was the fact that I would have to post without another set of eyeballs looking at what I wrote before I publish it. It’s working without a net. But as I quickly learned, there are a lot of folks out there willing, even eager or overeager to set you straight should you go wrong.
… :>)
Doggone/GA
March 31st, 2012
7:14 pm
“But as I quickly learned, there are a lot of folks out there willing, even eager or overeager to set you straight should you go wrong.”
And to set you “straight” when THEY are wrong!