Happy Birthday, America! I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, even though I wasn’t born on the 4th of July. As for Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” I would remind us all that America was great before he showed up and is great today. That is because of the great people who inhabit this land. Working folks. Love their families. Care for their neighbors. Protect us. Teach us. Pray for us. We tend to forget them because of all the noise about all that is wrong with us. But there are a lot more good people than there are noisemakers and naysayers. Speaking of naysayers, I wrote a column recently about putting the responsibility for teaching children about social issues in the home where it belongs and not holding our teachers responsible. That got a response from a retired sociology professor who wondered if he had misunderstood me. (If so, he’s the first one.) He thought schools should be taking kids on a historical guilt trip. One example was the internment of Japanese during World War II, 80 years ago. That happened, by the way, after Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor when we weren’t sure who was friend and who was foe. I told him I was okay with his idea if we also covered the Bataan Death March in which some 500-600 Americans died brutally at the hands of the Japanese army and how we got Japan back on its feet and prospering after we had defeated them. But that would defeat the purpose of a guilt trip, wouldn’t it? Readers in Marietta have heard this before, but perhaps the rest of you haven’t. Garland Favorito, co-Founder at VoterGA, which bills itself as “dedicated to restoring the integrity of Georgia elections,” said of the 2020 presidential election: “The facts say that this is the least safe, least secure and least honest election that we have ever seen in Georgia.” Hmmm. In 1947, when Georgia found itself with three governors at the same time, including Herman Talmadge, 34 voters in his home county of Telfair showed up at the polls – including several who were deceased – and voted for him in alphabetical order. I’m not the brightest bulb in the lamp, but I would think that election might have been a tad less safe, less secure and maybe even less honest than we have ever seen in Georgia. But why rain on a good conspiracy theory? My recent column zinging the Southern Baptists for reaffirming their ban on women in the pulpit got a surprisingly large and positive response. I did have a few Bible-thumpers – male, of course – take issue. As Matthew 5:39 suggests, I simply turned the other cheek. (They must hate it when I do that.) I would suggest the Southern Baptists, the un-United Methodists and other denominations have a bigger problem than what this layman thinks. The Wall Street Journal and NORC at the University of Chicago published results from a survey in March saying that only 39 percent of Americans feel that religion is important to them today — a decline from 62 percent in 1998. If religion was a stock, we would have sold it long ago. God can’t be pleased with how we twist His Word to suit our narrow-minded views. ... I would never tell Kirby Smart how to coach. Two national championships in a row at UGA says he doesn’t need the advice. However, as someone with a pretty good reputation for crisis management, I would tell him his “we’ve got it handled” attitude toward the allegations made about his football players being involved with excessive speeding, driving under the influence, domestic violence and sexual assault is not going to cut it. The program looks to be out of control. Sadly, there are a bunch of knucklehead fans who don’t care as long as they win. I do care. These players represent my alma mater, an outstanding academic institution. Incidentally, I was a season ticket holder before Kirby Smart was born. Still am. ... Finally, dear reader, it was 25 years ago this week I was asked to write one column one time for one newspaper. Some 2,000 columns and a number of papers later, I am still at it and still trying to figure out where commas go. I do love this job. And you. Thank you one and all. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.
