Hoop Skirt Hoopla at UGA

By Dave Oedel, March 22, 2015, Macon, Georgia:

Middle Georgia made national headlines Wednesday, March 18, 2015 after sorority and fraternity leaders at the University of Georgia chose to ban or discourage the wearing of hoop skirts at events this spring during Kappa Alpha’s Old South Week and Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s Magnolia Ball. The issue has immediately been seen as another moment of academic censorship, and another data point in the rise of overbearing political correctness.

In this particular case, both of those characterizations seem dubious.  Here’s why.  … Continue Reading

Jack Ellis Calls out Senator Isakson for Signing the Iran Letter

By Jack Ellis, former Mayor of Macon, Georgia, March 22, 2015, Macon, Georgia:

I was disappointed to learn that Georgia’s senior U.S. senator, Johnny Isakson, had signed the ill-conceived March 9, 2015 letter to Iran circulated by Senator Tom Cotton, a junior senator from Arkansas who’d only been in the Senate for two short months. Cotton was quickly joined by another junior, inexperienced senator, Georgia’s David Perdue. Secretary of State John Kerry referred to the letter eventually signed by 47 Republican senators as “unprecedented and un-thought-out.”

The junior senators may be excused for their inexperience. Isakson cannot. … Continue Reading

Dog Fight Continues: Brinsons to Appeal Dangerous Dog Ruling After Split Decision

By Dave Oedel, March 22, 2015, Macon, Georgia:

This dog fight will go on. On Monday, March 9, 2015, five members of the Macon-Bibb County Board of Health split 3-2 on whether to deem three female pitbull dogs, Cocoa, Pearl and Justice, “dangerous.” As previously reported in the Macon Monitor, those dogs were involved in the death of another dog, Renalto, that was passing by the pitbulls’ home on a walk with Renalto’s owner, Claudio Naranjo, from Miami. The pitbulls are owned by Ryan Brinson and kept at the home of his mother, Veronica Brinson, at 124 Brookefield Drive in the Brookefield subdivision of north Macon off Bowman Road.

Board of Health members Bert Bivins, Ethel Cullinan and David Garrow voted to find the dogs “dangerous” within the meaning of both state law and a Macon-Bibb ordinance. Two other Board members, … Continue Reading

President Barack Obama’s Speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015, Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”

President Barack Obama, Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015

You can watch President Obama’s 32-minute speech here. Below is the text as transcribed by the White House.

It is a rare honor in this life to follow one of your heroes. And John Lewis is one of my heroes.

Now, I have to imagine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that morning 50 years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel, heroics were not on his mind. A day like this was not on his mind. Young folks with bedrolls and backpacks were … Continue Reading