Congrats, Raiders!

   The Raiders have done it!    They are on to the postseason and will play at Douglas County on Friday night in the first round.    But they did not get there alone.

Columnist left an indelible mark

   The renowned and influential come in all sizes. Some have an aura larger than life. Some reveal themselves smaller in character or decency than becomes a person of great public stature.    Then there are the ones around whom everything just seems to fit right. That, for me, was Jim Wooten.

On Take 2, I found something meaningful to write about

   Ever get halfway through a column and realize it’s terrible?    I just did, and I scrapped it. I am not sure what it was about, really. I had references in there to the rules expert guy at football games, Vanderpump Rules and who knows where I was headed with it, really.

Cheers and Jeers

   THUMBS UP to Demorest and its Downtown Development Authority for dramatically reshaping its center of town in the upcoming months.

Letters to the Editor

Country over party To the editor:    Somehow, I feel people will think we should not protect the billionaire tax cheats from paying their fair share of taxes to fund money for Israel and ignore Ukraine.

Pure love does exist

   After polishing the vamp of my boots on the back of my pants legs, I took a deep breath, slowly exhaled and knocked on the front door of a Dearing Street townhouse in Athens. The door opened to the beautiful smile of my future wife as we made eye contact for the first time.

Never duplicated & Thank you, veterans

   Habersham Central’s Band of Blue is at times an underappreciated source of pride for our entire county.    We put a lot of energy into our athletic teams, as well we should, but we should make sure to acknowledge the Band of Blue as a community for what it does for all of us.

Letters to the Editor

Mental health is the issue To the editor:    The media will use the mass shooter in Maine to try and get rid of guns.    The Democrats want America unarmed (like Germany prior to World War II). The real issue is mental health. There isn’t enough help for Veterans to handle coming back from combat.

Spending holding federal government back

   Two data points that indicate diverging fortunes: • The state of Georgia announced this month that it had almost $18.5 billion of excess cash when fiscal 2023 ended June 30 – including a whopping $10.7 billion in “unreserved, undesignated” surplus beyond the state’s official reserve accounts.

Time to do your job

   We all have seen the storm coming for some time. We have known for too long that 2024 will be one of the worst years for American politics in the 2 ½ centuries this country has existed.