GwinnettForum | Number 20.38 June 2, 2020
NIGHTTIME DETOURS begin this weekend in Peachtree Corners, as crews will be working on a new pedestrian bridge across Peachtree Parkway. The detours begin June 5 and continue on week nights until June 15. For details on the project, see Upcoming below.
TODAY’S FOCUS: For the Sake of Our Nation, President Trump Should Lose in November
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Here’s an Open Letter to Those Racists In Our Midst
ANOTHER VIEW: Finds Key Accomplishments of the President in Ten Weeks of 2020
SPOTLIGHT: Infinite Energy Center
FEEDBACK: Concerned about Rumors About Potential Democratic Nominee
UPCOMING: Gwinnett County Transit Re-Starts Limited Atlanta Commuter Service
NOTABLE: Legacy’s Granddaughter Helping Raise Funds for Fowler YMCA Goal
RECOMMENDED: The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Atlanta Native Becomes Winner of Oscar, Peabody, and Emmys
MYSTERY PHOTO: Long Porches Provide Plenty of Relaxation Spaces Here
For the sake of U.S., Trump should lose in November
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
“Donald Trump is a failure. He has failed at everything he’s ever done. Now his failure is literally killing US.”– Rob Reiner, May 6, 2020.
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | Unfortunately, Rob Reiner is factually correct, with one major exception. In a fluke of historic proportions, in 2016 enough Americans were justifiably angry with politics as usual, and both parties, to vote for a New York City con man and reality TV buffoon.
In January of 2017, when President Trump first took office, I was optimistically hoping Reiner was wrong. I wrote more than one op-ed about how Trump, formerly a Democrat, had supported Medicare for All and just might surprise people and become a real consensus leader.
I reasoned that Trump, the wild-card maverick and opportunist, would try to bridge the two parties solely as the easiest way to stay in office. I was 100 percent wrong. Trump decided to take the low road, appealing to the scared masses who attended his wild Third Reich-like rallies and beat up any opposition who dared to show up.
In times of crisis, as with the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation needs a bi-partisan leader who will bring together all Americans, the way George W. Bush did after 9-11. However, we have the exact opposite. Trump’s nonsensical tweets are simply designed to divide our nation into warring factions. Often, they are internally inconsistent with prior statements or future Administration positions. Unfortunately, he’s achieved success in dividing our nation.
The latest examples are his “liberation” tweets about re-starting state economies. Specifically, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA” and save your great Second Amendment. It is under siege.” (4-17-20).
First, he says here is my plan for a three-phase re-starting of state economies. Constructed by his own healthcare experts, it provides for a reasonable path to move forward in the age of COVID-19. Then, for no obvious reason other than to create discontent, he follows it up with clearly partisan attacks on the Democratic governors of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia for following Trump’s own guidelines. Then, he encourages his base to bring weapons to their rallies on the steps of the state capitals, which they proceeded to do. Was he wanting a Ruby Ridge type armed conflict to break out? Who knows?
Then, after the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, takes Trump’s foolish tweeter advice and prematurely opens up our state, Trump criticizes him. Talk about being inconsistent!
Trump is a divisive president who fails at everything he does, best seen especially during the COVID-19 crisis. For the sake of our nation, all of us, regardless of party affiliation, should hope he fails in November.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Here’s an open letter to those racists in our midst
(This space today is from my son, previously printed in Statehouse Report, which tackled an important subject nicely. Makes me wish I had written it. –eeb)
By Andy Brack
Editor and publisher, Statehouse Report
Dear racists:
You may think you’re winning the battle with a killing here or a hate rally there, but you’re losing the war. Americans are getting increasingly sick, tired and repelled by your vitriolic, creepy, abhorrent prejudices. Your days are as numbered as the president you glorify.
You smirked at the story of the enraged woman with the frenzied dog in New York’s Central Park. She called the police on a bird-watcher — yes, a bird-watcher, that most malicious of creatures — when the man asked her to control the dog. As he videotaped, she snarled. The man asked her to back away and encouraged her to call the cops. She lied, telling them an African American was threatening her and the dog. Fortunately, the film was seen around the world. The woman later apologized, but it was too late. The investment management firm where she worked fired her. The company said it didn’t tolerate racist behavior.
You also surely got all warm and fuzzy after a white Minneapolis police officer on Monday killed a black man in broad daylight by kneeling on his neck. People watched as George Floyd sputtered he couldn’t breathe, but the officer did not relent. Again, fortunately, a bystander recorded what happened. The world recoiled. The officer and three coworkers were fired. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said charges should be brought. “He’d be alive today if he were white,” Frey told reporters. “I’m not a prosecutor, but let me be clear, the arresting officer killed someone.”
Two sad cases just hours apart. At least they were not in the South. But the ghosts of racial injustice continue to haunt and burden, from the Brunswick, Ga., man gunned down three months ago as he was running, to the nine worshippers at Emanuel AME Church murdered by a homegrown white terrorist almost five years ago.
Racists, be warned: Your pestilence of hate, fueled by fear, gullibility, disinformation and the need to feel superior, won’t win. It will rot your souls and corrode the joy that almost all people find in life. You’ll fail because decency will prevail.
A congregational pastor fed up with America’s current cauldron of hate shared he believes President Donald Trump has actually done a big favor to Americans. Through continuing inappropriate tweets and indecent behavior, Trump actually lifted the lid on hate that’s been bubbling below the surface and is unknowingly forcing Americans to confront what has lurked in the shadows too long.
“To me, now, all I can do being a white male is not ignore it and to listen for further instructions,” the pastor observed. And he shared a story that illustrates the lengths that non-white Americans too often have to go to keep out of old Jim Crow’s way.
The pastor was working in his yard one evening in rural New York when a driver showed up with a package.
“‘I hate to ask this,’ the man said. ‘But I have my little girl with me and she really needs to go to the bathroom.’
“The man wasn’t from this area. Had no idea at all about me aside from my being white and rural, but he saw a peace flag on the side of our garage. He was a dad, too, and his child had to do what children often suddenly have to do right now.
“My wife showed the two of them into the house while I stayed out on the lawn and scooped up and held in my arms my far-from-vicious little tail-wagger. The girl popped out the door a few minutes later, clutching the simple gift of a cold can of Pepsi, followed by her father. He stopped in the driveway, turned to me and simply said, ‘Hey, thanks, man.’
The pastor paused and reflected, “The ordinary things. We must all rise together to make them just that, everywhere. Everyday. Everyone.”
People will continue to be awful to each other, but it will wane. Evil and hate will lose, just as it did in Nazi Germany. Justice and decency will prevail because Americans will demand it. So racists, fair warning: You’d better get on the right side of the ledger, sooner than later.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Key accomplishments of president in 10 weeks of 2020
By Gregg Stopher, contributing columnist
PEACHTREE CORNERS, Ga. | “I hate Trump,” says the wife of many moons as she sashays across the living room floor. Hubby, watching the news on the telly, simply shrugs and asks a simple question, “Why is that?”
Stopher
“The way he talks. He is so disrespectful of women. And sometimes, it just irks me the way he says things. And the tweeting! Why can’t he just stop that? I just do not care for him as our president.”
When pressed for further specifics, the (potential) argument often dissolves. The marriage has survived similar such disagreements in the past…and will do so again.
What is your “worldview?” How did your perceptual filters come to be aligned?
From whence do they originate? From whence do they continue to be shaped?
How many folks reading this realize that six corporations control 90+ percent of your pipeline to what is generally considered as “news?” Think on that subject for a few moments. (Ever read George Orwell’s 1984?)
Back to Mr. Trump. Crude, rude and socially unacceptable? Check. Check. Check.
Embarrasses a certain percentage of the United States on the world stage? Oh, yeah.
Trump for it? Me against it! Hmmm, makes sense to me.
As I told “the wife”, the challenge for us is to simply watch what he does – NOT what he says or how he says it.
In ten weeks, here is what Trump has done:
- Declared a national emergency, giving him extraordinary powers under our Constitution.
- Invoked the Defense Production Act, allowing him to direct private businesses towards the needs of the electorate.
- Marshaled Operation Warp Speed so that we are now entering Phase Two clinical trials on a promising vaccine (Moderna).
- Cut a deal with AstraZeneca to mass-produce this forthcoming vaccine.
- Brought ventilator manufacturing back to our country.
- Brought PPE manufacturing back to the nation.
- Brought critical pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing back to the states.
- Cut a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor to bring back semiconductor manufacturing to our shores. (Side note: why is Apple suddenly moving their China plant to India? Didn’t Mr. Trump meet with Indian leader Modi a while back?)
- Signed an executive order challenging all federal agencies to reduce and/or eliminate cumbersome regulations that unnecessarily restrict economic growth.
A couple of more thoughts on President Trump:
He has essentially nationalized the Federal Reserve, completely resetting the (financial) game. Does anyone think Jerome Powell has any say-so on interest rates?
The money he pumped out (with Steve Mnuchin) will flood the economy as it disperses over the next four to five months, and the economy will snap back. (Contrast where these funds were directed versus the Bush/Obama bailouts during the 2008-2009 Great Recession.)
And he has done all of this despite a constant barrage of vitriol from the Main Street media, not to mention the bogus “Russian collusion” story, something that has gone on for three-plus years (and is now unraveling). You are welcome to despise the man (along with wifey). However, I challenge any of you out there to state that any of the accomplishments listed here are somehow not to the overall benefit of the United States.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Infinite Energy Center
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum to you at no cost to readers. Today’s underwriter is Infinite Energy Center, home to four distinct facilities in Duluth: Infinite Energy Arena, Infinite Energy Theater, Infinite Energy Forum, and The Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center For Art and Learning. Infinite Energy Arena has had 17 years of tremendous success hosting countless concerts, family shows and sporting events, and is home to the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators and the NLL’s Georgia Swarm. Some past concerts include George Strait, Carrie Underwood, Beyoncé, Foo Fighters, Eric Clapton, Katy Perry, Kid Rock, James Taylor and Michael Bublé. Infinite Energy Arena also hosts many family shows including Cirque du Soleil, Disney On Ice and the Harlem Globetrotters. Infinite Energy Forum offers patrons the opportunity to host or attend a wide variety of events, from corporate meetings to trade shows to social occasions. Infinite Energy Theater has an intimate capacity of 708-seats and is home to many local events, family shows and even some comedians. The Hudgens Center For Art and Learning showcases a range of artwork throughout the year along with offering a wide range of fine art classes.
- For further information, please visit www.InfiniteEnergyCenter.com
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.
Concerned on rumors about potential Democratic nominee
Editor, the Forum:
You recommended that Joe Biden select Michelle Obama as his running mate. However, I believe Biden has a much more fundamental issue at stake. It seems apparent that Biden’s speaking capacity is impaired with conditions and behaviors associated with dementia. We hear quite a bit about his likely having dementia from conservative news media like Fox News.
Joe Biden should address this issue publicly and say if he has dementia. If he doesn’t, he should address his many fumbles in speaking about issues. If he has dementia, he should withdraw from the presidential race promptly and give other Democrat candidates time to campaign well before the Democratic Convention in August.
It’s bad enough to have a demented president running for a second term. Why add a candidate with dementia and once again challenge Americans to select the lesser of two evils for president?
— Michael Wood, Peachtree Corners
Dear Mike: This could be a big problem of the Democrats, no doubt egged on by Republicans. The second issue to this makes selection of the vice president candidate more important, if this is to be believed. –eeb
Lilburn market available for online orders each week
Editor, the Forum:
To Sara Rawlins, who would like to see more online drive through pick-up farmers markets:
The Lilburn Farmers Market would like to invite Sara Rawlins and everyone to try our online ordering format and drive-thru pick-up from the many vendors at the Lilburn Farmers Market. Go to our website at www.lilburnfarmersmarket.org and place your order by Wednesday at midnight. Pick up your order between 4 and 6 p.m. on Friday. When you get there, masked volunteers will put your order into your trunk. What could be easier and safer during this COVID-19 time?
Our pick-up location is 1400 Killian Hill Road, Lilburn at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church. You will find produce, fruit and local products from over 35 vendors and more than 750 products online. Don’t miss out on the great summer market season. Customers can still get delicious farm-raised products at our online market.We will continue this market until August 28.
— Mandy McManus, Market Manager
Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
Gwinnett County Transit restarts limited commuter service
Gwinnett County Transit has re-started commuter express service to downtown Atlanta on a reduced schedule and with safeguards to help protect riders. The re-start began June 1.
Commuter service was suspended April 23 after Gov. Brian Kemp issued a Shelter-in-Place order for all but essential businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Along with Route 110, which continued to operate past April 23 and serve Emory University and the CDC, Routes 101, 102, 103 and 103A will run on Monday through Friday during peak times on a reduced schedule.
Alan Chapman, Gwinnett County Transportation director, says: “We are also limiting the number of riders on commuter buses to 14 to keep our riders and drivers safe. We encourage all riders to wear face masks as recommended by the CDC.”
Gwinnett County Transit will operate five commuter express routes using the managed lane on Interstate 85, and will continue to operate seven local routes and provide paratransit service for individuals who qualify.
Detour coming for bridge work in Peachtree Corners
Traffic on Georgia Highway 141 (Peachtree Parkway) in Peachtree Corners will be detoured at night beginning June 5 as part of the Peachtree Corners Pedestrian Bridge. The closure and detour will occur in two phases. Phase One begins Friday June 5, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and ending Monday June 8. Phase Two begins Friday June 12 from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., ending Monday June 15. Traffic Control will be prepped and message boards will be placed for advanced warning on May 22.
The road closures will occur on Peachtree Parkway from East Jones Bridge Road/Medlock Bridge Road to Peachtree Corners Circle. The 0.74 mile detour will redirect motorists onto Peachtree Corners Circle and Medlock Bridge Road.
Exact dates may change due to weather or other factors. Motorists are cautioned to reduce their speed while traveling through work zones, stay alert, and watch for workers. The projected cost of the bridge was $5,676,139 on June 26, 2019.
Legacy’s granddaughter helps Fowler YMCA reach goal
As the Fowler Family YMCA in Peachtree Corners re-opens their doors, the Y also restarts a fundraising campaign that was placed on-hold during the Coronavirus crisis. Fowler Family YMCA had announced in the fall of 2019 that it was honoring the legacy of John Manning, of Peachtree Corners, through the creation of a new state-of-the-art playground.
The Manning Playground Fundraising campaign reached 75 percent by May 2020, securing $150,000 in donations, but needing another $50,000 to meet its goal. While the campaign was halted for a short time during the pandemic, the metro Atlanta YMCA continued to work through all of the Y branches to provide food to those in need, childcare services for frontline workers and a senior citizen outreach program for seniors.
Over the past month, the Y has prepared its facility and staff through new training procedures, removal of equipment and new sanitation policies to safely re-open to the citizens of the Peachtree Corners area. And while the fundraising campaign paused, fundraising efforts, strategic planning and leadership calls continued.
Mark Thornell, executive director, Fowler Family YMCA, says: “We are excited to safely welcome back our members and the children into our daycare programs. The Manning playground is something for us all to look forward to as we are on schedule to break ground in the fall.”
Manning’s 12-year-old granddaughter, Caroline, is helping to answer the call. She is on her third year of guiding a children’s summer acting camp in her neighborhood. This summer, she will donate her profits to the Manning Playground Campaign. Caroline hopes to have a brick at the playground with “Camp Caroline 2020” on it.
Sarah Manning Locke, playground committee co-chair and Manning’s daughter, says: “We are so close to our goal and are having to get creative to see everything to completion because of the Coronavirus uncertainty. I love that Caroline is on board to pitch in with her Camp Caroline donation.”
- To donate to the playground, go to https://ymcaofmetroatlanta.givingfuel.com/john-manning.
Suwanee City Council approves business license tax credit
Suwanee’s City Council has voted to approve a business license tax credit in an effort to offset hardships created by COVID-19.
Suwanee’s program provides up to $500 in business license tax credits that can be applied to any City of Suwanee business for either the 2020 or the 2021 business license. This program also applies to new business that open thru March 2021.
Suwanee Mayor Jimmy Burnette says: “With citizens practicing social distancing and other restrictions, an enormous economic strain has been placed on our local businesses. The city council developed this program in hopes of helping businesses make it through these increasing difficult times.”
In addition to the tax credit, the City of Suwanee also extended its business license deadline from the original date of March 31, 2020 to May 29, 2020. For more information regarding the City of Suwanee Business License Tax Credit, contact Business Services Director Jessica Roth at 770-945-8996 or jroth@suwanee.com.
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
From Karen Harris, Stone Mountain: Kathy Nicolo loses her house because of a clerical error and is abruptly evicted. The home is purchased at auction by an immigrant, who hopes to resell at triple the purchase price. The police officer who serves the eviction notice is sympathetic and commits to help get the house back. Events unfold slowly but inexorably with a menace that gets to a point of no return. The result is a deliberate walk through the lives of the characters who each elicit pity and disgust because of the choices they have made. Moving inside the hearts of each, the reader is torn between who is right, who is wrong, who is redeemable and who is beyond redemption, who will survive and who will be a casualty in this cruel juxtaposition of events. This book is worth the time because of the layers of ethical issues that the story lays bare.
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Atlanta native wins Oscar, Peabody and Emmys
Acclaimed screenwriter and producer Alan Ball, a Georgia native, has won many awards during his successful career in television and film. Between 1999 and 2003 Ball received an Oscar, a Peabody, two Golden Globes, and six Emmys for his work.
Ball
Ball was born in Atlanta in 1957 and grew up in Marietta. He attended Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he majored in theater with a concentration in acting and playwriting.
After graduating from Florida State in 1980, Ball moved to New York City. He worked first as an art director for such magazines as AdWeek and Inside PR. By the early 1990s he was on his way to becoming a critically lauded playwright, as several of his comedies were produced at various off-Broadway theaters.
His play The M Word premiered at the inaugural Lucille Ball Festival of New American Comedy in 1991. Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,which debuted in 1993 at the Manhattan Class Company, depicts a group of bridesmaids at a wedding. It quickly became his best-known play and helped secure Hollywood interest in his playwriting. Other notable plays from this period include Made for a Woman, Bachelor Holiday, The Amazing Adventures of Tense Guy, and Your Mother’s Butt.
By 1994 Ball had moved to Hollywood, Calif., after Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the producers of the situation comedy Grace under Fire, read one of his plays and offered him a position as story editor and script writer for the show. After working on Grace under Fire for one season, he moved to another Carsey and Werner sitcom, Cybill, starring Cybill Shepherd. During his three years with Cybill (1995-98), Ball moved from co producer to executive co producer, in addition to writing for the show.
While working on Cybill, Ball began to write a new screenplay inspired by his musings on the case of Amy Fisher, a teenager who shot her lover’s wife on Long Island, New York, in 1992. Puzzled by the media circus that had attended the court case, which inspired three made-for-television movies, he began to write a play that examined what might make people act so bizarrely.
After several years of revision, his play became the Academy Award–winning screenplay for American Beauty (1999), Ball’s first feature film. The script won both the Writers Guild of America Award and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. The movie itself won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 Ball’s script was named one of the 101 greatest screenplays by the Writers Guilds of America, east and west.
While American Beauty was reaping both critical and commercial acclaim, Ball returned to television, without much success at first. A show called Oh, Grow Up failed quickly on ABC in the fall of 1999, and Ball felt frustrated by content restraints on network television.
He decided instead to work with HBO’s original programming department and created a new program called Six Feet Under, which debuted in June 2001. This hour-long series focused on a family of morticians in southern California. The show became a bona fide hit for the network, earning both awards and impressive ratings. Ball won an Emmy Award and a Directors Guild of America Award for the show’s pilot, which was his directorial debut. The program also won a 2002 Peabody Award.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org
Long porches provide plenty of relaxation spaces here
If you wanted to sit back and relax on a porch, you would have plenty of places at this building, proudly flying the American flag. Use your deduction and figure out where this was taken. Tell us about it by sending to elliott@brack.net, including your hometown.
First in with the most recent Mystery Photo was Lynn Naylor of Norcross: “I believe that today’s mystery picture is The Spirit of Mecklenburg Statue of Captain James Jack in Charlotte, N.C. In May 2010, The May 20th Society celebrated the unveiling of the Spirit of Mecklenburg Statue of Captain James Jack at the corner of 4th Street and Kings Drive in Charlotte. Chas Fagan, who sculpted the statue, is a self-taught artist who grew up in Brussels, Belgium, and graduated magna cum laude from Yale. The May 20th Society led a community-wide effort to produce this statue.” The photograph came from Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill.
George Graf of Palmyra, Va. gave detail about the rider in the statue: “Captain James Jack, a Charlotte horseman, is said to have ridden to Philadelphia in 1775 carrying a just-signed copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress. Some historians believe it influenced the 1776 Declaration of Independence.”
Others recognizing the photo were Virginia Klaer, Duluth and Jim Savadelis, Duluth, who said: “In the summer of 1775 Jack was instructed ‘to go express to Congress with a copy of all said resolutions and laws and a letter to our three members there, Richard Caswell, Wm. Hooper and Joseph Hughes, in order to get Congress to sanction or approve them.’ The British government knew of Jack’s mission. In August 1775, Governor Martin wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth in London that he had been ‘informed’ that ‘treasonable resolves’ had been ‘sent off by express to the Congress at Philadelphia as soon as they were passed in the Committee.’ The road to Philadelphia was 560 miles with Loyalists and British agents everywhere. If Jack were caught carrying the seditious documents from Mecklenburg he would have been hanged for high treason.”
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. writes: “Today’s mystery photo is of a 3-ton, bronze statue of Captain James Jack (1731–1822), a tavern-keeper in Mecklenburg County and a captain of the local militia unit of the Revolutionary War. To many in Mecklenburg County, Captain James Jack achieved Paul Revere status by riding day and night nearly 600-miles on his horse through the dangerous, British controlled territories and colonies of the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, into Virginia and finally though much of Pennsylvania to deliver the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, the first capital of the United States.”
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