As the world turns

Two of my grandchildren are graduating from university this month, one in Alabama this Friday and one here in Georgia next Friday. Both are going on immediately to graduate school to obtain masters degrees before they attempt to go out into the cold cruel world where their beloved grandpa lives and contribute to society at large.

The grandchild in Alabama popped the question to his longtime girlfriend a couple of weeks ago and she responded in the affirmative said "Yes!" -- so now a third wedding among the grandchildren is in the offing, probably late this year or early next year. She is getting a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing, so if he gets a boo-boo on his finger while playing French horn she will have a band-aid at the ready. At least, that's how I see it.

Rumor (British, rumour) has it this morning, thanks to a leaked first draft of a majority opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito in February -- isn't that convenient? -- that the Supreme Court will overturn the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 and the Planned Parrenthood v. Casey decision of 1992 sometime between now and the end of the current session of the Court in June. Some are rejoicing and some are weeping and wailing, and I suspect the noise is just beginning. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is already opining that this decision will insure the re-election of Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, to the U.S. Senate and the election of Stacey Abrams , a Democrat, to the Governor's chair here in Georgia. Time, as they say, will tell.

While we have been sitting here minding our own business, reapportionment, which occurs every ten years following the national census, has moved us from Georgia's 11th Congressional District, where we have been represented by one Barry Loudermilk for the past several years, to Georgia's 6th Congressional District, where there are currently 9 or 10 or 11 (but who's counting?) candidates vying for the seat because the current occupant, Lucy McBath, decided to run in the 7th District instead against Carolyn Bordeaux, also a Democrat, because reapportionment drew a lot of conservative voters into the 6th District and Ms. McBath, who is actually from Tennessee, was likely to be unable to keep her seat (my goodness, what a long sentence. It reminds me of an old quote, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter"). I understand that this sort of thing happens all the time in countries with a parliamentary system (I'm looking at you, United Kingdom) but it is a rare thing in the good old U. S of A.

I realize (British, realise) that most of you couldn't care less (Texan, could care less) about our political shenanigans and the brouhaha they generate, so I will quietly change the subject.

But first, one last look at the Congressmen who have represented us in Washington since we moved to Georgia in 1975. They are a varied lot. Since we lived in Marietta in Cobb County we were in the 7th district and were represented by Dr. Larry McDonald, a urologist and ultra-conservative politician who is remembered chiefly for two things: becoming chairman of the John Birch Society and being killed in 1983 when the Korean Air Lines flight on which he was a passenger was shot down when it wandered over Soviet air space. Later we had Buddy Darden, former District Attorney of Cobb County; Dr. Phil Gingrey, an obstetrician at Kennestone Hospital; and, after reapportionment put us into Georgia's 6th District, Newt Gingrich, who became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995 and whose third wife, Calista, was appointed ambassador to the Vatican by President Donald Trump. After Newt we got Johnny Isakson, son of the founder of Northside Realty, who later became a Senator for many years. He died in 2019. We moved to Cherokee County in 2003.

I don't know why I remember stuff like this, I just do.

Last night on Jeopardy!, no one, not even Halifax's-own-by-way-of-Toronto-20-game-champion Mattea Roach, buzzed in to say, "Who is Alger Hiss?"

It's a pity.

The world keeps turning despite our best efforts.

Who’s your Daddy, er, Representative?

In these days of political upheaval, or quasi-political upheaval, or political quasi-upheaval, or whatever you want to call it (unrest, uneasiness, life as usual in America come to mind), I think the least we can do as citizens is know who represents us in Washington, D.C.

Here are the current Congressional District boundaries in Georgia, the state where I live:



Mrs. RWP and I moved from Florida to Marietta, Georgia, in 1975. Our first representative here was Larry McDonald. A physician, Larry had the distinction of being the only sitting member of Congress killed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He was a passenger on Korean Air Lines flight 007 when it was shot down over the Sea of Japan in 1983. At the time, he also happened to be the national president of the John Birch Society. A stretch of several miles of Interstate Highway 75 in Cobb County has been named after him. Because of his very conservative political views, I have always thought that it should have been only the far right lane.

Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was also our representative for a few years. Newt taught history at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton for several years before he was elected to Congress. You might gather, and you would be correct, that this is a very, very conservative area of the country.

We also were represented for a while by Bob Barr, who was the candidate of the Libertarian Party for U.S. President in 2008. A former CIA agent and federal district attorney, Bob is best known for his role during the Clinton impeachment trial. According to Wikipedia, it was Barr, then a Republican, who first introduced a resolution directing the House Judiciary Committee to inquire into impeachment proceedings, months before the Monica Lewinsky scandal came to light. Foremost among Barr’s concerns was apparent obstruction of Justice Department investigations into Clinton campaign fundraising from foreign sources, chiefly the People’s Republic of China. After the Lewinsky scandal came to light, Barr was the first lawmaker in either chamber to call for Clinton’s resignation. We do not lack for colorful characters in our part of the country.

A few years ago we moved into the 6th Congressional District of Georgia. Our representative at first was Johnny Isakson, who with the help of his father owned Northside Realty in Atlanta and without the help of his father taught Sunday School at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Marietta. Johnny is currently one of Georgia’s two United States Senators. The other one is Saxby Chambliss, who lives way down in south Georgia in the town of Moultrie.

The sixth district is now represented by Tom Price, a physician in Roswell. If Interstate Highway 75 ran through Tom’s district, he would probably be slated to get the lane next to Larry McDonald’s. Currently holding the seat formerly held by Larry McDonald is Phil Gingrey, also a physician and also very conservative. Lawyers around here, liberal or otherwise, don’t seem to stand much of a chance in politics. This could be a good thing.

Because representatives to Congress are supposed to represent roughly the same number of persons, every state’s legislature redraws the Congressional District boundaries every ten years following our national census to reflect the population distribution more accurately. On the map above, the size of a district is inversely proportional to the density of its population. That is, the smaller the geographic area covered by the district, the closer together the people in it live. You can tell by the map that we live very close to our neighbors.

Our neighbor, the 5th District, has been represented by John Lewis for many years. John marched with Dr. Martin Luther King at Selma back in the sixties. As you might imagine, John is not so conservative. Another of our neighbors, the 4th District, has had a variety of interesting characters representing it over the years, including Ben Jones, an actor who had played Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard; Pat Swindoll, who later spent time in federal prison for accepting bribes; Elliott Levitas, who actually was a lawyer but did not, to my knowledge, spend any time in federal prison; and Cynthia McKinney, who is not so conservative either. She introduced articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She also found herself in the national spotlight in 2006 when she was involved in a confrontation with a Capitol Hill Police officer who did not recognize her as a member of Congress. She left the Democratic Party in September 2007 and was the candidate of the Green Party for U.S. President in 2008.

When you live in Georgia, there is never a dull moment. It’s not all mint juleps, moonlight, and magnolias.

It’s 11 p.m. -- do you know who your representative is?