In the previous post I expressed shock that Ron Howard who as a child played Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and as a teenager played Richie Cunningham on Happy Days is now 71 years old.
i suppose it has ever been thus, the shock I mean. In my parents' generation, one minute Shirley Temple was singing "On The Good Ship Lollipop" and the next minute Richard Nixon was appointing her to be a delegate to the United Nations and Geral Ford was appointing her to be ambassador to Ghana and George H.W. Bush was appointing her to be ambassador to Czechoslovakia.
One minute Mrs. RWP and I were walking down an aisle at our daughter's wedding to light our family's side of the unity candle while Alan Payne and Lisa Klausman sang "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler On The Roof:
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don't remember growing older
When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn't it yesterday
That they were small?
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
and the next minute the bride and groom have been married for almost 33 years and not only have two grown sons but also have two grandchildren.
Time indeed marches on, and I am told on good authority that it waits, along with tide, for no man.
Case in point: Czechoslovakia does not exist any more. It split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, not to be confused with Slovenia, home of Melania Trump.
Speaking of Trump, here's your factoid for the day: Calista Gingrich, third wife of former Speaker of the House of Representatives during William Jefferson Clinton's administration Newt Gingrich, was appointed by Donald Trump to be ambassador to the Vatican during his first term and ambassador to Switzerland during his second term. I thought you would want to know.
When I first typed the preceding paragraph I mistakenly wrote Calista Flockhart. What a boo-boo! Calista Flockhart is the wife of actor Harrison Ford, not the wife of Newt Gingrich. Appointing Calista Flockhart to be an ambassador two times over would make about as much sense as appointing, say, Shirley Temple.
Tempus, as the Romans used to say, fugit. Time flies. And I can tell you without fear of contradiction that the older you get, the faster it will fly.
I remain, as ever, your roving correspondent,
Rhymeswithplague
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
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 sheresponded 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.
The grandchild in Alabama popped the question to his longtime girlfriend a couple of weeks ago and she
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.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
One thing leads to another
On one of my favorite Christian blogs the other day, I was reading a three-post series by a woman others affectionately call Martha of Ireland in which, among other things, she quoted G. K. Chesterton, specifically from his 1908 book “Orthodoxy”:
[Editor’s note. My non-Christian readers may want to skip over this part, but I hope you don't. --RWP]
“This is the thrilling romance of orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable.
...It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
and then a reader (not me) replied:
“Not to be a modernist or snob or worse yet a dull heretic, but do you think orthodoxy has changed since the days of Chesterton, Martha? It doesn’t seem like a whirling adventure. Is it still?”
and Martha said:
“Yes, I think so. It hasn’t really changed; orthodoxy is viewed as the dull, safe, routine consensus of the majority, while the new thing and daring interpretation is seen as bold, lively and a jolt of adrenaline to the system.
But daring interpretations and new lights on old texts have a strange way of being the same old thing dressed up in new clothes, and the cutting-edge modernity of one decade becomes the stale, dated fashion relics of the next. Meanwhile, orthodoxy goes plodding on, swerving around the pothole on the left and the diversion on the right, all the time being sneered at or patted on the head as ‘simple faith for simple folks’ and swimming against the current of the age.”
[Editor’s note. Non-Christian readers who opted to skip may resume reading at this point. --RWP]
...all of which prompted me to stop and read Wikipedia’s article on G. K. Chesterton and while doing that I happened to read that Chesterton’s friend Edmund Bentley invented the clerihew, which diverted my attention to Wikipedia’s article on the clerihew, and that article included links to articles about both Balliol rhymes (about which nothing more will be said here) and double dactyls, which are one of my favorite forms of light verse.
I especially liked this double dactyl by John Hollander:
Higgledy piggledy,
Benjamin Harrison,
Twenty-third president
Was, and, as such,
Served between Clevelands and
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn’t do much.
It made me think, naturally, of Newt Gingrich.
“Whoa!” I can hear you thinking, “Hold your horses just a minute! What does a clerihew about Benjamin Harrison have to do with Newt Gingrich?”
I’m glad you asked.
As we all know (or should), Benjamin Harrison, America’s 23rd president, was the grandson of America’s ninth president, the eminently forgettable William Henry Harrison, a Whig who was elected President in 1840 on the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” (Tippecanoe was Harrison, who originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, and the “Tyler too” part of the equation was his vice-presidential running mate, John Tyler). Upon the untimely death of William Henry Harrison from pneumonia in April 1841, one month after his inauguration (it is believed that he caught the pneumonia at his inauguration), Tyler became America’s tenth president.
Well, as luck would have it, there was a story in the news this week that two of John Tyler’s grandsons are still alive. Yes! A hundred and seventy years later! Tyler, our most prolific president, was born in 1790 and fathered fifteen children, eight with his first wife, who had died, and seven more with his second wife, Julia Gardiner, thirty years his junior, whom he married during his Presidency. Their youngest, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853 when former President Tyler was 63 years old. Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered six children of his own, two of them with his much younger second wife, Sue Ruffin, whom he married in 1923 when he was 70. Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. was born in 1925 and Harrison Ruffin Tyler in 1928. These are the two presidential grandsons who are still with us today, aged 87 and 83, respectively.
If you didn’t get all that, here is a summary in pictorial form:
So anyway, these two gentlemen were interviewed this week by members of our ever-vigilant press. And this news article reveals that one of them thinks Newt Gingrich is “a big jerk” -- not, as it turns out, because of his political views, but because, as this other news article states, “He needs to stick with the same wife.”
It’s a little late for that. Newt has been married three times. His first wife was Jackie, his second wife was Maryanne, and his current (and, it is hoped by all and sundry, not the least being the surviving grandson of President Tyler, his last) wife is Calista.
How to end this post and tie it all up in a neat package? Hmmm. How’s this?
If Calista goes the way of her predecessors (I trust and pray that she won’t, especially since Newt left the Southern Baptists and joined the Roman Catholics), I’m pretty sure Newt’s number four wife will not be Martha of Ireland.
But you know how one thing leads to another.
[Editor’s note. My non-Christian readers may want to skip over this part, but I hope you don't. --RWP]
“This is the thrilling romance of orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable.
...It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
and then a reader (not me) replied:
“Not to be a modernist or snob or worse yet a dull heretic, but do you think orthodoxy has changed since the days of Chesterton, Martha? It doesn’t seem like a whirling adventure. Is it still?”
and Martha said:
“Yes, I think so. It hasn’t really changed; orthodoxy is viewed as the dull, safe, routine consensus of the majority, while the new thing and daring interpretation is seen as bold, lively and a jolt of adrenaline to the system.
But daring interpretations and new lights on old texts have a strange way of being the same old thing dressed up in new clothes, and the cutting-edge modernity of one decade becomes the stale, dated fashion relics of the next. Meanwhile, orthodoxy goes plodding on, swerving around the pothole on the left and the diversion on the right, all the time being sneered at or patted on the head as ‘simple faith for simple folks’ and swimming against the current of the age.”
[Editor’s note. Non-Christian readers who opted to skip may resume reading at this point. --RWP]
...all of which prompted me to stop and read Wikipedia’s article on G. K. Chesterton and while doing that I happened to read that Chesterton’s friend Edmund Bentley invented the clerihew, which diverted my attention to Wikipedia’s article on the clerihew, and that article included links to articles about both Balliol rhymes (about which nothing more will be said here) and double dactyls, which are one of my favorite forms of light verse.
I especially liked this double dactyl by John Hollander:
Higgledy piggledy,
Benjamin Harrison,
Twenty-third president
Was, and, as such,
Served between Clevelands and
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn’t do much.
It made me think, naturally, of Newt Gingrich.
“Whoa!” I can hear you thinking, “Hold your horses just a minute! What does a clerihew about Benjamin Harrison have to do with Newt Gingrich?”
I’m glad you asked.
As we all know (or should), Benjamin Harrison, America’s 23rd president, was the grandson of America’s ninth president, the eminently forgettable William Henry Harrison, a Whig who was elected President in 1840 on the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” (Tippecanoe was Harrison, who originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, and the “Tyler too” part of the equation was his vice-presidential running mate, John Tyler). Upon the untimely death of William Henry Harrison from pneumonia in April 1841, one month after his inauguration (it is believed that he caught the pneumonia at his inauguration), Tyler became America’s tenth president.
Well, as luck would have it, there was a story in the news this week that two of John Tyler’s grandsons are still alive. Yes! A hundred and seventy years later! Tyler, our most prolific president, was born in 1790 and fathered fifteen children, eight with his first wife, who had died, and seven more with his second wife, Julia Gardiner, thirty years his junior, whom he married during his Presidency. Their youngest, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853 when former President Tyler was 63 years old. Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered six children of his own, two of them with his much younger second wife, Sue Ruffin, whom he married in 1923 when he was 70. Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. was born in 1925 and Harrison Ruffin Tyler in 1928. These are the two presidential grandsons who are still with us today, aged 87 and 83, respectively.
If you didn’t get all that, here is a summary in pictorial form:
So anyway, these two gentlemen were interviewed this week by members of our ever-vigilant press. And this news article reveals that one of them thinks Newt Gingrich is “a big jerk” -- not, as it turns out, because of his political views, but because, as this other news article states, “He needs to stick with the same wife.”
It’s a little late for that. Newt has been married three times. His first wife was Jackie, his second wife was Maryanne, and his current (and, it is hoped by all and sundry, not the least being the surviving grandson of President Tyler, his last) wife is Calista.
How to end this post and tie it all up in a neat package? Hmmm. How’s this?
If Calista goes the way of her predecessors (I trust and pray that she won’t, especially since Newt left the Southern Baptists and joined the Roman Catholics), I’m pretty sure Newt’s number four wife will not be Martha of Ireland.
But you know how one thing leads to another.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Speaking truth to power
We interrupt your Advent observance to bring you an important message.
Here is Nigel Farage speaking truth to power on November 16, 2011 (2:39).
Here he is again on November 26 (3:11).
Here he is back in February speaking in the European Parliament (1:24).
Nick Farage may not be a polite man, but he says things that need to be said.
Such frankness and forthrightness is heard here in the U.S. too, with one stark difference. The Democrats say terrible things about the Republicans, and the Republicans say terrible things about the Democrats. But they speak only to representatives of the media, and only on occasions when those with whom they differ are not present. Here in the former colonies, our politicians never seem to speak to one another, face to face, except perhaps once every four years after the new candidate of the David party and the new candidate of the Goliath party have been chosen. Then they participate in what we quaintly refer to as a quadrennial presidential debate.
On the floor of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, the unwritten rule all too often is one from our kindergarten days: “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” And so very little of substance gets accomplished. The members of the British House of Commons may start their harangues with the words, “The right honourable gentleman,” but they are not polite. Nigel Farage is lacking in certain social graces, but he speaks truth to power.
Good for them and good for him. If the emperor is not wearing any clothes, someone needs to inform the people who came to watch the parade. In the land of the blind, as you know, the one-eyed man is king.
There is hope here in the former colonies. The message that something is rotten in the state of Denmark (figuratively speaking) is slowly being heard. Even the most politically comatose among our citizenry are beginning to realize that something has gone awry. Even what one radio talk-show host calls “the mooching class,” by whom he means many of the people who were mesmerized by Barack Obama in 2008 and voted for Hope and Change, are beginning to realize that something is off-kilter. The fact that a Marxist is leading the pack does not resonate with them, however.
Here is, in my opinion, America’s equivalent of Nick Farage, only more polite, in a speech from 2009 (9:46).
And here he is again, speaking in 2010 (3:36).
If we pay more attention to him, maybe David will actually bring down Goliath in our 2012 elections.
Because Newt Gingrich is also speaking truth to power. In America, the power resides in the hands of the people who vote in elections.
(Photo by Matthew Gargano, 2011)
Here is Nigel Farage speaking truth to power on November 16, 2011 (2:39).
Here he is again on November 26 (3:11).
Here he is back in February speaking in the European Parliament (1:24).
Nick Farage may not be a polite man, but he says things that need to be said.
Such frankness and forthrightness is heard here in the U.S. too, with one stark difference. The Democrats say terrible things about the Republicans, and the Republicans say terrible things about the Democrats. But they speak only to representatives of the media, and only on occasions when those with whom they differ are not present. Here in the former colonies, our politicians never seem to speak to one another, face to face, except perhaps once every four years after the new candidate of the David party and the new candidate of the Goliath party have been chosen. Then they participate in what we quaintly refer to as a quadrennial presidential debate.
On the floor of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, the unwritten rule all too often is one from our kindergarten days: “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.” And so very little of substance gets accomplished. The members of the British House of Commons may start their harangues with the words, “The right honourable gentleman,” but they are not polite. Nigel Farage is lacking in certain social graces, but he speaks truth to power.
Good for them and good for him. If the emperor is not wearing any clothes, someone needs to inform the people who came to watch the parade. In the land of the blind, as you know, the one-eyed man is king.
There is hope here in the former colonies. The message that something is rotten in the state of Denmark (figuratively speaking) is slowly being heard. Even the most politically comatose among our citizenry are beginning to realize that something has gone awry. Even what one radio talk-show host calls “the mooching class,” by whom he means many of the people who were mesmerized by Barack Obama in 2008 and voted for Hope and Change, are beginning to realize that something is off-kilter. The fact that a Marxist is leading the pack does not resonate with them, however.
Here is, in my opinion, America’s equivalent of Nick Farage, only more polite, in a speech from 2009 (9:46).
And here he is again, speaking in 2010 (3:36).
If we pay more attention to him, maybe David will actually bring down Goliath in our 2012 elections.
Because Newt Gingrich is also speaking truth to power. In America, the power resides in the hands of the people who vote in elections.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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?
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?
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