Tag: Georgia

Georgia: Trailblazer or Perennially Lost?

Posted on by Scarlet Hawk

appalachian-trail-approachI have had the pleasure of travelling around the Southland a bit lately.  Although I reside in the city of Atlanta, my favorite spot to get away is ALWAYS in the mountains-Georgia or North Carolina; does NOT matter.  Wherever the pine trees are in abundance and the paved roads are not is where I wish to be.  Cooler temperatures and rolling landscapes abound and the elevation of certain points allows me to indulge and get lost metaphorically in my own thoughts.  However, I recently became actually lost-as in could not find my path back to the beginning of the trail.  It’s a very different feeling when one is truly lost- the disorientation, the heat of the midday sun beating down, and my body already tired from the hike I had originally set out on, never expecting to cover this many miles or take THAT much time.

 

Clearly I made it back, but as I was climbing over hills and dodging the brambles in my unorthodox path, I thought much of how this could have been prevented.  Where were the colored blazes marking the path?  Why have the trails not been tended so that the vegetation did not cover my previous steps?  I walked back over the same path many times in hopes of finding the switchback I missed, or the small bridge I had crossed.  The path was there, I had simply forgotten its image and location.  And in my foolhardy arrogance, I had not adequately prepared for if something went wrong.

 

Amateur.

 

One would never have believed I hiked 40 miles on the Appalachian Trail a few years ago and am a regular hiker who enjoys backcountry camping.  Bless MY heart.

 

In more than a decade of Georgia politics, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting at tables of power that others may not have with both the House and the Senate.  I have watched the paths of policy and party emerge from a grassroots level to the fall of some mighty grasstops under Lt. Governor Taylor and Speaker Richardson.  I have been impressed with the larger vision of the present Governor and the efforts of the sitting legislative members to initiate justice reform, a transportation plan and now educational reform.  I’ve watched the rabbit holes of RFRA and the Guns Everywhere bill send the legislature in strange meandering paths so that I’m left wondering where are our markers?  What will be the footprints we leave for others to follow?  More importantly, if Georgia wishes to move forward, what tools will we employ to blaze new paths? Continue reading “Georgia: Trailblazer or Perennially Lost?” →

Mom? Dad? Let Go of your Kid – You Are Doing More Harm Than Good.

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

Because I am an EduGeek through and through, I still read about my biz even when I should be with a buzz…or at least at the pool with my kids. But I read this article which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt  sheds more light on everything we educators already knew about education: Parents really need to back off their kids’ lives and let them do something crazy, like, oh, I don’t know, fail every now and again. This is not a new concept that I discovered just recently; in fact, I see more and more articles about the increase of suicide in our best and brightest kids because of the pressures put upon them by their parents.

As a parent, I totally get not wanting to see your child, the little person you literally grew from seed, be hurt in any way. I get it. I get why we want our children to be successful (I totally want my own old person Au Pair and live off of my stinking rich kid). But what I don’t get is why parents would be so selfish that they allow their children to be placed in a situation where not only will they fail, but they will also fail epically. The data is coming in that not only are we producing these “excellent sheep”,  but businesses are having to train these excellent sheep to actually think because, well, they can’t! We haven’t allowed them to make decisions, good or bad. Students are now entering college and taking classes like the “Success Academy” at Georgia State University because they have never had to take the initiative or to make a decision.

And parents aren’t the only ones who are to blame. Educators began the testing mills in the early 2000s, and now we are pushing this out to businesses. Students are great multiple choice test takers, but they are not good at making their own decisions.

Because we want our offspring and our students to be successful and live a life that is pain free, we over-parent and over-protect them into a corner, and these wonderful, creative, problem solving, vibrant little people grow into anxious, scared, depressed, and often suicidal young adults.

So, for the rest of the summer, I say let your kids fall and scrape their knees. Let them bow out of that mission trip to Zimbabwe. Let them ride bikes, eat Popsicle, walk to the neighborhood pool, and sleep in late. They’re kids, and they should be able to be kids with all the rights and privileges of kiddom. Don’t worry…you wont be like my mom or other moms of the 70s. But if you might lean that way, I don’t think I suffered too much from the lead poisoning by drinking out of the hose.

The Driving Force Behind Our Quality of Life

Posted on by Mere Jones

1428555803-brief3-traffic3This week my family found ourselves a single car family. I do recognize that there are many families who exist every day as single car families and the struggles we faced this week are just another part of their normal lives. However, that aside, we still felt quite clever for figuring out how to get everyone everywhere they needed to be this week. See, we hatched a plan for our family to get up Wednesday morning, pack everyone into the car to drive my husband to work, then drive our one working car back home to do all of the things. (And yes, it did take us two days to figure this out, and you can giggle at us since this work flow is probably the most common solution for single car families). There is, however, a small difficulty with this brilliantly simple plan. See, we live in Gwinnett County…my husband is currently working at a client site in Vinings.

There are now three types of people reading this post:

  1. People who don’t live or work in the metro-Atlanta area, and are unfamiliar with the way Atlanta interstates are laid out. They read that sentence and are thinking, “So what?”
  2. People who don’t live or work in the metro-Atlanta area, but they know how Atlanta interstates are laid out (or they looked at a map). They read that sentence and are thinking, “That seems like a pretty direct shot.”
  3. People who live and work in the metro-Atlanta area. They read that sentence and are thinking, “Doh, y’all are screwed!”

The day came for us to implement our brilliant plan, so we left the house early (to “beat” rush hour), because we know that we’ll be riding with the traffic going in. Thankfully, our traffic sensing GPS directs us to the “fastest” route. Now, looking at the map, you’d think that route would be down I-85 and across I-285, but those of us in the metro know that’s just not the case. The GPS predictably sent us on the route with 6 bonus miles! This took us down I-85, all the way in to the top of the connector, and back up I-75 to I-285. More importantly, we had to repeat the “bonus mileage” journey to return home “against” traffic.

Atlanta-mapFor those keeping score, this is what our morning looked like:

  • We left the house at 6:30am
  • Total trip mileage should have been a little over 70 miles
  • Average interstate speed limit is in the 60 mph range
  • We just made it back to my eldest child’s first event…and it started at 9:30.

That’s nearly three hours for a roughly 70 mile journey with half of it being a “reverse commute.” Keep in mind that this was just our experience with morning rush hour (fortunately, my husband had a coworker bring him home that evening). Having to execute the roundtrip commute only served to shine a light on the quality of life issue that we face every day in the metro Atlanta area. The reality of an hour and a half commute for a thirty mile trip means that parents miss t-ball games and swim meets. It means that families don’t get to sit down to a meal at a kitchen table as a unit, or if they do, their children have to wait until 7pm or 8pm to eat. It also means that we’re losing three hours of productivity a day, productivity that could make our businesses more successful or our lives fuller.

The only people I’ve ever found who can identify with this madness are those who have lived in Los Angeles, but here in Atlanta we seem to accept this as a frustrating way of life. I hear lots of clamoring for more lanes on the interstates, new roads to divert thru traffic away from Atlanta, and other such suggestions. Those things have to happen, but realistically, they are not enough. We have that bill from this session that starts to address maintenance, now can we please talk about congestion relief?

P.S. – If you want to be a part of that conversation, come on out to the Wild Wing Café in Suwanee tonight at 7pm…the Gwinnett Young Republicans will be “Drinking and (Talking About) Driving”

Nuance in the John Wayne Era of Politics

Posted on by Scarlet Hawk

John WayneSome months ago, I took great pride in being blocked on Facebook by a member of the Tea Party.  It was amusing to me as I had not only worked with this person before, but she also prides herself on being the voice of “grassroots” conservatism in Georgia (whatever that means), which tends to vocalize a lot of dissent.  For so many, they can dish it out yet cannot take it.  From my experience in politics in the peach state, people can call themselves anything nowadays and with a mic loud enough, others will believe them.  Uninformed assertions are more welcome than humble questions.  Yet for successful navigation of policy, business, and most human interactions a little nuance goes a long way.

“Nuance” is a word of French origin (but don’t hold that against it), coming from the infinitive of “nuer”, or “to shade”, referring to the slight shades of gray that are the embodiment of nuance- both literal and figuratively policy-wise.  So as we embark on the campaign cycle across Georgia, the black and white contrast between candidates will be hotly purported as a means of each candidate to differentiate him/herself from the other.  The otherwise gray-areas of difference between stances taken on transportation, RFRA, same-sex marriage, and the Opportunity School District will help sculpt the images of candidates in vibrant litmus-test tinged hues as office seekers assert they are the “true” conservative/progressive/believer/liberty lover/tax payer champion/ethics guru/patriot.

Take your pick.

This is somewhat amusing as we exist in an area of the country where the term “bless your heart” can mean so many different things.  There’s very few things more Southern than nuance.

Yankees don’t understand that the Southern way of talking is a language of nuance. What we can do in the South is we can take a word and change it just a little bit and make it mean something altogether different.~ Lewis Grizzard

Continue reading “Nuance in the John Wayne Era of Politics” →

Hey y’all!

Posted on by Scarlet Hawk

My name is Lora Scarlet Hawk, and while I reside in Atlanta, I am grateful to have been born in the Classic City and reared in Social Circle, GA.  More (read: boring) of my bio may be found here; follow me on twitter here.  I have assembled this group of writers to offer a different perspective on politics, business, and culture in the South.  I have written for other previous sites and publications, but wished to provide a platform for other writers whose voices may provide clarity on issues, diversity of opinion, and to dispel the notion of the meek and mild Southern woman.

Why? I love my state.

There is a strength that comes from this red clay that does not come from anywhere else.  The blue skies here are just a little clearer, the accents a little slower, and while it is not a place of quick change, everyone knows that even the kudzu will cover you if you’re standing still.  So I invite you to join us as each of the writers speak about the South we love, the places in which we reside, and all of  the challenges in between.

Some points of clarification about me are:

I am not a journalist. 

Politics is my profession (lobbyist, campaign consultant, and fundraiser), and my insights/opinions are based upon the relationships and experiences I have gathered in the last ten years of my work.

I am an Independent.

You are welcome to consider me what you will.  I question and work with candidates from both parties, a few nonprofits and small businesses, and I only work with the people and organizations in which I truly believe.

I am an all-inclusive and accepting kind of Baptist (join me in the pew at Northside Drive Baptist Church), a member of the Black Ring Mafia (ASC c/o ’04), the Cashmere Mafia, the Junior League of Atlanta, Inc., and when I’m not working, I’m volunteering. Everyone who knows me knows I’ve got a bias for girls trying to make in it business/politics for which I make no apologies.

What I hope this may become.

I hope this may become a place where these writers may be taken seriously…to inform, discuss, debate and analyze issues in a bi-partisan manner, with a diversity of writers that has not been seen in Georgia before now.  It is my hope that good policy may be considered, bad politics exposed, and all done with the air of respect that is deserved.  I hope you find the posts we offer worthy of your time and consideration.

“It was this feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted and safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave ladies