Fresh Loaf

This is a tip and challenge to every local Republican and/or self-described conservative with a platform from which to pontificate.

For months many of you have said you oppose the Obama/Democrat expansion of government power in part because you think growing government diminishes personal freedom.

If you want me to believe your interest in personal freedom is sincere, you’ll loudly declare your alliance with Henry Louis Gates, as well as declaring your outrage at his arrest.

You’ll also shun the Drudge-y temptation to turn the cop who arrested Gates into another fake conservative folk hero a la  Joe The Plumber.

If you think it’s okay for a cop to arrest someone for being angry or irritable (justifiably, or otherwise), you are not a conservative, you have no interest in curbing government power, and you don’t give a damn about personal freedom.

If principle doesn’t compel you, do it for your own self-interest. If you want black, brown and beige voters to ever consider voting for you, shun the white, bullying government employee and embrace the innocent black victim. Just once.

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U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland referred last week to Barack and Michelle Obama as “uppity” — a word used in the past by Southern racists to criticize blacks who rose above their station. It wasn’t the first time the Republican congressman from just south of Atlanta put his foot in his mouth, particularly on a racially charged issue.

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3673, the Second Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to Meet Immediate Needs Arising From the Consequences of Hurricane Katrina.”
— Westmoreland’s 2005 statement on the House floor against a Katrina relief bill

“Well, there’s one other do-nothing-er. I don’t know who that is, but they’re a Democrat. So there’s one Democratic do nothing-er, and one Republican.”
— Westmoreland, asked in 2006 by Comedy’s Central’s Stephen Colbert if he was a “do-nothinger” for failing to sponsor any legislation (more…)

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Southern English is chock-full-o-enjoyable euphemisms designed to protect delicate ears from abrasive truths.

Package store = liquor store
Nice to see you = I wanted to say nice to meet you, but we may have already met
That’s interesting = I hate it
Bless his heart = What a loser

With the help of a Castleberry Hill resident, the AJC invented a great new Southernism last weekend:

But down the block, Erica Pines sits in her condo and stews. She frets that her neighborhood, known for its hip lofts and trendy art galleries, is turning into Party Central.

“We’re becoming the new Buckhead,” she said. “It’s awful. It’s just awful.”

Pines, 36, president of the Castleberry Hill Neighborhood Association, runs through a litany of problems: Noise blares at all hours of the night; cruisers have taken over the streets; crime is up; discarded fliers and other debris litter the sidewalks.

The new Buckhead = Well to do, predominantly white neighborhood whose residents are upset because young black people hang out there at night.

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Don’t just watch the news for the sound bites from Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race. Take five minutes to read it. It’s direct, honest and unbelievably powerful.

The only other time I’ve felt so moved by the text of a political campaign speech was when I read this.

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ESPN’s Town Hall meeting on Michael Vick last Tuesday featured an audience that was so pro-Vick, it booed and hissed a representative of the Humane Society. It was riveting television, with panelists divided on how, and whether, race has played a role in Vick’s dogfighting conviction.

“I talked to Michael. I said, ‘Michael, I’m going on this show. What do you want the people to know?’ The first thing he said was, ‘T, if I’m guilty of anything, it’s being loyal to friends and family. I have never picked up a gun and killed anyone or anything in my life. I love animals.’”

— Terance Mathis, former Falcons wide receiver

“When you have an organization like PETA, and you’re like Michael Vick and so visible … you become the big face of what dogfighting is. From that standpoint, he gave them the ammo to load that gun.”

— Chuck Smith, former Falcons defensive end

“I guarantee you … if it was a white player, we would not be having the same discussion that we are now.”

— Selena Roberts of the New York Times

“There was the aftermath of that town-hall meeting, for instance, when a middle-aged man approached me with a pained look. He said he was upset that I kept ‘attacking’ Vick … [and that] ‘People just don’t want to give Michael Vick credit for doing so much for Atlanta.’ For instance? ‘He’s the reason we’ve been on “Monday Night Football,”” said the man, with others in the vicinity nodding after his every word. ‘We never would have been on Thanksgiving Day without Michael Vick. He’s just done so much, and y’all just won’t give the young man credit for that. Y’all just want to keep tearing him down, because he’s Michael Vick.’”

— AJC columnist Terence Moore on his experience as a panelist

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