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This Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Street Scribe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 World View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Pub Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Comment: Spencer Frye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Hey, Bonita! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Comment: Doug Monroe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Threats & Promises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Art Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Adopt Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Sudoku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Curb Your Appetite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
NEWS: City Dope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Controversy Continues Over Police Tactics NEWS: Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Confederate Monuments Are a Lost Cause NEWS: Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Bar Owners Consider the Pros and Cons of Re-opening NEWS: Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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VOLUME 34 ISSUE NUMBER 23
comments section “This is total nonsense, ‘…by 8 p.m. only one group of approximately 150 to 200 participants remained. Officers noticed that most of the remaining group members did not appear to be from ACC and were primarily made up of many of the Boogaloo members.’ Eyewitnesses, including me, and video evidence clearly shows this is a ridiculous statement by Chief Spruill. It is a poor, dishonest attempt to justify excessive use of force against peaceful protesters. — Dylan Clark From “Two Differing Views of the Protest” at flagpole.com
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A Week of Chaos ATHENS ERUPTS AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE, AND MORE LOCAL NEWS By Blake Aued, Chris Dowd and Rebecca McCarthy news@flagpole.com
arms in the middle of the street in a defensive posture,” according to ACCPD. Then, police fired tear gas canisters—technically cayenne pepper spray—filling the air in downtown Athens with toxic fumes that were more successful at causing those left to flee. Police then arrested those who did not leave, booking 19 people into jail on disorderly conduct. Although police initially said that most of the remaining protesters were not from Athens, 13 of the 19 do live in Athens, with the others hailing from nearby towns and one from Alpharetta. Also arrested that night were a group who police said took advantage of the focus on downtown to attempt to steal guns from an Atlanta Highway sporting goods store. No other looting or property damage—other than the graffiti on the Confederate monument—was reported. The next day, ACCPD issued a press release saying that “many” of the roughly
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Athens-Clarke County police, in concert protect the protesters. Whatever their purwith the National Guard, fired tear gas canpose was in being downtown, they were not isters at a crowd of peaceful protesters who present when the state of emergency was had gathered at the Confederate monument declared hours later. downtown just after midnight on June Shortly before 9 p.m., Athens-Clarke 1. Police made 19 arrests for “disorderly County Assistant Manager Deborah Lonon conduct” with dozens of others fleeing the declared a state of emergency and a curfew scene. in the downtown area. Police used drones “I made the decision to utilize gas as a to inform protesters, but the curfew was final attempt to get the crowd to disburse not communicated to the general public [sic],“ ACCPD Chief Cleveland Spruill said in until nearly an hour later. Spruill asked for an email circulated by Commissioner Jerry the curfew because police thought a “shift NeSmith. This came after about 2,000 protesters filled the streets of downtown Athens earlier in the day, demanding justice for George Floyd, a black man suffocated by police in Minnesota. One of the organizers of the protest, called “March for a World Without Cops,” was Commissioner Mariah Parker. Parker used her megaphone to unveil a plan to cut the ACC police force in half over a number of years, replacing them with social workers. She explained to the crowd the need for more public pressure, particularly on Mayor Kelly Girtz, to enact this plan. Girtz was also in attendance and addressed the crowd briefly to cheers and applause. The event began at the courthouse and ended up at the Confederate monuCommissioner Mariah Parker (left) and Mayor Kelly Girtz at the May 31 World Without Cops protest. ment at the corner of Broad Street and College Avenue with protesters parading through the from peaceful protest to violent protest 200 protesters occupying the area around streets, blocking traffic. Black organizers was imminent,” according to an ACCPD the Confederate monument “appeared gave speeches from atop the monument as press release. It is not evident why police to belong to a violent extremist group.” the crowd continued to swell in size until may have thought this. From first-hand This statement conflicts with first-hand about 7:30 pm, when protesters began to accounts, protesters showed no signs of vio- accounts, including this reporter’s on-site leave after being frightened by a man who lent activity and no weapons were observed. investigation. appeared to have a gun, which later turned Police said they found bricks stacked in Girtz also released a video statement out to be a lighter. tents and observed people carrying heavy saying ACCPD had “very strong evidence” A small crowd of 100–200 people, backpacks that could also have been filled that they needed to clear downtown to mostly college and high-school students, with bricks. Three civilian medics told protect both individuals and businesses. stayed put for several more hours, with Flagpole that they were carrying water, food Neither Girtz nor ACCPD presented any some spray-painting the words “Black Lives and medical supplies in their backpacks, evidence to support their claims. Matter” and other messages on the monthat there were no bricks in tents, and Commissioner Tim Denson was an eyeument. The protesters remained entirely that police never came close enough before witness to the gassing, and he released a peaceful for the duration, causing no other deploying gas to observe whether tents con- statement confirming that police attacked property damage. tained bricks or not. When they finally did “unarmed, peaceful protesters.” Meanwhile, four white men armed with move in, witnesses said police were able to “It was absolutely unnecessary and unacsemi-automatic rifles did make an appearlift the tents with one hand. ceptable to move in on peaceful protesters ance at the Confederate monument. By The National Guard, called to active with violent, dangerous, unpredictable some accounts, these were members of the duty by Gov. Brian Kemp and waiting in weapons such as tear gas,” Denson said. far-right extremist Boogaloo movement, the Classic Center parking deck, assemAt least two protesters told Flagpole although a person claiming to be one of bled downtown in concert with ACCPD and Athens Politics Nerd they had been them said in an interview with the Athens and seemed poised to remove the remainshot with what they called rubber bullets, Banner-Herald that they had been invited to ing protesters as the state of emergency in addition to the tear gas. Spruill finally was declared. However, they waited until acknowledged the use of “bean bag rounds” around midnight, two hours later, before in a YouTube interview with Girtz on June Results for the June 9 election were taking action. 4. He said police used bean bag rounds— not available at press time. Check ACCPD and the National Guard then small fabric bags filled with 12-gauge flagpole.com for the winners. ordered the protesters to disperse. Most of shot—against protesters who were throwthose remaining refused to leave, “lock[ing] ing gas canisters back at police. However,
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that’s yet another police statement protesters dispute. [Chris Dowd]
AADM Protest Goes Smoothly Another protest Saturday, June 6— this one organized by the Athens AntiDiscrimination Movement and dubbed Justice for Black Lives—went off without a hitch despite an even heavier law enforcement presence that alarmed many attendees. Dozens of police officers blocked off entrances to downtown, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents sat in an unmarked SUV, and state troopers stood ready in the Lyndon House parking lot. The National Guard was stationed on campus. A mix of political speakers, poets and musicians took the stage for a well-spacedout crowd, including families with young children, stretching a block in all directions. Nearby, a few people sat outside the newly reopened bars on Clayton Street drinking beer. But the events of the previous weekend cast a pall. Whereas past AADM protests have been held on the steps of City Hall, barricades blocked off the local government headquarters. Metal trash cans had been removed, replaced by cardboard ones. Several businesses were boarded up or had empty storefront display cases—along with messages in support of Black Lives Matter taped to the windows. A helicopter hovered overhead. “Our country is at war with its own people,” said activist Imani ScottBlackwell. Although she had nothing to do with the May 31 protest—and actually tried to convince organizers to cancel it when she heard the National Guard would be there—she said she has been targeted online nonetheless. Activists have been disappearing, she said, and she urged others to take precautions like encrypting their communications. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re afraid for our lives,” said AADM co-founder Mokah Jasmine Johnson. I’m a target. I’m running for office. I know they’re going to dig up dirt and try to make it out like I’m the worst person in the world.” Johnson is running against Republican state Rep. Houston Gaines in November, and her husband Knowa ran against ACC Commissioner Mike Hamby in the June 9 election. Devin Pandy, a Democratic candidate in the 9th Congressional District, also made an appearance. Mokah Johnson urged the crowd to support black candidates. “Why isn’t Stacey Abrams governor?” she said. “We still have white men in charge. They won’t protect us. We have to protect each other.” Racism is a “public health crisis,” Pandy said, comparing it to cancer or COVID-19. “We have failed as a society to reckon with the white supremacist beliefs that have infected every aspect of our society,” he said. COVID-19 fears may have kept many people away, and along with the police response to the World Without Cops pro-
test, led to rumors that the Justice for Black Lives protest would be canceled. Organizers urged attendees to wear masks, which most did, and stations were set up with hand sanitizer, along with water and snacks. “I understand that people are nervous, but we must move forward with wisdom and without fear,” Johnson said. “Black people in this country are in danger every day. But we cannot let fear stop us from speaking out for our right to be safe in our communities.” The protests were sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, who died with a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill; Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by Louisville police officers serving a no-knock warrant for nonexistent drugs; and Ahmaud Arbery, who was hunted down and shot dead by three white men while jogging in Glynn County. This type of violence against African Americans, however, is nothing new, nor is Athens immune to it. In 1995, local rapper Ishmael Cuthbertson, known as Ishues, organized a march against police brutality after ACC police shot and killed Edward Wright, an unarmed black man, in the Nellie B area. “Twenty-five years later… I’m tired of marching,” Ishues said Saturday. Johnson closed out the protest by saying, “Do not let these people [the police] jump on us. We’re going to go home peacefully. And we’re going to come back and march again.” Afterward, a couple hundred stragglers gathered around the Confederate memorial. As afternoon turned to evening, an impromptu dance party broke out. The crowd dissolved on its own after midnight. [Blake Aued]
Girtz Calls For Removing Monument Mayor Kelly Girtz has called for the removal of the Confederate monument on Broad Street. At the commission’s June 2 meeting, he instructed Athens-Clarke County Attorney Judd Drake to find “the most effective plan” for its removal, which will be implemented sometime this year. If you’re wondering why this task was given to a lawyer and not a moving crew, the reason is SB 77, a law passed by the state legislature last year. The law was designed to strengthen a previous law discouraging progressive local governments in Georgia from doing exactly what Girtz is now planning to do, and it was supported by four-fifths of Athens’ own delegation (Rep. Spencer Frye, the lone Democrat, being the only no vote). The law states, “No publicly owned monument… shall be relocated, removed, concealed, obscured, or altered in any fashion,” and calls for a fine equal to triple the cost of repairing or replacing such monuments. However, it does have an exception for “preservation, protection, and interpretation of such monuments.” This is the loophole Girtz believes he can drive an obelisk through, and no one objected. “That monument has to come down, immediately,” Commissioner Russell Edwards said. Protesters spray-painted slogans like “Black Lives Matter” and “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bad) on the monument during the George Floyd protest the previous Sunday, which may be reason enough to support moving it for its own protection, in accordance with SB 77. It is also serving as a
focal point for daily protests, making the idea that it could be in imminent danger more plausible. The monument’s defacement followed the May 31 March for a World Without Cops. Protesters remained late into the evening. ACC Police ultimately dispersed them using tear gas and “bean bag” rounds, something commissioners Mariah Parker and Tim Denson sharply criticized. “There is never an excuse for us to tear gas our own people, sitting peacefully protesting,” Denson said. Denson also described the “terrible pain” that tear gas inflicts, saying he saw highschool and college-age students “throwing up in parking lots, crying.” “This was done by the hands of our own police,” he added. “I stand with the non-violent protesters who were tear-gassed,” said Parker, who helped organize the demonstration. “I am here for you in supporting whatever it takes for you all to heal from the harm that this local government did to you.” Parker then repeated the plan unveiled at the protest, calling for a 10-year transition plan to convert half of the county’s armed police officer positions to unarmed social workers, mental health professionals and counselors. Incidentally, Parker announced the next day that she had tested positive for coronavirus, though she was not suffering any symptoms, and urged others who’d come into contact with her to get tested as well. Also at this meeting, the mayor and commission extended the local state of emergency related to COVID-19 to Aug. 11. While it no longer has any effect on business operations or movement of individuals, since Gov. Brian Kemp’s orders supersede local ordinances, this order does allow the continued deferment of occupation tax and some regulatory fees. In addition, it allows for continued to-go sales of beer and wine at local restaurants. As the economy begins to reopen, the commission is urging everyone to wear a mask and maintain social distancing as much as possible. Wearing a mask is essential to stopping the spread of this deadly disease, especially when in closed off spaces around other people. The commission passed a resolution urging masks to be worn in enclosed areas and when outside in heavily traveled areas such as sidewalks, public parks, parking lots, when on public transit and in other areas as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The local government will purchase 42,000 surgical masks and 7,000 of the more effective but rarer N95 masks, along with other supplies to help slow the spread of coronavirus, using $145,000 in federal grant money approved by the commission at this meeting. These masks will be handed out for free to riders of Athens Transit and visitors to the courthouse, which has reopened. [CD]
personnel. Suspending students harms academic performance and achievement and doesn’t improve behavior, research has shown. The students who are struggling academically are those who are most likely to be suspended. That was the message consultant Richard Welch delivered at the Board of Education’s work session Thursday, June 4. Now a professor at New York University, Welch was with UGA’s College of Education when he started looking at public school discipline data in Clarke County. His latest analysis represents a deeper dive into five years of numbers, as well as interviews with “district and school leaders,” observations and school visits. Communities have become comfortable with school discipline mirroring the criminal justice system, he said, but both need reforming. Welsh said Clarke County is similar to other urban school districts in many ways—with a majority of female elementary school principals—but in one way it is markedly different: The majority of elementary school principals, 57%, are African American. Although Welsh won’t submit a final report until July, here are a few highlights: • Clarke County students lost 48,859 days of instruction to suspensions. • Of the students referred or disciplined, 81% were African American, 67% were male, 9% were homeless and 29% were students with disabilities. Of the entire student population, 50% are African American, 52% are male, 5% are homeless and 14% are students with disabilities. • Schools with male principals see more in-school and out-of-school suspensions than those with female principals. • Changing principals doesn’t help. Schools with new leaders, either principals or assistant principals, have more in-school and out-of-school suspensions. New assistant principals at elementary schools are more likely to use out-of-school suspensions for subjective offenses, since elementary schools don’t do in-school suspension. • Welch recommends changing policies to
prohibit suspending younger (kindergarten to 2nd grade) children unless there is a physical injury, and to prohibit all out-ofschool suspensions for subjective offenses for elementary, middle and high school students. • He wants to prohibit out-of-school suspension of high schoolers for attendance violations and dress code violations. • And he wants in-school suspension to be “more welcoming and therapeutic” with lots of academic support. A behavior interventionist should help monitor students attending in-school suspension. And Local School Governance Teams at schools where students are often suspended should allocate some of their funds to help reform school discipline. In other business, CCSD is surveying parents about returning to school in August, while administrators also plan for the possibility of continued distance learning in the fall. Academic Director Brannon Gaskins said a measure is under consideration to use “diagnostic assessments,” like those administered to the students twice a year, to design computerized “personalized learning” for each student. A teacher and a parent could monitor the student, he said. [Rebecca McCarthy]
RIP Jerry NeSmith ACC Commissioner Jerry NeSmith died Sunday, June 7 in an apparent accident. He was 71. “We are heartbroken to learn of Commissioner NeSmith’s tragic passing,” Girtz said in a statement. “Jerry was a fierce advocate for the businesses and residents of his district, the Westside of Athens, the Athens Farmers Market, Advantage Behavioral Health Systems, the Greenway, and the Atlanta Highway corridor. His passion and energy will be sorely missed in this community. Our condolences go out to his friends and family during this unbelievably difficult time.” ACCPD said they and the coroner are investigating NeSmith’s death, but it appears to have been accidental, from a fall he suffered at his home, according to Commissioner Melissa Link. [BA] f
CCSD’s Disproportionate Discipline It will take hard work on the part of teachers, staff and community members, but the Clarke County School District can overcome and change discipline practices that disproportionately affect students of color and special education students. They can do so by following the Marshall Plan for School Discipline, which comes with changes in policies, programs and
JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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feature Athens’ Confederate monument was at the center of the recent protest downtown.
ON CONFEDERATE MEMORIALS Yes, the Monuments Must Go
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By Andrew Cole editorial@flagpole.com
he Civil War monuments across the American South are dead monuments. They were once living things, thanks to all who celebrated them. It was impossible to live in the American South in the early 20th Century, let alone the late 19th, and not know about the Civil War monument near you. Chances are, if you’re white, you’ve partied right next to one, dressed in your Sunday best, on Confederate Memorial Day in April (which began in our home state of Georgia), singing, dancing, or—on solemn days—praying, gardening, or cleaning the monument. Everyone would be wearing white, including the former slaves and their children who are tending to your white family or working for the mayor on cleanup. Monuments were a thing, you see. And many towns in the South had them. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, would show up to their unveiling and dedication. And everyone would gather to pose for a photo-postcard after the festivities.
FROM MONUMENT TO ARTIFACT But this isn’t only about a hypothetical you at a memorial a long time ago. This is also about your relative who sure as day would proudly mail this photo-postcard to the serial newsletter The Confederate Veteran, which might as well be called The Confederate Monument. From its first issue in 1893, it published information about the construction of monuments across the South and sometimes in such places as Chicago. It enjoyed wide circulation, surprising even its founder, Sumner Archibald Cunningham, who in every issue asked readers like your relative to keep the cards and
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letters coming about events at monuments or new monuments going up. Print publications like this amplified and embroidered the culture of monument appreciation. This was a culture of celebrating and sanctifying Civil War monuments (plural) but—this is the key part—doing so at a remove, reading about other monuments across the South, donating to their construction, and enjoying the fandom and fanfare of it all. By these means, the ritual cultures around Civil War monuments grew from local events to a whole national and nationalist conversation about these structures. And retailers were at the ready to sell and ship monuments to anyone with the funds to purchase them. Yet, ironically, this is how Civil War monuments died. As soon as they became appreciable at a remove, as soon as they were codified as “art” in collectors’ books like Mrs. B. A. C. Emerson’s Historic Southern Monuments: Representative Memorials of the Heroic Dead of the Southern Confederacy (1910), where you could flip the pages from example to example, style to style, the ritual culture waned and in its place arose an abstraction: Civil War monumentality laying everlasting claim to other abstractions like Southern identity and Confederate causes to which adjectives like “lost” were always attached. As with the newsletter, the Confederate veteran became a monument in a different sense, an idea rather than a stone figure whose eyes filled with moss from eventual neglect.
THE HERITAGE OF VIOLENCE Along with Civil War monumentality, there emerged a culture of violence on a monumental scale happening with such regularity as to be a ritual itself. Take the monument in downtown Athens, Georgia, where I live. This obelisk
FLAGPOLE.COM | JUNE 10, 2020
was erected in 1872—just five years before what Rayford Logan famously called “the nadir” of American race relations. The year 1872 is when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Amnesty Act for Confederate secessionists, making their return to civic life in the Union possible. And it is the year that the torturing, burning and lynching of African Americans began to markedly increase in reaction to the ratification of the 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) Amendments. White terrorists lynched 4,084 African Americans between 1877–1950, often in front of thousands of people smiling (again) for the camera in hopes of making it onto a photo-postcard. Georgia was second only to Mississippi in the number of known lynchings in this period, 589 to 654 (lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/). In 1917, a newspaper in Alabama observes that people “meekly hold that it might be good for this whole section of the nation if Georgia would kindly mend its ways and quit spilling human blood on the picturesque theory that ‘it’s no harm to kill a n——.’” [The Literary Digest 54, no. 1 (January–June 1917), p. 178]. Closer to home: Oconee County, Georgia, had 11 documented lynchings. For Athens’ Clarke County, there’s one recorded lynching. Yet we recall that Oconee County is only six miles from City Hall in downtown Athens, and was carved out of Clarke County in 1875 to serve as a white haven. The Confederate monument in downtown Athens stood in the midst of this local violence. This is literally what it stood for.
MONUMENTS TO MONSTROSITY To get a feel for that bloody context, we have to perform an uncomfortable thought experiment, which our current circumstances unfortunately allow us to do. We have to
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THE VIOLENCE REMAINS But the violence remains, and the monument is slow to slough it from its surface. That much is clear in the way monuments today are sites of raw violence. We all saw the young men gather round the memorial to Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville in August 2017. They came to psych themselves up for a fight, so much so that one of their fascist ilk mowed down counter-protesters with his car, killing one and injuring 19 others. That much is clear to every African American visiting the old courthouse in Durham, NC, passing the Confederate monument on their way into the building and feeling a certain violence done to them in the very thought that justice inside won’t be blindfolded—this before protesters tore the monument down in response to Charlottesville.
Along with Civil War monumentality, there emerged a culture of violence on a monumental scale.
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Yes, the monuments must go, including the one standing on West Broad Street in the heart of downtown Athens. They must go because they’ve already been abandoned by their admirers, bereft of ritual apart from straggler celebrations of creative anachronists in the few states that still recognize Confederate Memorial Day. Whoever says the monuments should remain for whatever reason should celebrate them accordingly on all due occasions, year in and year out, and they should be seen doing so. Otherwise, such advocates argue against their own case and disrespect the monuments, which have now been abandoned to the task of “remembering” all by their lonesome selves, distorting history in mute stone. Above all, history tells that siting Confederate monuments is how we value them. People spoke out over a hundred years ago when sponsors were scouting for locations to install monuments, insisting that they be placed in very prominent places in town and objecting to potential locations like sleepy graveyards. Now people are vocal in saying that these monuments should be removed from our public spaces—because they are no longer at the center of our civic consciousness—and instead retired to cemeteries as artifacts of a dead culture. f
Andrew Cole teaches at Princeton University. Born in Alabama, he has lived in Athens, GA for two decades. A version of this essay first appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of October Magazine, © 2018 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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American Apocalypse THE SOUL OF OUR NATION IS INDEED AT STAKE By Ed Tant editorial@flagpole.com After Minneapolis police killed a black citizen named American style, and the unrest in this nation today is George Floyd on May 25, protests spread quickly to nearly Trump’s own “Reichstag fire” that he hopes to use to secure 150 cities and college towns from coast to coast. In New his reelection in November. York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and scores of On June 1, the treachery of Trump was clear for all to other cities, police were out in force with clubs, tear gas, see in Washington, D.C. when mounted police and tear gas flash grenades, rubber bullets and pepper spray as the acrid were used to rout peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park stench of riot gas mixed with the smell of smoke from a near the White House, so that the president could have a thousand fires in this nation’s cities under siege. quick “photo op” at the historic St. John’s “church of the Right here in Athens, police and National Guard troops presidents” in the park. Brandishing a Bible in a cynical and used tear gas to drive protesters away from the famous nearly blasphemous ploy to curry even more favor from the University Of Georgia Arch in downtown Athens after a peaceful march and rally on Sunday, May 31 had packed the College Square area with a large, spirited and multiracial crowd. In a state already on edge after the killing of a black man named Ahmaud Arbery by two white men in southeast Georgia in February, the raging conflicts as May turned into June just added to the fear and uncertainty spawned by the coronavirus pandemic. The horrific video of the Minneapolis cop with his knee to the neck of the dying Floyd went viral and quickly sparked comparisons with photos of the black NFL star Colin Kaepernick, who famously “took a knee” during pre-game performances of the national anthem to kneel in protest of police brutality against African American citizens. President Trump in 2017 called Kaepernick and other players who joined his protest “sons of bitches” and said that they should be hauled off the field and fired. It is not surprising that Trump and his henchmen seem more offended by a football star with his knee on the ground in peaceful protest than they are by a citizen’s video of a policeman with his knee on the neck of a black man who died pleading for mercy and calling for his mother. For some cops, black lives don’t matter. The policeman who killed Floyd on camera is now in jail facing murder charges, but the hallways of history are littered with the corpses of black men and women who have died at the hands of police. Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Janet Wilson, are only a few names on the macabre roster of black civilians killed by police in America in recent years. Right here in Protesters stood in solidarity last weekend: close, but masked. Athens in 1995, protesters black and white hit the streets of this city after police shot and killed a nude, unarmed African-American man named religious rightwingers in his political base just after he had Edward Wright. called himself “your president of law and order and an ally Other police officers did show respect and restraint of peaceful protesters,” Trump only defiled a house of worduring protests across America this month. In New York, ship by using it as a stage set for his reelection campaign. the police chief himself “took a knee” and clasped hands Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who oversees St. John’s with citizens on the streets of that city. Similar scenes took Church, was outraged at the president’s performance. “He place in cities large and small, as a few cops and police offiused our church as a backdrop and the Bible as a prop,” she cials walked and talked with their fellow Americans. Yes, fumed. “We follow someone who lived a life of sacrificial there was no “social distancing” during those encounters, love. The soul of our nation is at stake.” but there was some needed social awareness by the police The soul of our nation is indeed at stake when an and protesters who participated. Sadly, such encounters unhinged, uncaring and unqualified president pushes an were rare and President Trump only fanned the flames of authoritarian agenda under the guise of “making America divisiveness and discord when he threatened to use the U.S. great again.” Donald Trump, his political party of plutocmilitary against protesters and castigated governors for racy masquerading as populism, and his supporters would what he called weak responses to the unrest sweeping this do well to consider the poem, “Let America Be America nation. The same “Trumpublican” politicians and citizens Again,” written in 1935 by African-American poet Langston who claim to decry “big government overreach” seem to Hughes: “I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart./ have no problem with Donald J. Trump’s big government, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars./ I am the red man, Big Brother desires to turn America’s military against driven from the land./ I am the immigrant clutching the Americans while usurping the powers of state and local hope I seek,/ And finding only the same old stupid plan/ Of political leaders. Such an authoritarian scenario is fascism, dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.” f
JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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imagine that for every lynching, every police shooting, every strangulation by cop of a black person, every hate crime against a person of color, every bombing, every Charleston-like massacre, we gladly and ceremoniously add more Confederate symbols to our public squares (rather than remove some, as happened after Charleston). This background of violence as monument after monument goes up conveys, by analogy, the mindset of white Americans in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Certainly there were some whites who rejected these monuments on account of what was happening at the edge of town at the old oak tree while hounds barked into the night. But most whites embraced these monuments for exactly those reasons. There was no indifference to the matter, no escape from witnessing murder or hearing about it, because the world was too small. No monument in the South, nor any white family, is clean of this history, because absolutely everyone at the time knew what the monument was about. Civil War monuments never “document” any specific violent act against African Americans. What we find instead on monuments are crossed muskets beneath statues of heroic soldiers looking out at the horizon, or a placard recording a certain battle at a marsh—symbols and signs of violence, sure, but none expressing proudly the founding violence of chattel slavery by which absolutely everything was built. None own it. None can. The very materialization of a Civil War monument is one big indirection about the violence that exceeds it, which is why it’s so easy for white people today to deny the racism of such structures.
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Now or Never
THE INESCAPABLE ORIGINAL SIN OF SLAVERY
WE MUST FINALLY CONFRONT POVERTY AND RACISM IN ATHENS
By Gwynne Dyer editorial@flagpole.com
By Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com
It’s been a bad week in the United States: Six nights of protests, huge anger, rioting and looting in 50 cities, hundreds arrested or injured—but only six dead—over the police murder of George Floyd. The number may have gone up by the time you read this, but it’s definitely not 1968 again. In the last sustained series of riots about police violence against African Americans, it was very different: 34 dead in the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, 26 dead in Newark in 1967, 43 killed in the Detroit uprising later the same summer. And 46 dead after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, although police violence was not the immediate cause that time.
We are again in a period of nonstop national news and drama reverberating here in Athens. Another black person is murdered by police; massive demonstrations and protests erupt all over the country and here at home— many of them eliciting violent police pushback, also here at home. And over it all broods the Joker, doing everything he can to exacerbate the tensions between the races and between his core followers and the rest of the country, following the fascist playbook, as if Benito Mussolini were whispering instructions on how to construct a dictatorship. There is so much tumult, against the lethal background of a viral pandemic, that it’s easy to be overwhelmed and lose sight of what this is all about. It is about George Floyd and the four police officers who killed him there in Minneapolis on the sidewalk. But it is also about all the black men and women who are routinely killed by police, beaten by police, harassed by police, incarcerated by police all over this country. It is about the rights of black citizens, and it is about police who trample those rights. And it is, ultimately, about African Americans in this country and whether they will ever be able to live as full citizens of the United States with all their rights and privileges protected by the Constitution. The outlook isn’t brilliant. This latest killing of a black man by police has caused many in our country to confront the racism in our society and the racism in ourselves, while many others continue along with their racism reinforced by recent events. The massive, ongoing protest demonstrations are galvanizing our nation to demand meaningful action, particularly a shift in funding emphasis from police to social services, to attack poverty instead of people. Just how difficult it is to find a path forward comes into focus if you look at our own community. We still have one of the highest poverty rates in the country. We are subject to the state of Georgia, where the legislature recently cut taxes and where for years it has routinely refused billions of dollars in national aid to hospitals and health care, so that now, with the state’s economy devastated, we are facing massive spending cuts that will further reduce already scarce funds for education and healthcare, among many other state services. Our university contributes to the working poverty with its wage scales. The legislature forbids our city from paying a living wage, Our governor, our congressmen and our two U.S. Senators are totally owned by Donald Trump and will do anything to enable him and disable
witnessed in quite prosperous parts of American cities—the Upper West Side, say, or Berkeley—and that is a white couple crossing the street to avoid encountering young black men on the same side of the street. This is not to be compared with the entirely rational fear of police violence that young African-American men feel, but it is a significant fact: Many white Americans believe, consciously or subconsciously, that African-Americans are intrinsically dangerous. The only other place I have run into this phenomenon is Brazil. There is a saying in Brazil: “Branco correndo? Campeão. Preto correndo? Ladrão.” If it’s a white man running, he’s a champion; a black man running is a thief. It is no coincidence at all that Brazil is the only other white-majority country where African slavery was a major domestic institution. Slavery died out in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, although serfdom and other less oppressive institutions persisted. And the Islamic empires didn’t care what colour the slaves were: The Turks got as many white slaves from the annual raids into White neighbors attempt to prevent black tenants from moving Russia as black slaves from the into a new federal housing project in Detroit in 1942. trade routes across the Sahara and up the East African coast. Does the much lower death toll in 2020 This whole institution was essentially mean that things have got (slightly) better alien to the European explorers making in the intervening half-century? Or does their way down the west African coast 500 it just mean that wearing body cameras years ago, but the African kingdoms were is making the police more cautious about quite happy to sell slaves to them, too. using extreme violence? Either way, race The Europeans were equally willing to relations in the United States are still worse buy, because they had a use for slaves in the than almost anywhere else. new plantations they were creating in the American police are remarkably violent Americas. Justifying these transactions to compared to those in other countries, of themselves required a little psychological course. On average, U.S. police officers adjustment, however, because buying and kill about one thousand civilians a year, selling other human beings had not been whereas British police kill two. The US poppart of their culture for a thousand years. ulation is five times the British, but that They solved their dilemma by deciding still means that American police kill civilthat the African slaves they bought were ians at about one hundred times the British an inferior sort of human being, and that rate. rationalisation permeated the cultures of More to the point, in this context, is the the slave-owning societies in the Americas fact that about 30% of American civilians for the next four centuries. The last to give killed by the police are African Americans, slavery up were the United States, in 1865, although they are only 13% of the U.S. and Brazil, in 1888. population. But that rationalization is still hangThis disparity repeatedly leads to a ing around, together with the underlying debate in the U.S. media about whether knowledge that American whites had done the disparity is due to racism or just to a their black fellow-citizens a great harm, higher black crime rate, but it’s really quite and the widespread belief among whites unnecessary. All you need to know is that that you must fear those whom you have the proportion of those killed by the police wronged. who were unarmed is two-and-a-half times It’s a witch’s brew that blights the lives higher for blacks than for whites. of African-Americans, and it is taking a Which brings us to the nub of the matvery long time to evaporate. There is racism ter— fear: white fear born of ancestral elsewhere, too, but most of it is fear of the guilt, in turn a heritage from the centuries unfamiliar, directed at recent immigrants, of slavery. and you can expect it to go away in a generI live in a racially diverse part of inner ation or two. Alas, this is different. f London, and I’m familiar with similar disGwynne Dyer is an independent international jourtricts in Paris, Toronto, Rome and other nalist. His new book is Growing Pains: The Future Western big cities. There’s one phenomeof Democracy (and Work). non I’ve never seen there that I have often
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Georgia voters, especially black Georgia voters. Meanwhile, many black people, the majority already in poverty and falling behind in education and healthcare, have no choice but to continue working jobs, if they have them, that put them in greater danger from the Coronavirus. There is no outside help coming to Athens. What can we do on our own here? It is an elementary first step, but those of us who are not lost forever to racial hatred can be motivated by current events and our own moral compass to understand the plight of our black citizens, with whom we share this town. Theirs has never been an equal share. They started out as non-citizens and were treated as non-human beings. The end of the Civil War meant they were free to be citizens, to live fully as human beings, but white supremacists overruled their rights, and the laws of Georgia and our city forced WHITLEY CARPENTER
ARTHUR S. SIEGEL / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Race in America
African Americans to be second-class citizens, and social mores viewed them as second-class human beings, who attended second-class schools and drank out of second-class water fountains and were forced to take the back seat behind white people and denied hotel accommodations and home ownership and forced to live in danger of white violence. The Supreme Court struck down school segregation, and Congress passed laws mandating equal accommodations and voting rights protection and equal opportunity. Through better education came better jobs for some, but by and large, African Americans have lived as citizens of a thirdworld country within our own nation and within our own town. Knowing that many white people here will never accept it, we need to delicate ourselves more fully as a town finally to address the poverty caused by racism and start devising solutions that help us overcome the heavy burden of the past that weighs down upon a third of our citizens. As we seek to rebuild our Athens economy, we need a local New Deal or Model Cities Program that includes the people here whose participation has been thwarted. We must take our knee off their neck. f
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706-546-5526 - 675 College Ave. 706-543-1145 - 402 McKinley Dr. • Walk in or call to make an appointment • Monday, Wednesday & Thursday: 8:00 a.m. - Noon & 1:00-5:00 p.m. Tuesday: 8:00 a.m. - Noon & 1:00-7:00 p.m. Friday: 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Saturday (McKinley Dr. only): 8:00 a.m. - Noon
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JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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Pass the Hate-Crimes Bill
Some Bars Are Reopening
GEORGIA PROTECTS MONUMENTS, BUT NOT PEOPLE
A LOT DEPENDS ON SPACE, ESPECIALLY OUTSIDE
By Spencer Frye editorial@flagpole.com
By Chris Dowd editorial@flagpole.com
People matter more than cement. pull up and get out. They’re carrying long Ordinarily, I wouldn’t need to point that guns and pistols. They try to take you into out. But the fact is, during the last legislatheir control. They’re talking about some tive session, the Senate and the governor things, but what you’re focused on are the failed to enact a bill passed by the House to guns and the trucks and the men saying protect our citizens from hate crimes. you’re coming with them. I don’t believe I know, I know: I’ve heard it already— there’s a single person reading this who, ”Harm is harm, and what’s in a person’s under those circumstances, truly believes mind shouldn’t matter.” That’s what I heard it would be a good decision to surrender about hate crimes. Which is to say: People to whoever the hell these guys happen to being beaten or having acid thrown in their be. So, how can we say that these men are faces or being dragged behind trucks until allowed to kill Ahmaud Arbery because they dead—that kind of thing. I’m sorry to have became afraid when he resisted their armed to put it so bluntly, but that is the reality of assault? it, isn’t it? And let’s say it’s not you, but it’s someNow, I might have believed that this one you love, gunned down in broad daywas a sincere statement of principle. light. The perpetrators confess. Oh, and as Might have, had it happens, one of it not been for a them used to be an Apparently, crimes against vote that same investigator himsession, regarding self, so everybody cement do merit additional how people treat knows everybody punishment on the basis of motive. here. Confession bricks and cement. Apparently, crimes in hand, the police against cement do merit additional punlet the killers go home to have a beer on the ishment on the basis of motive, because porch. No one is charged, or even arrested. these same politicians happily enacted a law The truth is, if anyone in this state tripling penalties for defacing monuments can be killed with impunity for resisting over any other type of structure a graffiti armed assault and attempted kidnapping artist might choose to tag. I doubt I need by strangers—regardless of why they claim to remind anyone which particular monuto be doing it—then what is there to stop ments were being protested at that time. the rapist, the mugger, the serial killer? All this matters, because hate crime laws Who among us is not vulnerable, when local began at the federal level, to ensure that authorities can sweep something like this justice could be done under the rug and the if states were denying state is held powerless it—which it turned to intervene? out several of them The truth is, if we were. The success of fail to enact statethe federal statutes level protections for in bringing justice to Georgians against hate those denied it at the crimes, we are voting local level spurred to be OK with what the states to follow would have happened suit. Today, Georgia if that video had not remains one of only emerged. The House four hold-out states to has already demonrefuse to do anything strated that we are not about local bias where OK with that. And the it exists. Georgia Association The results can of Police Chiefs has be seen right now signaled that they are in Georgia, where a not, either, by endorsblack man is literally ing the anti hate crime hunted down and bill. shot to death in the I’m calling on the streets, and the guys Senate and the govSpencer Frye who did it ‘fess right ernor of Georgia to up and say they killed join the House and him because he resisted their attempts to the police chiefs of our state, as well as 46 take possession of his person, claiming they of our other American states, in providing thought he looked like someone suspected protection for all our citizens against being of committing “break-ins,” of which no attacked for who they are, against being records could later be found. They seemed denied justice when local authorities turn to have no fear of being detained for this. a blind eye. How can it be a bad thing to at And lo and behold, they were not even least provide that safety net of protection? arrested, until video of the event sparked Y’all did it for cement. Are you really national outrage two months later. going to look the world in the eye and Now, to anyone raising a finger to make refuse to do it for people? f excuses for this man’s confessed killers, Spencer Frye (D. Athens) serves in the Georgia hold on. Let’s put ourselves in Ahmaud General Assembly as the state representative for Arbery’s running shoes for a minute here. Georgia House district 118. Let’s say it’s you out running. Some men
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ov. Brian Kemp is now allowing bars to be able to bring all of our staff back and and nightclubs to reopen as part of the be able to pay our bills, and that is just next phase of Georgia’s economic recovery. not an option right now,” says owner Seth You’d think this would be welcome news Hendershot. for bar owners in Athens, but even with Over in Normaltown, Hi-Lo will conthe strict rules they have to follow before tinue selling take-out and has plans to reopening, some worry that it may be too reopen for dine-in in a couple of weeks, soon. while maintaining social distancing, but “We’re planning on holding out for as there’s a catch. You’ll have to make a reserlong as we can [before reopening],” says vation to get in. Norman Scholz, who owns the Globe. “We don’t want to get any customers sick, and we don’t want to get any of our staff sick.” Bars that choose to reopen must follow a set of 39 rules, including regular employee health screenings, limiting party size to six people, capping total seating capacity to only 35% of normal, making masks mandatory for staff and enforcing social distancing of six feet. These rules sound good on paper but may not always be practical for some bars. “It would be really difficult to control the flow of people… it becomes borderline impossible to maintain both the spirit and the letter of the regulations,” Scholz says. The physical space and layout of some bars makes reopening a major challenge, but for others it’s not as tough. For example, Little Kings opened last week, Hendershot’s is sticking to takeout for now. while the nearby Manhattan will remain closed, even though they both have the same owner. The large “We want our staff and patrons to feel outdoor patio space of Little Kings makes safe. We will be monitoring the number of it easy to comply with social distancing, people inside at all times,” says owner Terri according to its owner, Joey Tatum. Things Silva. As restrictive as this might sound, may look a little different—all the furniture it’s much better than the alternative, which on the inside is now gone— but those who would have eventually been permanent clowant to enjoy a drink can order one and sure. Serving only take-out is “definitely not then head outside to sit at tables spaced 12 sustainable,” according to Silva. feet apart. As one of the lucky establishments with “We have had enough business to help outdoor seating, Normal Bar will reopen start paying our bills again, which is aweon June 10, with bartenders taking orders some because things were starting to look at the back door. Owner Bain Mattox will real dire,” Tatum says. be posting a set of rules that all patrons are Little Kings is now open from 5–10 pm. expected to obey, and he’ll be around perOther bars around Athens are making sonally to ensure they are followed. tentative plans to reopen under similar What happens to people who break the conditions: either limiting service to outrules? side only or offering greatly reduced service “In that case, we will deny them service,” inside. For example, That Bar currently Mattox says. “My main goal here is to keep plans to reopen on June 11 at 35% capacity, people safe.” after remodeling and rebranding as “The As bars and restaurants grapple with Hideout.” some very difficult decisions that will cerOwner Evan Amedi says they had just tainly have an impact on the local economy two decisions: They could “remain closed and potentially also on health, customers and risk not opening up again, or open up can help ease this transition by continuand try our best to make do with what we ing to stay safe and by following CDC can.” Even with a partial reopening, the eco- guidelines. nomic reality of running an Athens bar in The local emergency resolution passed by summertime can be difficult. Amedi says his the mayor and commission is still in place. goal is to stay in business by breaking even. While the stay-at-home order has been Hendershot’s will continue to offer to-go lifted, the commission is asking everyone to food and beverages, but a more complete wear masks, keep socially distant and take reopening is not yet possible for them. care, as the economy reopens. “We really need to operate on all cylinders Here’s to your health! f
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At this point in the digital age, many Americans realize they’re being tracked in one way or another, whether by companies or governments, even if they don’t know just how detailed that tracking is. Seven years ago, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the United States
used to create highly targeted ads for “persuadable” voters to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The company focused specifically on flipping persuadable voters in certain precincts, which then helped flip a few key states in his favor, as detailed in the documentary The Great Hack. Now, as contact-tracing efforts are becoming widespread for novel coronavirus COVID-19, the world has gotten its latest reminder that many companies far less recognizable than Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Microsoft are purchasing and using your location data all the time. While much of the world sheltered in place for weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the deadly virus, people quickly turned their attention to places that weren’t taking aggressive measures. Florida, for instance, was playing host to spring break partiers, and dozens who traveled to the beaches there later tested positive for COVID-19. The extent of how those travelers could have spread the virus was shown in late March, when location data and mapping
doesn’t just spy on the rest of the world, but also tracks its own citizens through the National Security Agency, which maps cellphone locations, reads people’s emails and monitors internet activities. Then, about two years ago, former employees of tech company Cambridge Analytica revealed to lawmakers in the U.S. how they used Facebook surveys to secure thousands of data points about every American voter. Even voters who hadn’t signed up for the personality tests were captured in the scraped data, which was
companies Tectonix GEO and X-Mode Social created a visualization showing how thousands of phone users who spent time on a single Florida beach traveled across much of the U.S. over the next two weeks. Public reaction was mixed. Some found the map to be a helpful tool to show how easy it is for the virus to spread, underlining the importance of social-distancing measures. But others questioned how the companies obtained the data and called it terrifying. The companies had gotten consent, they
Is Privacy Dead? Part 1 PRIVACY IS DISAPPEARING FAST, AND THE CORONAVIRUS ISN’T HELPING By Samantha Wohlfeil
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privacy at Stanford University’s Center on Internet and Society. “Companies are banking on the fact that if they keep pushing us towards that world, we’ll just say, ‘Yeah, it is really convenient.’”
We’re Being Tracked
JEFF DREW
ure, you lock your home, and you probably don’t share your deepest secrets with random strangers. And if someone knocked on your door and asked to know when you last got your period, you’d tell them to get lost. Yet, as a smartphone user, you’re likely sharing highly personal information with total strangers every minute — strangers whose main focus is to convert every element of your personality into money. Click here. Vote for this candidate. Open this app again. Watch this ad. Buy this product. We’ve been giving out our private information in order to use convenient, fun and largely free apps, and we’re only now understanding the true costs. Would you mind if an app that you specifically told not to use your location tracked your real-time movements anyway by pinging off nearby Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals? What if the mobile therapy app you use to get counseling told Facebook whenever you’re in a session and, without using your name, told an advertising firm the last time you felt suicidal? Or, what if there was a global pandemic, and a company you’d never heard of revealed a map of cellphone locations showing that you hadn’t been doing your part to stay away from others and slow the spread of the deadly virus? Could that become enforceable? Could you be fined? Publicly shamed? While most Americans say they’re concerned about how companies and the government use their data, Pew Research shows they also largely feel they have little to no control over the data that companies and the government collect about them. Tech companies often defend data collection, noting they remove users’ names to “depersonalize” the information. But privacy experts say that’s pretty much bullshit: Location data without a name can easily be pinned to an individual when you see that pin travel between a workplace and a home address. And even if your internet activity is shared under a unique number instead of your name, the goal is to intimately understand exactly who you are, what you like and what you’ll pay for. The good news is, privacy advocates say that we can avoid a dystopian future where nothing is private. But to get there will take understanding the many ways that data and technology are already used to violate privacy and civil rights, and willpower among lawmakers to pass strong legislation that ensures actual consent to how our information is used, and penalties for those who abuse our trust. People also need to decide if the risks outweigh the perks. “People don’t like it—they don’t like being known unless they’ve asked to be known,” says Jennifer King, director of
replied, noting that they comply with strict data protection policies in California and Europe. But many people don’t realize that when they allow an app to use their location for the service they provide, companies can also sell that location information to third parties who use it in “anonymized” applications like the kind that enabled the mapping. “We definitely understand the concern, but we take every effort to ensure privacy in the data we use,” Tectonix GEO responded to one Twitter user. “All device data is anonymized and we only work with partners who share our commitment to privacy and security above all! It’s about using data to progress, not to invade!” But users pointed out that if you can see all the stops a phone makes over the course of two weeks, it’s not truly anonymous.
Coming to a Phone Near You In an effort to help public health officials start to reopen the economy, Google and Apple have both announced plans to create opt-in contact-tracing tools for Android and iPhone. The tracing tools would use your phone’s Bluetooth signal to ping off the devices of the people you’re around at coffee shops, grocery stores and other public spaces. Strangers’ phones would store a number that your phone sends via Bluetooth, and your phone would store the number from their phone. The numbers, which could be generated and changed by phones regularly, would not be shared with the tech companies, but stored in individuals’ phones for a few weeks. Then, if someone tests positive for COVID-19, they could send an alert from their phone that would ping phones that gathered their signal over the past two weeks to let people know they may have come in contact with someone who tested positive. Without that type of tool and more extensive testing, experts warn that the only other way to prevent deaths from spiking again until there is a vaccine is to extend the stayhome orders that plunged more than 22 million Americans into unemployment in March and April. While the tool could allow more people to return to their routines, the American Civil Liberties Union warns that cell phone location data isn’t perfect, and if it were used to enforce quarantines for those who’ve come into contact with the virus, phones would essentially be turned into ankle monitors. “The challenges posed by COVID19 are extraordinary, and we should consider with an open mind any and all measures that might help contain the virus consistent with our fundamental principles,” states an ACLU response to the proposals. “At the same time, location data contains an enormously invasive and personal set of information about each of us, with the potential to reveal such things as people’s social, sexual, religious, and political associations. The potential for invasions of privacy, abuse, and stigmatization is enormous.” f This is the first of a three-part series.
JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
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advice
hey, bonita…
Am I a Jerk for Jerking Off? ADVICE FOR ATHENS’ LOOSE AND LOVELORN By Bonita Applebum advice@flagpole.com
Your Athens Summer Is Here... ave S & p s Sho Father’ On Day!
o D OT It? H How Want YOU
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Dear Bonita, friend’s private time, and in the end, this I’ve been in isolation with my partner for fact was counted among the many reasons over a month now. I didn’t have to isolate with she got dumped. Her already-unstable menher, but we decided to, since we are pretty serital health unraveled after that, and I often ous about each other now and wanna move in think of how awesome a friend and girltogether once my lease is up. But she gets really friend she’d be if she could just love herself upset about me watching flicks [adult movies] enough to trust that others love her, too. and wacking it. I work from home, but she That’s really what it is. To some degree, doesn’t, so it wasn’t an issue for a long time, your girlfriend thinks that your choosing but now the cat is out of the bag, and she feels to masturbate is a judgment on either super betrayed. It wasn’t a her fitness as a partner big deal in the past because her desirability and Taffy-pulling is not or I kept those particular habsex appeal. And it’s not. cheating. Stirring Onanism is a thing that its to myself, but she busted me in the act and really people do at a the soup does not betray healthy freaked out. She’s talking responsible rate and in your relationship. to me like it’s cheating! She responsible ways, and I never had a problem with it only make that distincor least never said so before. It never came up tion because I did actually date a chronic when we didn’t live together. Everything else masturbator in the past. Seriously, I’d be is great. I like her place and her neighborhood, dozing off during a movie, and I’d wake up and I love her, of course, but now I feel guilty because the couch was rocking, if you get about doing something I’ve always done, and my drift. I’d ask him if the extended cut of no girl ever had a problem with it before. I The Two Towers was really that sexy, and don’t feel like I’m cheating on her, but she says he’d just respond that he was bored. No big that if I ever want sex, I’m supposed to do that deal for me; our sex life was fine, and when with her and no one else, not even myself. I feel we broke up, it had nothing to do with his like she’s crossing the line, particular addiction. This guy rubbed one but I’m not sure how. out at least five times a day That just feels by his own admislike too much, sion, but and I never that’s thought
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that my “private time” habits would end up ruining a relationship. I don’t want it to ruin this, but her reaction truly baffled me, and I am not comfortable with treating my girlfriend like a sex object when all I might want is something quick at 10 a.m. when she isn’t there. Am I really cheating on my girlfriend when I masturbate? I really don’t think so, but she does, and the whole jealousy thing is giving us both a lot of trouble. Thanks for reading! Hey there, I’ve never been jealous of a partner’s private time, but I know plenty of people, male and female, who freak the hell out at the notion alone. I had a friend on the East Coast who was very threatened by her boy-
not you. Healthy masturbation practices are the sign of a person who is secure in their body and with their sexuality. Taffy pulling is not cheating. Stirring the soup does not betray your relationship. I would only be concerned if your chicken-choking was deadening your sex drive to the point that you don’t want to bang your girlfriend. If that’s the case, then I’d recommend lightening up, but if not, then the issue is with your girlfriend and her insecurity, either in your relationship or in herself. Since you two are getting serious, I’d recommend doing a few sessions with a couples counselor and facing this issue head-on. I have confidence that this can be resolved, and that you two can keep on keepin’ on. f
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Swedish Death Cleaning GET YOUR HOME IN ORDER BEFORE COVID-19 GETS YOU By Doug Monroe editorial@flagpole.com I’m practicing the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning in my west Athens duplex apartment because I’m old and might die during the COVID-19 plague. I would be terribly ashamed for my grown kids to deal with my clutter after I inevitably cough myself to death because I went to Publix that one time. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, the timely book by Margareta Magnuson, is about getting your affairs and homes in order before you croak. To start, I took a bunch of crap to the Athens-Clarke County dump on Lexington Road last week. And, be warned: You have to make an appointment. The landfill requires you to stop and pay by check ($10 for me), no cash or credit cards, before you proceed to the hulking building where you fling your crap on the floor. Before I even got there, I was stunned to see a sign with an arrow pointing to “Area 51” only 0.9 mile away. I gasped.
mommy!” I’m on his side. Let kids play, for God’s sake. I took a picture of the restaurant and my outdoor lunch—cheeseburger, half salad, best fries EVAH—and sent them to Caroline to taunt her. She doesn’t think I’m the least bit funny. I had enough food left over for dinner; always a plus for the elderly. During lunch I gasped again. I was running late for an appointment with my wonderful house cleaners, Peachy Green Clean, whom I discovered in a Flagpole ad three years ago. I only recently learned that the founder of Peachy Green is Athens-Clarke County District 1 Commissioner Patrick Davenport. He showed up by himself last week, masked and gloved, and left my place spotless. On the way out the door, he stopped to admire a framed copy of Caroline’s country CD Ghost Town, which she recorded in 2006 as Caroline Monroe. “I remember her!” he said. I was ecstatic. Caroline played on the main stage at
DOUG MONROE
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Are aliens sequestered at the ACC landfill?
Area 51 is the highly secretive base in Nevada said by conspiracy loons to house a UFO that crashed at Roswell, N.M., plus the remains of dead alien pilots. It’s where the U.S. develops its sneakiest spy craft. Was there some secret outpost here in Athens? I dumped my stuff and shouted to an inmate cutting weeds, asking if I could see the UFOs. “Naw,” he said. “It’s just somebody being funny.” I said, “Good! Funny is good!” I realized that such a sign could only be erected in a quirky place like Athens. I posted the picture on Twitter and said, “I love this town. Reason #Infinity.” I left Athens in 1971 after graduating from UGA and working for the university. I moved back in 2015 after a couple of near-death experiences. As I left the dump, I remembered that Flagpole’s vital Grub Notes blog post “Where to Eat While Sheltering in Place” reported that Little City Diner in Winterville is open for safe pickup and patio dining. I took a right and floored it. I used to meet my daughter, Caroline Boyd, for lunch there when she worked at Merial. She now works elsewhere on a big COVID19 project while nursing a 4-month-old girl and trying to homeschool a kindergarten boy who has gone rogue. When homeschooling started, he ran to his room shouting, “You’re not a teacher! I want a new
Athfest in 2007, as well as a lot of clubs, and landed her “Trailer Park Hall of Fame” on the Best of Athens CD. I co-wrote the song with producer Fester Hagood and Caroline. After the commissioner left, I started cleaning out the 12,000 emails in my Gmail inbox and stumbled upon a picture of myself with the great Athens-based musician Randall Bramblett, who played on Caroline’s CD at Blue Moon Studio in Watkinsville. The picture was taken before I was a human ruin. I also interviewed Randall for a story I wrote about Nuçi’s Space for Creative Loafing in Atlanta. He is one of the world’s nice guys, as well as a musical superstar. I was so proud that I posted the picture on my Twitter page. I followed Randall, and he followed me. I realized he might be offended by some of my horribly profane leftist opinions on Twitter, so I deleted some of the worst, which would also offend my family’s Trumpkins if they tweeted. They only do Facebook. I hope I run into Randall again someday, once I can walk around without a mask and gloves. I might. It’s still a small town. I’m still alive. I love it. f Doug Monroe started a 50-year-writing career at the Red and Black. He still tries to write when he’s not complaining about his health.
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threats & promises
Waiting on Reparations PLUS, MORE MUSIC NEWS AND GOSSIP By Gordon Lamb threatsandpromises@flagpole.com HOT MIC: Although it wasn’t slated to launch
at adversaryelectronics.bigcartel.com and Rachel’s cards at motionsicknessoftime travel.bandcamp.com.
IDLE HANDS ARE THE DEVIL’S PLAYTHINGS: Rachel and Grant Evans are best known for their music and label work (Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Quiet Evenings, Adversary Electronics, et al), but each are gifted artists in other media, too. And each has brand new projects out. First, Grant Evans has released his first novel, Convalescence, which I’ve not yet had the opportunity to engage. Former Athenian and author Sarah Colombo says, “This is not a traditional novel with a clear plot” and notes
JOURNEYS TO GLORY: Longtime Athens musician and artist Jay Nackashi (Empire State) has a new collection of tunes out under his Brave New Citizen moniker. The collection, For Demonstration Purposes, runs nine tracks long, and its scope showcases Nackashi’s talent quite handily. This synthheavy record surfs the crest between being blithely fashion-forward and tunefully abrasive. Overall, there’s a conscious darkness here reminiscent of the very first Spandau Ballet album, the earliest releases from OMD and Human League and, really, a huge swath of the whole 1978-1982 Euro-Wave scene before it became uber-commercial. He played and recorded the whole thing too, but Andy LeMaster (Now, It’s Overhead) remixed and mastered it. There’s only one slight fumble of a track here (“Concentrate”) which just feels too crowded, and the drums a tad off and too buried to boot. But next to the highlights like “Go Round Again,” “The Place We Used To Know” and “Let It Go,” who even cares? Enjoy this collection over at jaynackashi.bandcamp.com.
ALEXA RIVERA
changed, and maybe it has. It’s odd how a yet, the new iHeartRadio-platformed folk song of such recent vintage, written podcast by Linqua Franca (aka Mariah during and about an event of nearly unprecParker) and Dope Knife (Kendrick Mack) edented measure, can so suddenly become a is now a living thing. It’s titled Waiting On portrait of memory—a time that now holds Reparations and was always meant to be a a womb-like appeal in consideration of the broadly topical show discussing both current and long-term issues for both black and other underrepresented and/or struggling communities. More specifically, it includes the role of hip hop in shaping the political future, what hip hop can tell us about political currents, and the history that public policy has had in shaping hip hop culture. The events of last week sent up a flare, though, and the show was birthed sooner than expected. Both hosts wrote and recorded the podcast’s unplanned debut episode in a matter of hours. It’s titled “Emergency” and, honestly, that’s just about the only fully appropriate title imaginable. Philosophically and functionally, the rapid push-out of this show reminds me very much of past movements which—using the available technology of the day—would spend all night with Kedrick Mack and Mariah Parker, hosts of Waiting On Reparations. a mimeograph machine, offset printer, or photocopier in order to stark alternative. This is available at driveby distribute breaking news messages as far truckers.bandcamp.com. and wide, and as quickly, as possible. Think of this as the digital age equivalent. Waiting RE-LIVIN’ THE DREAM: And, speaking of whom, On Reparations is available on every major all three nights (Feb. 13–15, 2020) of DBT’s streaming platform, so go take a listen. HeAthens Homecoming shows—as the MIGHT AS WELL: Drive-By Truckers capannual hometown shows are called—are tured the light despair of urgent isolation now available at the same Bandcamp perfectly on its new track “Quarantine address above. You can purchase them indiTogether,” which the guys recorded sepavidually or as one gigantic whopping colrately in their homes. Since its release back lection. And it should be mentioned that if on May 1, it feels like the entire world has you are actually quarantining together with
someone and try to play them 82 live tracks in a row, then they’re either really special, or you are.
that the book, “gives the gift of the re-read, the knowledge that more will come each time, as you splice together the film of a life lived and a life lost.” So, sold! Next up, Rachel Evans just published her own set of tarot cards, Oddments Tarot, whereby she hand-collaged each one and included a bibliography of sources in the guidebook. The first set of these is already sold out, and Grant’s novel is limited in an undisclosed edition, so if you’re up for either you may want to jump on it now. Find Grant’s book
TALK OF THE TOWN: News about this has been passed around social media for a couple of weeks now, but I needed time to listen and absorb it for myself before I mentioned it. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based writer Kara Zuaro launched her podcast In Weird Cities on May 14, and the theme of the program is exploring different music towns and interviewing key participants. Although Athens is only one of the towns slated for this series, multiple interviews are scheduled to appear—including Linqua Franqua, Squalle, Bit Brigade, Double Ferrari, Cinemechanica, Andrew Reiger and more. The inaugural episode features R.E.M.’s Bill Berry, who is gracious as always. Engineer Joel Hatstat has been key to the production of this series, too. I’m generally trepidatious with podcasts because so many of them do nothing but amplify the host instead of the subject, but In Weird Cities seems to be doing a good job of letting the subject speak so far. You can find this on all major streaming platforms. f
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2020 OCAF MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION (OCAF, Watkinsville) Now accepting submissions through June 15. Current gallery memberships are required, and all members are guaranteed that at least one work will be included. Exhibition will be displayed virtually. Technical/ photography assistance available. director@ocaf.com, www.ocaf.com ARTIST-IN-ATHICA RESIDENCIES (Athens Institute for Contemporary Art: ATHICA) Residencies take place throughout the year, provide administrative support, exhibition and performance facilities, and a small stipend. Artists may work in any or multiple disciplies and traditions, including but not limited to visual, curatorial, musical, performing, written, experimental, cinematic, digital and theatrical arts. Residents can work independently or collaborate with others. Visit website for quarterly deadlines. www.athica.org/ call-for-entries
AMERICAN RED CROSS INSTRUCTOR TRAINING (Athens CPR, 1940 W. Broad St.) This course trains instructor candidates to teach basic-level American Red Cross First Aid, CPR and AED courses, and includes online content, a precourse skills session and classroom segments. June 12–13, 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m. $350. www.athenscpr.com ART CLASSES (KA Artist Shop) Virtual classes are now held through Zoom. “Calligraphy Club” is held every first Thursday, 5:30–7 p.m. FREE! “Modern Calligraphy with Pointed Dip Pen” is offered June 13 at 1 p.m. $25. “Brush Lettering” is offered June 20 at 1 p.m. $25. www. kaartist.com DEDICATED MINDFULNESS PRACTITIONERS (Online) Weekly Zoom meditations are offered every Saturday at 8 a.m. Email for details. jaseyjones@gmail.com DRAWING WITH HEATHER JOSHI (OCAF, Watkinsville) Classes cover outlining, contouring, hatching, crosshatching and scumbling techniques. Classes include video demos, slide shows and examples using Google Classroom. June 8–30, July 6–31 or Aug. 3–31. $120–150. www.ocaf.com
Auditions THE ODD COUPLE (Elberton Arts Center, 17 W. Church St., Elberton) The Elbert Theatre Foundation hosts auditions for The Odd Couple on July 20–12, 6–8 p.m. Looking to cast a mid-sized group of adult men and women ages 25–50. Be prepared to read excerpts from the script. Performances held Oct. 2–4 and Oct. 9–11. 706-283-1049
Kidstuff ART CLASSES (KA Artist Shop) “Art Club Junior” is for ages 8–12 and held on Fridays at 4:30 p.m. “Art
art around town AMICI (233 E. Clayton St.) Jennifer Wallens Terry is a medium, pet psychic and spiritual coach. Her abstract paintings focus on texture and color, while others feature celestial and symbolic imagery. Through June. CITY OF WATKINSVILLE (Downtown Watkinsville) “Public Art Watkinsville: A Pop-Up Sculpture Exhibit” consists of sculptures placed in prominent locations around downtown. Artists include Benjamin Lock, William Massey, Stan Mullins, Robert Clements, Harold Rittenberry and Joni YounkinsHerzog. • “Artscape Oconee: The Monuments of Artland” features a total of 20 paintings on panels installed around town. Artists include Claire Clements, Peter Loose, Andy Cherewick, Lisa Freeman, Manda McKay and others. GEORGIA MUSEUM OF ART (90 Carlton St.) “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection” features over 60 objects spanning over 30 years of the famous stained glass artist’s career. • “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” is an annual exit show for the graduating master of fine arts students at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. • “Rediscovering the Art of Victoria Hutson Huntley” contains approximately 30 lithographs and two paintings. Through June 21. • “Drama and Devotion in Baroque Rome” celebrates Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s influence. Through Aug. 23. • “Altered Landscapes: Photography in the Anthropocene” includes images that demonstrate humanity’s impact on the natural world. Through Sept. 27. • “Recognizing Artist Soldiers in the Permanent Collection” includes artists who served in conflicts from the Revolutionary War through World War II, as well as those who served in the 1950s. • “Kota Ezawa: The Crime of Art” includes light-boxes and video animations that chronicle some of the most infamous museum heists in history. Through Sept. 6. • “Neo-Abstraction: Celebrating a Gift of Contemporary Art from John and Sara Shlesinger.” Through Sept. 13. Though the museum is temporarily closed, many of the exhibitions, as well as the permanent collection, are currently available to view online at georgiamuseum.org. In celebration of International Museums Day, over 160 high-resolution works from the museum are available through Google Arts and Culture at artsandculture.google.com/partner/georgia-museum-of-art.
Club for Teens is for ages 12–18 and held Fridays at 6:30 p.m. Check website for details and to register. Classes are held over Zoom. $15. www.kaartist.com VIRTUAL SUMMER CAMPS (Treehouse Kid and Craft) Each camper will receive a bundle of supplies to keep, organized projects, play dough, home rules, art bingo and more. Themes include creative beasts, under the sea, food trucks, insects, matchbox mice miniatures, slime and more. www. treehousekidandcraft.com
Support Groups AL-ANON 12 STEP (Multiple Locations) Recovery for people affected by someone else’s drinking. Visit the website for a calendar of electronic meetings held throughout the week. www.ga-al-anon.org ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (Athens, GA) If you think you have a problem with alcohol, call the AA hotline or visit the website for a schedule of meetings in Barrow, Clarke, Jackson and Oconee Counties. 706-389-4164, www. athensaa.org CRISIS TEXT LINE (Athens, GA) Anyone experiencing an emotional crisis can text GA to 741741 to speak with a trained crisis counselor. Children and teens welcome. This service is free, confidential and available 24/7. www.crisistextline. org/textline RECOVERY DHARMA (Recovery Dharma) This peer-led support
In “Mors Scena,” photographer Rachel Cox documents viewing rooms and visitation spaces of funeral homes. See the full collection as an online exhibition presented by the Dodd Galleries at art.uga.edu/galleries. group offers a Buddhist-inspired path to recovery from any addiction. Meetings are currently held through Zoom at zoom.us/j/2465753412. Thursdays, 7–8 p.m. FREE! Find “Recovery Dharma Athens GA” on Facebook SEX ADDICTS ANONYMOUS (Athens, GA) (Email for Location) Athens Downtown SAA offers a message of hope to anyone who suffers from a compulsive sexual behavior. www.athensdowntownsaa.com
On The Street ACC LEISURE SERVICES FACILITIES AND PARKS (Multiple Locations) Most parks and facilities including the Lyndon House Arts Center, Sandy Creek Nature Center, community centers and athletic parks are now open under regular hours with restricted
GLASSCUBE@INDIGO (500 College Ave.) “Supple Moments, Dark Corners” is a site-specific installation by Eli Saragoussi that is accompanied by a soundscape by Max Boyd called “Jungle Drone.” Saragoussi recently incorporated additional set pieces built for Ad•Verse festival. LAMAR DODD SCHOOL OF ART (270 River Rd.) “Amiko Li: The Purpose of Disease” presents the Dodd MFA Fellow in photography’s explorations into acupuncture, palm reading, psychogenics, herbal supplements, antibiotics and the regeneration of limbs. • “KITCHEN” is a new animation by New York-based artist and former Athenian Michael Siporin Levine, inspired by his quarantine experience. • In “Mors Scena,” photographer Rachel Cox documents the viewing rooms and visitation spaces of funeral homes, drawing attention to how we mourn and memorialize the dead in America. Exhibitions are available online at art.uga.edu. LYNDON HOUSE ARTS CENTER (293 Hoyt St.) The “45th Juried Exhibition” presents 199 works by 144 local artists. Through July. • Collections From Our Community presents “Hue and Carole Henry’s Banana Peels,” a photo series documenting a morning ritual in which Hue eats a banana and arranges the peel in a glass for Carole, who uses it as still-life material. • The Lyndon House is currently open to the public, with precautions in place. Daily installments of artwork and activities are also available on Instagram and Facebook, using the hashtags #45JuriedShowOnline and #ArtsCenterOnline. OCONEE CULTURAL ARTS FOUNDATION (34 School St., Watkinsville) Juried by Chris Clamp, the 25th annual “SouthWorks” exhibition features a juried show of works in all media submitted from across the country. The 2020 Director’s Choice exhibit presents “Inside and Outside,” a solo show by Tom Stanley of Rock Hill, SC. Both shows are available online at ocaf. com. UGA OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY (1180 E. Broad St.) “The Earth Day (Art) Challenge” is a virtual exhibition of works commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Visit sustainability.uga.edu/earthday-art-challenge-exhibit. UGA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARIES (300 S. Hull St.) Online exhibitions include “Steele Vintage Broadcast Microphone Collection,” “Foxfire on Display at UGA: 50 Years of Cultural Journalism Documenting Folk Life in the North Georgia Mountains, September–December 2016,” “Covered With Glory: Football at UGA, 1892–1917” and “Fighting Spirit: Wally Butts and UGA Football, 1939–1950.” Visit digilab.libs.uga.edu/scl/exhibits.
use and limited public access. Check online for specificiations. www.accgov.com/leisure ACRONYM (Athens, GA) ACRONYM is a new website compiling COVID19 aid for Athens-based live music venues and artists. Check the website for updated listings on funding and financial opportunities, mental health guides, organizational support, community resources and more. Visit acroynym.rocks ATHENS FARMERS MARKET (Bishop Park) The market is open with safety precautions in place. Wear a mask, pre-order when possible, keep your family home and use cashless payments. Saturdays, 8 a.m.–12 p.m. www.athensfarmers market.net CINÉ FILMS (Ciné) Ciné has partnered with film distributors to make films available online. Ciné receives half of ticket sales. Current and upcoming films include Crescendo, Life Itself, Military Wives, Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy, The Painter and the Thief, Lucky Grandma and Up From the Streets. www.athens cine.com COMMUNITY COVID STORIES (ACC Library) The Athens Regional Library System is collecting COVID19 experiences from the community. Submissions can be written journals, photos, videos, oral histories and saved social media posts. Stories will be permanently archived through The Heritage Room. Fill out the submission form at heritageroom ref@athenslibrary.org FREE ONLINE STREAMING OF ATHENS RISING Stream local filmmaker James Preston’s local culture documentaries, Athens Rising 1: The Sicyon Project and Athens Rising 2: Transmittance. Donations will be distributed to the Garrie Vereen Memorial Emergency Relief Fund, Athens Virtual Tip Jar, Classic City Love, Athens Works Initiative and the Athens Community Foundation Community Response Fund. www.athensrising.com SELF-GUIDED TOURS OF ATHENS (Athens, GA) The Athens Welcome Center is offering self-guided tour brochures of their popular walking or driving tours. Read about some of the most iconic Athens landmarks and locations. Options include an African-Amercian Driving Tour, Downtown Athens Tour, Athens Music History Tour and more. There are also narrated Athens Podtours with recordings of local stories and
music. www.athenswelcomecenter. com/tours SUMMER READING PROGRAM (Athens Regional Library System) All ages can participate in this year’s summer program, which has the theme “Imagine Your Story.” Patrons can check out digital eBooks, audiobooks and magazines online, or place holds for curbside pickup weekdays 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Prizes will be given to readers. www.athens library.org THE FINCH (Online) “The Finch” is a new podcast aimed to dissect complext issues with a multidisciplinary approach. Hear interviews with professionals from the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases, Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Human Research Protection Program and more. sptfy. com/thefinchpodcast THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY: COVID-19 IN ATHENS, GA (Athens, GA) Historic Athens presents an 11-week, 55-episode interview series designed to document the effect of coronavirus on Athens. The free interactive series is available every weeekday at 1 p.m. through June 26. www.facebook. com/historicathens VIRTUAL LEISURE SERVICES (Online) ACC Leisure Services hosts various fitness classes, craft ideas, social distancing challenges, coding games for kids, daily crossword puzzles and other online activities. www. accgov.com/leisure
Virtual Events GARDEN PORTAL PRESENTS (Online) Michael Potter hosts virtual performances every Thursday at 7 p.m. bit.ly/2WHkRwF LIVE FROM OVER THERE (The Lewis Room at Tweed Recording) Watch live broadcasts from musicians’ homes. Find Tweed Recording on Facebook for updates to the schedule. www.twitch.tv/tweed recording THE CRY BABY LOUNGE PRESENTS (Online) Eli Saragoussi hosts bimonthly shows using YouTube Premeire. See Richard Loewen (ND), Annie Leeth (Athens) and Britt Moseley (NY) on June 12 at 7:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Trans Women of Color Collective. Find The Cry Baby Lounge on Facebook. elinor.saragoussi@gmail. com, bit.ly/TheCryBabyLounge f
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Indicates images available at classifieds.flagpole.com CONDOS FOR RENT 3BR/3BA; 2BR available. 1-year lease starting July. Monthly rents are $515 (downstairs) and $525 (upstairs.) Electric, water, and inter net included. Located in the Woodlands on the eastside. Please contact Garrett at 770845-2768 or email at gwpaul88@gmail.com
HOUSES FOR RENT Newly renovated 2BR/1BA in Historic Normaltown. $1400/month. Available mid-July or August. Please visit www.133LenoirAvenue.com for more details.
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Seeking excellent typists (65+ WPM) to start immediately. Flexible schedules with 16 hours/per week minimum. Office policies include mandatory cleanings, socially distant workstations and no unauthorized visitors. Pay starts at $9.75 with $1/hour or higher raises after training. No previous transcription experience required. Apply at www.ctscribes.com.
Lost and found pets can be advertised in Flagpole classifieds for free. Call 706-549-0301 or email class@flagpole.com to return them home.
Worked with Copytalk before? Immediate openings available, paying $2.50–$5.00/hr. more than when you last worked. Re-join as an employee and help us type through this crisis! E-mail ath recruiting@copytalk.com.
ORGANIZATIONS All pagans, witches, heathens, etc. of all paths: Join us for meetings, gatherings, festivals, yoga and more. We are a 501(c)(3) organization. athensarea pagans.org
Find full-time or part-time employees by advertising in the Flagpole Classifieds. Call 706-549-0301 today!
Want to reach Flagpole readers to let them know about your organization? Place an ad! 706-549-0301
f donate
REAL ESTATE
For Sale: Johnny Cash and June Carter autographs from 1983, authentic in plastic sleeve. PSA/DNA certified. $25,000. Please contact Steven Anglin at 706-325-2422.
MESSAGES Never miss the local news you love! Get Flagpole delivered straight to your mailbox. New rates: $45 for 6 months or $80 for 1 year. Call 706-549-0301.
flagpole is fighting to continue bringing you the most up-to-date news, but the financial ripple effect of this pandemic is unprecedented and we can’t continue without your support.
https://flagpole.com/donations/
ADOPT ME! ACC Animal Control 125 Buddy Christian Way, Athens 706-613-3540 Call for appointments. Available animals can be seen online at Athenspets.net Athens Area Humane Society 1781 Mars Hill Rd., Watkinsville 706-769-9155 Due to reduced business hours, call if you are interested in adopting. Available animals can be seen online at AthensHumaneSociety.com
DON A FOS TE! TER ! ADO THA PT! NKS !
SUDOKU
Edited by Margie E. Burke
Difficulty: Medium
2 9
8 6 7
6 8 3
5 3
4 7 7 2 1 5 9 9 6 1 1 2 8 7
2 3
Copyright 2020 by The Puzzle Syndicate
HOW TO SOLVE:
Each row must contain the numbers 1 to 9; each column must contain the numbers 1 to 9; and each set of by 3 boxes must contain Week of36/8/20 - 6/14/20 the numbers 1 to 9.
The Weekly Crossword 1
2
3
4
5
14
15
17
18
20
6
7
by Margie E. Burke 9
10
11
12
30
31
13
16 19
21
22
23
24
25
Solution to Sudoku: 26 27 28
7 32 1 37 4 41 5 8 9 52 6 59 2 3 62
2 9 5 1 45 6 3 53 7 8 4
6 8 3 4 2 7 154 9 5
8
CHILDREN’S MEDICAL SERVICES
9 538 8 2 3 648 4 7 1
433 1 5 3 6 339 4 2 7 2 9 6 42 9 7 6 8 1 4 7 5 5 849 2 501 8 5 3 9 3 6 1 4 2 963 8 7
65
29
8 7 1 3 46 9 4 2 60 5 6
34
35
44
43 47 51 55
56
57
58
61 64
66
ACROSS 1 Garden party? 5 Unfair treatment, with "the" 10 Lily plant 14 Soft drink choice 15 Cold-weather drink 16 Contend with 17 Skipper's spot 18 2006 animated film with a bear named Boog 20 Recluse 22 Like a job with no future 23 Wander (about) 24 Dissect, in a way 25 Kind of heel 29 Thompson of "Sense and Sensibility" 32 Historic time 33 Perth natives, e.g. 37 Ladder step 39 Conductor's wand 40 Mythological ship 41 Gas pedal 44 Suffix for "ideal" 45 Bingo's cousin 46 Produce 48 Use a divining rod
36 40
67
Copyright 2020 by The Puzzle Syndicate
51 Apprehend 52 Like some vegetables 55 Quiet place 59 Grimm specialty 61 A Muppet 62 Mattress option 63 Despicable sort 64 Unappetizing food 65 Gin flavor 66 Intoxicating 67 Get rid of DOWN 1 Stomach woe 2 Take-charge type 3 Loyalty 4 Bear or hare, e.g. 5 Sean Connery, for one 6 Be optimistic 7 Big club 8 "Mister Roberts" star 9 Shocking weapon 10 The scholarly world 11 Jack's love in "Titanic" 12 Aware of 13 Patch up
19 Painter's prop 21 Noodle concoction? 24 Thick stew 25 "Will be", in a Doris Day song 26 Highway hauler 27 IV part 28 Peter, e.g. 30 "Coyote Ugly" actress 31 Uneasy state 34 Learning style 35 Auth. unknown 36 Vague amount 38 French policeman 42 Off one's rocker 43 Monthly expense, for some 47 Least cooked 49 Broom Hilda, e.g. 50 Close call 52 Wipes out, mobstyle 53 Staircase part 54 Copter's forerunner 55 Swamp thing 56 Catch a glimpse 57 Tori who sang "A Sorta Fairytale" 58 Motown Four 60 Grazing locale
Puzzle answers are available at www.flagpole.com/puzzles
HELPING FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN FROM BIRTH TO AGE 21 LIVING IN ATHENS & SURROUNDING COUNTIES WITH: prescriptions, medical supplies, doctor visits, hearing aids, wheelchairs and orthotics.
645 Meigs Street
706.389.6923 JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
17
CURB YOUR APPETITE
Here are restaurants that are open and waiting for your order!
TO-GO FOOD ONLY VIA A WALK UP PICK UP SYSTEM PLEASE CALL IN ORDER TO AVOID CONTACT Mon-S a t 1 1 a m- 8 p m • su n 12 p m - 8 p m
70 6-850 -2037
curbside • pickup • delivery* (*via bulldAWg delivery - 706-850-7999)
Sun – Thurs 10:30 A.M. – 9:00 P.M. Fri & Sat 10:30 A.M. – 10:00 P.M. 706-227-9979 lumpkin st.
706-355-7087 cedar shoals dr.
DINE IN OPTION AVAILABLE At all three locations - downtown -
401 e. broad st • 706-354-6966
EAT HEALTHY
PATIO OPEN!
- eastside -
1965 barnett shoals • 706-369-0085
- timothy road -
2080 timothy rd • 706-552-1237
delivery through bulldawg foods & cosmic delivery
ORDER ONLINE @
BARBERITOS.COM
– depalmasitaliancafe.com –
OR ON THE BARBERITOS APP
TO-GO WALK-UP WINDOW Friday – Sunday 8am-2pm
COFFEE DRINKS, BAGS OF COFFEE, SANDWICHES, SNOBALLS, TO-GO BEER/WINE AND BLOODY MARY MIXES
585 BARBER STREET
18
FLAGPOLE.COM | JUNE 10, 2020
SUN–THURS NOON–5PM FRI & SAT NOON–6PM PRE-ORDER ONLINE:
Mon – Fri
7:30 am– 3:00pm
Saturday 8am-1pm Curb-side brunch pick-up!
Coffee, Cold Brew, Brownies, Truffles, Milkshakes, and Gelato
Online ordering, family meals, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses by the pound, curbside pick up.
CURBSIDE PICK-UP AVAILABLE condorchocolates.com
975 Hawthorne Ave • 706-206-9322 emskitchenathawthorne.com
Call ahead for pick-up
Delivery through Cosmic Delivery
PATIO OPEN (weather permitting) LIMITED INDOOR SEATING AVAILABLE
3:30pm-9pm M–F • 2PM–9PM SAT & SUN
706-548-3359
- CARRYOUT - DELIVERY (BULLDAWG FOODS) - CURBSIDE PICKUP (BY REQUEST) 706-543-6592 • 11 A.M.– 8 P.M. EVERY DAY WHOLE CAKES AND BULK ITEMS WITH 48 HOURS NOTICE
- BEER AND WINE TO GO -
BREAKFAST! BREAKFAST! BREAKFAST! BISCUITS! QUICHE! BURRITOS! GRANOLA!
COLD BREW, NITRO AND HOT COFFEE!
8–11AM
ORDER ONLINE AT HILOATHENS.COM (OR CALL 706-850-8561)
WAYS TO GET YOUR JUICE: Come in the store to grab a juice Call in and we’ll deliver it curbside Call or email to set up a delivery Tues and Fri Delivery Daily via Uber Eats & Cosmic Delivery M-F 7am-7pm I Sat 9am-5pm I Sun 12pm-5pm
1428 Prince Ave AMY@JOURNEYJUICE.COM
706.850.0707 JOURNEYJUICE.COM
MON-SAT 8AM–9PM
COUNTER SERVICE • ONLINE ORDER CURBSIDE BY REQUEST
DELIVERY VIA BULLDAWG OR EZ CATER FIVE POINTS • 706-613-2600
LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED Drive-Through Open Monday–Saturday 6 a.m.–2 p.m.
Menu at www.teambandb.com
745 Danielsville Road (off North Ave.)
OPEN DAILY 11 A.M. – 8 P.M. INSTORE SHOPPING OR CURBSIDE PICKUP Email halfshep@gmail.com for order guide Now offering fresh produce, more prepared foods, milk, eggs, and new grocery items!
Tues–Sat 12pm–6pm
706-850-2955 • 1238 Prince Ave
ONLINE ORDERS ONLY
SUN 10AM–9PM
PIZZA SANDWICHES
CALL US FOR TAKE-OUT!
DELIVERY THROUGH BULLDAWG FOOD
ORDERS READY AT OUR FRONT DOOR
SUN-THURS 11AM-8PM FRI & SAT 11AM-9PM BEER • WINE • DESSERTS
MAEPOLE.COM
254 W. Washington St. 706.543.1523
Wednesday-Sunday
OPEN TUESDAY-FRIDAY 4:30- 7:30PM Order online at
tedsmostbest.com
HEND Y Z RAVENTORY BLOWOUYT ’
I
N
S!
C
hendershot’s
Hot coffee, Cold Brew, Beers for Chad, Seltzer for Becky, Growlers for Beer and Nitro, Liquor to help you sleep, Bulk coffee to help you wake up, Bottles of Red and White, T-shirts, Trucker Caps, Hand Sanitizer to help you stay safe, our prices to reflect the times… INSANE!
hendershotsathens.com
237 prince ave. • 706.353.3050
ORDER ONLINE•LIMITED MENU
PATIO DINING WITH COUNTER SERVICE AT THE FALLS CURBSIDE PICK UP @ OAK STREET (7AM-2:30PM) THE FALLS (9AM-6PM)
mamasboyathens.com
VIVAARGENTINE.COM
CALL IN ORDERS WELCOME AFTER 4:30PM
Delivery through Bulldawg Food 247 PRINCE AVENUE
706-850-8284
JUNE 10, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
19
Solar Brewed Beer Solar panels help oset Terrapin’s energy consumption. To learn more about our Terraprint initiatives, visit: terraprint.beer