Bad Georgia

(To your left you will find Johnny Isakson, quintessential Georgia Republican Senator. I went to school with his son, Kevin. That's not Kevin he's holding. I'm assuming it's Kevin's spawn.)

Georgia can be good or bad, and I will be posting on Good Georgia and Bad Georgia quite a bit. Okay, to be honest, when it comes to politics, it's not great - it's not as bad as most of you out there may think, but I'm not here to blow smoke up anyone's ass. There is great diversity, a ton of cool people, wonderful restaurants (except Italian), and a decent amount to see and do (and I can actually afford to see and do here, unlike NYC, and cool concerts aren't instantly sold out, horrific mob scenes where you wait an hour in line to get your coat back, getting rapidly sober and almost guaranteeing a subway ride marked by an almost uncontrollable urge to pee b/c the asshole bouncers won't let you use the bathroom after you finally get your coat, plus your scarf is no longer stuffed in the sleeve or anywhere to be found, for that matter). BUT it is predominantly super religious, super conservative, and bleeding heavy flow period red.

I'm sure many people are familiar with the “Fugees” soccer team debacle and heard the abhorrently redneck, racist, chump stain mayor of Clarkston making an ass of himself and all of Georgia on NPR (if not, got to NPR.com and search for Clarkston). But here are a few fun facts you may not know, coming straight at you from the "Empire State of the South":

1. We have the strictest anti-immigration laws in the whole country.

2. We are about to start forcing women seeking abortions to have a mandatory sonograms. Don't worry, the law, as drafted, stipulates that "no patient would be forced to the view images of her unborn child." That makes me feel SO much better. And it's not like women have to pay for the sonogram: "The expectant mother would be given a list of health care providers, facilities and clinics offering ultrasounds free of charge." The proposed list of such venues consists primarily of the so-called "pregnancy crisis centers" run by Christian groups, which are proven to spread misinformation and myths about abortion (e.g. causes breast cancer and suicide) and browbeat women into opting out of abortion.

3. The state has now proposed a law to increase the chances of a convicted prisoner receiving the death penalty. Under the proposed law, a jury would only need 11 out of 12 jurors to vote for death, as opposed to the full 12. The idea is to "prevent one juror from negating the wishes of a majority." Isn't that kind of the whole point of a jury???

I could go on and will be back with more (some positive, I promise). Let me leave you with this.

4. A co-worker - who is senior to me - today told me that crime in Atlanta is up so much in recent years (it isn't; it's always been a cauldron of crime, and the statistics are pretty steady) because of a) Katrina refugees and b) immigrants (which we all know means "Mexicans", which we in turn all know means Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorians, and pretty much anywhere else south of us that produces people of a brown skin tone). Of course it is not news that people think this way (see #1), but I am still un-cynical enough to be scandalized that people think they can say shit like that to me.

But hey, we are talking about the same co-worker who asked me if I was Christian.**

**this person has an HR role, making these transgressions of the basic tenets of HR 101 all the more egregious.