RICHARDSON: Bits and pieces
There are a few short thoughts I’ve had on my mind that I’d like to share.
Last week, almost as soon as I took my stubby fingers off my keyboard proclaiming that Macon-Bibb County had suffered 17 murders this year, we quickly went to 20. When I started writing that column, we were at 16.
I don’t know the answer. The sheriff’s office doesn’t know the answer. It’s a crime all the deputies in the world can’t predict. I do, however, have a few ideas.
First, many of the victims have some type of relationship with their murderers. That relationship might be casual or very personal. People have to stop hanging out with people known to be stupid. For some, that may cut down on their choices of entertainment. Some nightclubs are known to have a violent reputation and are frequented by people who have a knack for doing stupid things. Stay away.
What is amazing nowadays is folks will pop a cap in you, knowing they’re going to jail and will end up on the front page of this newspaper when they go to trial. How do they know? They shoot people with witnesses, some of them deputies, all around.
Second, if you’re a woman and you’re with a man who abuses you, leave. Right now. Sure, you can always say that you shot him in self defense, but why put yourself through that agony when you knew he wasn’t right in the head? You aren’t going to change him, and if he loved you he wouldn’t hit you. Something else is going on and you don’t have time to figure it out. I repeat, leave, now.
Women can be abusers, too. Same thing applies. Don’t be a manly man. Leave, right now, before you do something stupid. Take some clothes, put them in your car and go to mama’s house. Don’t let things get out of hand. It’s harder for a man to prove abuse than it is for a woman. It just is.
Bob Norcott took me to task about the column I wrote a few weeks ago about Donald Trump and his supporters. Bob said, I had written a “whineatorial” and had used the same “worn out cliches of so many other myopic media types.” He didn’t give me credit for using those cliches first. I felt vindicated when columnists George Will, Charles Krauthammer and others followed with much the same message.
Norcott asked, “Can we look forward to his (meaning mine) quality of laser-like focus on Hillary Clinton in the near future?” This told me one thing. He obviously didn’t take the time to read the entire column he found so offensive. In the second paragraph I said, “I don’t know about you, but Hillary just doesn’t tickle my toes.”
My good friend Richard Morris thought I’d be upset because Norcott called me “Charlie” in his response. I told Richard that long years ago when I was a competitive swimmer, some members of the other team would call me “Charlie the Tuna” as we stood on the starting blocks. They thought it would take me off my stroke. I’d just look at them and say, “I’ll be waiting when they get back.” They didn’t realize how fast a tuna could swim, but they found out.
H.C. Puckett from Bonaire thought I must’ve been out sick the day Norcott’s letter came in or it would never have been published. Quite the contrary. I can take as good as I give. I not only edited Norcott’s letter, but I also placed it on the page. And guess who came to my defense? One of our more prodigious letter writers, Faye Tanner. She wrote, “Other than my family, Richardson knows me better than any other person in Bibb County due to reading many of my thoughts that are not printed.” Tanner writes several letters a week, and while we rarely agree, she knows I treat her fairly, as I do everyone who takes the time to write a letter and has the courage to identify themselves and not hide behind some silly handle.
While some like to believe that I try to foist a particular point of view, I can only do that in good conscience in my columns, not the rest of the pages I manage. What I try to do is create a diverse mix of opinions from every corner of our community. That’s what these pages are for — different opinions. If I only published letters and columns I agreed with, how boring would this page and the Viewpoints page be?
Charles E. Richardson is The Telegraph’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at 478-744-4342 or via email at crichardson@macon.com. Tweet @crichard1020.
This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 8:33 PM with the headline "RICHARDSON: Bits and pieces ."