The wealthly elites and their attempts, and successes, at controlling us

to influence who you vote for.

My goal in these columns I write is to reduce current complex subjects to “readers digest” or conversational language, because that is what most of us can relate to.

Three subjects that may be of interest today are 1. How To Lie With Statistics; 2. Artificial Intellegence; and 3. Gun Violence - and, yes, they are very much related. All are about how a small group of “wealthy elites” are trying to control you and everything else.

The “billionaires (I will wager that most readers do not know how many millions there are in a billion, for most schools do a poor job of teaching math, which is the universal language of mankind . These billionaires buy the political class, then control the mass media

Sybil Rosen Thomas

River Rambles syllabil17@aol.com

In the floodplain below the cabin a sinuous tributary stream carves its way to the Chattahoochee River. The creek’s origins are far back in the woods away from the riverside. I’ve not traced it to where its waters first emerge but I’ve no doubt its beginnings mirror those of the river it seeks to join: which is to say, humble.

Picture a minuscule seep welling up deep among the trees, a surface expression of the water table, that belowground boundary between the surface soil and the subterranean moisture that saturates pore spaces throughout underground sediments and fractures in the rock. The water table follows the slope of the land. In proximity to large watery bodies like oceans and rivers, it’s found closer to the sur-

We are bombarded daily in print, radio and TV declarations that “studies conclude or support” blah, blah, blah. What studies? By whom? Biased? The “seller tells you what they want to get you to do what they want”. Con job? Any surprise? You may wish to review my previosuly published “Suckered!” article. Look at the blurred small print in most TV ads. Of course, you cannot read these disclaimers. If you knew the truth, you may not buy the product.Example: The average life expectancy of heavy smokers is about 72. The average onset of dementia is about age 85. A tobacco seller may advertise: Heavy smoking prevents dementia! One way to lie. Use irreverent information to support an illogical conclusion.

Another way, change the scale horizonal or vertical, expand or decrease, on ANY CHART and the results can be made to look “normal”, rather flat or “radical” very volatile (progressive or conservative), the chart makers choice based on what he or she wants you to believe. Another way to lie.

Do you recognize the OBVIOUS lies that you see on TV advertising every day? If you face. A floodplain’s water table can be just inches below your feet. Nameless little meanders like this web throughout the flatlands up and down the river shores. They fork and crisscross each other, shallow amiable brooks with sandy bottoms and no banks to speak of. To get to the Chattahoochee, they must navigate a tiered landscape sculpted like the wrinkles of a blanket thrown across a bed, a series of parallel hills and dales undulating down to the river: the Chattahoochee Foothills.

I was born in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. That connects me to these Foothills, also born of those mountains, which are considered among the oldest on the planet, billions of years old. The lower edge of the Southern Appalachian Piedmont, the Chattahoochee Foothills present a topographic canvas of mountains literally reduced to, if not molehills, than at least to hills that roll. Time and erosion have worn the ancient peaks to low gentle ridges. Cataclysmic events that happened eons ago shaped the river we know at this moment, our blink of a geologic eye.

The Georgia Piedmont is bedrocked on the Chattahoochee Formation, an igneous (volcanic) and metamorphic (created under pressure and heat) collection of granite, limestone, will look, you will see. If you do not see the unreadable blurred print at the bottom of the ad while listening to the voice shouting obvious untruths, you will likely be conned. quartz, sandstone, and iron-rich clay. Within the substrata rock structures are aquifers, interstitical spaces that hold or conduct water. We often bore into aquifers to bring up water for showers and swimming pools. The creek and the river are the surface expressions of all the Earth’s water, visible and readily accessible, unlike the hidden water contained by - or moving through - the ground beneath us.

Search the web for low rated insurance companies as to payment of claims. You may find that the company you use is better at collecting premiums than paying claims. Knowledge is power and either you protect yourself or others will take advantage of you.

So, can you believe your lying eyes? The obvious answer is no. You will see, and most likely you will believe, what they want you to. And they will control your vote to put their people in office. Is the current administration the best we have to offer? Was the electorate conned?

As for Artificial Intelligence (AI), currently only Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) is now functional. ANI includes face and voice recognition. It can take your face and your voice and create a video of something you never said or did. You may receive a call from someone you know asking for help. Their face and voice can be created by ANI, so, can you believe your lying eyes?? Again, maybe not.

Following the creek backwards away from the river, the dog and I tromp west between forested ridges that dip into a narrow verdant valley where the stream babbles happily on. Further back, closer to its original backwater drip, the brook seems at times to disappear in an aquaverse of unassuming waterways. It only begins to truly coalesce at the edge of a logging road put in some years ago. There the clay road creates an earthern dam so that the many strands at last become one, liable to expand after a hard rain into a temporary swamp of black muck.

When the logging road was bulldozed, a culvert pipe was installed under it at a downward angle, mimicking the natural incline and further drawing the water. Downstream of the road, the newly-fortified creek flows out of the pipe into a wider natural channel with four-foot-high

Tell ANI to create a dog. Immediately your computer shows the picture of a dog. Now ask it to produce a dog that can fly, immediately your dog has wings. Just tell ANI and the result will be what ANI understands that you want it should be. Any size, any color, any breed with or without wings or fins for paws or just about anything that you can articulate, or ANI can currently put your face or your wife’s face or your daughter’s face on a nude body and put that image on Facebook. This scam is currently active to “bully” some social media participants. Can you believe your lying eyes??

Initially, ANI was programed on “if-else”, i.e.: if this, yes or no, then that, whatever follows the yes or no, or as some learned, “decision-action” diagrams. This sort of AI can replace all or parts of most administrative jobs, such as accountants crunching numbers, loan officers defining who should get a loan is basic ANI.

All “administrators” - attorneys - for research and drafting contracts and other documents (Goldman Sachs predicts that 44% of legal work can be automated using AI tools) banks and a floor loosely strewn with black basaltic (volcanic) rocks.

Another, more dramatic, drop in elevation, and suddenly the stream is cascading over broad slippery granite slabs exposed by the water’s insistence, dropping in singing curtains from stone to stone to stone. With the summer trees bending luxuriously over the banks, the creek here feels more like a rushing mountain stream than a lazy floodplain rivulet.

Yet soon again the land flattens out for its final stretch to the river and the ever-adaptable stream begins to twist and turn in serpentine coils, snaking around low ridges that stand in its way, outwitting the obstructions of bedrock belowground. This is the section of the inlet stream I know best, having walked it almost every day for the last twenty years.

Each morning the dog and I start above the creek at the top of the ridge where the mailbox sits. Entering the woods from the driveway, we hike downhill along curving ravines once culled out by water. When I first came here, those clefts were often wet, sometimes a sultry trickle, other times rushing white-caps of runoff after a storm.

About fifteen years ago our closest neighbor

Is theology necessary?

New Creations Ministry

Is theology really necessary? The basis of this question leaves us in a very dangerous position. Theology points us in a very strategic and absolute direction. The problem is that our culture has grown farther and farther away from absolutes. Absolutes hold us in an orderly fashion. No absolutes holds no one accountable for anything.

Gresham Machen said, “The Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feelings, not upon mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based upon doctrine.”

Everything about the Reformation in the 1500s was based on getting the Biblical facts right, even if it seemed small. The church must have a firm, immovable foundation in which to stand, and this is why doctrine is critical to the longevity of the church.

The word theology is made up of two words: “theos” meaning God, and “ology” mean the study of. Theology is the study of God. As believers, every time we go to church, read our Bible, listen to a sermon, etc. we are studying God. You may not really like reading deep theological books, and simply want to “love Jesus”. If we do not get our view of theology correct, then we usually end up building a belief system that is based on what we feel is good and bad, and more often than not, we usually end up with an idol that contradicts the Bible.

Let me give an example. If my full knowledge of the Bible consisted of Noah’s Ark, the

Israelites invading Jericho, Jesus being born in a horrible dirty barn, and Jesus dying on the cross, then what conclusion would I draw about God? We could realistically formulate that God is a murdering child abuser. This would be a wrong conclusion, because it would be based on fragmented knowledge of the character and purpose of God.

When I began dating my wife Naomi, I wanted to learn everything I could about her. When I learned something new, my appetite to learn something else grew. I studied what foods she liked (bacon, chips, and anything else that is salty) and I took mental notes about that new found knowledge. The amazing thing is that the more that I knew about Naomi, the more that I enjoyed being with her. Soon, we began to have inside jokes, and we started to finish each other’s sentences and sandwiches.

Psalm 42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

Psalm 119:15-16 I will study your com- mandments and reflect on your ways. I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.

Ephesians 6:17 Also take salvation as your helmet and the word of God as the sword that the Spirit supplies.

2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

If my knowledge of Naomi stopped with bacon, then our relationship would not have lasted. In the same way with theology, on the surface we are saying that we love God, but our knowledge of Him is minimal at best. The more that we study His word, doctrines (theology, Christology, hermeneutics, etc.) the more opportunities that we have to enjoy God. The more that we enjoy God, the more we are able to worship Him in everyday life. The more we worship Him, the more we desire to study Him. As Christians, everyone is a theologian.

What my mother had witnessed was the very end of the last shreds of a very ancient civilization

that pop up on the computer screen that might be of interest. Wander, or noodle, around.

digi@mindspring.com

One of our best friends and Whitesburgneighbor was Glyn Thomas. One night, as we sat on his back porch and watched the Chattahoochee River drifting by, he told about there being folks from his Tennessee childhood who noodled in the local waters. Their ambition was to catch, by grabbing blindly, big catfish that lived in mud caves along the shores of rivers and lakes. One time there was a guy, and he grabbed a gigantic catfish by its mouth or gill. The great fish bit into his noodling arm and dragged him downstream, and the guy’s body hadn’t been found for days. Glyn never forgot that story, and it seems that I have inherited the memory of it.

Nowadays, I use the term “noodling” as it might apply to explorations along the Internet. In that sense, I’ve heard of people who have been “carried off” by some knowledge they found there, on the Internet. Such things have happened very dramatically - spiritually, psychologically, politically, you name it, but especially economically, which is really the name of the game. However, I’ll not go in that sad direction. I’m just going to tell you of a modest experience, in which I was “carried to” some new facts. It also added very nicely to some old knowledge and some old experience. The “old knowledge” is about my parents, and the “old experience” includes my traveling to the island of their birth. It’s more complicated, but here’s a start.

The fighting in World War I stopped in1918. But the war was officially concluded five years later in 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne. The effects of that treaty determined the course of life of my entire family, of their communities, of their society. The main feature of that treaty was the world’s official recognition of the end of the Ottoman Empire and the introduction of the newly created nation of Turkey. That old empire was dismantled by the victorious European allies. If you google the key words that were just now mentioned, you will get a good start in 20th century history. Once you’re into a general subject all you have to do, especially if you’re curious, is click on topics

Now, my parents and just about all our relatives were born on a group of islands in the Sea of Marmara. It’s a tiny sea, the smallest in the world, that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and is of great strategic value (especially to Russia). It got its name in Ancient times because its biggest island, also called Marmara, was the Greek and Roman civilizations’ major source of a desirable glittering white marble. Marmara and its smaller nearby islands are the birthplace of my parents and their relatives.

The Treaty of Lausanne had a section that called for the exchange of minority populations between Greece and Turkey. That was the only solution the Powers could come up with in order to rid the region of the animosities and atrocities that had been taken to uncontrollable and shocking levels, starting at the end of the 19th century. The atrocities continued, from both sides, even after the fighting had stopped in the world war. The idea was to get almost all Mohammedans out of Greece and Christians out of Turkey. During this period the word “genocide” was newly introduced. You can google that.

When the war started, our families were gathered up, taken to the mainland, and put on a death march to an Ottoman concentration camp. My mother has described some unforgettable moments, including the death of her father, and later, of her brother. When the fighting was done, and survivors returned to the islands - the good works of the younger generation were soon rewarded with the final exile. That mutual exiling between Greece and Turkey probably involved 3 million people. In today’s terms we would be talking about something in excess of 10 million, maybe closer to 15 million. I believe that the reader can see how, with the help of internet-noodling, a person could connect and blend personal history with general history.

In 1961, I traveled to Turkey, to the island where my parents were born. My father’s town was populated by Turks who had been exiled, by the terms of the Lausanne Treaty, from the Greek island of Crete, where they’d been born. The men had invited me to their local coffee house during siesta, so that they could “interview our American visitor”. In this town, they’d never encountered a person who was not a Turk. It started with the question, why was I there? When I told them my parents had been born here and had suffered from the exile, many broke down in tears, saying that a day had not gone by, that they didn’t cry for being forced to leave their homeland, Greece!

That visit to my parents’ island gave me a much greater appreciation of why a person could end up noodling about their origins. So, you can understand my interest when I noodled into a thing called “Letter from Aristeas of Marmara”. Marmara, the sea that I’ve been so interested in! Marmara, the name of a group of islands in that tiny sea, on which my family and their society had been born and from which they were later exiled!

Now, thanks to my noodling efforts, I had found this Aristeas. Scholars have dated his writing to about 200 B.C. And, he is from Marmara! According to one history of the islands, Aristeas is the most famous to ever have come from those parts. True, there are some un-truths in this book-length “Letter”. But, for me, like the Civil War buffs that I just mentioned, there is more pleasure in keeping Aristeas in the picture, rather than tossing him. After all, this guy, from ancient times, originated from Marmara, sea of my dreams, with its islands that lift my imagination.

Although scholars have uncovered contradictions in the details of his Letter, what Aristeas reports seems to be true. It is the story of the very first translation of the five books of the Old Testament known as the Torah. It was translated from Hebrew into Greek. It was the Greek that was the official language of Alexandria (in Egypt), at that time. If you are curious about this kind of history, I recommend you use the internet. Happy Noodling!

If you noodle enough, you will notice that the internet begins to catch on to your interests, and devises a “pitch” that is tailored to you. It’s all part of an effort to get some of your money. This is done by using all known statistical, mathematical, and scientific skills in designing software in order to study your internet-behavior. I think those folks and their computer programs have been getting better, faster!

Anyway, here are three starting points: Treaty of Lausanne, Sea of Marmara, and Letter of Aristeas ... Safe noodling, hear?

Now, all noodling to the side: In 1986, my mama was in hospital, for one of the last times, and I went to NYC to see her. It was spring. Margery and I had made plans for our next trip to Greece, and I was describing them to my mother. During this trip I was hoping we could also get to Turkey, to get to our island, and then to travel to the ruins of Troy. Troy was some 40 miles from our island. When I mentioned the possibility of Troy to her, my mother asked, “What’s that? Troy?” To my surprise, she’d never heard of it, and asked for details. As I told her some of the story of the Iliad, a dawning of a memory came over her face, and she stopped me and told me this. “One morning we awoke to find a ship in the harbor. We were told to pack our things and board that ship, immediately. That was our last day on our island.”

The ship was a rotting thing, and within a few hours, as they got into the Dardanelles, on their way to Greece, there was engine trouble. They stopped at Canakkale for repairs. No one was allowed to get off, but people from the city came down to greet and share with the new refugees. A group of girls dressed in folk-costume came to the pier, to the side of the ship and danced and sang, in Greek, while my mother and other teenagers watched and listened. And what my mother recalled next makes my heart skip a beat - to this day.

Mama remembered, after 65 years, what the girls were singing, and she recited, in rhymed couplets, how poor Menelaos lost his wife, Helen, to the Trojan boy, Paris, and how Menelaos left Greece to come “here”, to get her back.

“Here”, meaning the ruins of Troy, just a few miles from Canakkale! “Thank you, Billy, for helping me to realize what those girls were singing that day. I remembered, after all these years. Thank you.” In a few days, those girls, who sang of Helen of Troy, would themselves become refugees and join my family, in exile.

What my mother had witnessed was the very end of the last shreds of a very ancient civilization. During those 3000 years, at this western end of the tiny sea, we had the Trojan War, Alexander the Great crossing into Asia to conquer the Persians, the Apostle Paul deciding to cross into Macedonia and thereby spread Christianity into Europe, to WW1’s Battle of Gallipoli, which incurred a half a million casualties. These and many more events occurred in the Eastern end of the tiniest sea. Meanwhile the Western end was the seat of late Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, followed by the Ottoman Empire. Three thousand years of world-shaping history, and it all took place in an area within 50 miles of where my folks were born.

Mama remembered and once again “heard” the song, sung for the last time, that served as the kick-off for Western history. She actually remembered the rhymes!

RIVER RAMBLES from page 18 dug out rectangular ponds for a bait-fish farm and the ditches seemed to dry up. Had they been shaped by escaping water from an aquifer? Was that water then diverted to fill the neighbor’s ponds? It’s a mystery. The deepest ravine will still flow, according to the weather, spilling rainwater down the ridge into the stream. When the ground is fully saturated, the water table will secrete all it cannot hold and add in its small way to the creek’s volume.

Most fascinating is a belowground seep under the floodplain that runs almost all the

ED WILSON from page 18 and medical evaluations are easy candidates. Indeed, ANI may change or reshape most white collar occupations much as robotics has done for blue collar jobs

What really scares AI developers is a type of AI known as Machine Learning (ML) wherein a machine can act independently and make choices without any external influences. In other words, the machine can create an action based upon the data that the machine collects. No human need be involved.

If we do not now really understand how our brain works, or have the societal will to control nonthinking violent protesters, how can we reasonably forecast where MLAI might take us? Unpredictable!

The anti-gun nuts want to control “guns”, but has any well-intentioned anti-gun nut even suggested how to control the criminal abuse of guns? The anti-gun nuts only propose is to take the guns from those who obey our laws. The gun control nuts may do well to control those mentally ill individuals who abuse the Second Amendment, intentionally or not. Without exception, every tyrant in the history of mankind has first disarmed the population. Are we next?

How bad are gun deaths as compared to obesity? As I understand it, about 21 more people die from overeating than die from gun violence. Should we jail the “overeaters” and starve them into compliance? Could cut our expected to be more violent? Do advertising companies want men to stay that way to incentivize more product purchases? Hmm. It got me thinking, for sure.

Though I don’t have the answers to those questions, I wanted to end this column by offering a new perspective on meat and why it shouldn’t be considered masculine to consume it. After all, if you’ve read my columns thus far, you know I like to challenge the standard notions we all live by, and this is no exception!

To begin, gender roles should generally be challenged. What really makes the consumption of flesh more “manly” or “womanly” other than arbitrary ideas we have created in our society? In reality, it makes no sense, and we should question why we have been brought up to believe such a strange distinction. However, if we are to stick by gender roles, there are still some that align with meat not being manly.

Many believe that men should protect others, especially those who are weaker than him. While some may immediately think of women or children, the truth is that the most vulnerable members on this planet are farm animals. They are born with their execution date already set, they often live a short life full of suffering, and then they are killed so that an industry can profit and a consumer can eat their flesh for a brief moment of pleasure. What we do to farm time. It only becomes visible at a hole in the inlet bank left by an otter perhaps or a nesting waterthrush. Watching the water pour gently but profusely into the creek current, I imagine the water table, forced by gravity, has bored a subterranean channel through the clay, determined to reach the river.

And so it goes, round and round, groundwater intersecting the surface to join itself to the irresistible force that is the Chattachoochee. And with it comes a broadening of perception so that our awareness of the river’s surface expression now includes all the water hidden healthcare costs. animals is so horrendous that, if we suggested using similar practices on criminals or people who might deserve it, we would be called psychopaths - while animals are completely innocent. Think about it: we wouldn’t do what we do to innocent animals to our worst enemies. So, if a man chooses not to eat meat, what he is really doing is protecting the weakest members in society. beneath the surface of the Earth.

More than three times as many people die from vehicle accidents than die from firearms. Who is shouting to replace those dangerous automobiles with the horse? Saddle up, if you want to go to town. Beats walking.

And those evil assault rifles, the AR51s as some inept newscaster, called them. HAS ANYONE EVER defined an “assault rifle”?

How can you prohibit what you cannot define?

After thought: According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) in 2021, TWICE as many people were killed with cutting instruments as with rifles. When will you have to have a permit to own a knife?

When will we understand that the environment we have created, our societal “free speech protesters”, are mostly the problem? They influence the political class, but offer no real solutions.

A last thought - do not ever give control of your computer to anyone. Assume that scammers are after your information every day. They almost got me last month.

If you think you have been hacked, immediately disconnect all power to your computer for at least 24 hours and file a fraud report immediately. Keep detailed notes! Better safe than sorry. Yep, just because you may be paranoid, does not mean that they don’t want to get you.

I have compassion for our younger folks. We older generations have left you a mess.

Furthermore, men are often expected to be bold, brave, and to have strong principles. What better way to prove that than to be vegan? In society, most people do not have a positive view of vegans. I would not be surprised if you, reader, felt the same way. Therefore, if a man is able to go and stay vegan, he has to be strong-willed, and even more so if he is to be an adamant advocate for the animals.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably come to realize that in our day-to-day lives, we sometimes follow arbitrary rules and lines of thinking that no longer serve us. While challenging these habits and thought processes can be difficult, there is nothing more rewarding than coming to a conclusion that you have true conviction in.

With that said, I hope today’s column has stimulated your brain and given you a fresh perspective on some of our most prevalent stereotypes, whether they be about meat and masculinity, or some other parallel!

Author’s note: I sent in this Ramble just as news broke that the Supreme Court has rolled back environmental protections of wetlands and floodplains. This creek is a perfect exam- its role was to protect the state and the social order. After Christ and the spiritual upheaval of his teachings, a moral standard was set that many nations continually tried to embody into their culture. History records many failures. Even early America with a Judeo-Christian constitution culture had many revivals that tried to pull man back to the basic concepts.

One will find counsel in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs that still holds today. Three warnings from these books need to taken by our leaders, just like they were needed all through the history of man: pride overcomes wisdom; arrogance overrides common sense; and selfimportance overrides discernment.

In 1990, abortions peaked at 1.8 million and since that year has steadily declined to less than a million. Arguably, there have been recorded 60 million deaths in the last 50 years. Even though pagan worship sacrificed children to gain favor from their gods, our reasons today result in the same outcome. Climate change agenda promotes more abortions to ease carbon dioxide emissions, curtail a collapsing economy, and solve an over-population problem. Yet, in our own arrogance and self importance, we declare ourselves a Christian nation and chastise other nations for killing their people.

The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. In 1979, the Department of Education was elevated by President Carter to reward the NEA (Teachers Union) for their political support and was ple of all the water, above and below, now more vulnerable to development and pollution. Having sampled the stream water for Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, I can tell you that of this writing the water is healthy and clear. made a cabinet level position. What could go wrong with education being involved in political action? The Federal Budget for Education budget has grown to the third largest in discretionary spending. A lot to pay for information. This sounds eerily like the original intent of the CIA started under Truman which was to gather information. Now that the Feds are pushing progressive sexual philosophy through multiple gender variants like Transgenderism, what could go wrong when they want to start in very early education? Recent comments by President Biden claiming “our nation’s children are all our children” leaves no doubt that the parents’ role would be subjugated to the political aspirations of our leaders. cosponsors. Senator Dugan should consider doing the same on SB 264. Readers who hope to put Americans first in taxpayer-funded colleges and Gold Dome politics may want to make that suggestion.

On the progressive state level, Washington State has recently passed laws confirming a minor’s gender-affirming care. Now that Secular Humanism is rooting out the JudeanChristian ethic, you can be assured there will be further decline in education and sexual morality in the battle of Good vs Evil. Gen Z (1995-2012 birthday) is a product of this educational effort and the results are a group that is more atheistic than any other.

Getting back to Solomon’s lamentations, there is no doubt we are in an age of exponential technological advancement, but has Man’s nature really changed? Throughout history he has tried to form a society free from trouble, pains and sorrows, sometimes with good intentions and sometimes to advance his power.

Not sure who said it first, but do agree that “Modern technology has failed to bring in a Brave New World but has increased Man’s propensity for evil”.

According to their website, the CRSA mission is “to engage a broad coalition to highlight the cultural, social, and economic contributions of refugees and immigrants in Georgia.”

The Georgia Chamber website tells us “for over 100 years the Georgia Chamber of Commerce has worked to keep, grow and create jobs to make Georgia a better state for business.” I can tell you that the list of lawmakers who have an “Americans First” mindset on business, benefits, law enforcement and educational matters when it involves immigration is short and shrinking. Voters can and should change that fact by paying attention and talking back to the politicians they elect to serve them.

Senate Bill 264 has other Republicans as cosigners (Sen Chuck Payne - Dalton and Sen Billy Hickman - Statesboro) and there is a companion bill in the House, HB 640. Democrat Rep Scott Holcombe (Atlanta) is the lead spon-

FARM ofFUTURE from front page

The project, The Digital and Data-Driven Demonstration Farm (4-D Farm): Juxtaposition of Climate-Smart and Circular Innovations for Future Farm Economies, is part of NIFA’s investment in regional innovations for climatesmart agriculture and forestry. The long-term goal of the 4-D Farm is to develop climatesmart production systems leveraging renewable energy, automation, intelligence and human capital to meet the required food and fiber needs of a burgeoning world population.

Led by principal investigator Glen Rains, the project involves an interdisciplinary team across CAES, including researchers in sustainable precision agriculture, data science, livestock management, grass and forage management, crop production, UGA Extension and education programming, and autonomous and intelligent rover research and development.

“The goal is to be able to collect data and make in-season decisions on irrigation, fertilizer and growth regulators to make a better crop that same year,” Rains said. “Traditionally we haven’t been able to do much until yield is determined at the end of the growing season, then we make changes for the following year. Providing better, real-time information to reduce risk and increase knowledge is doable with advanced data analytics.”

Two sub-awards were given to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) and Clemson University. The project also includes a contracted social economist from Kansas State University. Executed across multiple sites in Georgia, the 4-D Farm will feature a 90-acre Demonstrating Applied Technology in Agriculture (DATA) farm on the ABAC campus in Tifton. With roughly half the acreage under a center-pivot irrigation system, researchers will rotate what is in the field to test various management systems.

The 4-D Farm will diversify precision agriculture management systems as well as the crops and livestock in the field. Researchers hope their methods will provide more information about creating a diversified farming operation that is more profitable for farmers while showing increased efficiency and environmental benefits. Researchers will collect data on plant growth, air quality, soil health and more to develop and test resilient agricultural practices and assess the socioeconomic consequences of the new technologies and practices.

Farmers and producers visiting the 4-D Farm will be able to see new technologies and practices in a hands-on environment. The farm’s multiple crop rotations will enable producers to see how to manage — and make a profit from — a different type of farming.

To learn more about integrative precision agriculture at UGA, visit iipa.uga.edu sor, Republican Rep Bill Hitchens (Rincon) is the only cosponsor. Readers may want to ask their House Rep about that gem too as both bills are live and viable for the 2024 election year session. You can get more information on these bills and follow their progress a:t

ImmigrationPoliticsGA.com

A suggestion: Because it dictates much of the agenda in the Republican-controlled state Capitol, readers surprised by the contents of the above outlined measure and Sen. Dugan’s support may want to see the Georgia Chamber of Commerce “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” page on their website.

Correction: A slip of the typing finger in last month’s column resulted in an inaccurate description of the Dustin Inman Society’s IRS non-profit classification. We are a 501 (c) (4) entity, not a 501 (c) (3). Many thanks to the readers who have donated to our effort to fight the SPLC in court.