Our neighbor Warren Blackmon died last week during heart surgery, a sudden, sad and unexpected end to a colorfully eccentric life. He delighted in playing the curmudgeon, but his friends saw his gentler side.
In a moving Facebook post, Warren’s next-door neighbor Ryan Kelly called him “the most misunderstood man in Athens” and went on to say: “Such an absolutely brilliant, sweet, fierce and compassionate human being. From rebel flags to Trump yard signs you challenged this little liberal college town that could, and I am sure the county planning department will breathe a sigh of relief from all the times that you represented yourself in court and won. What they do not know is the generous and kind man you really were and how many people of all shapes, sizes, colors and sexual preferences you quietly helped over the years, while teaching them the game of life all at the same time.”
The Truth Is Out
I know a lot of people didn’t watch it, but the second impeachment trial of ex-president Trump was riveting for those who did. Trump’s attorneys were, as somebody described them, like mob lawyers—untruthful and arrogant in their knowledge that the fix was in. And the fix was in, as all but seven Republican senators further disgraced their political party by voting to acquit in spite of the overwhelming evidence that Trump instigated the insurrectionist attack on Congress while that body was engaged in confirming the vote against him. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Trump’s culpability and guilt, while excusing his own vote on a technicality of his own manufacture. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives impeachment managers were magnificent in their eloquent arguments that tied Trump inextricably to the attack on the government he was sworn to protect. Thank God he is gone, and thank God our Georgia senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are in the Capitol and on the job.
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