#northwest georgia

[odioart]

MR FISH x ODIO DARKSTALKERS COLORFUL

[svalleynow]

Magic Box Theater Opening in South Pittsburg

Jerry White and the Magic Box Theater are set to become a bright shining star in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Jerry’s inventive and creative approach to magic is nothing short of extraordinary. Each performance is a delightful blend of wonder and innovation, leaving audiences spellbound and yearning for more. The Magic Box Theater, with its enchanting atmosphere and Jerry’s talent, promises to be…

[takeonmetakemeon]

The close margins in the US House have finally brought national attention to Vancouver, Washington and the areas surrounding it. Though much of that attention is poorly informed.

The rematch between moderate Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and far right Republican Joe Kent is expected to help determine which party controls the House next year. It is on everyone's top 5 list.

The race that was largely ignored by outsiders and seen as an easy Republican win in 2022 has attracted millions of campaign dollars from the parties this year.

The incorrect assumptions of faraway political analysts transformed Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez's almost predictable victory into the largest upset of the 2022 election.

There are a few things political analysts get wrong about the region. First, it is not Democrat but it is also not Republican. Second, the vote is a little more elastic than it is in areas with similar demographics. Third, the region rewards pragmatism and moderation. And most importantly, the population has been represented by women more often than men in the past 70 years. Yes, *70* years.

Pundits could not imagine that Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Hispanic woman, could have outperformed a typical Republican in the district. It was difficult to compare her to other Republicans since she was the only person who had represented it since it was reduced in size and lost liberal-leaning Olympia in 2012. So, unable to imagine that she could be individually popular, they took her numbers as the district baseline.

Jaime Herrera Beutler was moderate and pragmatic. That sells in the district. She was also originally from Clark County. That matters to long-term residents of the area who aren't necessarily thrilled with the flood of Portland and California housing refugees that has transformed the entire region.

She graduated from what was one of the largest high schools in the county at the time, one that straddled the rapidly urbanizing unincorporated areas outside Vancouver and more traditionally-minded, still-rural areas of Clark County. Middle-aged voters (or nearly middle-aged) could and did say online "I went to high school with her" or "I went to school with her brother." As a politician she lived in Camas, a formerly rural mill town that now encompasses firmly middle class neighborhoods filled with Portland's population overflow, a white working class central core and a rural fringe. Its most famous resident for something like 30 years now is Tonya Harding.

In 2020, WSU-Vancouver political science professor Carolyn Long, moved to the district from Oregon specifically to run in the race. As did Joe Kent before he ran in 2022.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez *also* moved to the district from Oregon a few years before running for the seat, though she plays up her mother's roots in the state. She's what J.D. Vance would be if he had moved to eastern Kentucky and shared the economic struggles and cultural outlook of the people he claims to represent and defended them instead of lecturing them.

Jaime Herrera Beutler was a talented politician who understood her district instinctively by way of living her entire life in its cultural midpoint. Her only mistake, politically speaking, was misjudging how primary voters would react to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and her subsequent vote to impeach Donald Trump. It could be decades before any politician matches her results. They were not the baseline.

So pundits universally overestimated the partisan makeup of the district. Then they could not imagine that a different but unknown Hispanic woman could compete against an inexperienced white man with a mystery income source who looked good on TV and sounds like he spends all his time on the internet.

She could and she did. A far right Republican (a label Joe Kent did not dispute in 2022 even as he claimed his repeated interactions with the Nick Fuentes crowd were coincidental and wholly unintentional) does not have a natural advantage against a moderate Democrat.

In this district a man also does not have an advantage against a woman. That was becoming true when my mother voted for the first time, though it took a highly qualified, unusually thick-skinned woman to win then. Repeatedly. But it is definitely true in an era when all her grandchildren can vote. What kind of expectations do you imagine her granddaughters have? In a one-time ship-building district that includes the great-granddaughters of a multitude of Rosie the Riveters?

It is not surprising that a centrist small business owner living in rural, heavily-forested Skamania County could perform better than a political science professor who moved to the district *after* declaring interest in the office, as center-left Democrat Carolyn Long did in 2020.

Nor is it surprising that this district would replace a popular moderate Republican who belonged to the Problem Solvers Caucus with a moderate Blue Dog Democrat whose policy positions are barely distinguishable from hers. General election voters liked Jaime Herrera Beutler so much they almost cloned her.

I wouldn't make any predictions about the outcome of the race, though. The great majority of voters are voting to decide which party will control the House, making individual candidates irrelevant to them. I considered it a toss-up in 2022 and consider it one again, though I think Gluesenkamp Perez has slightly higher chances this time around.

If Joe Kent can add all of the votes for the other Republican in the primary to his 39.3% share, he would win the general election with 51.5% of the vote. But he is not the automatic heir of every vote that went to the more reasonable Republican, Camas City Council member and retired attorney Leslie Lewallen (i.e. a reasonable person with actual qualifications).

That's not how the district works. It's probably not how any district works.

Note that despite Gluesenkamp Perez's decidedly un-liberal voting record, not a single Democrat ran against her in the primary. Her only non-Republican opponent was an independent who ran against the genocide in Gaza and received 2.55% of the vote. All but the most die-hard liberals voted for a Democrat who is currently conspicuously absent at the national convention.

Local Democrats rallied around her in 2022 (her liberal Democratic opponent withdrew from the primary and supported her campaign instead) and they did it again in 2024, just as they and Democrats across the nation have rallied around Vice President Harris.

In today's partisan times, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is not guaranteed victory, but she has the advantage. Washington's top-two primary system means there will be no third candidate on the general election ballot. There will be no one for liberals to vote for in protest. All they can do is decline to vote at all in a race where the only other candidate is a far right conservative. Some may do that, which is one reason the race is unpredictable.

At the same time, moderate Republicans can see her as someone who will represent them on multiple issues but won't join with the establishment-hating, democracy-undermining, party-destroying Republican fringe. As some did in 2022.

Given the candidates in the race, House Speaker Mike Johnson's recent embrace of Joe Kent is embarrassing. Not only is he unqualified, he's an extremist who would get along well with Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lorena Boebert. Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez was certainly more supportive of him than Kent would have been had he represented the district during Republicans' internecine political wars.

He is, it seems, more concerned with reaching out to the Republicans who fought him than the Democrats who supported him. In the process, he may have stabbed himself in the back.

And oh yeah, I also wouldn't bet on Trump winning in the district a third time. Not that anyone really cares.

[cartersvilleareawriters]

CAW Writers Conference, May 18, 2024

Get your tickets at cartersvilleareawritersgroup.com

@SwannyAuthor @MandyLCantrellAuthor @kdsmiththewriter @RichardFierce @AmberLanierNagle

[wctimber]

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[mdwsp]

Northwest Georgia

May 2023

[whereifindsanity]

'The Fantastic' Photograph by Willie Hunt

Ellison’s cave, Northwest Georgia, is the deepest cave drop in the continental United States at a staggering 586 vertical feet.

[victusinveritas]

From Rebecca Solnit:

"My God. I was out all day today. Bashar Al Assad, the Butcher of Syria, has fled, his infamous prison/death camp/torture center has been freed, and rebels have taken Syria as far as I can tell. What a week. Insurrectionary Georgia. Coup-repelling South Korea. Now this.

The Guardian reports: When Islamist militants swept into her home town of Aleppo little over a week ago, Rama Alhalabi sheltered indoors as fear engulfed her. Forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad, who had sought to reassure residents that nothing was happening, suddenly deserted the city. But as the insurgency pushed south, rapidly seizing control of the city of Hama on the road to Damascus, Alhalabi’s fears about life under militia rule have slowly ebbed. Instead they have been replaced by fears that her friends in the army will be abandoned by their commanding officers as Assad’s regime loses its grip.

“People in Aleppo are feeling more comfortable now we’re further from the areas under the regime’s control,” said the 29-year-old, while still using a pseudonym in fear Assad could retake the city.

“At the same time, I have many friends serving in the army and I don’t want them to get hurt. People with power inside the regime will protect themselves, and they will leave the poor fighters who were forced to join the army to face their awful fate alone.

“Things changed insanely fast,” she added. “We can barely believe what’s happening.”

As militants spearheaded by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) massed outside the city of Homs and rebel forces said they had entered the vast southern suburbs of the capital, rapid change swept across Syria. The Syrian army declared it had “redeployed,” its forces in two restive provinces south of Damascus in the latest thinly-veiled message of retreat, days after they withdrew from Hama. In under a week, five provincial capitals across the country were suddenly no longer under Assad’s control.

“We can hear the bombing nearby, and we are praying, hoping – and waiting,” said Um Ahmad, an elderly native of Homs, sheltering with her husband at home as the fighting drew close enough to be audible.

Assad loyalists fled the city, while people who stayed only have a couple of hours’ electricity each day and what goods are left in the shops are unaffordable. Those remaining in Homs waited to see if this might be the end of Assad’s rule, while an insurgent commander told his regime’s forces inside the city that this was their “last chance to defect before it’s too late”.

Um Ahmad was consumed by a single thought, that she might finally be able to see her sons again after a decade of separation and exile. “Most people are frightened but they fear the regime’s revenge more than anything else,” she said, as Russian and Syrian airstrikes pummelled the countryside around Homs and Hama.

When a popular uprising swept cities across Syria in 2011 calling for Assad to go, it initially looked as if demonstrations could topple another regional autocrat. But the Syrian leader swiftly turned the state’s weapons on his own people to crush dissent. As the uprising slowly morphed into a civil war, Assad freed jihadist prisoners from his fearsome detention system to alter the forces rising up against him, before relying heavily on his allies in Russia and Iran to provide the military muscle he used to reclaim control.

The civil war killed over 300,000 people in 10 years of fighting, with some estimates putting the true toll at twice that number. Tens of thousands remain in detention, including 100,000 believed missing or forcibly disappeared in Assad’s prisons since 2011, and subject to what United Nations monitors have described as systematic torture. Over 12 million people have been displaced.

Assad kept control of Syria’s major cities for years, as battle lines from the country’s years-long proxy war hardened. HTS ruled over a mountainous pocket in the northwest, cut off from the outside world. The group appeared a dim threat to Assad until they suddenly launched an offensive that saw them take control of Aleppo within days.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/07/syria-assad-damascus-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-insurgents

[odioart]

Art: @ourboy83 Edit: Odio Anime/manga: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

[svalleynow]

Builtwell Bank Celebrating 120 Years in Business

Builtwell Bank began in 1904 as Marion Trust and Banking. Today, Builtwell is the largest locally owned, multi market community bank in SE Tennessee and northwest Georgia. Builtwell is celebrating 120 years in business. To commemorate Builtwell Bank’s 120 year anniversary all branches will hold a celebration on Wednesday, June 12th. The community is invited to attend. For branch locations and…

[creepyamericana]

Mid-Atlantic Poll

Northeast Poll

Midwest Poll

Rocky Mountains Polls

Southwest Poll

Pacific Northwest Poll

Non-Contiguous

[wctimber]

Our Crane Service in Rome, Georgia is your trusted partner for all your lifting and construction needs. With a dedicated team of skilled operators and a fleet of state-of-the-art cranes, we provide reliable and efficient crane services to Rome and the surrounding areas.

[fiercynn]

palestinian poets: fady joudah

fady joudah is a palestinian american physician, poet, and translator. he was born in the united states and grew up in libya and saudi arabia before returning to the united states for college. he attended the university of georgia–athens, the medical college of georgia, and the university of texas, where he completed his studies in internal medicine.

he has published five collections of poetry: the earth in the attic (2008), alight (2013), textu (2014), footnotes in the order of disappearance (2018), and tethered to the stars (2021). in 2014, he was a guggenheim fellow in poetry. joudah is also well-known for his poetry translation: he has translated the works of palestinian poets like mahmoud darwish, ghassan zaqtan, mary abu al-hayyat, and many more. he is based in houston, where he works as a physician of internal medicine.

IF YOU READ JUST ONE POEM BY FADY JOUDAH, MAKE IT THIS ONE: "the tea and sage poem"

OTHER POEMS ONLINE LOVE BY FADY JOUDAH

Scarecrow at poetry magazine

Remove at la review of books (along with a fantastic essay called "My Palestinian Poem that 'The New Yorker' Wouldn't Publish)

Mimesis at poetry magazine

WHO HAS NO LAND HAS NO SEA at poets for living waters

Palestine, Texas at Sappho's Torque

The Mother Between Us at the yale review

House of Mercury at northwest public broadcasting

Things You've Never Seen at poets.org

National Park at poetry magazine

Sleeping Trees at poetry magazine

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

The Senator from Georgia

Featuring Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue

My new boss, the CEO of the non-profit I worked for, was hosting a public rally in Georgia for Donald Trump, featuring the expected attacks on President Joe Biden and other Democrats. What was surprising was the reemergence of one his top allies during a string of speeches before the former president took the stage. Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, who had retreated from the spotlight following a huge loss in the GOP's 2022 gubernatorial primary. But now he's returning to Georgia's political scene, campaigning to put Donald Trump back in the White House.

It was here in a northwest Georgia arena, packed with thousands of Trump supporters that I met Sen. Perdue for the first time. “Officially” met, that is.

I wondered if he remembered me. I certainly remembered him… and the impressively large cock he was always showing off around the senate. Publicly and privately. I remembered how he commanded me to “suck that cock” as I swallowed and nearly choked on the fat piece of succulent manflesh. I remembered how he came like a geyser, his cum dribbling out of my mouth and leaving a few drops on my shirt. I remembered him patting me on the cheek before he zipped up, leaving me on my knees to clean up. I remembered the many times I jerked off, imagining how that big dick would stretch my hole while he fucked me.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Perdue.” I said, his firm handshake and the scent of his cologne were sending heat to my groin, but he looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time.

“You know,” David said, lowering his voice, “I remember what a hot cocksucker you are.”

“And I still think about that cock of yours when I’m fingering my hole.” I retorted.

He reached into his pocket and handed me a business card.

“Believe me, once I’m inside you, that will be all you think about. You’ll need to call in sick the next day.”

“Mmmm…I can’t wait, daddy. Just promise not to tell my boss.”

After the rally, it didn’t take long before we both found ourselves in a hotel room, kissing passionately. I was amazed. There is the guy from all those months back with the biggest dick I’ve ever sucked, looking a lot more handsome than I remembered and was now dressed in a button up white shirt denim jacket, jeans with brown boots. David pulled back, quickly taking off his jacket and shirt and flung it down.

“Wow David!” I breathed as I starred at this hot muscular stud before me. “What a wonderful body you have!”

With that said David took off his boots. He then teasingly moved his hands up his legs and rubbed his enormous bulge before bringing his hands to his buckle which he proceeded to undo and then he undid the top button and slowly unzipped his fly. Once he had undone his fly, he tugged on his jeans, so they feel to the floor. I could see that David was commando! Just like those months before David’s hard 10.5” cock sprang up into the air and reveal all its glory along with a nice large pair of balls. He had salt & Pepper hair all over his body. He looked the vision of beauty.

Seeing the older guy standing before him in his full glory, we kissed passionately.

"Suck this." David said with a large wide grin.

Now on my knees, I was hypnotized by the enormous organ as it pointed towards me from a forest of salt and peppered pubic hair. Seizing the former senator’s manhood with both hands, I could feel the blood pulsating through the shaft as I brought it to my lips.

"Oh Lloyd," David groaned, cradling my head in his hands as the I began sucking his cock.

I used one hand on the shaft of David's manhood, spinning and pumping his fist over the part that his mouth would never be able to reach, while with his other hand, I played with his balls, squeezing, and churning the eggs that hung low in an over-sized sac. The former senator smiled looking down at me as I looked up at him for his approval, my mouth full of a whole lot of his cock. A lot more than his wife had ever been able to manage, and considerably more than anyone else had been able to handle. He held the sides of my head and began fucking my face, his hips moved slightly as I sucked on his cock.

"That's it," David hissed as my mouth and hands worked faster and harder. "Jerk it hard. Both hands."

Now with both hands on the shaft of his David's cock, my fists working up and down the richly veined surface while his mouth worked over the head. I saw David's knees buckle a little just before his felt the warm seed spurt into his mouth.

"Stand up and take those clothes off."

I did as I was told and was standing naked and hard in front of him. David caressed my shoulders and chest then my stomach then caressed my hard dick. It was visible smaller than his. He cupped my balls and squeezed them gently. Then he hugged me to him and slid his hands down to my round ass and squeezed it as he crushed me to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him feeling his solid dick pressed to my stomach. He kissed me hard forcing my mouth open and his tongue deep into it. He kissed me for a long time before breaking his hold on me and we both panted for air.

"Maybe we should hit the bedroom so I can put you to work."

I did as I was ordered, with David smacking my ass as I got up on the bed on all fours. My ass was up for him to reach as my excitement grew as I was anticipated a cock up my ass. Suddenly I felt a tongue licking my hole. As he laps the hole madly, I moaned in delight.

“Oh yes Sen. Perdue. That is so good!”

David suddenly stopped and I felt the head of his cock along my crack and especially my pale pink button of an asshole. I heard him spit into his hand then felt him pushing for the best angle in. The pain grew as his big cockhead looked to get into my man pussy. Suddenly I felt my ass being torn in two. Oh, the pain! He stroked slowly, working the whole 10.5" into me till his hips pressed against my ass.

Gripping my hips, David began to firmly stroke in and out of me. Slowly at first, pulling out till the head almost slipped out then thrust it smoothly back in. In and out the older guy’s cock goes. His rhythm began to pick up speed as he grunted with pleasure. I gasped out loud with each thrust into me as David fucks me hard and forcefully for a good 15 minutes.

By now, I was pushing back against his thrusts enjoying the sound of skin slapping together, and that hard dick pounding my ass. This spurred him to pump into me faster and harder forcing more moans and gasps from me.

"God YES! Fuck me senator, Fuck me!"

He smiled as he crawled on to the bed and over me. He took my legs and pressed them back to either side of my chest rolling my used hole up to an enterable position. He pressed forward and slid that hard cock back into me. I could feel the head swell as he stroked in and out of me. He lowered his weight on to me and kissed me deeply forcing my mouth wide and submissive to him. Locked in that kiss, with him slamming his whole body against and in me I moaned into his mouth with each thrust. I was completely in his control. I lost all track of time; I didn't know how long we fucked like that. Kissing and panting, grunting, and sweating but suddenly he was pressing deep into me, spraying my insides with his hot cum.

At the same time, I couldn’t hold back and pump wave after wave of my own juices flying all over us.

“Oh, fuck yes Daddy-David!” I cried out with pleasure, embracing each other and kissing passionately.

Both of us covered with each other’s cum and all hot and sweaty. Later when his cock woke back up, I let him cum in my mouth and we fucked again and this time we went to sleep with him in me.

[mdwsp]

Northwest Georgia

May 2023