Althouse

With Respects to the Lady:

I trust Ms. Althouse has sufficient reason for her ire toward the blogger at Firedoglake, which site seems to direct itself to providing ire and cause for it. Nevertheless, I must object to this phrase (mentioned by Instapundit):

Oh, the hell! He's in Georgia. He's in Georgia, insulting Wisconsin? Well, now, it's a war between the states!

Readers of this blog know that Georgia is my home, and the center of my patriotism. Without any disrespect towards Wisconsin, which must have some good qualities, I would gently request that the state of Georgia be left out of this quarrel.

Arizona's Grand Canyon may dwarf Providence Canyon in pure size, I confess. Perhaps there are some Carribean islands that compare to Cumberland Island, where once I stood off the stallion of a herd of wild horses. The mystery of Fort Mountain, with her 855 foot defensive wall that Cherokee legends attribute to a lost and ancient people, may be equalled elsewhere. I know that North Carolina's Grandfather Mountain is at least the equal of our Brasstown Bald; I have seen him clad in thunderstorms. Cloudland Canyon must have some equal in the Rocky Mountains.

Virginia, which gave us Washington and Jefferson, might claim to be the better of Georgia, though she gave us James Jackson. Perhaps there are Americans who fought more valiantly in our several wars than the men who fought to defend Georgia at Chickamauga. Perhaps some of them were General Oglethorpe and his band of Georgia Mounted Rangers, still in service in today's National Guard, who stood the Spanish off the colonies in 1742. Speaking of Oglethorpe, perhaps there was another man who founded a colony for as good a reason as his: to give the working poor of England a chance to escape the debtor's prison, and start a new life in a new world.

I suppose Harvard and Yale claim some precedence among American educators; well, I've argued about that from time to time. Giving them their due, whatever it is, it was the University of Georgia that was America's first state university. But there are other great colleges elsewhere; fair enough.

If Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi, yet there are states to the West; if Amicalola Falls is the tallest falls on this side of the country, yet there are others as tall or taller. If Doc Holliday was a native of Georgia, Wyatt Earp came from elsewhere; though if there has been a Senator in our lifetimes who spoke his mind more directly than Zell Miller, I have missed it. For that matter, our Dr. King also spoke his mind once in a while; and while cities from Montgomery to Boston burned in the civil rights disputes, Atlanta was "the city too busy to hate."

I have no quarrel with the idea that another place may be the equal or even the better of Georgia, on this or that particular point. Taken all together, though, there surely can be no place on earth, not even Scotland, which has so many fine qualities; nor can there be one that has inspired so fierce a loyalty in her children.

I trust the lady will understand. Whatever quarrel she has with others, with Georgia I hope she will have none.