Prediction

Event Horizons:

Here's a story from local Georgia news that would be horrifying but not shocking if it had happened in Atlanta. What makes it shocking is where it did happen.

I won't go into the details here, for the sake of those of you who would prefer not to read a shocking and upsetting story. I only want to say that I have spent a lot of time in Pickens County, Georgia. When the man says that there hasn't been a crime like this in the 35 years he can recall, I think that's quite right.

Crime can come up anywhere, of course; as with the market, past performance is no predictor of the future. Still, it reminds me of a story from Forsyth County, where I grew up as a young man.

We had an occasion where someone shot a deputy. This was unheard of -- in part because it was well known that the community as well as the deputies would simply kill you in reply to such an affront. The guilty party went out of his way to turn himself in: and not to any local authority, but to the state police.

Whoever this guy is, he's forgotten that he was not in Atlanta. He did this in the high country. If he doesn't hand himself in, he isn't going to live to see a trial. If he does hand himself in, it'll be the work of many deputies to keep him alive long enough to see one.

That's just how it ought to be. I've blood on my hands. There's no harm in you putting the blood of this kind on yours. In fact, far from no harm, it's better that you do.