This is not a joke. On Tuesday, November 13, 2007, Governor Sonny Perdue (R) joined more than 250 Georgians on the steps of the state capitol for a prayer vigil to ask God to rain on Georgia. Perdue told the audience, "We come here very reverently and respectfully to pray up a storm."
Georgia is coping with the worst drought in over 100 years and the few reservoirs in the state are quickly drying up. It is estimated that without rain, the state has little more than 100 days of water left. There are mandatory bans on outdoor watering and several landscaping businesses have already gone under with this drought.
There were a few stories about this prayer vigil in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (here and here), and CNN also covered the prayer vigil. Read more about the drought and its devastating effects on Georgia here.
plez sez: hmmmmmmm (wrinkling my brow while rubbing the stubble on my chin)...
the Guv'na of the Great State of Georgia is spending his lunch hour on the capitol steps praying for rain...
hmmmmm... not quite sure what to make of this. we haven't had any appreciable rainfall in the state since the middle of the summer. lake lanier, lake alatoona, and lake hartwell (i was up there 2 weeks ago) are drying up. but then again, the Army Corps of Engineers releases 3.2 billion gallons of water every day to Florida because there are some endangered mussels and sturgeon in those states that are protected by the federal government.
hmmmmmm... shouldn't we be saving every last drop of water in Georgia's lakes and reservoirs, rather than trying to hydrate some inedible snails and fish in Florida? maybe the Guv'na should have been praying that the Army Corps of Engineers would stop releasing so much of what little water we have left to basically flow out into the Gulf of Mexico? maybe the Guv'na should just send the Georgia Guard to stop the release of the water? whose gonna stop us, the National Guard is in Iraq keeping the oil flowing there!
maybe he should be doing something other than begging for a friggin' miracle on Peachtree Street?!?
hmmmmmm... isn't Georgia like DEAD LAST in SAT scores, nationally? lower than Alabama! lower than South Carolina! lower than Mississippi! lower than Louisiana! lower than Arkansas! maybe the Guv'na should have a prayer vigil for smarter kids? or pray for better teachers? or pray for better parents who send their kids to school ready to learn? or just pray for SAT scores that ain't at the bottom of the barrel!
hmmmmmm... hasn't this mess with predatory lending habits by mortgage companies plunged a substantial portion of Georgians into financial ruin and foreclosure? maybe Sonny Purdue should start praying that these people get big raises at work so they can pay their mortgage? or pray that the interest rates on their mortgages miraculously get lowered by the bankers who swindled the homeowners into signing for those mortgages in the first place? or pray that every person who is about to default on their mortgage wins the Lotto?
hmmmmmm... my daughter gave me a list of Christmas presents that is about as long as my arm, maybe the Guv'na can pray for Santa Claus to bring us all the gifts she wants? and while he's at it, he can pray for a white Christmas (i ain't seen one of those since i've been living in the South)?
sonny, the joke's on us... meaning all Georgians. i'm sure you meant well, but praying for something to happen isn't what i would expect the chief executive of one of our 50 states to use as his fall back plan. i doubt many people outside of your close family, friends, and those 250 wacko's who showed up at the capitol on yesterday are relying on your faith to end this drought... actually, i'd really prefer it if you'd keep your faith to yourself. there still ain't a cloud in the sky, i haven't watered my lawn in over a month, and another billion gallons of water are making its way down The Hooch to Florida!
next week: sonny purdue in a feather headdress joined by authentically clothed native americans doing traditional rain dance on the capitol steps!
BLOG UPDATE (11/15/2007):
guess what?!? it rained last night in georgia... and not only around PacMan Jones! a small cold front passed through the atlanta area and we got between a quarter and a half of inch of rain. that's not much rain, it won't raise the lake level any, but i guess it's a start. since the lakes are over 10 feet below normal, if it rains like this for the next 500 days we'll be in good shape!
so what do you know? prayer does work!
...and with this small miracle, maybe now the Guv'na can start working on the state's low SAT scores?
I hear ya Plez but whether it was political scene making or not, don't knock the power of prayer. It works bro. Sometimes we need disastrous weather cycles like this to acknowledge those higher things we should be relying on more consistently.
ReplyDeleteI'm your neighbor to the west (Alabama) and both our governors and Florida's have been duking it out since way before it got this bad. We've been hearing in on this end from Atlanta for years about us not sharing enough with you guys but our lakes and streams are at record low levels too so it's not a simple solution.
And bad as it is you can't overlook the long term enviromental impact of species that could make a bad problem worse. I'm not for animals over people either but I do know that muscels are natural filters. I don't know what contribution sturgeon make to the habitat but a major removal of anything tends to cause major shifts that ultimately affect we humans directly.
I know you'd like your governor to prioritize some other things too. Wouldn't we all, wherever we reside. But it's a seriously big problem man so don't give it short shrift. I say more prayer vigils on Peachtree.
Marty,
ReplyDeletemy intent was not to knock the power of prayer, but to highlight how ridiculous it was for a government official to basically throw up his hands and say this issue is out of my hands.
there are things that could have (and should have) been done months ago: it didn't rain ALL summer, but serious water restrictions weren't set up until september; billions of gallons of water are sent down stream for those endangered mussels and fish, only recently was there a request to decrease the amount that is sent; i know that jobs are at stake, but things like car washes and lawn services and landscaping businesses should have been limited in their waste of water, as well.
lastly, i feel that one's religion and the use of prayer is a very personal matter. i don't give a rat's a** who or what you worship, or whether you worship anything/anyone at all. i believe that making a public spectacle of prayer, which should be a private one-on-one conversation with your god, smacks of blasphemy.
"It rained last night in Georgia" isnt that a song??
ReplyDeletelol We got rain this week, last week, week before. Thank God, cause we had a true drought over the summer!
L
Lola,
ReplyDeleteyou're thinking of "Rainy Night in Georgia" which was popularized by Brook Benton in the early 1970's.
for some reason when i was a small kid, this song always made me want to cry.
Plez: I think Georgians and everyone in the USA should pray for the willingness to stop contributing to global warming. Otherwise, Americans aren't going t be able to pray fast enough to stop all of the natural deprivations and disasters that have already begun.
ReplyDeleteHuman activity has become powerful enough and scaled up so much that we can now effect the weather in ways that we never could have before.
Hmmmmmmmmm. What I wonder is why the media stories of wildfires that threaten all of Southern California and droughts that threaten all of Georgia are not accompanied by reflections and information about global warming.
Screw global warming! It's not an immediate problem. And pipe in water from South Carolina.
OK... Governor prayed and got a quarter to half inch of rain and that is great. How about we get governors of all 50 states to pray for oil.
ReplyDeleteThink about it... oil and water are both liquids and both are natural resoruces so why not see if the governors can boost our oil supply and drive down gas prices.
fishwilliams