My Sunday column

It will be interesting to hear what U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson have to say on Tuesday at the Congressional Update sponsored by the Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce.
Both lawmakers, as well as U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, are aware of criticism aimed at them which has appeared in this newspaper. If that criticism has anything to do with their appearance on Tuesday, great! We’re just glad they made it to town.
Anyone who wants to come to the event can. It costs $18 to buy a ticket, which entitles you to a breakfast. But if you choose to choke down your grits and bacon at home, you can get in for free. That wasn’t the original plan. But when word got to Washington that locals were angry that they had to pay to hear their elected representatives speak, phone calls were made and the ground rules quickly changed. “Y’all come!” became the new battle cry.
As Mel Brooks once said, “It’s good to be the king!”
If only they could fix problems in Washington with such dispatch.
Let’s be fair.
Isakson, Chambliss and Deal aren’t exactly wielding a lot of muscle around Washington these days. The thumping administered nationwide by Democrats in 2008 has left them on the sidelines as the Obama Administration stretches its considerable muscle. Maybe someone on Tuesday will ask that exact question, “Is there anything you guys can do up there?”
Certainly legislation aimed at reviving the housing industry — and with it our own slumbering carpet mills — would be welcome.
On a broader level, this country badly needs an intellectual counterweight to the Big Government future being actively constructed by the Obama Administration and its leftish allies in Congress. Can Isakson, Deal and Chambliss, all veterans of the spend-spend Bush years, change their spots? Can they help build a Republican Party that returns to its core values with a passion, or do they to need to be swept out the door?
Maybe we’ll hear some things on Tuesday that give us reason to hope.
Maybe not.
–––
There’s a lot of garbage on TV. But there’s also treasure.
Daily Citizen sports writer Marty Kirkland recently loaned me the first season of the HBO series “The Wire.” His generosity cost me a lot of sleep as over the past few weeks I repeatedly stayed up way too late watching the fascinating series unfold. Eventually he coughed up all five seasons and I finished the show last week.
It’s terrific.

“The Wire” is set in Baltimore, one of America’s most historic cities but also one of its poorest and most violent. The show, which was filmed in the city and featured several local non-actors in key roles, is centered on a colorful and combative group of local law enforcement officers and their prey, primarily major drug traffickers. Neither side is painted in black and white. A cop may turn out to be a bum while a drug dealer shows moments of decency, even tenderness. You know, like in the real world.
While the cops and crooks stuff is the core of the show, each of the five seasons spins off in a new direction, illustrating an important strand of the social fabric. For instance, in season four, the cops and crooks share screen time with the public school system.
The writers of “The Wire” are intensely skeptical of the current “solutions” offered by government — local, state and federal — to many of the problems facing our nation’s cities. From drugs to education to economic development, “The Wire” relentlessly looks to show how many well-meaning (and some not-so-well-meaning) policies are either doomed from the start or create secondary effects the do-gooders could never imagine.
If you like your heroes on a great white horse and if you need for the problems in a storyline to all be resolved happily at the end, “The Wire” isn’t for you.
But if you want a fearless, challenging show that takes a lot of chances, check it out on DVD.

Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen. He writes about a wide range of topics at espysoutpost.blogspot.com