Opinions & Viewpoints

I am writing to you today as a deeply concerned citizen of Georgia, compelled by both personal experience and comprehensive data to address critical issues within our state’s prison system. The state of affairs in our correctional facilities is dire, characterized by severe overcrowding, outdated parole policies, and a desperate need for a paradigm shift…

Beauty. Such an interesting topic. It is a topic everyone has an opinion about, and all opinions are that we want more beauty in our lives. As we said last week, beauty is food for the soul. In fact, true beauty is said to be so personal and so transcendent that talking or writing about it…

The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids with the ratio of the height to the base equal to 1:1.618—The Golden Ratio. The ancient Athenians, those masters of architecture, built the Parthenon with its column configurations and dimensions based upon the Golden Ratio. Last week, we looked at several examples from nature that satisfy the Golden Ratio.…

April 2, 2025                                   From the Southwest Ledger A primary goal of the Founders was to protect the people from a strong federal government. They accomplished this with a series of checks and balances where all three branches received relatively equal strength and gave each branch the ability to check each other’s powers. As…

In every family, friendship, or relationship, disagreements are inevitable. They come with the territory of loving people who don’t always see things the same way. But there’s a profound difference between those who learn to “fight fair” and those who simply “fight to win.” The distinction isn’t just about words—it’s about whether a disagreement becomes…

March 26, 2025                             From the Southwest Ledger Every day in my American Civ class I begin the morning asking if anyone has any questions, not just about what we studied the day before, but about what is going on in the world. I believe the purpose of this class is to study the…

Last week, we mentioned “beauty” as soul food. It seems to me that since we have established that human beings are made up of both a physical body and an immaterial soul, then just as the body needs hamburgers, the soul needs its nourishment as well. For the Christian soul, food comes in two forms:…

The age-old debate about whether or not government officials put citizens first or their own personal interest first continues to rage on, among diverse citizens of all ages, backgrounds, culture, economic status, and education holding strong opinions on both sides. As a journalist myself, I believe that often elected officials’ approach to potential conflicts of…

March 18, 2025                             From the Southwest Ledger   By James Finck, Ph. D.   Possibly the most misunderstood and controversial character of the Civil War is John Brown. As a child growing up in Virginia, I was taught that Brown was the enemy; a religious fanatic who was bent on violence to stop…

Is God Dead?   Last week, we posed a series of questions designed to make us think about a unique capacity common among human beings but nonexistent in the rest of the animal kingdom. That excellent characteristic is termed the duality of man. The 18th-century philosopher Gottfried Leibnitz said, “If we liken the human brain…