When it comes to this juxtaposition, there is no compassion

OK, boys and girls, today’s word is “juxtaposition.” According to my friends, Barney Funk and Porter Wagnall, it means putting things together for comparison — like when I read a whiny letter in the Atlanta newspapers from the head of a local civil rights organization. Mr. Whiny Pants and the organization he represents will go unnamed because it is the policy of the Yarbrough Worldwide Media and Pest Control Company, located in Greater Garfield, Georgia, not to give free publicity to whiners.

Junior E. Lee, the firm’s general manager — a respected political analyst and a pest control professional — has strong feelings on the subject. He likens whiners to fleas on a dog. They have no redeeming social value and are a source of great irritation.

Anyway, Whiny Pants has a problem with us picking on Mr. Buckethead, the out- ofwork quarterback who he says has “protested the general mistreatment of America’s non- white citizens by police and America in general.” Whiny Pants must not watch much television. The talking heads have made Mr. Buckethead a martyr of the scale of Joan of Arc.

Junior says America in general, fortunately, thinks the talking heads are as irrelevant to our society as Mr. Buckethead and the unprofessional professional athletes who make a big show every Sunday out of disrespecting their country. That includes the billionaire owners who piously lock arms with their boy toys. Junior thinks this is more of a business decision than one of conscience. The suckup owners will risk our disgust but can’t risk making their boy toys unhappy. They might

Junior E. Lee says Mr. Whiny Pants needs to know that the Georgia state flag is modeled on the stars and bars. When George E. Perdue was elected governor in 2002, he let Georgians vote in a public referendum on a new state flag. Seventy- three percent voted for the current flag. Junior says that is why you had best not use profanity- laced vitriol when talking about the not show up for work flag of the Great State but still demand their of Georgia. It is impolite oversize paychecks. and we don’t like it.

Whiny Pants say Also, if you hear Ray these protestors have Charles Robinson, of not maligned our flag Albany, Georgia, sing “in any manner.” Au “Georgia on My Mind,” contraire, W. P. I can you had better stand up give you the names straight. We catch you of a lot of Americans kneeling, we are liable in general who would to hurt you. disagree. They have lost Junior also says if loved ones in combat I am going to use big who put their country words like juxtaposition above their own selfto get on with it. He says righteousness. As one you have more to do person who has watched than to sit around and these Sunday showoffs watch me try to dazzle said, “Is this what I you with my literary lost my brother for?” legerdemain. Junior can Maligning the flag is in get testy at times. I think the eyes of the beholder. it’s the Malathion.

Speaking of the flag, The juxtaposition is Whiny Pants says he this: While Whiny Pants doesn’t hear anybody was denigrating the upset about the “flag of police, police officers the KKK” and wants to — including several know why there hasn’t who were off- duty — been “profanity- laced were risking their own vitriol directed at those lives to save the lives carrying the stars and of the much- maligned bars and favoring its Americans- in- general principles over the stars at the Las Vegas mass and stripes?” shootings. One police officer even shed his bullet- proof vest and used it as a shield for a spectator. Those same Americans-in-general — black and white — were coming to each other’s aid in heroic fashion. No one seemed be mistreating anyone.

And then this: While overpaid slugs get their jollies disrespecting the country that gives them the privilege to do so, the Fannin County High School football team comes on the field with every single player carrying an American flag but one and he was bearing the Georgia state flag. God bless them one and all.

Not only should we be enormously proud of them, along with the unsung Americans- ingeneral in Las Vegas, but they serve to make the NFL millionaires and their billionaire owners look like a bunch of horse patoots. There is no comparison. May these unprofessional athletes and those who try to justify their boorish behavior take this juxtaposition and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@ dickyarbrough.com; at P. O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www. facebook. com/ dickyarb