Drug Cartels, Twitter Impersonation and 'The Voice'

This, to me, was the most fascinating crime story of the week. I am amazed at how much drug money and how much cocaine was being shipped and stored within a few miles of our homes. One of the stash houses was located in a subdivision right off Hamilton Mill Road. A $4.7 million money transfer was made at the Mall of Georgia. Think how often drugs and money might be moving up and down our stretch of I-85 and how often these drug cartel members might exit at Hamilton Mill to get to a nearby stash house. If you ever needed an incentive to report suspicious activity to police, this is it. 

We all know teens sometimes do things without fully analyzing the potential consequences. I do not know if the teen who impersonated a school mate on Twitter really meant to inflict the harm he did or if it was just a prank gone horribly wrong. Either way, it is important to monitor your online presence and that of your children. It is also important to talk to your children about bullying to make sure they understand how serious it is whether they are the victim or the perpetrator. 

Dacula Patch blogger Cynthia Montgomery had an interesting post this week about the morality of strategic foreclosure. Should someone who is perfectly capable of making a mortgage payment simply walk away because his or her home is worth less than the mortgage amount? Just because you borrowed $300,000 and your home is now worth $200,000, does that make it acceptable to just excuse yourself from paying back the full amount you took from the bank to buy the home in the first place? Who ends up paying for the bank’s loss in this “strategic foreclosure” deal? If you guessed other property owners, stockholders and bank customers, you are correct. Agree? Disagree? Take the poll in the article or leave a comment.

regulars may have seen this talented musician perform during one of his many local engagements. Jordan Rager is one of the finalists for the upcoming season of NBC’s “The Voice” vocal talent competition show. I really like this show. First of all, finalists are selected on voice alone -- not looks or stage presence. That means you don’t end up with attractive people who sound like cats in heat while singing as has happened on another vocal competition show that shall remain nameless. Secondly, the celebrity judges are cool, supportive and not so annoying that I feel compelled to mute the television every time they talk (I’m looking at you Kara!) I look forward to seeing how Jordan does on the show. Tune in on Feb. 5.

My family was traveling on I-85 over the holidays when my 19-year-old son spotted one of the billboards for this campaign and pointed it out to me. His immediate assessment was that it was “harsh.” Is “harsh” the way to get this message across? I’m not sure. With eating disorders being so prevalent and Hollywood doing everything it can to convince us that anything bigger than a size 0 is overweight, do we need to be focusing on the negative or preaching the positive? I really do not know, but I cannot help but feel sorry for the children in these ads and worry that other similarly-sized children will get picked on at school for looking like one of the children in the “fat ads.”

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