Sen. Josh McLaurin, a Sandy Springs Democrat, held up a photo of the Doge meme that became popular in 2013 and is the namesake of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder
This week’s serving of Gold Dome Nuggets may contain traces of cornbread, Brunswick stew and 15-year-old funny dog pictures. Plus, should students read about plus-size women of color posing nude to increase their self-esteem?
Let’s dig in.
CORNBREAD
If Georgia were an insect, what kind of insect would it be?
That’s an easy one – the honeybee, the official state insect, as designated by the Legislature in 1975.
But how would one express the concept of Georgia as a fish? You could go with the official state fish, the largemouth bass – the obvious choice. But what about Georgia’s official state saltwater fish, the red drum? Or the mighty Southern Appalachian brook trout, the state’s official cold water game fish.
Every day, state leaders make weighty decisions like how to encapsulate Georgia’s rich history in a butterfly (the tiger swallowtail) or how to instill every Georgian heart with pride in the form of a folk dance (square dancing).
But while Georgia has an official prepared food — grits — the state has no official state bread.
Dalton Republican Rep. Kasey Carpenter wants to correct that oversight, and he’s revived a bill that would enshrine cornbread as Georgia’s official state bread.
Carpenter shepherded a cornbread bill through the House in 2024, but it failed to get a vote in the Senate.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: we used every cornbread pun known to mankind last year, so that’s why there aren’t any here.)
“It’s back, baby, it’s back, it’s a reunion tour,” Carpenter said from the House floor Wednesday before the vote on this year’s bill.
The House approved elevating cornbread to the state’s latest symbol 157-4, but not before peppering Carpenter with questions.
“Is it also a possibility that we could label any cornbread not made from the state as foreign cornbread?” asked Dawsonville Republican Rep. Brent Cox, a reference to a recently-passed bill requiring restaurants to label imported shrimp (the official state crustacean).
“I don’t think we’re gonna go that far,” Carpenter said with a laugh.
Marietta Democratic Rep. Mary Frances Williams tossed out a cultural hand grenade:
“Can you answer the age-old question that has caused many a family break-up and fight: do you or do you not add sugar to cornbread?” she asked.
A consummate politician, Carpenter tried to play to both sides.
“I do add a pinch of sugar,” Carpenter said. “I think if you study the history of cornbread, the corn used to be a lot sweeter than it is now once they started mass producing.”
Cornbread was not the only Southern delicacy to earn special distinction from the House Wednesday.
Rep. Rick Townsend, a Republican from Brunswick, presented a bill to name Brunswick stew Georgia’s official state stew.
“It goes with many things, whether it’s biscuits, crackers, and especially cornbread,” Townsend said. “It’s delicious stew.”
Not everyone agreed with Townsend’s assessment. Macon Democratic Rep. Miriam Paris displayed a surprising amount of antipathy toward the tomato-based stew.
“Is it not true that if you took a poll in here today, that this bill would lose?” Paris asked. “If you took a poll in here today, would it not be that 51% of these people would say they don’t like Brunswick stew?”
“It would still be the best stew in Georgia,” Townsend said.
As it turns out, they did take a poll. The House voted 152-2 to make Brunswick stew the official state stew, with Paris and Dallas Republican Rep. Joseph Gullett opposed.
Paris did not respond to a request for comment.
DEI
A Q and A on a bill in a Senate Committee Thursday started with a question about the presenter’s pronouns.
“Let me start off with a couple of questions. What’s your pronoun?” asked Senate Higher Education Committee Chairman Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican.
“Your majesty or your highness,” said Tyrone Republican Sen. Marty Harbin.
“That’s interesting,” Burns said with a laugh. “Does that question offend you?”
“I know what I am, and I know that I am a male, and I would take he and him, and that’s where I am. I believe there are two sexes, male and female,” Harbin said.
The two were discussing a bill Harbin said would remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs from Georgia’s public and private universities. It was not scheduled for a vote.
Harbin said DEI programs have become tools of ideology rather than inclusion.
“Too often they result in a campus culture where dissenting viewpoints are silenced, where professors fear retribution for presenting alternate perspectives and where students self censor themselves to avoid accusations of insensitivity or bias,” he said. “Academic institutions should encourage the marketplace of ideas and not a dogmatic adherence to a singular worldview. When certain perspectives are deemed unacceptable simply because they do not align with DEI principles, we replace education with indoctrination.”
Several dozen people came to the committee to oppose the bill.
“When we learn about different cultures, perspectives, and histories, we become better thinkers, leaders, and citizens,” said high school student Laila Erold. “This bill attempts to stifle that growth, and I will not stand by and let it happen. By silencing discussions on race and identity, SB 120 perpetuates ignorance and fear. It tells us that our struggles don’t matter, that our voices don’t matter. We’re not just students, we are activists, and we will fight for our right to learn in an environment that embraces rather than shuns diversity.”
Harbin said he was bringing the bill on behalf of a constituent’s daughter who had several galling experiences at Georgia College and State University.
“When she joined her sorority, she was required to pick a pronoun to describe her and what she was. And she said, ‘I know what I am. I should not be required –’ but she was required, in order to join, she was required to have to fill out the form as it was,” he said.
The freshman had another problem with one of the texts in her English class, Harbin said.
“The requirement was this article, this was read, had to be read in class,” he said. “And I will not read the title of it. You can read the title yourself there because I don’t want to offend anybody, but if you read that, that was read in class by each of the students, (they) had to sit there and go through that and read different parts of this, and she was extremely offended.”
The title of the article was “I’m a plus-size woman of color. Posing nude in front of strangers helped my self-esteem.”
DOGE
For centuries, the word “doge” was nothing but a childish misspelling for man’s best friend. For a brief window from about 2013 to 2025, doge described a silly little dog that people on the internet could use to make jokes, as well as a niche cryptocurrency.
But from January to an unknown point in the future, DOGE is the Department of Government Efficiency, a chaotic government agency dedicated to rooting out waste, spearheaded by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Sandy Springs Democratic Sen. Josh McLaurin may have become the first Georgia senator to take to the well with an internet meme printed out on Senate letterhead Monday when he wielded a picture of the doge meme to speak against Georgia’s “Red Tape Rollback Act,” which supporters billed as Georgia’s version of DOGE.
In the broken English typical of doge memes, McLaurin’s picture read “so Senate, Red, very tape, much legal, wow.”
McLaurin is accustomed to using humor to make a political point – he regularly takes on the persona of a news anchor to roast President Donald Trump’s second administration from the Senate well, sometimes earning chuckles even from his Trump-supporting Republican colleagues.
He said he used the doge prop to illustrate the disdain he says the administration shows toward institutions and the people who make them up.
“I think the challenge with using humor in politics is it’s got to be a type of fun that everybody can get behind, or at least most people can get behind, that’s not at somebody else’s expense,” he said. “Genuine fun for the sake of fun lightens all our spirits, but when somebody is couching something destructive or mean or insulting as a quote-unquote ‘joke,’ then it takes on a different character. That’s my criticism of the use of the doge meme federally, is that it’s being used to dismantle the government, to strand USAID employees overseas, to fire a bunch of people illegally who do great work and depend on those paychecks. There’s some things that a meme can’t make funny, and that’s in that category.”
Speaking with the Recorder about memes and humor in politics Friday, McLaurin used Vice President JD Vance – McLaurin’s former college roommate – as an example of someone who uses comedy to punch down.
McLaurin referred to a 2021 tweet from Vance after actor and outspoken Trump critic Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a cinematographer while filming a movie. Vance called on Twitter’s then-CEO to reinstate Trump’s then-canceled account so the then-former president could comment on his detractor’s misfortune, which many panned as insensitive in the wake of the tragic accident.
“When he was confronted about that, he said something like, ‘the country wants authenticity and wants people to lighten up,’” McLaurin said. “My sense is that the country does want people to lighten up. The country does want authenticity. But the country doesn’t want leaders who are authentically an a–hole.”
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