Good morning! I hope your eggs were properly cooked, and your issues were equally to your liking.
- TransCanada is suing the United States about the rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the Wall Street Journal wants TransCanada’s attorneys to be sure to point out that despite the political consternation at home, the Obama Administration is just fine with a similar pipeline project in Africa.
- The Economist released their annual interactive Big Mac index.
- If I wasn’t so tired I’d feel validated by this CDC report identifying the most sleep-deprived group in America.
- Georgia is ground zero for preserving the Indigo snake.
- Richard Hyde was reappointed to Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission.
- The question of whether or not to renovate the garden at the Juliette Gordon Low birthplace causes consternation in Savannah.
- In Florida, people have feelings about Daylight Savings Time.
- Cakeage is a thing. “It’s like my comic relief and my only way of getting back at people, even though I do it secretly,” Mr. McCarthy said. “These people sought out a nice restaurant, yet they undermine it by bringing in the world’s most hideous cakes.”
- Dear Neal McCarthy, owner of Atlanta’s Miller Union: if you’re talking in the New York Times about your secret Instagram account where you make fun of the people who pay you money to eat at your restaurant, it’s actually not a secret, but maybe it is rude.
It’s only Day 2 of session, and by now you may have spent enough time thinking about the Capitol to ponder, “Oh, this is why Daddy said not to go downtown! Teri, remind me what we’re looking for?”
It’s This Week in Hamilton! Over at Vulture, in honor of yesterday’s birthday of our Ten Dollar Founding Father, it’s Hamilton Week. This interview with several of the musical’s stars is delightful, and illustrates how lucky we are to be alive right now, so we can witness extremely intelligent, undeniably talented people sing superbly catchy songs about our nation’s birth (and afterbirth). Gems in the interview include Daveed Diggs, who portrays both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette, explaining what it actually means to be famous:
There are people who haven’t done anything but who are famous. Like, you can be YouTube famous tomorrow if you have the right cat. Some of my favorite research was reading the letters between Lafayette and George Washington where they’re, like, trading tips about who should build a statue of you.
Finally – why am I here? The short answer is that for the past year, I contributed to a blog along with a group of smart, talented, writers who valued thoughtful analysis of the issues facing Georgia, and – most importantly – brought levity to the conversation, since politics without a little levity is absolutely miserable. I represent Smyrna’s Ward 3, and I appreciate that municipal elections in Georgia are nonpartisan, since the services we provide to residents are fundamental to a primal degree: things like sanitation, water, public safety, and bike sharing. I’ll mostly write here about issues that impact local decision-makers, and since I have two school-aged children, I’ll probably also write about issues that impact The Kids. Thanks for reading, and thanks for contributing to the discussion here. Onward, and Open Thread!