Morning Reads for National Farm Workers Awareness Week (March 31)
And again, I’m choosing a week and not a day, but I live in the middle of the state and farming is vital in this neck of the woods. There’s a drive for long sleeved shirts for farm workers on the week’s official page, in which you can buy one shirt for $1, which helps mitigate workers’ exposure to pesticides and protects them from heat-related illnesses. Relatedly, it’s also César Chávez Day, which honors the founder of the National Farmers Union and his work in the area of labor rights for migrant workers.
Finally, of note, it’s World Backup Day, which I would link to, but the site is apparently down. The digital archivist here wants to put out her periodic reminder that putting things on a jump drive is not a good storage method, and “just digitizing it” does not save things forever. (I will die on these hills.) Make sure today to move things off of jump drives, and make copies of things that are only stored in one place. Oh, and Google Drive isn’t a longterm solution in and of itself, either. It’s PART of my personal solution, but would never be all of it. Just remember LOCKSS: Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe. And if you have questions, ask away and I’ll give you my best answer.
Let’s get me off my soapbox and onto the news, shall we?
Pat Conroy
- It’s officially Sine Die at midnight. (Alternate link.)
- U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May has ruled that Georgia’s ballot access law for third parties are unconstitutional.
- In case you think that the voting restriction legislation signed into law last week wasn’t political payback for Brad Raffensperger doing his job honestly, well, the AJC will set you straight. (Alternate link.)
- The Georgia Department of Education will not rate school districts on statewide test results for a second year.
- The state House passed a previously-failed bill via a procedural maneuver that will tie the hands of local officials trying to prevent farms from spreading stinky sludge near other homes.
- We are another step closer to living on Daylight Savings Time all of the time.
- Delta is opening up middle seats again. (Alternate link.)
- The Hill has a feature on the “high anxiety” within the Georgia GOP that’s really more of a guessing game of who will run for what in 2022.
Alice Walker
- President Biden will unveil a $2 trillion infrastructure proposal today.
- In case you’ve been under a rock, Derek Chauvin’s trial over the death of George Floyd is happening this week.
- Pfizer says its vaccine should be safe for ages 12-15.
- Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is under fire for an allegedly improper relationship with a 17 year-old.
- Two Capitol Police officers have sued former President Donald Trump over his role in the January 6th insurrection.
- G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate mastermind, has died at the age of 90.
- The large container ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal has suffered damage to its underside, but not enough to take it out of service.
- The EU’s medicines regulator has not yet identified any risk factors for blood clots with the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine.
- Italy has arrested a navy captain for spying and expelled two Russian diplomats.
- Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is facing more resignations amid a major shakeup in his cabinet and fears he was trying to assert greater control over the military.
- India’s farmers are still protesting the new laws that they believe will severely inhibit their ability to make a living in New Delhi. This is month five, and it’s one of the largest protests in India’s history.
- A coup attempt has been foiled in Niger.
Flannery O’Connor
- Several young men climbed a building to save a family from a fire in France.
About Author
Holly Croft
Holly is an archivist at one of Georgia's institutions of higher learning. In a past life, she was a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill. She cares a lot about records management, open records laws, and privacy laws. Political persuasion? It's complicated. What's not complicated is that she's proudly equal parts Bulldog and Tar Heel.
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“In all the noise about the election law changed last week, stuff like this flies under the radar. I’ll be down there until midnight, when they throw the paper on their desks into the air as confetti and we look for the bits of the Constitution left on the floor.”
This literally stinks, I live in Oglethorpe county so I experience the smell when the wind is out of the east.
“Georgia House OKs bill to give farms room to spread sludge, ignore stink
State lawmakers are trying to scale back a law that they passed just last year in hopes of cracking down on the sludge that was being passed off in some areas as a soil aid.
But some GOP lawmakers say an oversight got through during the frenzied end of last summer’s mid-pandemic session when they did not put limits on the power of local officials to put distance between their residents and the obnoxious smells compromising their quality of life.
Donna Blanton, a lifelong resident of Oglethorpe County, said the tanker-loads of industrial byproducts distributed near her home has made life unbearable for the last few years. She made the trip to Atlanta earlier this month to urge lawmakers to vote against the bill.
“I’m here today and I speak for all of my neighbors when I say that this stench was horrible – rotting pieces of chicken flesh and guts. The flies swarmed everywhere. We were held prisoners in our home and unable to use our own land,” Blanton told lawmakers then. “The same company applies eggshells to the land now – another soil amendment. The shells are just as nauseating as the sludge.
“I’m asking you today: Please do not pass the Senate Bill 260 and don’t allow these soil amendments any closer to my home than they already are,” Blanton said.”
https://georgiarecorder.com/2021/03/29/georgia-house-oks-bill-to-give-farms-room-to-spread-sludge-ignores-stink/