Morning Reads for National Gardening Day (April 14)
Good morning, and welcome to a quickly compiled version of the Morning Reads.
It’s National Gardening Day. My seedlings have been started (though, admittedly, I’m still adding like the addict I am), and I am not yet ready to put things in the ground, so this is kind of a bust of a gardening day for me, but hopefully it won’t be for you! That’s more that my April has been crazy than anything else. The average last frost date for my area was the 5th. Anyway, plant something if you haven’t already, and if you’re nervous about trying, I recommend zinnias if you want to grow a flower or okra if you want to grow a vegetable because they’re both easy peasy.
To honor the day, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library shared this gem on Twitter:
Moving on to the headlines…
Pat Conroy
- If you’re a student at one of Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities, you will see no increase in tuition or fees for Fall 2021.
- More than 40,000 Georgians have signed up for health insurance via the exchange since the special enrollment period opened in February, the third highest among states with federally-run insurance exchanges.
- Republican officials in Whitfield and Murray Counties voted unanimously to censure Governor Brian Kemp, Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for “doing nothing to help Mr. Trump” win in November. (Alternate link.)
- Already removed as county attorney for Hancock County, State Rep. Barry Fleming is now facing a push to remove him as the city attorney for Washington (in Wilkes County) due to his crafting the state’s new restrictive voting law.
- Will Smith’s new film, Emancipation, now will not be filmed in Georgia due to the new voting law.
- State Senator Jen Jordan has announced a run for Attorney General next year.
Alice Walker
- The Biden Administration intends to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11th.
- Researchers are beginning to find clues as to why the rare blood clots stemming from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have occurred.
- Medically underserved communities will bear the brunt of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause. (Alternate link.)
- The Brooklyn Center police officer who killed Duante Wright has resigned.
- Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff has died in prison.
- IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig told Congress yesterday that uncollected taxes amount to $1 trillion or more annually.
Flannery O’Connor
- Scientists have discovered a new type of dinosaur they’re calling a monkeydactyl.
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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OK, so I recently watched Ken Burns’ Hemingway so the Afghanistan withdrawal announcement reminded me of this:
“I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.” from A Farewell to Arms
So if you can’t use those words to describe a world war then I have no idea how to describe such an exercise in futility that was 20 years in Afghanistan. A country whose majority appears to want to stay in the Iron Age.
If I see this country do nothing else before I shuffle off I would like to see something done to see none of the massive “Defense” budget spent on offense. We spend more on “Defense” than the next 10 countries combined. This is not a sustainable number. And that is just the monetary aspect. I will leave it to Hemingway to describe the effect on human lives, and deaths.