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Quick notes
I’m just throwing together the Good Morning Polk! Newsletter for today, and am not going to spend a ton of time on providing a “message” for today.
Other than to say that Tuesday was busy, and that later in the evening stories were posted. Including news that a good friend and Aragon City Council Member Daniel Johnson was in a wreck, and remains in the hospital. He was in serious condition last night.
I’ll be checking in later today to find out what his condition is.
The other local man in the hospital of note is Sgt. Barry Henderson, who after a WSB-TV report seems to suddenly be improving after suffering from COVID, and might be able to move to Emory. A t-shirt fundraiser is underway to help him and his family financially during this tough time.
Some good news to balance out the bad. All things considered, it has been a lot worse lately.
Tomorrow I’ll be back with a longer message, and some explanation about what’s happening here on Polk.Today, Polksportswire.com and another Myrick Multimedia product coming up in March.
Look, I get it. Times are tough for everyone. But my friends here on the site and newsletter, think about it this way: a little bit of change out of your pocket now can yield long returns in the future. That’s right, I’m asking you to provide a monthly contribution of just $5 to Polk.Today to ensure that for everyone near and far, Polk.Today can remain free of charge. And if you do so now, I swears that in the coming months when I do launch a more Kevin-specific, subscriber-only site separate from Polk.Today, you’ll get complimentary access to it. (March-ish 2021… Polksportswire.com is launching first… In the meantime, whether you decide to donate or not, I appreciate that you enjoy Polk.Today content. If you can do anything to help, you can share free local news far and wide and help the site grow.
The latest episode
Another episode of Talking Points on Polk.Today is available this morning here. Don’t forget you can now find it on Spotify for those who would prefer not to have to go clicking around for it in the future. Will get to Apple shortly. There’s some hoops to jump through.
This episode is a two-parter, and is over 40 minutes. You’ll want to hear from Debbie Ross about the upcoming Ferst Readers fundraiser, and from PSD on the school calendar for 2021-22.
Today’s Forecast
It’s not as cold as it felt yesterday by a long shot, with temperatures set to reach 48 on the afternoon as the high at midweek for Polk County per the National Weather Service forecast.
The chilly temps return tonight with a low of 27 predicted, but Thursday should bring some clouds and a high of 54, with rain returning Thursday night and into Friday with chances of showers in the morning hours.
Expect overnight lows to remain below freezing through the weekend.
Something to Watch this Morning
I’ve been watching this channel “Beau of the Fifth Column” for the past weeks for a counterpoint to regular commentary about political events. You might like what he has to say, you might not.
Either way, I think part of the polarization of our country has to do with the lack of hearing other voices in conversations, since the various walled gardens of social media keep us trapped in an echochamber bubble.
Start listening to other things. You’ll be better off for it.
Something to Read this Morning
Here’s some articles I think you should care about from around the region and country. Or maybe something to make you laugh. Take it for what it’s worth either way.
Good news from the AJC for teachers (it seems to be a teacher-themed day so far) that the teacher pension system is making a recovery amid COVID.
Keep Mayor Sherman Ross and his family in your prayers. His brother, and longtime radio man John “Randy” Ross of Knoxville (and formerly of Chattanooga) died on Jan. 26.
Some news that I’m actually surprised, and also somewhat not surprised about: Jeff Bezos is going to step down as Amazon’s CEO later this year.
In Space news, the Starship SN9 test flight ended with a spectacular boom on Tuesday. Launch, destroy, repeat is the way of rocket testing. I suspect they’ll get this whole stick the landing thing right with a third try with SN10, but now investigations are underway as to why SpaceX can’t seem to bring it back to earth safely so far.
Myanmar’s government charged deposed leader Suu Kyi, per the Associated Press.
In other world news, Alexi Navalny has been sentenced to another 2+ years in jail, and the protests continue in Russia.
It’s another “what color is this dress” kind of thing. This time with avocados.
One last item that came my way on Monday: this awesome write-up on the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga trails.
