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The Clock Is Ticking
TRUMP’S ENVIRONMENTAL REVERSALS THREATEN US ALL
higher than normal. “I would love to see
lines on Election Day, because that tells me
people are voting,” she said.
Similarly to Evans, the other panelists
had a dire take on the state of democracy
and election integrity in Georgia. Jeanne
Dufort, a member of the Coalition for Good
Governance, warned that the rise of elec
tronic voting machines, which she claims
are easily hacked, was “creating a national
crisis of confidence” in our elections. She
referenced an ongoing federal lawsuit in
which a computer security expert recently
presented evidence that an election server
used in the 2018 election in Georgia was
hacked by malicious actors.
Christopher Bruce, political director of
the ACLU of Georgia, described his efforts
in the current state legislative session
to end partisan gerrymandering with an
independent redistricting commission. He
also stated several times that the ACLU
would be available to help the ACC Board of
Elections through any potential difficulties
to help ensure a smooth and secure 2020
election.
The final panelist was Linda Lloyd,
executive director of the Economic Justice
Coalition. According to Lloyd, her organi
zation has registered over 18,000 voters in
the past two decades. This drew applause
from the audience—before she bemoaned
the voter purges happening at the secretary
of state’s office, saying, “the more we put
on, the more they take off.”
The event was organized by the Athens
chapter of the American Constitution
Society and several other local groups. It
followed a screening of the documentary
Suppressed about voter suppression in
Georgia in 2018, when Democratic candi
date Stacey Abrams accused now-Gov. Brian
Kemp of using his position as secretary of
state to purge voter rolls and make it harder
for African Americans to vote. A video of
the discussion is available on flagpole.com.
[Chris Dowd]
To Scoot Of Not to Scoot?
They seemed to leave almost as swiftly
as they arrived, but electric scooters could
soon be flocking again in Athens when a
moratorium ends in June.
ACC assistant attorney Sherrie Hines,
who calls them “shareable dockless mobility
devices,” is working on what could become
a pilot program. Having already talked
with the Mayor and Commission and the
Legislative Review Committee, she out
lined her progress last week to members
of Athens in Motion, the commission-ap
pointed committee of volunteers working
on pedestrian and bicycle issues.
“The Mayor and Commission clearly
had questions, and there was some uncer
tainty about whether we should bring back
the scooters,” Hines said. “We may move
forward with an RFP or a recommenda
tion that we shouldn’t bring them back to
Athens. We want to do the right thing, not
rush and have a bad result.”
UGA banned the scooters almost imme
diately when they landed, and it isn’t likely
to change its position. Electric scooters are
also banned on the Greenway, which allows
only service vehicles doing maintenance.
In contrast, Georgia Southern University
allows e-scooters on its campus, where
sidewalks are much wider than on UGA’s
campus, and where the terrain is mostly
flat, not hilly.
The way the dockless devices are
designed, users can’t signal while they are
driving, as cyclists do, and they can’t see
after dark, since the scooters don’t have
lights. So, if the county sends out RFPs, the
vendors who participate in a pilot program
should plan to operate them from dawn to
dusk and to provide a 24-hour service help
number, Hines said.
Scooter vendors don’t make money rent
ing the devices; they make money selling
data to third parties about where and when
a user travels, Hines said. If the local gov
ernment collects the data, an open records
request would make it public. This detail
troubled most of the committee, but the
specifics of data collection haven’t been set.
“With geospatial data, they can figure out
what you did your whole day,” Hines said.
Athens in Motion Chairperson Carol
Myers said the committee will discuss and
review the information and will likely make
a recommendation “in a couple of months.”
[Rebecca McCarthy] ©
By Ed Tant news@flagpole.com
This year marks the 50th anniversary of
Earth Day, the Apr. 22,1970 mobilization
of millions of Americans who rallied in
Washington, DC, and joined environmen
tal cleanups and teach-ins all across the
nation. Half a century after Earth Day
shined a spotlight on the fragile ecology
of our planet, protecting the global envi
ronment is needed now more than ever,
and millions of citizens in America
and around the world are combin
ing hope and action to save
our planet’s air, land and
water for generations yet
unborn. Babies born in
this country today may
live to see the year 2100.
The kind of world that they
will inherit in the not so far away
future depends on political and eco
nomic decisions that are made today.
President Trump’s rollbacks of envi
ronmental accords and protections, and
his “fox guarding the hen house” approach
to staffing government agencies like
the Department of the Interior and the
Environmental Protection Agency, have
led to a resurgence in the environmental
movement nationally and locally. Here in
Athens, on Friday, Feb. 14 from noon to 3
p.m., the Georgia Climate Change Coalition
will gather on the
lawn between the Tate
Center and the Miller
Learning Center on the
University of Georgia
campus.
Concern for the
environment is much
in the news in this precarious world of
2020, but back around the year 1800,
British poet William Wordsworth elo
quently warned that, “Little we see in
Nature that is ours;/ We have given our
hearts away, a sordid boon.” A century
after Wordsworth penned his poetry, an
American president, Theodore Roosevelt,
pushed policies of conservation, saying,
“Here in the United States, we turn our
rivers and streams into sewers, we pollute
the air, we destroy forests and exterminate
fishes, birds and mammals—not to men
tion vulgarizing charming landscapes with
hideous advertising.”
Roosevelt used his authority to create
the U.S. Forest Service and establish dozens
of national forests, five national parks, 51
federal bird reserves and 18 national mon
uments. In 1906, he signed the Pure Food
and Drug Act after unsafe and unsanitary
conditions in the American meatpack
ing industry were exposed by Upton
Sinclair’s novel The Jungle. When
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt
became president in 1933, he
continued the concern for the
environment voiced by his
Republican cousin during his
White House terms from
1901-1909.
FDR’s Civilian
Conservation Corps helped
more than 3 million young
men and their families through the Great
Depression. CCC workers fought forest
fires, planted trees, built woodland trails,
bridges and wildlife refuges and maintained
campgrounds that Americans still enjoy
today. As the world burns with wildfires
in Australia, South America and other
locales, the words of Franklin Roosevelt
are prescient and relevant for us today:
“A nation that destroys its soils
destroys itself. Forests are the lungs
of our land, purifying the air
and giving fresh strength to
our people.”
Later presidents of
both political parties
expressed concerns about
assaults on the environment.
Democrat John F. Kennedy’s
administration coincided with the pub
lication of Rachel Carson’s blockbuster book
about pollution, Silent Spring. JFK said, “I
look forward to an America which will not
be afraid of grace and beauty, which will
protect the beauty of our natural environ
ment.” When Kennedy’s GOP rival, Richard
Nixon, gave a State of the Union Address in
1970—just three months before the first
Earth Day—Nixon said, “Clean air, clean
water, open spaces—these should once
again be the birthright of every American.”
Today, that birth
right is being squan
dered, as the time on
the famous “Doomsday
Clock” of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists
was recently moved to
100 seconds from the
metaphorical midnight of planetary disas
ter. The Doomsday Clock has been a feature
of the bulletin for more than 70 years, and
this year, the scientists at the publication
say that we are “closer to apocalypse than
ever” because of threats from nuclear weap
ons, environmental catastrophe and cyber
warfare. Such dire warnings are needed and
should be heeded, but there is cause for
hope when millions of this planet’s citizens
want to leave a livable Earth to the citizens
of the future. The meek will not inherit the
Earth of tomorrow if the mean inhibit the
Earth of today. ©
THIS MSBIKII VSILB
EXCUSES FOR ACQUITTAL
DEMOCRATS WANT TO UNDO
THE WILL OF THE VOTERS
If we CAN REMOVE DONALD TRUMP
FROM OFFICE--
—OUR SCHEME
TO INSTALL
MIKE PENCE
AS PRESIDENT
WILL BEAR
FRUIT AT
LONG LAST;
SCHiFF ONCE PARAPHRASED
A PHONE CALL
—AND I DIRECT YOU TO VIDEO
Of HIM CLEARLY STATING HE
IS PARAPHRASING THE CALL, PROVING
HIS NEFARIOUS INTENT TO DECEIVE. 1
LOOK, I
WORK For
DONALD
TRUMP,
WHAT THE
HELL DO YOU
EXPECT?
by TOM TOMORROW
WE DON’T KNOW THE IDENTITY
OF THE WHISTLEBLOWER
WHAT IF THEIR THOROUGHLY SUB
STANTIATED ALLEGATIONS WERE
MOTIVATED BY POLITICAL BIAS?
EVERYONE KNOWS
You CAN'T REPORT
A CRIME UNLESS
YOU ARE A COM
PLETELY UNBIASED
observer;
HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER BIDEN
HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER BIDEN
HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER
BIDEN HUNTER 8IDEN HUNTER BIDEN.*
EVIDENCE SCHMEVIDENCE
IF HOUSE DEMOCRATS WEREN'T ABLE
TO HEAR TESTIMONY FROM WITNESSES
THE PRESIDENT BLOCKED FROM
TESTIFYING—
—IS THAT SOME
HOW THE PRES
IDENTS FAULT?
LOL, WE'RE NOT
EVEN GOING TO
PRETEND to TRY
ANY HARDER THAN
THIS.'
JOHN BOLTON IS JUST A DIS
GRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE
1 barely even KNEW that guy with the
weird moustache! If f ever find out who
hired him, I am TOTALLY firing THEM!
II I IU i
HOW do all
these idiots
end up work
ing for ME?
SO unfair!!
WHAT’S THE POINT OF WIT
NESSES IF WE’VE ALREADY
MADE UP OUR MINDS
BY REFUSING TO LISTEN TO ANY
ONE WITH FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE
OF TRUMP'S ACTIONS—
WE CAN CON
TINUE TO CLAIM
WE HAVEN'T
HEARD FROM
ANYONE WITH
FIRSTHAND
KNOWLEDGE.*
TRUMP CAN LITERALLY DO
ANYTHING
YOU CAN'T CONVICT A PRESIDENT FOR
TRYING TO CHEAT IN AN ELECTION
IF HE'S A DERANGED NARCISSIST
WHO BELIEVES HIS ILLICIT VICTORY
IS IN THE NATIONAL interest;
TRUMP DID EVERYTHING AND
IT WAS GOOD THAT HE DSD
WHO AMONG US HASN'T TRIED TO
CUT A DEAL WITH A FOREIGN
GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY A
RIVAL'S REPUTATION?
i r * * * m
If BLATANT COR
RUPTION IN THE
PURSUIT OF CON
TINUED POWER IS
WRONG, I DON'T
WANT TO BE
right;
Clean air, clean water,
open spaces—these
should once again be the
birthright of every American.
FEBRUARY 5, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM
5
RYANICUS GIRRAFICUS / WIKI MEDIA COMMONS