‘Love was her gift.’ Mama Louise, Macon soul-food legend with Allman Brothers’ ties, dies - Macon Telegraph
I didn’t know about Mama Louise before last week, but based on the quotes in this obituary she was a heck of a human being and will be sorely missed in Macon.
“And if we didn’t have the money, she let us go,” said Gregg Allman. “She’d say, ‘It’s all right, honey, you go ahead. Pay me when you get it.’ We’ve always taken good care of her. ... I love her so.”
“She is a Macon music icon. She fed all of us when we were starving musicians. ... God, she had such a big heart,” Chuck Leavell said. “She was always just an angel.”
“Love was her greatest gift,” O’Neal, her daughter, said Tuesday. “When you’d go down to the restaurant to eat, you were comfortable. It’d be like you’re at home.”
Universal free lunch ballot measure passes easily in Colorado - NPR
We spent a lot of time covering the difficulty schools had feeding children during the pandemic, and Colorado has stepped up to do something about it. The federal government provided aid packages to make sure schools could put food on the tables from 2020-2021 but funding lapsed, leaving school districts scrambling.
That won’t be the case in Colorado moving forward. They’re paying for it by removing certain tax deductions on those making more than $300,000 per year to feed around 70,000 students. More states should follow their lead.
How Nepal Grew Back Its Forests - New York Times
This story really fills me with hope. These days, it’s exceedingly rare to hear any good news about our climate. It feels like every major update is that we’re doing worse than previously thought and that we’re reaching the point of no return faster than we expected.
The only real chance we have is that nature can make up a lot of ground relatively quickly once we turn the tide. Nepal is a prime example.
To just give you an example of how moving and vast the change is, I’ve copied the opening paragraphs here:
The old man moved gingerly, hill after hill, cutting dry shrubs until he was surrounded by trees that had grown from seedlings he had planted two decades ago. He pointed to a row of low peaks above the Kathmandu valley that were covered with dense foliage.
“You see that? They were barren mounds of red mud 15 years ago,” said the man, Khadga Bahadur Karki, 70, tears of pride fogging up his glasses. “These trees are more than my children.”
Kindly Go F*ck Yourself With Your Sh*tty F*cking Gas-Powered Leafblower, You Tremendous A**hole - Terrible Minds
If you’ve been here awhile, you know my extreme distaste for gas-powered leafblowers. I feel so seen by this headline. Not only does the author Ether the leafblower, they also come for lawns as well. I’m here for it.
Here’s the money quote:
“The hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Ford F-150 Raptor,” said Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor at Edmunds.com.
That is WILD.