Today's Opinions

We are seeing encouraging signals that Shelby County Fiscal Court and the Shelbyville City Council are on the verge of accomplishing something magnificent and wonderful, even if it is at least a decade overdue:

Officials of the county and city appear moving toward establishing curbside pickup of garbage and recycling for all residents.

We don’t mean to be presumptuous, because no ordinance has been drafted or presented. A misstep or politics or fear could emerge, and the public again could be left holding its own trash bags.

So let me get this straight: In 1976 the federal government decided that we would devote February to the celebration and development of African-American history, calling it Black History Month and expanding it from a whole week. Are we to take from that, after having spent so many centuries denying African-Americans as being whole parts of society, that 28 days each year seems a fair mortgage payment against that debt?

We aren’t certain just yet if we want to embrace the downhill snowball that the legalization of industrial hemp has become, but all this discussion and rapid movement by our elected leaders certainly have our undivided attention.

That state Sen. Paul Hornback (R-Shelbyville) was able to push his bill to accommodate hemp through the state Senate in just a couple of weeks of the session is remarkable. That he had an all-star lineup of Republican endorsements is impressive.