Georgia Today: Senate wants to make local govts. cooperate with feds; Trump fires one tenth of CDC

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Friday, Feb. 14. Happy Valentine's Day. I'm Peter Biello. This podcast has the latest reports from the GPB news team. Send feedback or story tips to Georgia today at GPB, dawg. On today's episode, the Georgia Senate wants to force local governments to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The Trump administration fires one-tenth of the employees at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And for Georgia poet Tony Wheaton, writing is an act of self-discovery.

Tony Wheaton:  I can't wait to get to that computer every morning to see what's going to happen and see who I'm going to be today.

Peter Biello: I'll talk with Tony about his new collection of poetry. That and more on this edition of Georgia Today.

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APD

Story 1:

Peter Biello: The Georgia Senate is taking aim at local governments that don't cooperate with federal immigration authorities. A bill approved yesterday would allow the state to penalize them by exposing them to lawsuits. GPB's Sarah Kallis has more.

Sarah Kallis: Under Senate Bill 21, counties which don't make federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement aware of undocumented immigrants in their jails would risk losing sovereign immunity or their protections from many lawsuits. Sen. Blake Tillery sponsored the bill.

Blake Tillery: All Senate Bill 21 says, is that if you're not going to enforce Georgia immigration law, you run the risk of waiving your sovereign immunity.

Sarah Kallis: Most Democrats, like Sen. Nikki Merritt, opposed SB 21.

Nikki Merritt: We're threatening our local law enforcement who are doing the best job that they can to keep our communities safe just with regular crime.

Sarah Kallis: The bill passed 33 to 18. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state capitol.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: The Georgia House yesterday passed a bill that would impact adults under conservatorship or legal guardianship. House Bill 36 would expand who can determine if someone needs guardianship to include nurse practitioners, physicians assistants and marriage and family therapists. Elberton state representative, Republican Rob Leverett, said professionals currently authorized to make such a determination are reluctant to conduct evaluations.

Rob Leverett: And I'm not trying to blame or censure them at all for that. I can — I don't question their reasons and I can think of a number of perfectly valid reasons why one of those professions might not be able to provide that evaluation. But the fact is they're not doing it. And as a result, the cases are being delayed and sometimes stalled.

Peter Biello: Opponents of the measure, including Atlanta state representative, Democrat Stacey Evans, said the bill could have serious consequences.

Stacey Evans: But we can not go for speed when we are talking about freedom. We cannot shirk on qualifications when we are talking about freedom.

Peter Biello: The bill passed 99 to 70, mostly along party lines, sending it to the state Senate for consideration.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: The Georgia House yesterday passed a bill that would boost awards going to the spouses and children of public school employees who lose their lives at work. The increase from $75,000 to $150,000 would compensate teachers families at the same rate provided to law enforcement families in the same circumstances. Dawsonville state representative, Republican Will Wade, said House Bill 105 is somber but necessary.

Will Wade: Our public school safety officers deserved it then and our teachers deserve it now. And this remedies that disparity in the law.

Peter Biello: The bill now moves to the state Senate.

​​​​​​​Story 4:

Peter Biello: While Georgia's rural hospitals face an uphill battle to stay financially sustainable, they're still fighting to overcome gaps in health care access. That's according to a report out this week from the health care consulting firm Chartis. GPB's Sofi Gratas Has more.

Sofi Gratas: The report, based on a mix of data collected by Chartis and from federal health care agencies, describes stretches of rural Georgia, where a cycle of unmet needs creates so-called health care deserts. According to the report, Georgia has almost two dozen rural hospitals at risk of closure. 11 facilities have stopped offering inpatient care since 2010. Hundreds of rural hospitals cannot meet their bottom line, and that financial instability means the shuttering of some critical services. The report suggests that investing in preventative care and expanding federally funded insurance could help. Meanwhile, last year, Georgia lawmakers made a top priority of reforming state laws about where and how hospitals can operate in the hopes that deregulation would create a boom in rural health care options. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas.

​​​​​​​Story 5:

Peter Biello: The Trump administration is forcing out nearly 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about a tenth of the Atlanta based agency's total workforce. The decision, shared with CDC leadership this morning, targets probationary workers: generally those who have less than a year on the job or veteran staffers who were recently promoted. Affected workers are supposed to get four weeks paid administrative leave.

​​​​​​​Story 6:

Peter Biello: The South Georgia funeral home owner accused of neglecting human corpses after 18 decomposing bodies were found at his business has pleaded not guilty to scores of charges. Chris Johnson of Douglas waived his right to a formal arraignment and entered his plea on Wednesday. Johnson faces 62 counts, including abuse of a dead body, theft by deception, and insurance fraud after the shocking discovery last October. No trial date has been set.

​​​​​​​Story 7:

Peter Biello: A federal judge has ruled against a man on Georgia's death row who argued that lethal injection could cause him excruciating pain and suggested a firing squad as an alternative. Michael Wade Nance argued that because of his medical history, lethal injection could cause him severe pain and violation of his constitutional rights. A judge ruled yesterday that Nance had failed to prove that. Nance's lawyer today declined to comment on the ruling, but said an appeal is being planned.

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Poet, painter and musician Tony Whedon at his home in Darien, Ga.

Credit: Peter Biello

​​​​​​​Story 8:

Peter Biello: In his new collection of poetry, writer Tony Whedon combines two of his artistic loves: verse and painting. Written over the course of 15 years. Blue Ray offers lyric poems that capture color the way a painter would. It also explores the grief left after the death of his wife. Recently, I stopped by his home in the Coastal Georgia city of Darion to talk about his latest work.

Peter Biello: Tony Whedon, thanks so much for inviting me into your backyard for this conversation. I really appreciate it.

Tony Whedon: So good to see you. Thank you so much.

Peter Biello: So, Blue Ray. This book opens with a poem about the color blue, mostly as it's used in painting. And that is a theme throughout. Can you tell us a little bit about the intersection of poetry and painting in this book?

Tony Whedon: Well, I've just always been interested in the sort of intersectionality between the three arts and also music. I'm a musician, and so the idea of playing with words as you would play with sounds is part of what I'm doing. But, you know, it's interesting because these poems were written in Blue Ray over a period of about 15 years, and a lot of them are very recent, and most recent ones are about losing my wife to Parkinson's a few years ago. So there's a tinge of grief through everything. Even the joyful moments have that. But in some ways, I feel the book is unified in that it's got color and it's got blue in it, but it's also unified by grief. But I'm not celebrating grief, because there's a lot of — lot to be happy about.

Peter Biello: This book is dedicated to Suzanne, who I should mention I had the pleasure of meeting. Wonderful woman. Very kind, very fun to be around. What was it like for you to grapple with that grief in the poems in this book?

Tony Whedon: Why don’t I read a poem, because that's the only way I can really handle that.

Peter Biello: What poem?

Tony Whedon: Okay, this is "Tachycardia":

The storm came fast and was nearly gone

before I went out to check the damage –

a patio table tossed over, our sweet

princess of a garden statue ensnared

in vines. A wild down-home rocker

of Low Country storm, & I felt your heart,

your poor heart, beating next me,

your breath coming way too fast.

A slash of lightning, preceded by

throat-clearing rumbles somewhere west

of the marsh, then you were awake,

your voice soft as a prayer. Nothing’s

to be done about it, you said,

and promptly fell back to sleep,

and I lay there awake till dawn.

Peter Biello: That image nearly knocked me off my feet. Can you tell me about where this poem came from?  

Tony Whedon: Who knows? It came from — my wife had Parkinson's. And when you have Parkinson's, you fall down. And she fell down a lot. And we didn't have any caregiver. I was the caregiver and did a lot of picking her up. So that's sort of part of it. Interestingly enough, last year I fell down and broke my femur. Now other people have to pick me up. But I haven't fallen down in the year. And I continue to write and play music. But also, I think, you know, it's about the conversation with somebody who's injured. "'Nothing's to be done about it,' you said, and promptly fell back to sleep." And meanwhile, I'm thinking, "What? What happened?" You know? And so, there's a kind of shock of any kind of trauma like that.

Peter Biello: I wanted to ask you about persona, because these poems, I thought, on first reading, some of them might not be you but a creation you've made on the page. You've done so much traveling. And I know when you travel, you tend to become a different version of yourself when you're in a new country. So, maybe you tell me: What do you — what do you make of the different personae in this book?

Tony Whedon: One of the things you ask yourself when you're writing poetry is who is, what is the real me and how is it being expressed here? And you get out — you come up with nothing, what you come up with are a series of palimpsest that are images of you, but not you itself, you know? It's really complicated. I've lived in France for a few years. I've lived in Greece for a year. I lived in Mexico. Visited, you know, scores of countries. And each time I found something new. Not — I wasn't just discovering a new self; I was discovering something new about myself and something that touched a different sensibility. Now, you could say that we have different sensibilities, that they're all just separate glimmers of the self. I lived in northern Vermont in a cabin and wrote a book about it called Drunk in the Woods. And I was recovering from alcoholism. And during that particular time, I went through all kinds of transformations because of huge cold winters with 30 below and the struggle of surviving being poor. That was another self, but it was really just an — not an embellishment, but an enlargement of myself.

Peter Biello: Well, do you feel like you've reached that version of your authentic self with this book?

Tony Whedon: Absolutely not. And thank God. I think I will one day when I'm dead. But I'm not looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to writing more poetry. Right now, for example, today an image came to mind of living in Paris and walked into a cafe. And there the great piano player, Bud Powell, was playing the piano. Bud Powell in Paris. Good God!  He was one of my favorite jazz piano players. Well, Bud Powell was mentally ill, and he was crouched over the piano, playing brilliantly, but absolutely crazy as a loon. And that image always stayed with me. And I started thinking about that today. And I wrote, "What's this poem going to be about? It's going to be about Bud Powell in Paris." Now, what's happening is, of course, it's not Bud Powell in Paris. It's me remembering about Bud Powell in Paris. Me trying to enhance what I saw before, through all the years. So in a way, writing about the past is inaccurate. It's not the past. It's your take on it. But it's really a development — development of your impression of that time. So writing is a way of not just filtering; you're not so much cutting out stuff as you are enhancing it, growing it. And that thing is going to grow in you, just like when you plant a seed in the ground.

Peter Biello: You gave me a piece of writing advice — It must have been 10 years ago. And that advice was so simple. It was: "The work is its own reward. Writing is its own reward." Do you remember giving me that advice?

Tony Whedon: All the things we've talked about this interview about finding out about yourself, by finding different layers of yourself — different incarnations, as it were — are part of the process. And it's its own reward. That's the reward you get. It's a complex one, but each one of us — and each day we do it — it may be a different reward. But I can't wait to get to that computer every morning to see what's going to happen and see who I'm going to be today.

Peter Biello: Well, Tony, thanks so much for speaking to me about Blue Ray and writing. I really do appreciate it.

Tony Whedon: Thanks again.

Peter Biello: Tony's work will be featured on an upcoming edition of Narrative Edge, a podcast about books with Georgia connections hosted by me and Orlando Montoya. You can find Narrative Edge at GPB.org/NarrativeEdge or wherever you get your podcasts.

​​​​​​​Story 9:

Peter Biello: Augusta has a vibrant music scene. And this Valentine's Day weekend, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band are coming to town. GPB's Kristi York Wooten spoke with the legendary trumpet player to learn more.

Kristi York Wooten: Who can forget that sound? The mellow trumpet of Herb Alpert. From mixing mariachi stylings with big band boom on "The Lonely Bull," to singing the lush Burt Bacharach ballad "This Guy's In Love with You," and groovin up the charts with the instrumental "Rise," Herb Alpert's music has touched generations, and his latest tour will spotlight his 50th album, released in 2024. Alpert, who turns 90 years old next month, admits he's never been one to showboat.

Herb Alpert: You know, I think there are a lot of musicians that they try to wow you. They have a terrific technique and a terrific energy, but they — a lot of musicians play for other musicians. You know, they want to be acknowledged. I've always tried to impress myself, you know, try to make music that made me feel like that's the most honest reflection of my — my talent. I remember distinctly listening to the Whipped Cream & Other Delights album after it was finished, and the album gave me goosebumps in the singing, like, "Wow, that's that's the music I'm going to be making in this concert." You know that music that made me feel good, and I think a lot of people will enjoy it.

Kristi York Wooten: Alpert says working with Mississippi soul singer Sam Cooke early in his career changed him. Along with Lou Adler, Cooke and Alpert wrote the classic hit "Wonderful World" in 1959.

Herb Alpert: I learned a lot from him. He didn't know he was teaching me anything, but I just liked the way he approached his music. It was very authentic. He used to walk around with this notebook. Then he showed me this one lyric and he said, "Herbie," he said, "What do you think of this lyric?" To myself, I said, "Man, this is the corniest lyric I've ever seen. It just — that doesn't make any sense to me." So he picked up his guitar and started playing. All of a sudden, I got it. I got the feeling, I know what he was trying to convey. I try to use Sam's advice: Close your eyes. Don't get sidetracked by if somebody is really beautiful or they can dance real well. Just listen to the music, listen to it and see if it touches you.

Kristi York Wooten: With Jerry Moss, Albert co-founded A&M Records and worked closely with artists like Janet Jackson and the Police. But it was the brother-sister duo The Carpenters, who became a worldwide sensation and put the label on the map.

Herb Alpert: I recorded that song thinking I was going to use it as a follow up to "This Guy's in Love with You." I signed The Carpenters in 1970, gave them that song, and it turned into magic and it took a while, but that record was on the launching pad for the Carpenters, who, by the way, still sell records. I mean, they're popular all over the world.

Kristi York Wooten: A lifelong resident of Southern California, Alpert says the recent fires have brought the importance of music to the forefront across the country.

Herb Alpert: Music is powerful. I think music is something that gives people hope. And the — and the beauty part of being part of the arts — because, you know, I paint and sculpt, make music — the, the thing that's so beautiful about it and even when you're listening to it, you are in the moment of your life when you're experiencing that. And I think that's the place where we all would love to be at: the moment, that moment, the only moment that really exists for us is that moment, very moment that we're in.

Kristi York Wooten: For GPB News, I'm Kristi York Wooten.

​​​​​​​Story 10:

Peter Biello: Today is Valentine's Day, which is a big deal to the Middle Georgia town of Juliette. Since 1994, the postmasters in Juliette, Ga., and Romeo, Mich., north of Detroit, have partnered to offer postal customers a unique pictorial postmark. It features a silhouette of a man and woman in a tender pose, along with the words "Celebrating Love on Valentine's Day." Thousands of letters and some in-person visitors come to Romeo and Juliet each year for the "cancellation," as the post office calls it. And if you missed it today, there's still time to send your Valentine mail with a romantic touch. The post offices and Romeo and Juliette offer the postmark until March 3.

Peter Biello: And that is a wrap on this edition of Georgia Today. We LOVE having you as a listener and we hope you'll come back on Monday. We'll have more news in your podcast feed. So the best thing to do now is to subscribe. And remember, we're going to have more news posted as it happens at GPB.org/news. Thanks again for listening. I'm Peter Biello. Have a great weekend. 

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