you know if and when the Master gardener club of Marion is having their spring sale? Thank you.

D o you know if and when the Master gardener club of Marion is having their spring sale? Thank you.

[Editor’s Note: It just so happens that I do. I just found out about it yesterday, so I guess your Green Thumb Senses were tingling. You can _nd this info in the News Briefs, but just so I can say I answered your question, the big annual sale is Friday May 7 and Saturday May 8. Just in time for Mother’s Day, for those of you looking for gift ideas! Just FYI, the of_cial name for the club is the Crittenden County Master Gardeners. I only point it out in case you want to _nd them

As with everything else, the so-called ‘anti-trans’ label attached to recent Arkansas legislation made by hospitals, pharmacies and even some elected of_cials is misleading and completely disingenuous.

It should be called the ‘proyouth’ measure. Why, you might ask? As with everything else, just follow the money!

For instance, on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox TV, Asa Hutchinson, who vetoed the bill before it was overridden was shown as totally ignorant of the research literature on the subject, and declared the measure just “went too far.”

Yet, Carlson pressed him on the published work, and Hutchinson came up completely dry. Then, when asked if he felt beholden to big corporate interests in Arkansas – like Wal-mart – when he voted against the measure, he denied it. Yet, and perhaps – not coincidentally – as reported by The Evening Times Thursday edition, it is posited that Walmart is the founding member of the nation’s largest LGBTQ organization, The Human Rights Campaign.) Although I can _nd no veri_able source for that. So it would appear that Wal-mart would like to keep that on the ‘down-low’ for now, as they say. Oh, and also won’t Wal-mart be supplying the hormone treatments, drugs, psychological mind-altering potions and all supporting paraphernalia following chemical and surgical neutering of children and make a bundle of money from marketing and selling them at their in-store pharmacies? I think so. How about the hospitals … won’t they be doing the surgeries and charging for expensive and non-necessary surgeries? And wouldn’t they like their victims to be fully funded by putting it on the tab of the American taxpayer by _rst legalizing it, and then subsidizing it as well? I think so. I tell you, it is so-o-o-o-o tiring to _nd out that those who have vested interests in these matters think that waving a ‘virtue-signaling’ ag in people’s faces justi_es the chemical and surgical neutering of minors. Neither will it wash the blood of innocents from their hands. And screaming it louder still will never make it right! [Editor’s Note: I’ve made it pretty clear I lean to “the left” most of the time.

I’m even left-handed! And the reason I do mostly has to to with my internal “Hippocratic Oath of Politics” – basically, I’m going to go with the ideology that does the least harm. Gay marriage doesn’t hurt anyone. Equal rights for women and minorities doesn’t hurt anyone. Passing laws to keep guns away from people who don’t need guns de_nitely helps more than it hurts.

Universal health care is far beyond overdue.

This approach even causes me to lean to the right sometimes. I’m pro life, for example, except for extreme circumstances. And when applied to things like gender equality, I can’t really come up with a scenario in which anyone suffers from giving everyone on the LGBTQ+ rainbow the right to live how they want to … except maybe here. You see, if you are an adult, and you want to transition from male to female or female to male, go for it. I do not care. In fact, if I wanted to transition and someone thought it was their right to tell me I could not, we would have a problem.

Having said that, there are a bunch of things you have to be a certain age to do …

everything from getting a driver’s license to joining the military to voting to entering into a binding contract, so as much as I want to say “you do you” to everyone, there is a bit of a slippery slope when it comes to pre-teens making life-altering choices like gender-reassigning therapy and surgery. You can call it “gender-af_rming” treatment if you like, but giving it a fancy, altruistic-sounding name doesn’t make it any less permanent. Our bodies act according to a certain biology and altering that biological process through chemicals or surgery is a dangerous game, no matter the good intentions of the child’s parents (who must sign off on such drastic procedures) or the physicians (who must adhere to providing the best care possible for their patients). Having said that, I don’t agree with the state legislature’s new law or the override of the governor’s veto of that law, simply because, like their restrictive abortion bill, it does not provide case-by-case exemptions or take the doctor’s expertise and the patient’s needs into account. I looked. There are three physicians on the state legislature, so I would surmise the legislature is not quali_ed to say what procedures and treatments should be allowed] Cases are going up. Hope you all are ready for more lockdowns. [Editor’s Note: Nah, while I agree with you that the uptick of COVID-19 cases being on the rise is cause for alarm, you can’t put the toothpaste back in this particular tube. We’ll never have the mask mandate or stay-at-home orders in place again. It’s now “get vaccinated or put yourself at risk” going forward, and while that’s a somewhat awed approach, I don’t see it changing. Good luck and stay safe!]