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On May 17, the NAACP and Amnesty International jointly sponsored a rally to bring awareness to the cause of Troy Davis. Emotional loved ones and supporters gathered to try saving the life of a man they all believe to be innocent.
The DOT board revealed the news today. The future bride and groom have registered at C.W. Matthews.
Pretty fast courtship, judging they only realized their love for one another a couple of months ago.
Don’t get all primed to start watering your lawn and washing your car and turning on those yard fountains just yet.
While there’s a feeling we’re out of the danger zone with water, an official with the Army Corps of Engineers told a group in Dawsonville yesterday that Lake Lanier could drop six feet by September if we have the dry summer that everyone is predicting.
According to a story in the Gwinnett Daily Post, the water manager told the Lake Lanier Association that the lake level is expected to drop this summer — the only issue is by how much. That, of course, did not make the Lake Lanier residents very happy.
But Brig. Gen. Joseph Schroedel also gave one of the most succinct, no bullshit statements about the region’s water crisis that we’ve heard:
I feel your pain. Look at how fast the population is growing. We can’t keep leaning on the same system and quadruple the population.”
Anyone in state government paying attention?
Usually, the most excitement East Confederate Avenue sees is a car wreck. There have been a few over the past year. On those occasions, neighbors congregated on the sidewalk to see what happened and to lend a hand if they could.
That’s what makes the incident at the painted brick house on the corner of Confederate and Woodland all the more shocking. Early this morning, the police cars that descended on Confederate, at the south end of Ormewood Park, weren’t responding to an accident. They were investigating the murder of two men. And according to CBS 46, police later learned that a third victim had been kidnapped from the house and severely beaten. He was discovered by a passer-by in the trunk of an abandoned car two miles away.
The neighbors were dazed. I know, because I’m one of them.
At around 1 a.m., I awoke to the flashing blue lights on the bedroom wall. A short while later, I glanced out the window to see an ambulance pull silently away from the scene. Later, when I took the dog for his morning walk, I learned there was no need for sirens.
Witnesses had reported hearing gunshots and breaking glass (somehow, I slept through that) and saw a man stumble from the brick house and collapse next to the Baptist church next door. Police found him dead at the scene. The second victim died inside the house.
Atlanta Councilwoman Carla Smith, who lives a few houses down Woodland from where the shooting occurred, says she went to check out the scene in the early morning hours, wearing her pajamas, and remained behind the crime-scene tape.
She realized the severity of the situation when she noticed the telltale attire of the arriving investigators: “As soon as I saw those fedora hats, I was like, ‘Oh no, there was a homicide.’”
She also says that, based on phone conversations with police, “It was probably drug related.”
The man discovered in the trunk, who had just moved into the house on Confederate the day before, confirmed the drug angle. According to the AJC:
The man, whose name has not been released, “admits that it was part of a drug deal that had actually gone bad,” [Atlanta police Lt. Keith] Meadows said. “He was scheduled to meet the other individuals that were involved in the drug deal, and I guess things kind of went awry and they ended up killing the two that were inside the house and putting him in the trunk of the car.”
Smith says the loss of life is a tragedy — one that she hopes won’t reflect poorly on Ormewood Park. She wants people to know that the evidence suggests this was not a random crime.
“I really have deep roots here and love this neighborhood,” she says. “And I am not scared at all.”
TEACHING TO THE TESTAMENT: Bible-as-literature classes clear legal hurdles in Tennessee and Georgia.
FLOCK ENROLL: Atlanta is the No. 1 major metropolitan area in the nation for college enrollment growth over the last 17 years and No. 2 in number of degrees awarded.
OVERRIDE: City Council takes Mayor Franklin down a notch by overriding three of her recent vetoes.
TESLER TRIAL: Jury deadlocked.
LANIER: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers takes heavy fire for its water-releasin’ ways at the Lake Lanier Association’s annual meeting Monday; the association is so fed up it’s funding its own scientific study on how much water the downstream mussels need to live.
GRADY CURVE: Grady Health System is officially taken over by Grady Memorial Hospital Corp. today, and also receives the first $50 million installment of the $200 million the Robert M. Woodruff Foundation pledged.
FOOT (AND MOUTH) IN THE DOOR: The U.S. farm bill includes a provision allowing the incurable foot-and-mouth disease to be studied in a mainland U.S. facility, clearing the way for the National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility, for which Athens is one of six candidates.
COMING TO BLOWS: Sustained wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph expected today.
“We must have zero-emission vehicles. Nothing else will prevent the world from exploding.”
— Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, speaking to The Economist about the importance of the electric cars his company plans to sell in the U.S. starting in 2010.
No Show: There is no Memorial Day to me. I love my country, but am I to memorialize all my brothers I lost? I watched them get shot in front of me. Memorial Day for me, brother, there is none. I got my own Memorial Day in my heart. I’m pretty mixed about Memorial Day. I live and breathe it every day. It’s a delicate situation. The parade I had was getting shit on. That’s Memorial Day.
Bill: A day we honor the people willing to put aside personal interest for their country. It’s become a long weekend for most people. Hopefully this country will realize again that when you send kids to war, you have a responsibility to take care of them afterward. We’re not doing that. Honor the dead by supporting the living. Go to a VA Hospital and visit these guys. I was a paramedic in the Air Force. I had 47 combat rescues in Vietnam.
Professor: I’m not going to a Memorial Day parade. When I came back from Vietnam, the first woman I talked to told me I was a baby killer and an Uncle Tom. If I do anything, I would go to Arlington Cemetery. Twenty-seven friends [there]. I counted. I was in Kilo Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine. I was treated pretty bad and I’m still treated pretty bad. I wouldn’t tell anybody for years that I was a Vietnam vet. A parade, I don’t want to participate.
A friend of mine was ticketed on MARTA last week for sipping a beverage on a train.
He got me thinking — if I walk onto a MARTA train with a pistol on my belt and a turkey sandwich in my hand, I could only be cited by MARTA police for the sandwich.
The lobbyists for Big Sandwich need to get on this.
The Supremes just decided, 7-2, to uphold a semi-wacky law that allows child pornography charges to be brought in cases where the images are virtual and where the child victims aren’t real. Confused? Join the club.
According to this NYT story, the case in question involved a scumbag who’d served five years for trading images of naked kids. He was also charged with pandering in offering pictures of his own daughter, but apparently didn’t actually have any such photos.
An appeals court said the second set of charges should be dismissed, but the High Court ruled otherwise, voting to uphold a 2003 federal law the lower court had thrown out as being too vague and broadly worded.
Today’s decision also paves the way for the prosecution of “virtual” child pornography – computerized or graphic images that seem to portray sex with kids – and even of verbal descriptions of filthy acts that may never have happened, with children who don’t exist!
This is an issue Hollywood dealt with in the ’90s, when an earlier version of the newly upheld law said movie studios could be prosecuted for child porno, even if the onscreen sex was simulated, the actors weren’t minors and the images were created with the help of digital effects.
The idea was nutty then and it’s nuttier now. In this puritanical legal environment, could “30 Rock” get in trouble for its hilarious “MILF Island” segments?
Just minutes ago, the Atlanta City Council unanimously overrode Mayor Shirley Franklin’s veto, and in doing so, echoed their call for the city to conduct an audit of the Department of Watershed Management before the council votes on a 27.5 percent water and sewer rate increase.
UPDATE: Franklin, who’s currently in Las Vegas attending the International Council of Shopping Centers convention — Wayne Brady and Carson Kressley are also at the five-day event — issued this statement:
“As an advocate for the democratic process, I respect the Council’s right and responsibility to exercise the power of their vote, even when we may disagree. As elected officials our actions help determine the fate of this city and I would hope we would all do that based on research, data, best practices and what is in the best interest of the City, its’ residents and visitors.”
UPDATE: From Department of Watershed Management Spokesperson Janet Ward:
The Department of Watershed Management (DWM) continues to believe in open and transparent government. We are one of the most audited departments and utilities in the metropolitan area. An oversight task force from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, with representatives of GEFA, the State Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources and the City’s internal auditor and Department of Finance, performs an annual audit of our capital program. In addition, a private firm performs an annual external financial audit. Finally, the City’s internal auditor, who is currently undertaking an audit of the Department’s billing and revenue collection systems, performs regular audits of our operations.
The Department’s proposed budget includes funding for two full-time positions in the office of the City’s internal auditor that will be dedicated to auditing Watershed Management. In addition, as directed by a City Council resolution, DWM has been organizing a peer review group to analyze operations and financial management within the Department.
In short, DWM believes in audits. However, there appear to be some technical issues with the resolution passed by Council; because the resolution never went to committee, there was no opportunity to discuss the audit scope, procurement or funding. We look forward to meeting with the City’s internal auditor and with the Chief Procurement Officer as to how they intend to proceed with this effort. We are confident that, a well designed and professionally performed audit will confirm watershed management’s exceptional performance and stewardship.
Atlanta’s auto-mania gets another thump on the head today from NYT columnist Paul Krugman, who compares our commuting habits unfavorably to those of Berliners:
Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.
The famed economist goes on to observe that Americans will never be able to build a master race until we give up some of our costly dependence on gas-guzzlers – or something like that.
It’s interesting that Krugman picks the German capitol because I had the same epiphany when I first visited there in 1999. We were staying in the former East Berlin, where the neighborhoods are mostly composed of five- and six-story blocks of flats surrounding a central courtyard where cars are parked.
Strolling around my first morning in Berlin, after riding the highly efficient subway system and watching the locals ride by on bicycles or in modern buses, I turned to my then-fiancee and said, “We’re in a real city.”
She’s been practicing her Deutsch ever since.
The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, the banner carriers of the Peach State’s free-market movement, hosted DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham last week to update powerplayers and bigwigs about the transportation agency’s pulse.
Here’s Abraham in a Florida Times-Union article about the event, talking about some of the good deeds that have gone unnoticed in light of all the romantic hullabaloo during her tenure (emphasis added):
In her speech, [Abraham] complained that news reports of [her relationship with former board Chairman Mike Evans] were distracting the public from information of substantive progress at the agency, namely a commitment to proceed with a long-discussed commuter-rail line from Atlanta to Lovejoy.
“I want to mention something that I am very excited about that the board passed in the last board meeting that didn’t get written about. Everything else in my personal life did. The board was very, very excited, and so was I about passing a resolution to look at commuter rail,” she said.
*Cough, cough* Ahem.
In more substantive news, the article also includes this choice nugget:
Another way of paying for [transportation projects] would be through privately run toll roads or, at least, toll lanes. Perhaps that’s why the luncheon was sponsored by Transurban, an Australian company that operates toll lanes for rushed commuters in Washington, D.C., and a toll road in Richmond, Va.
Common sense would tell me these speedy lanes would benefit the folks who could afford them — and who aren’t getting pinched by high gas prices — and cripple those who can’t, leaving them sitting in traffic in the Average Joe lanes, burning gasoline and seconds of their lives.
If you’re the sort of Atlantan who likes his/her meat-on-a-stick seasoned with Eastern Christianity, then man, oh woman, last weekend was heaven (on Earth) for you.
On Saturday, the St. John Chrysostom Melkite Catholic Church in Druid Hills held its 43rd annual Mid-East Food Festival. And all weekend, the Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Marietta held its annual Marietta Greek Festival. Along with abundant lamb, beef and pork, the feta’d fete featured traditional Greek folk dancing, and a Greek musical history lesson with included folksy Zorba-ish tunes as well as modern club hits. Did you ever know that you’re my gyro?
Gas prices and parking costs will inspire more city-bound vacationers to hop on a climate-controlled train rather than sit in gridlock and bake. The American Public Transportation Association estimates that public transportation use in the nation’s urban tourist destinations will increase seven percent over last year’s numbers.
Estimated increases among top-ten destination cities surveyed:
New York City (53 percent - up 5 percent)
Washington, DC (47 percent - up 1 percent)
Boston (48 percent - up 5 percent)
San Francisco (40 percent – remained constant)
Philadelphia (38 percent - up 4 percent)
Chicago (35 percent - up 4 percent)
Seattle (32 percent – up 2 percent)
Las Vegas (30 percent – up 4 percent)
Los Angeles (31 percent – up 5 percent)
Atlanta (25 percent – up 3 percent)
We’ll see if MARTA can handle the small uptick in demand. Thanks to the state not ponying up any cash to help move people around the state’s most vibrant area, the agency’s getting by on what it can.
From APTA, in a press release after the jump:
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MONEYMAKER SHAKEN: McCain, having just lost a
