BROKEN WINDOWS Some residents of Vine City feel that their neighborhood is crumbling before their eyes.
Ask lifelong Vine City resident and community organizer Byron Amos to recall his childhood in the historic neighborhood, and he paints a simple portrait: houses, children, residents mingling in narrow, friendly streets.
“A real neighborhood,” he says.
Ask him to describe Vine City today, and he’ll tell you this: “It’s a shell of its former self.”
Literally. Thanks to disasters both natural and man-made, the long-overlooked community so rich with heritage has devolved into the very definition of blight.
On Sept. 21, 2002, an unprecedented downpour, exacerbated by the city’s antiquated sewer system, flooded Vine City 6 feet deep. Some stranded residents were forced to swim through raw sewage to reach safety.
Before he made his unfortunate outburst last week at City Hall, Sgt. Scott Kreher was prepared to deliver the Atlanta Police Union’s budget suggestions. His talking points, which bulletpoint the various problems wrong with the Atlanta Police Department’s management, can be viewed here. They’re also pasted after the jump.
Also, a group of residents have started a petition to reinstate Kreher. After he apologized for his comments, the APD placed the 17-year veteran on paid leave pending a psychological evaluation.
From the petition’s intro:
The undersigned citizens of Atlanta want Sgt. Scott Kreher back on the job, with his pay and benefits fully restored and no adverse impact to his status and standing in the Atlanta Police Department. These citizens want Mayor Franklin to accept Sgt. Kreher’s apology and to meet with the above-described injured officers, or to make sure their medical costs are covered in a timely and efficient fashion as described by the city’s workers compensation policy.
As of this posting, the petition had received more than 65 signatures.
AJC Political Insider Jim Galloway posted a video this morning I suspect Mayor Shirley Franklin doesn’t want you to watch.
The video shows five men and women severely wounded while on duty as Atlanta police officers. Each claims the city is denying them medical benefits they need, and to which they are entitled.
Why do I assume Mayor Franklin doesn’t want you to watch it?
Simple.
Because she’s spent the last week dodging questions about the video’s subject matter.
During the same week, however, Franklin has somehow found the time to launch an administrative, legal and public relations assault against APD union leader Sgt. Scott Kreher, the man who presented the video the city council.
Admittedly, Kreher made himself an easy target.
While speaking to city council last week about Atlanta’s alleged poor treatment of police officers severely wounded while on duty, Kreher said he’s so frustrated with Mayor Franklin’s intransigence that he feels like hitting her on the head with a baseball bat.
It was an ugly figure of speech for which Kreher apologized. But Franklin won’t move on.
She has evidently decided to use Kreher’s slip-up to once-and-for-all silence Kreher; one of her most persistent and (until last week) effective critics.
First, Franklin told Fox 5 she interprets Kreher’s statement as a literal physical threat meant to intimidate her and her family, even though it clearly an ugly metaphor for extreme frustration. Franklin says she wants a local, state and, FEDERAL investigation into Kreher’s comment.
Strange. When Atlanta residents express their fear of actual crimes, the mayor mocks them with cherry-picked stats. Hurt Franklin’s feelings, however, and she’ll summon federal help.
But wait. There’s more.
On Saturday, Franklin’s APD toady Chief Richard Pennington suspended Kreher from active-duty pending a psychological examination. Using a mental health bureaucracy and the stigma of mental illness to destroy a political opponent is a time-honored political tactic — in Russia.
Why is Franklin bending over backward to destroy Kreher? My guess is that she’s desperately hoping you won’t pay attention to his message.
So watch the video.
And if you still feel like blaming someone for drawing attention away from the important issue of benefits for wounded cops, go ahead and blame Kreher or Franklin if you’d like.
But remember, Kreher distracted us by accident. Franklin is doing it on purpose.
Atlanta activists plan to rally in Piedmont Park beginning at 5:30 p.m. to protest the decision as part of “Day of Decision” events taking place across the country. Protesters will gather at 14th Street and Piedmont, according to organizers.
You can spend all day wagging your finger at Atlanta Police Union chief Sgt. Scott Kreher for his inappropriate comment last week. You know, the one he said at City Hall about wanting to hit Mayor Shirley Franklin in the head with a baseball bat?
You can debate whether Kreher’s frustration over delayed compensation claims to five injured Atlanta police officers forgives such an outburst by a 17-year veteran of the force.
But to do all that does nothing to address the problem that Kreher says has festered in City Hall, one that’s reportedly led to back-and-forth legal challenges and injured officers allegedly being stonewalled for medical treatment.
What this issue needs is a little bit of sunlight. Let’s take a quick look at the contracts the city’s signed — and re-signed — with NovaPro Risk Solutions, the San Diego-based company that’s handled employees’ compensation claims since 2004, back when it was known as Ward North America Inc.
Just so, you know, we’re up to speed when this issue comes back up for discussion.
2. Georgia is South Korea (At least when it comes to sizing up human development. And yes, Georgia ranks above Mississippi and Alabama — and even Florida!)
President Barack Obama has named U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nomination to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Sotomayor, 54, who has served for more than a decade on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals based in New York City, would become the nation’s 111th justice, replacing David H. Souter, who is retiring after 19 years on the bench. Although Justice Souter was appointed by the first President George Bush, he became a mainstay of the liberal faction on the court and so his replacement by Judge Sotomayor likely would not shift the overall balance of power.
Wiles does not support expanding Atlanta’s public transportation system, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, to Cobb County.
Slamming MARTA, Wiles said the transportation system is so inept that “I would not want MARTA to have to wash my car.”
Wiles said his distaste for MARTA stems from serving on the General Assembly’s MARTA oversight committee, where MARTA officials refused to answer such simple questions as how much it costs them per rider.
Nor is Wiles pleased that MARTA employs five drivers who earn more than $100,000. Cobb County’s transit system has the same union contract as MARTA does, but pays its drivers half as much as the Atlanta system. Wiles said it’s a problem of management.
Let it be noted that at a MARTA Oversight Committee hearing earlier this year, Wiles asked transit officials how much it costs the agency to serve each rider. Officials gave him an answer (the estimate given was nearly a dollar higher than the current fare.)
Penny: My significant other doesn’t have any tattoos, which I love. But if she did, I’d want her to have an invisible one that you could only see in the black light that hangs over my bed. It would be a little secret between us. I’d get to see them, but nobody else would. It’s sexy she has no ink. I like her plainness. It’s delicious. She loves my ink. She plays with them. I love my tattoos, but I’m not a girl. It’s hypocritical, but that doesn’t change a thing. I’ve seen a lot of girls with a lot of ink and really bad tattoos.
Rhonda: Yes. That shows they’re going to have something in common with me, just like Buckhead people having blond hair. But I’d prefer someone with unique tattoos. A lot of guys have tribal tattoos, and it’s like, “Wow, that’s not original.” Then they try to create a deep meaning behind it instead of admitting they got a really stupid tattoo. With Japanese symbols down your back you look like an idiot. It’s been done 5,000 times — not to mention you’re not fuckin’ Japanese.
Brit: Yes, I do. I know that she has money to waste. I also find a girl with tattoos creative. I don’t like it when the tattoo says, “Property of Scooter.” I don’t know who Scooter is. If you have one, it might be scary. You might be looking over your shoulder going, “Scooter is about to walk through the door.” I don’t like a tattoo that says, “Snookie’s girl.” It’s a jail-style tattoo. It shows that person made a bad long-term decision. And Snookie may come through the door and say, “It’s obvious she’s my property.”
LEAD STORY: Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, now serving a life sentence in the Florence, Colo., “Supermax” prison, filed a 39-page federal lawsuit in March alleging unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment” because the refined-food, low-fiber meals give him “chronic constipation [and] bleeding hemorrhoids.” He demanded fresh, raw vegetables and other high-fiber foods, necessary to “keep one’s body (i.e., God’s holy temple) in good health.” Nichols was joined in the lawsuit by fellow Supermax resident Eric Rudolph (the convicted abortion-clinic and Atlanta Olympics bomber), who claimed “gas and stomach cramps” and observed that “our bodies” are “sacred and should be treated as such.”
When he’s not busy appearing on reality television or writing style and grooming advice for the masses, Atlanta’s Aaron Marino can be found saving fashion-challenged men across the country, one computer programmer at a time.
How did you get involved in your line of work?
I used to own a fitness center, and I had a male client that came up to me one day and was like, “Hey, I don’t know what to wear on a date.” And I said, “Well, why don’t I come over and we’ll go through your closet? By the way you need a haircut, so let my take you to my stylist. You also need to trim your nose hair.” I had no idea that I was setting the groundwork for an actual career.
Describe a typical day as an image consultant. What is it that you do?
I meet somebody at their house, and from that point we start going through all their old clothes. The idea is to create the best possible picture of somebody. It’s basically fashion smoke and mirrors. We take a gentleman’s best attributes and maximize them while simultaneously minimizing the negatives.
Where do you think your sense of style comes from?
I’m Italian, baby. One of my earliest memories was taping the end of my pants going to kindergarten, because I didn’t like the way they flared out. My wife likes to joke that I’m a gay man with a straight penis.
Sgt. Scott Kreher, one of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s most persistent and effective critics, stepped in a big pile of poop this week when he told the city council he’s so frustrated with Franklin’s unresponsiveness that he’d like to hit her in the head with the baseball bat.
Given the context of the original statement and the wording of Kreher’s quick apology, it was clearly an ugly metaphor. It stretches credulity to say Kreher’s comment was a threat.
“I think it’s intended to intimidate me, my family and city officials. I think it’s very dangerous language and when someone says they want to take a bat and hit you in the head, from my experience, they want to kill you,” said Mayor Franklin.
The mayor apparently had nothing to say about the source of Kreher’s frustration, her administration’s poor treatment of wounded police officers.
And that’s why Kreher’s comment was so infuriating. He handed Franklin a stack of victim cards. Now she’s playing them.
Michael Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons star quarterback, was released May 20 from a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan. He will be completing the final two months of his 23-month dog-fighting sentence in his Hampton, Va., home.
“Without one single doubt, Vick’s skill level will return. Will a team be interested in bringing him in to play? That’s difficult to determine right now on two levels: public relations and football. … He must be willing to do whatever it takes to help a team win as he rebuilds his life and career.”
“He’s erratic throwing the ball because of his mechanics. … It’s not his feet or his arms, it’s his release. … But now that they’ve got all these spread offenses, the Wildcat they’re running, a guy like Michael could be tremendous.”
— Roger Theder, San Diego Chargers assistant coach, quoted May 17 in the AJC
“I think Michael is just like so many other guys that I have seen. … It’s a young man that made a mistake and is looking for a chance to recover and move forward.”
— Tony Dungy, former Super Bowl-winning Indianapolis Colts head coach, to the AJC after meeting with Vick in Leavenworth
“We’re not interested in being part of a cynical ploy that’s nothing but public relations. … We believe that the behavior he has shown might very well be an indication of psychopathy and we’re asking for a brain scan and a thorough psychiatric evaluation.”
— PETA spokesperson Daphna Nachminovitch, on PETA’s rejection of Vick’s offer to participate in an advertisement for the group
Do bras keep breasts from sagging as you get older? I’ve heard reports that they do nothing at all.
— CURIOUS
Oh, bras probably do something. It’s just that nobody can agree on what it is. I won’t pretend to have the definitive answer, but here’s what we’ve established so far:
1) The medical term for breast sagging is breast ptosis. One often hears that “the French have a word for it,” “it” being any inscrutable aspect of daily life. If the French ever get stumped, however, ask a doctor.
Georgia Libertarian megablogger Jason Pye has chopped, diced and filleted the idiotic GOP talking point asserting it’s somehow dangerous to close Gitmo and hold suspected terrorists in federal prisons.
Pye accomplishes said task by resorting to an exceptionally cunning rhetorical trick known as “stating actual facts”:
“[T}here are already terrorists imprisoned in the United States who have committed or were planning to commit acts of terrorism, including several al-Qaeda members, both before and after 9/11.”
Jonathan Redding, who along with three other gunmen is suspected of killing Standard bartender John Henderson, was indicted today for Henderson’s murder, the AJC reports.
Redding, who is 17 and remains jailed without bond, is believed to be a member of the Mechanicsville street gang 30 Deep.
According to the AJC story:
Police are asking the public to help identify the three other suspected gang members who participated in the Standard shooting and other crimes, said Yvette Brown, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County district attorney’s office. The only description available is for three teenage males.
A $50,000 reward is being offered for info leading to the arrests of the three suspects.
Redding is not believed to have fired the fatal shot at Henderson, 27, during a January armed robbery of the popular Memorial Drive restaurant and bar. But under state law, Redding doesn’t have to have directly killed Henderson to be guilty of his murder.
According to Georgia’s felony murder statute, a defendant is guilty of murder as long as the homicide occured during the commission of another felony (in this case, armed robbery). Felony murder carries a mandatory life sentence.
