Fresh Loaf

In yet another sign that Democrats aren’t just bluffing about their prospects for an upset of Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, former President Bill Clinton will come to Atlanta tomorrow to attend a fundraising reception tomorrow for fellow Dem Jim Martin, Martin’s campaign has announced.

It surprised me to see that the event — 7:15 p.m.-9:15 p.m. at Trois in the 1180 Peachtree building — isn’t that pricey: just $100. Maybe, I’m wrong but I thought fundraisers with Clinton would usually run more than that. Then again, it’s a “reception, not a dinner, and getting your picture taken with the former president will still set you back $1,000.

Recent polls, including this one, have place the Chambliss-Martin contest in the “tossup” category.

Info on the event is here. More info on Senate contest is here. And for more on the 2008 election, see our Voter’s Guide.

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The Humane Society of the United States is bringing to Atlanta an anti-dogfighting program that it says was successful in Chicago. The idea is to use people from the community as advocates against dogfighting; to show that pit bulls and other breeds frequently targeted by dog fighters are better as loving companions; and to help law enforcement crack down on fighting rings.

More in the press release after the jump. (more…)

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1. Judge Bedford hit with ethics complaint, political theater ensues By Thomas Wheatley

2. Troy Davis awaits U.S. Supreme Court decision By Mara Shalhoup

3. Former DOT board chief, victim of Cupid appointed to agency By Thomas Wheatley

4. Peaceful aliens visit Earth today By Thomas Wheatley

5. Tomorrow’s Supreme Court decision crucial for Troy Davis By Mara Shalhoup

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It’s ironic that a ballot question to limit the authority of the county CEO is being posed to voters just as the power-hungry Vernon Jones prepares to leave office. Still, it’s a sensible measure that can help prevent future friction between the county’s board of commissioners and its chief executive.

For the past five years, incoming CEO Burrell Ellis had been the commission’s presiding officer, but that was largely an empty title because Jones has presided at board meetings. The referendum would correct this backwards situation by authorizing the commission to, in essence, run its own meetings. Likewise, the measure would allow the commission to draw up its own meeting agenda, taking that power away from the CEO. (more…)

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DeKalb County, like Fulton, is represented in Congress by one Republican and two Democrats. Also like Fulton, it’s gerrymandered to protect the incumbents.

And in DeKalb County, just like in Fulton County, all three incumbent congressman are set to win re-election.

Hank Johnson, who defeated firebrand (and current Green Party presidential candidate) Cynthia McKinney) in the 2006 Democratic primary, may have the easiest road, even though he’s the state  congressional delegation’s sole freshman. His only known foes in the Fourth District are write-in candidates: “conservative-libertarian” Loren Collins, who has proposed replacing Andrew Jackson with James Madison on the $20 bill; and retired police Sgt. Faye Coffield, whose slogan is: “She is different.”

While we have doubts whether Johnson has the political skills to develop into a leader in Congress, he’s done well at representing the interests of those in his district, which includes most of DeKalb County, well. And he’s fairly consistently voted to support important values like equity, justice and the environment.

Each of DeKalb’s two other congressmen — Republican Tom Price and Democrat David Scott — faces an opponent from the opposite party.

Price — who’s proven a stridently partisan voice in Congress more often concerned with showmanship than responsible legislation — is opposed by Air-Force-and-Delta-pilot-turned-businessman Bill Jones. While he doesn’t stand much of a chance in the conservative Sixth district (which pokes into DeKalb in the Dunwoody area), a vote for Jones might at least send a message that we’d prefer our elected officials to put more effort into solving problems than into scoring political points.

Scott’s 13th district creeps into extreme South DeKalb near the Clayton County line. He’s disappointed us at times, most recently with relevations that his campaign has paid more than half a million dollars to his own firm and his campaign. Still, his hapless opponent, Deborah Honeycutt, is a fellow traveler in today’s radical Republican ideology and questions surround fundraising and spending at her own campaign. We’d back Scott despite his flaws.

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A lot of Fulton County residents may want to throw the bums out of Congress. Just not their bums.
Eighty-three percent of Americans say the country’s headed in the wrong direction, and Congress regularly gets lower approval ratings than President Bush.

But Georgia’s districts are so well gerrymandered to protect incumbents from one party or the other that our congressmen only face the risk of losing in their party’s primary. And in July each of the state’s 13 incumbent U.S. House members won their nomination.

That’s why — barring a strike of lightning between now and January — Republican Tom Price, who represents North Fulton; Democrat John Lewis, who represents the county’s midsection, including Atlanta; and Democrat David Scott, who represents South Fulton, are certain to return to Congress. (more…)

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By popular demand, I’m gonna live blog tonight’s debate. If you clap your hands, maybe Thomas will join us. Either way, you should join the scintillating conversation on the last debate of the 2008 campaign right here at 9 p.m.

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The Center for the New American Dream has created an online guide on how to save money and improve your quality of life at the same time. It basically puts an emphasis on economically buying quality products (those that last and work well), and at the same time has a lot of PC stuff like helping the environment, etc.

I interviewed Lisa Wise, the center’s director, for this story on the particular challenges Atlanta faces with this economic downturn. She also sent me this column about the prospects for good things coming out of a recession. So she sent me the link.

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The Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition plans to protest the appearance of Oliver North at a fundraiser today for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

The protest rally will be held at 5:30 today at Hammond Drive and Ashford Dunwoody Road (across from Perimeter Mall) — outside the Crown Plaza Hotel, where North is appearing.

Chambliss is now locked in a tight race with Democrat Jim Martin. So North — who was convicted for a felony but got off on a technicality — seems like problematic guy for the Republican incumbent to associate himself in right now. Why get tangled up with a controversial, hard-right Republican icon, when you need to convince voters you’re something more than a partisan hack?

As an aide to President Reagan in the mid-to-late 1980s, North put together the Iran-Contra scam, an in which he and other White House aides sold weapons to Iran and used the proceeds to arm Nicaraguan “Contra” rebels. He admitted to lying to Congress and was convicted violating a ban on funding the Contras, but got off on a technicality because he’d received a grant of immunity before testifying on the matter. He’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier (the Iran-Contra scandal was a foreign policy disaster), but he’s become something of hero on the right-wing talk circuit.

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1. AJC dining critic flouts conflict of interest By Ken Edelstein

2. “The ‘Real’ ‘Housewives’ of ‘Atlanta’” By Helen Herbst

3. Sarah Palin playing Tina Fey?!! By Curt Holman

4. Player’s Club: de Blob review and Little Big Planet preview By Garrett Martin

5. Troy Davis and Georgia’s dysfunctional death penalty By Mara Shalhoup

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How’s this for a silver lining? The coming bad times could help a lot of us get over our addiction to “things” and at the same time move us toward solving the environmental crisis. That’s basically what Lisa Wise, executive director of the Center for a New American Dream in Washington, told me as I researched an article last week about how hard times are hitting Atlanta.

It’s provocative even to suggest that bad economic times could be good for your psyche and for nature. People think you’re living in a dream world, or that you want to punish them.

But I think there’s something to the idea that we don’t all need to wear the latest fashions, drive late-model cars and live in 3,000-square-foot houses. (This coming from a guy who’s trying to get going on a big addition to my house.) (more…)

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Brooke and Solomon are too young to remember a recession as bad as this one’s likely to get. But, over the last year, the Cobb County couple has gotten an up-close preview.

“We always talk about how we never thought we’d be in this predicament,” says Brooke, who lives with her husband and two babies in a $945-a-month apartment in Marietta.

Last year, the couple moved from Texas. For a time, they rented out the house they owned back in Beaumont. But the tenants moved out and the house sat empty. With gas prices rising, the second baby on the way and rent to pay in Atlanta, Solomon’s job on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig didn’t provide enough to also carry the mortgage. They fell behind.

Then, in January, just after the birth of their second son, Solomon’s rig shut down, and he had to go to work for another oil-services company. His pay dropped from $18 to $13 an hour. The bank foreclosed on the house in Texas. Bills began to pile up.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Pollster.com today switched Georgia’s U.S. Senate contest to yellow, signifying that it could go either way in the Nov. 4 election. Looks like Saxby Chambliss vote for the Wall Street bailout isn’t doing him much good.

Just last night, I reported that pollster.com — which derives its rankings from a running average of surveys from legitimate polling companies — had switched the seat now held by Republican Chambliss from red to pink, meaning it still leaned Republican.

But today the average is 46.3 for Chambliss versus 42.5  for  Martin, which pollster.com considers a tossup. Four of the last five polls placed Martin within 3 percent of Chambliss.

Although the incumbent Republican still has to be considered the favorite — particularly with all the money he can use to inundate the airwaves with late negative ads — but 46.3 percent
is a very dangerous number for Chambliss. Any time the incumbent falls that far below 50 percent he’s in the danger zone.

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After appearing as a safe Republican seat for most of the campaign season, Georgia’s U.S. Senate race has joined a list of three other contests that lean Republican but could be vulnerable to a Democratic upset, according to pollster.com.

The switch comes on the heals of today’s Rasmussen poll, which found Democrat Jim Martin trailing incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss by just 6 percentage points. A running average on pollster.com now places Chambliss at 48.3 percent and Martin at 41.7 percent, well within striking difference if Democratic turnout is a lot stronger than the GOP’s.

Pollster.com now projects Democrats to hold at least 54 seats in the next Congress, while also caucusing with two independents. Races in Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon are considered tossups. If those seats went Democratic, the party would need an upset in any of the four Republican leaning (or “pink”) contests to gain a filibuster-proof, 60-member majority. Those contests are in Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia.

You can view the Senate projections by using the “Map Chooser” dropdown menu on the pollster.com page.

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Shaun Doty, owner-chef of Shaun’s in Inman Park, has enjoyed loads of favorable reviews from local critics.

Creative Loafing’s Besha Rodell gave the restaurant four stars after it opened in 2007 and Cliff Bostock writes glowingly of Doty’s cooking in this week’s CL. Similar kind words came from Atlanta Magazine.

But the AJC’s Meridith Ford (now Meridith Ford Goldman) may have been the most effusive of all. She declared in her January 2007 review that “there is no other restaurant of this caliber in Atlanta.” And it seems, at least, that a week has seldom gone by since without Goldman offering the restaurant plaudits in a blog post, a “best” this-or-that listing or even in reviews for other restaurants.

That’s why a few eyebrows were raised last month when foodies started hearing that Doty would cater at the AJC critic’s wedding party. Then, on Sept. 25, I practically choked on my chicken livers when the daily ran Goldman’s article gushing about the chefs at her reception, held at South Fulton’s elegant Serenbe community. Ice cream, she said, was provided by Doty, “who was nice enough to make my favorite appetizer from his menu, Sardinian flatbread, as well.” (more…)

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1. Creative Loafing files for bankruptcy protection By John Sugg

2. Sarah Palin BINGO game By Thomas Wheatley

3. Metro Atlanta gas shortage — where to find fuel By Thomas Wheatley

4. World responds to CL bankruptcy protection By Mara Shalhoup

5. Hollis heads to Atlanta Magazine By Ken Edelstein

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A friend wrote: “Palin aside, I thought Biden really nailed it. Very likeable and quite the
dignitary.”

I agree. Biden’s objective was to attack McCain and tie him to Bush. Palin’s was to start getting taken more seriously — essentially a defensive objective at a time when her ticket needs to go on the offensive (but she had no choice).

They both pretty much did that. But people still aren’t going to forget Palin’s Couric interview. And Biden did a bit better at achieving his goals than she did, which means that the momentum should stay with Obama-Biden.

Your take?

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Andisheh just pointed out to me that Sarah Palin told Katie Couric the other day that she reads Creative Loafing. I’m excited that a potential vice president “established her worldview” by reading our paper, as well as by reading dailies like the New York Times and Pravda.

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Hollis was here.

So I’m telling the staff yesterday about our parent company filing for bankruptcy protection, and all of a sudden Hollis Gillespie is knocking frantically on the sliding glass door to the conference room.

She’s carrying a box full of MoonPies. Grant Henry aka Sister Louisa is behind her wearing a baseball cap with a picture of himself on it wearing a baseball cap with a picture of himself on it wearing a baseball cap with a picture of himself, and so on. He looks a bit embarrassed.

Hollis doesn’t look embarrassed at all. I sort of stare blankly at her and then back at the staff — to whom I’ve just unloaded the news from the corporate guys down in Tampa — and then back to her, beginning to shake my hea … no, now’s not the time … no … but she barges in anyway and says: “Hey, it’s been a great run. But I’m leaving you. I know you guys need the money, and I’m expensive, and I got the back page column at Atlanta Magazine. And, hey, anyway, I’ve got MoonPies.” Or something like that. (more…)

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1. Big support for Troy Davis By Mara Shalhoup

2. The best of AccessNorthGa.com By Russell McLendon

3. Shower, massage and sex By Andisheh Nouraee

4. Drop WABE’s classical music bloc? Spacey says yes By Thomas Wheatley

5. Barr on Troy Davis By Mara Shalhoup

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Hey, I just realized I hadn’t implored Fresh Loaf readers to check out this week’s Best Of Atlanta issue.

In case you’re that rare person who hasn’t seen it, it’s our biggest special issue of the year. Critics heavily researched more than 300 picks for everything from Best Veggie Meal at a Nonvegetarian Restaurant to Best Antique-Browsing Experience. More than 5,000 people voted  for Readers’ Picks.

Chante LaGon did a great job as overall editor of the issue this year, while Rodney Carmichael, Scott Henry, Debbie Michaud, Besha Rodell and Mara Shalhoup edited the sections.

It really is the most authoritative guide in Atlanta to the best restaurants, music, shops, clubs, artistic experiences and civic life. So check it out! Better yet — bookmark it.

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Is nothing sacred? We received a press release last month for the Atlanta Witch’s Ball, which was to be held Oct. 25 at The Atrium on Memorial Drive. But Joeff Davis saw this today on the ball’s website:

Due to the turn the economy has taken recently, the 2008 Atlanta Witch’s Ball will not be held. This year has been a rough year economically for many of our community. The recent hurricanes and resulting increase in prices on everything from food to gas to utilities has hurt our community tremendously.

The ball is described on the site as a night of “magick and enchantment” sponsored by the North Georgia Solitaries, a networking group for solitary practitioners of paganism and witchcraft (Hey, wait a second: Why do solitary practitioners have a networking group?)

An FAQ website also says: “As always, we will offer a midnight Samhain ritual for Pagans who wish to participate and non-Pagans are welcome to watch.”

Except “as always” doesn’t include 2008. Thanks a lot, Mr. Credit Crisis.

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We’re looking for stories from real, actual, genuine people who’ve been affected by the credit crisis, rising unemployment, layoffs, decreasing property values. You know? People like yourself.

Got a story of your own? Or do you know someone else who has a story to tell? If so, please leave a comment (with a way to get a hold of you) or e-mail me at ken.edelstein@creativeloafing.com.

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I’m not going to be able to finish the story I was supposed to write this week because I need to go to Washington to save the economy. This has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve fallen behind on my interviews. It’s because I love my country more than you do.

If you truly believe in putting your country first, my friends, you’ll join me in dropping all your previous commitments for this week so that you too can contribute to this bipartisan effort.

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In case you missed Joeff Davis’ report earlier, the Rev. Marvin Morgan of Atlanta offered to be executed in the place of Troy Davis, who’s scheduled to die tomorrow. He and two other people have been in the governor’s waiting room since just after 11 a.m.

Here’s part of the letter he delivered to the governor’s office.

I, MARVIN L. MORGAN, DO HEREBY REQUEST THAT YOU (The State of Georgia) TAKE MY LIFE INSTEAD OF THAT OF TROY DAVIS, AND ALLOW TROY TO BE SET FREE. I AM AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY TO BE TAKEN INTO CUSTODY SO THAT THIS REQUEST MAY BE CARRIED FORWARD.

It may be a publicity stunt, but it’s a good and honorable one.

(more…)

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