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Stone Mountain: Down but not out

July 8th, 2008 by Web Editor
Soapbox

The following Home Base article is part of the Urban Living section, CL’s monthly focus on city home life. If you know of interesting events in your neighborhood, submit them to soapbox@creativeloafing.com or urbanliving@creativeloafing.com. We’re always on the lookout for cool homes to feature, too. So send us an e-mail today!

By Steve Wells

Although park events such as Lasershow Spectacular overshadow Stone Mountain, the city hopes to capitalize on the park’s tourism benefits.
Although park events such as Lasershow Spectacular overshadow Stone Mountain, the city hopes to capitalize on the park’s tourism benefits.

(Photo Stone Mountain State Park)

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you read, “Stone Mountain”? The park? Memorial Drive, sprawl, unincorporated DeKalb County? Well, in case you didn’t know it, there’s a city of Stone Mountain nestled right up against the back of the mountain, just out the west gate, a city with a great Main Street and downtown area we call Stone Mountain Village. But if you’ve been to the city lately, you might be surprised by what’s happened here in recent years. Stone Mountain has experienced a downturn that affected many towns in the ’70s as a result of malls, the advent of suburbs and changing socioeconomic reasons. Downtown areas became less and less shopping centers of necessity and instead began a period of decline. Although Stone Mountain’s proximity to the park, a tourist destination, delayed its descent for 30 years, it has followed a path similar to many other once vibrant downtown areas. The question is: What’s the city doing to reverse the trend?

Read the rest of this entry »


Sweet Auburn Springfest connects past, present and future

May 13th, 2008 by Web Editor
Soapbox

The following Home Base article is part of the Urban Living section, CL’s monthly focus on city home life. If you know of interesting events in your neighborhood, submit them to soapbox@creativeloafing.com or urbanliving@creativeloafing.com. We’re always on the lookout for cool homes to feature, too. So send us an e-mail today!

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RUNNING DOWN A DREAM: Sweet Auburn mingles the old with the new.

(Photo Alaneffphotography.com)

By Charles E. Johnson

The Sweet Auburn Springfest is one of Atlanta’s many highly anticipated annual events, attracting hundreds of thousands to this historic street for one of the largest street festivals in the Southeast. But for the merchants who are there every day, it’s more important that people visit Auburn Avenue on a regular basis.

Our vision is that the Auburn Historical District be the Beale Street, Bourbon Street, Church Street Station of Atlanta. Rich with nostalgia and historical landmarks, Auburn Avenue holds a special place in Atlanta’s past. Starting at Auburn Avenue and Courtland Street there’s the Atlanta Life building, home of the nation’s largest black-owned insurance company. Across the street is the Auburn Avenue Research Library that archives African-American culture and history. Next door is the African Panoramic Experience (APEX Museum) that houses so much history.

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Kirkwood speaks the language of learning

April 2nd, 2008 by Web Editor
Soapbox

The following Home Base article is part of the Urban Living section, CL’s monthly focus on city home life. If you know of interesting events in your neighborhood, submit them to soapbox@creativeloafing.com or urbanliving@creativeloafing.com. We’re always on the lookout for cool homes to feature, too. So send us an e-mail today!

By Douglas L. Wood

Who can argue that strong schools don’t make a better neighborhood and a stronger city? While some choose private schools and others start charters, the Kirkwood community’s partnership with Atlanta Public Schools to implement the first K-12 Chinese language program in Georgia is just one example of how APS is willing and capable of engaging neighborhoods and enabling change.

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NO RAIN ON THIS PARADE: Toomer Elementary students perform an umbrella dance at the opening ceremony of the Confucius Institute of Atlanta.

(Photo by www.alaneffphotography.com)

Mandarin is the world’s most spoken language, and by the time Kirkwood’s Toomer Elementary children graduate from college, China will be the No. 2 economy in the world. And since Chinese is a character-based language, learning it develops a different portion of the brain than a Romance-based language such as Spanish, and test scores tend to increase.

Members of the Kirkwood Neighborhood Organization, Principal Tonya Saunders at Toomer and Principal Andre Williams at Coan Middle School wrote a grant to the Georgia Department of Education requesting funds for a study on successful K-12 models of Chinese language instruction. A portion of the funding was used to conduct workshops for the Toomer PTA on what a Chinese curriculum would mean. From fall 2006 to spring 2007, a small team of parents, educators and community members visited programs in Chicago, the Washington, D.C. area, and Portland, Ore., and reported back to the community and other key players on the programs’ successes and struggles. Read the rest of this entry »


Earth Hour: Make Saturday night electric

March 25th, 2008 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Janisse Ray

Taped next to a light switch in my house is a photo of an Appalachian mountain that has been mined for coal by blowing off its peak. That photo reminds me to keep the light off as much as I can.

This week we have a chance to shut off lights together, to create a massive blackout that NASA will be able to document.

The event is called Earth Hour.

At 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, people around the world plan to join together to raise awareness about how human actions affect the planet. Not only does our use of electricity tear down old mountains, it causes global warming and other climate disruption.

Even as we search for alternatives to fossil fuels, we must reduce the kilowatts we consume and get efficient in our use of power.

The world is too bright. It’s ablaze. Terrible things are happening.

Sydney, Australia, organized Earth Hour 2007, when millions of Sydney-ites shut off their lights and consequently reduced power consumption by 10 percent.

This year, the event, organized by World Wildlife Fund, is going global, and including Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and cities worldwide. In Atlanta, the list of participating attractions and businesses that will darken is long: the IBM Tower, the Varsity, the Georgia Aquarium. Even Turner Field plans to turn out its lights! Word is that Georgia Power will monitor consumption during the event.

To sign up to participate, go to www.earthhour.org.

Better yet, simply turn out all light in your home at 8 p.m. on March 29 and leave them off for an hour. Turn off all inessential appliances. Turn off computers.

Don’t just turn off appliances. Unplug them and leave them unplugged. Many appliances use a small amount of electricity even when switched off, for indicator lights or remote-control signals.

While the lights are out and the television is off, think about ways you can reduce electricity in your life. Replace incandescent bulbs with LED lighting. Turn down your hot water heater thermostat. Turn your washer setting to cold.

If you can see what you’re doing, use the time to plant a shade tree — I’ve been told that each hardwood tree absorbs an average of 25 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air annually.

Together we can make next Saturday night powerfully dark.

Janisse Ray is a writer, poet and environmental activist from Appling County, Georgia. Her latest book is entitled Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land


WSB TV — news tailor-made to scare you

March 17th, 2008 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Rob Gomes

If there were a “Murder & Mischief Award” among local news companies, WSB-TV Channel 2 News would be the clear winner.

If you haven’t noticed, or are just too scared to tune in, Channel 2 always opens with a murder or mischief story. Granted, they will first touch on the major international stories, but you can bet your last dollar they are gonna do their best to scare the crap out of you with seamlessly random acts of murder/mischief. Yes, Atlanta does have its share of murders and crime, but the other local news outlets don’t lead or constantly tease with these issues.

I’ve been tracking WSB’s “scare them into watching” formula for over a year now. They use this formula every day. Don’t believe me? Tune in right now and find out. If they aren’t covering a murder/mischief story, wait 60 seconds. I guarantee before they head off into a commercial, they are going to tease a murder or mischief story.

Channel 2 news is not fair or balanced. They are intent on gaining viewers by keeping them scared and glued to their TV’s — hoping the non-thinking masses will believe that only Channel 2 has the answer to where the next act of random murder and mischief will happen.

Their current tag line is, “Coverage you can count on.” It should be – “Channel 2 News — If you’re not scared, we’re not doing our job”.

Rob Gomes is a recent LA transplant who “LOVES Atlanta!” He works as a freelance tv/film writer/producer and has produced for Tyler Perry, Turner and B.E.T. He enjoys spending time on the couch with his wife, walking his dog in Grant Park and having a cigar at the Highland Cigar Company.


Leave no child inside

February 26th, 2008 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Janisse Ray

I remember one Sunday when my son Silas was 6 years old. He and I spent the entire day in the woods.

That was before he cared that there wasn’t television or video games at our house.

Later, when I heard the term “nature-deficit disorder,” I would remember days like that Sunday and think maybe I hadn’t, as a parent, done everything wrong.

Silas and I slid down the deep ravine behind our house and headed toward the creek, a silver glint beneath magnolia trees. When we got to the only spot that was deep enough to bathe, two red-shouldered hawks commenced to call nearby, alarmed.

“They must be nesting,” I said. “Let’s see.” Silas and I plunged through cinnamon fern and dog hobble until he spotted the nest, 50 feet up.

The parent birds, wild with worry, never stopped circling and crying.

“Let’s leave them alone,” I whispered.

Here’s what Silas and I did the rest of the day. We gathered stones, looking for fossils, then skimmed them. We rubbed clay on our faces. We built a sand fort and floated magnolia-leaf boats downstream. We crossed the creek balanced on a high log.

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Sandhill cranes migrate north

February 5th, 2008 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Janisse Ray

This past Sunday my friend Albert Culbreath heard a strange bugling in the Tifton sky. Actually, he felt it more than heard it, he said. Gazing upward, Albert witnessed a flock of sandhill cranes, flying northward, calling back and forth to each other their magnificent “ga-roo-roo-roos.”

Before Albert lost count, he had tallied more than 100 cranes.

Sandhill cranes stand four to five feet tall, with a gray body and a red forehead. They court with enthusiastic, leaping dances. They mate for life and nest in marshes and other open, treeless places.

Florida naturalist Archie Carr once wrote that only three great animal voices remain in the southeastern United States — “the jovial lunacy of the barred owl … the roar of the alligator … the ethereal bugling of the sandhill crane.”

The birds never fail to put me in mind of my great friend Milton Hopkins, a passionate observer of wildlife on his Osierfield, Ga., farm until his death last year. Milton always dropped me notes to say the cranes were passing in their flyway. Sometimes they descended to feed or spend the night. Once, Milton was standing in a field when a flock of more than 300 cranes landed.

After Milton died, right in the middle of his funeral a long “V” of sandhill cranes passed overhead, sounding their ancient music, their rattling trumpets. Maybe Milton heard the cranes, Albert wrote me, and decided to fly off with them.

When I hear sandhill cranes in late winter, I know spring is on its way. I start looking for the first purple martin scouts to come flying in from South America, and the first dogtooth violets to bloom in the woods. Soon frogs will be breeding, and we’ll see our first swallow-tail kites.

Milton always reported the cranes migrating between March 1 and 19. February is early for them.

People say the cranes are moving earlier in the spring and later in the fall, and that global warming may be responsible. In fact, studies show spring has rushed forward an average of 10 days worldwide in the last 30 years. This led the Arbor Day Foundation to redraw its hardiness zone maps in 2006 based on new weather data. All across the country gardeners are getting longer growing seasons.

This year, then, I’ll start looking early for trillium to bloom and cypress to leaf out, and for cranes to come calling.

Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, keeps a pair of binoculars handy.


Barack vs. Hillary: Which one?

February 4th, 2008 by Ken Edelstein
Soapbox

I’ve watched the debates, followed the race closely and read position papers. To me, the choice is obvious.

Both Democrats are good candidates. But one was wrong when it came to the most momentous decision of her public life. And Hillary Clinton continues to compound her poor judgment on Iraq by pretending her vote wasn’t what everyone knows it was: political cover.

It’s the dissembling that bothers me. Clinton reminds me too often of the gamesmanship that diminished her husband’s presidency. Take last week’s CNN debate. When asked about Bill Clinton’s role in her campaign, she guffawed loudly. She said something like, “Well, we all have spouses.”

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But behind the laugh was someone avoiding legitimate questions: What exactly is the former president’s role in her campaign, and what will it be in the White House? Do we really want a high minister who’s unaccountable and unimpeachable? Do we want the same family to control the Democratic Party for more than two decades?

And when it comes to the election, do Democrats really want to cede to Republicans the most salient message that voters are sending this year — that they yearn for change, for leaders who’ll do things differently? Do Democrats want to be tagged as the status quo party (when it in fact is the party that’s been out of power) in an election year that features neither peace nor prosperity? Do they really want to bank this election on the only couple that’s sure to unite and motivate a dispirited opposition?

The rap on Obama is that he’s unproven. True enough. But it shouldn’t disqualify him. When you stop and think about it, he’s handled almost every challenge thrown at him in a way that inspires confidence.

It’s he, not Hillary, whose campaign is outperforming expectations. It’s he, not the Clintons, who has consistently taken the high road. And it’s he who not only opposed the war from the start, but also avoided sinking into simplistic sloganeering when he’s called for a withdrawal.

At times, Obama has waffled more than I’d like. When he tells voters in Idaho he won’t push hard for gun control or when he compromises with power companies on nuclear-plant safety, I wonder how fast he’ll hold to his principles once he’s president. But, by and large, Obama is a remarkably straight shooter. While both he and Hillary are legit policy wonks, it’s Barack who articulates nuanced positions that don’t necessarily conform to orthodoxy.

Since the 1950s, liberals have pinned their hopes on a parade of similarly straight-talking, brainy reformers. Adlai Stevenson. Eugene McCarthy. Paul Tsongas. Bill Bradley. All in vain.

Obama’s in that mold, but with a built-in advantage: He has the charisma and background to add millions of black, young, and never-before voters to a base of latte-drinking progressives.

Two presidents come to mind who also were labeled as inexperienced dreamers but managed to broaden their base beyond the idealistic intellectuals of their eras. One, of course, was John F. Kennedy. The other was Lincoln. That’s pretty good company.

Your thoughts?

(Photo by Joeff Davis)


Soapbox: Landscaping for a song

January 14th, 2008 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Janisse Ray

Winter is the time to plant native trees and shrubs that will turn your yard into a wildlife sanctuary. Large or small, your yard can be a habitat for wildlife. Songbirds are attracted to native, wooded gardens with many canopy layers, including mature trees and a dense understory.

First, let’s define “native plants.” They are those that existed in Georgia before Oglethorpe arrived. They are great for landscaping because they require less care, less attention, and less expense, since they don’t require fertilizers or pesticides. Once established, they rarely need watering.
The sassafras, for example, is a native tree that provides good cover and nesting sites for birds, which also like the fruit. Swallowtail butterfly larvae eat sassafras leaves.

Acorns feed a menagerie of animals high-energy food. Game birds, woodpeckers, flying squirrels, and raccoons are among the creatures that love them. Many species of oak (white, water, myrtle, and laurel) make excellent additions to a wildlife lover’s yard. In addition to food, the trees provide dens and nesting material, including Spanish moss, and a good source of caterpillars.

The bright red fruit of flowering dogwood and American holly are attractive to cedar waxwings and roving flocks of birds. Other impressive native trees that attract wildlife include American beech, tulip poplar, wild cherry, and bald cypress.

In terms of shrubs, Southern wax myrtle is perfect for a yard. It is an evergreen and, planted closely, makes a great hedge. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers peck neat rows of holes in the bark as they feed. Red buckeye is a favorite of ruby-throated hummingbirds. Many animals eat the seed of sparkleberry. Beautyberry, yaupon holly, and oakleaf hydrangea are shrubs that make excellent additions for a homeowner set on becoming more native.

Planting with wildlife in mind can turn your back yard into your own personal nature preserve. Less lawn will mean fewer hours spent mowing. But the greatest benefit of all will be that a more diverse yard, with foxes and deer making surprise appearances, brings a lot more excitement to your life.
Native plants are increasingly available from local nurseries, and a number of nurseries specializing in native plants may be found throughout the state. Information may be obtained from the Georgia Native Plant Society.
If even a fraction of Georgia’s gardeners turned part of their yard to a wilder state, there would be a measurable positive impact on wildlife.

Writer Janisse Ray has seen fox and wild turkeys in her yard in Appling County.


Soapbox: A city too busy to care: One year after the Kathryn Johnston killing

December 10th, 2007 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Kelly Hill

Kathryn Johnston was no fool. She knew all too well the danger that came with living in her northwest Atlanta neighborhood. It was a community where drugs were sold in plain sight, and hearing gunfire was an unnoteworthy occurrence. It was less than a year before Ms. Johnston’s death on Nov. 21, 2006, that an elderly friend had been savagely attacked by an intruder, and to many, things only seemed to be getting worse.

In Ms. Johnston’s mind, the iron bars that safeguarded her home were hardly enough to protect her in a community that seemed to be deteriorating around her. She was determined not to be a victim, so she kept a gun.

Ms. Johnston and I had become fast friends during the summer of 2003. It was then that my aunt who was visiting from Philadelphia introduced me to Ms. Johnston, who had relocated to Atlanta nearly 20 years earlier.

Our relationship was a genuine one. With her never having any children and me having no relatives in the area, we both filled a very natural space in each others’ life. At 92 years old, Ms. Johnston was remarkably independent and sharper than most people a fraction of her age. She was honest to a fault and easily the most authentic person I’d ever met.

I received news of the shooting late that Tuesday night when a friend called and told me to turn on the television. There, on the 10 p.m. news, lit up by flashbulbs and police lights was Ms. Johnston’s house. What I saw was incomprehensible.

I knew Ms. Johnston owned a gun. The .38 caliber revolver that she kept by her bedside had been a constant source of ribbing between us. But what I couldn’t understand was why she would shoot at three Atlanta police officers or why they’d be at her house serving a search warrant.

As I stood at the crime scene that night watching APD officers stream in and out of Ms. Johnston’s home, I felt an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. I knew the police had made a terrible mistake. But, I also knew that Ms. Johnston lived in one of the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the entire city – the type of place where the gunning down of an old lady could be easily explained away.

The details of police corruption that surfaced in the weeks following the initial allegations sent shockwaves across the country and was reported in places as far away as Japan and Dubai. Even in a time when people have become largely desensitized to violence, the killing and subsequent framing of a 92-year-old woman seemed beyond the pale. The story was so sordid and scandalous that it seemed more befitting of a New York Times best-selling crime novel or HBO original series.

However, there was nothing scripted about what happened to Kathryn Johnston on that day. And unfortunately for her, the consequences were very real. In the year since the tragedy occurred, there have been numerous missteps by city officials, yet the most disappointing reaction has come from the chief executive herself.

From the very beginning, Mayor Shirley Franklin chose to handle the Johnston slaying as a matter of public safety rather than community crisis. By deflecting the management of the tragedy to the police chief, a person in whom many Atlantans had little confidence, she created a leadership vacuum that has only served to exacerbate community-government relations.

The behavior by the mayor seems uncharacteristic at best. After all, she prides herself on taking on the toughest problems of local governance. However, when it came to dealing with one of the most egregious examples of modern-day police abuse, the mayor was nowhere to be found. The few times that the mayor did comment on the tragedy, she seemed more concerned with avowing her political support for the police chief than with fostering reconciliation and restoring public confidence. It’s almost as if the death of Kathryn Johnston presented a political inconvenience for the mayor, a blot on her near spotless career during the twilight of her administration.

In many ways, the tragedy of 933 Neal St. feeds into a larger narrative – one of two Atlantas. Despite that Atlanta has experienced 30 years of minority control, there remains a large segment of the population that continues to go unrepresented.

Whether the subject is the closing of Grady Memorial Hospital, failing public schools, disappearing affordable housing, the state of the city’s homeless, gentrification and displacement, or police abuse and corruption, the issues of poor people rarely find their way to the top of the agenda.

While these are all issues that most major cities face, you somehow expect things to be just a little different in Atlanta. After all, it’s the home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights – confronting social injustice is supposed to be a part of what we do. But unfortunately for Ms. Johnston, she was slain in the “City Too Busy to Hate,” when the priority was all Beltlines and sewer lines and little else.

As Atlanta continues to change, it seems inevitable that the city will finally shake itself loose of the post-civil rights-era dynasty, which despite the association has had very little to do with civil rights since. Hopefully, the next generation of leaders will project a vision of leadership that extends beyond building bigger and shinier buildings, to show a modicum of concern for the people who live their lives in the shadows of downtown skyscrapers and high-rises – those who live in places where little old ladies still sleep with guns by their beds.

Kelly Hill is a graduate student at Emory University and was Kathryn Johnston’s close friend.


Soapbox: Who are real culprits behind Grady deal?

December 1st, 2007 by Soapbox Editor
Soapbox

By Ron Marshall

It does not surprise me that Grady voted to go private. This has been in the plan to privatize all major funding resources in America to control how money is being spent and who receives it. Look at Iraq — since when do we hire a private force to protect public interest? This has never happened in the history of war. Who benefits from privatization?

Grady changes have started the wheel of genocide. A whole community will perish (poor people and poor accident victims) in the name of profits. Not to mention the land deals that will be made. We have put a price on human life. Not only have we put a price on the life of an individual, we allow the health care system to pick and choose who gets treated and how much treatment they as humans receive. Animals get treated better than people. Throw a dog in the street and see what happens.

Our governor had the nerve to pray for rain. The prayers should be for humanity as well as for the salvation of human life and for the protection of our planet. Now we have really fallen off the path of survival.

What’s still hidden is how this happened and who is responsible for what happened. This has never been asked. If it has, there sure has been very little said about the accountability of the officials who oversee Grady and the officials who appoint the board that put Grady in this position. Why is the public being denied access to records that will show where all the money went or is going and who is receiving it? This is not new, and it seems to happen like the migration of geese heading south every year.

Only one person was sent to prison for stealing from Grady: Charles Walker. Walker did not steal all that money by himself. He had to have help. Somebody signed the checks and somebody got paid to keep it quiet. Why wasn’t there an investigation conducted to find the accomplices? This is like a private (secret) Mafia, they sacrificed one to save the rest. I notice Walker has not turned on his accomplices. Is there money waiting for him when he is released?

Does cover-up money pay for a pass, as Emory has shown? It has clearly had its way with Grady’s funding with a sweet heart contract. Does being a politician automatically give you a pass, when crisis after crisis’ shock after shock costs tax payers millions, without having them be accountable time after time?

Now we had an explosion in South Georgia and no other but Grady is in the front again. The needs are clear — human lives are at stake. Is there no other real-time event that shows Grady at its best?

So to feel anything is like watching killings and brutality between 6-11 p.m. live on the news or a television program. You get used to it. The fight for justice and accountability has only hit a bump in the road; we must be protectors of justice and righteousness and we will accelerate ahead of corruption. Buckle up.

Ron Marshall is chairman of the New Grady Coalition.