Fresh Loaf

Around 7 a.m. this morning, the Georgia Theatre caught fire. The landmark venue that showcased bands including REM, the B-52s, Widespread Panic and countless others — and which last year underwent a renovation — burned for several hours. Around 11 a.m. its interior and roof collapsed. The venue is now reportedly a shell of its former shelf.

From Fox 5:

A lot of Athens’ history just went up in smoke. The AJC’s Chip Towers has a thorough write-up of firefighters’ efforts to save the building. Owner Wilmot Greene tells Towers he wants to rebuild. Michelle Gilzanrat of Athens’ Flagpole Magazine has updates, on-the-ground video and photos of the blaze. The Athens Banner-Herald has strong coverage including details about the venues where AthFest acts have been moved. Travis Fain of the Macon Telegraph liveblogged the fire. The Red & Black student newspaper has lots of stories about the fire.

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UPDATE: Investigators a body discovered earlier today in a heavily wooded area near Athens, Ga., fits the description of George Zinkhan.

The AJC reports that investigators in the case think Zinkhan dug a grave, covered his body with debris, and then shot himself in the head.

Zinkhan is the UGA professor accused of killing three people — including his wife, Marie Bruce — at a community theater retreat near downtown Athens two weeks ago.

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According to a press release from the court:

The Supreme Court of Georgia today issued a stay of execution for William Mark Mize to give the trial court judge time to rule on Mize’s Extraordinary Motion for New Trial. Chief Judge Lawton Stephens of the Western Judicial Circuit on Monday denied Mize’s request for a hearing on the motion, but he did not rule on the motion itself. An appeal to the state’s highest court is therefore premature.

In today’s order, the Georgia Supreme Court states the stay will automatically expire 24 hours after the judge rules. Mize, 52, was due to be put to death tonight at 7:00 p.m. by lethal injection for the 1994 murder of Eddie Tucker in Oconee County.

Some background on Mize from the Athens Banner-Herald:

Mize, who led a small group authorities said was related to the Ku Klux Klan, was convicted in December 1995 of killing 34-year-old Eddie Tucker of Hull.

In October 1994, a few members of the group – and Tucker, who had filled out an application to join – went into the Northwestern Oconee County woods, supposedly to camp, after Tucker and another group member failed to follow Mize’s orders to burn down a purported crack house in Athens.

Mize killed Tucker with a shotgun blast, prosecutors said.

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UGA Liberal writes that William “Bill” Ayers — remember him? — will be the featured speaker at the Athens Human Rights Festival in downtown Athens, Ga., on Sunday, May 3. Ayers will take the stage at the free event at 7 p.m.

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1. AJC redesign infomercial — OMG (Daily paper’s feel-good promo sounds suspiciously like a pharmaceutical ad.)

2. Three people killed in Athens, Ga., shooting (As of now, a UGA-professor-turned-suspected-triple-murderer is still on the loose.)

3. NORML now has semi-legal status in Georgia (But the party was short-lived.)

4. AJC scooped by local blogger! (Atlanta Unfiltered scores a once-in-a-lifetime nod from the notoriously attribution-stingy daily.)

5. BREAKING: Atlanta Steam relocates, exurban perverts weep (Lingerie-wearing football team runs from Atlanta. Oh my.)

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Sad news from Athens, Ga.:

Three adults are dead and one injured after a man opened fire at the Athens Community Theatre off Prince Avenue this afternoon.

The shooter was identified as George Zinkhan, a marketing professor at the University of Georgia, said Athens-Clarke Assistant Police Chief Alan Brown. Zinkhan is still at large, Brown said.

AJC coverage here. CNN coverage here.

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The Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has gone and gotten itself incorporated. No, that’s not new slang for getting baked – the group filed paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office and is now an official, dues-paying corporation, with a new website and everything.

Here’s an excerpt from the group’s press release:

Georgia has technically had a medical marijuana law on the books since 1980, but it only covers glaucoma and cancer. There is presently no active program distributing medical marijuana, even to those patients, at this time. NORML seeks to bring a medical marijuana program to life in Georgia and expand its reach to AIDS patients and others who find relief from illness by using marijuana.

Now, there was already a NORML chapter in Georgia, called Ga NORML, based at the University of Georgia. In fact, that group held a day-long music festival just yesterday — on 4/20, as coincidence would have it — in Athens to spread the “message of responsible marijuana use.” Righteous, dude.

(more…)

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Forget Dong Hoi, Vietnam, Vanuatu and East Timor. The Classic City made the paper’s list of “29 destinations to visit in 2009.” According to the article, Athens made the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations list. But :

… don’t think Athens is sleepy and all musty history. Athens touts itself as a great mix of hip — home of the B-52s and R.E.M. — and history, with 15 neighborhoods on the historic preservation list.

I’m all for pimping Athens in the national spotlight (Go Dawgs!), but the B-52s and R.E.M.? Why must every reference to present day Athens reference a 20-year-old music scene? What about the incredible restaurants (ahem, the National, the Grit)? Current music (Cough, cough, Venice is Sinking, Of Montreal, We Versus the Shark)? Or badass events (Twilight Criterium, AthFest)?

Definitely visit Athens, but please don’t expect the Michael Stipe Welcome Wagon when you arrive.

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Watch out, Athens residents — ya done gone made Gov. Sonny Perdue all angry-like with your opposition to the $450 million National Bio- and Agro Defense lab that was proposed near the state’s epicenter of music and binge drinking.

And now that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ostensibly chosen Kansas to be the site where scientists will research common maladies such as hog chlorea and Nipah virus, Perdue’s unleashed the verbal venom and started pointing fingers. You cost him “jobs!”

From a Perdue press release on Friday:

“This morning, I spoke with Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary Jay Cohen about Georgia’s bid for the National Bio- and Agro- Defense Facility. He made it clear that we had a strong technical proposal that met the criteria DHS laid out for this facility. However, I was extremely disappointed to learn that despite strong support from UGA and our elected officials, a small activist minority of the local community has effectively taken away a great opportunity for the Athens area. As the Centers for Disease Control has shown, the addition of NBAF would have meant stable, high-paying jobs and significant investment for our state. When I specifically asked Under Secretary Cohen about the qualifications for the facility, he quickly pointed out that opposition by a tiny contingent was the definitive reason Athens was not selected.”

Patrick Fox of the AJC reports that members of For Athens Quality-of-Life, a group that opposed the facility, say they’re happy to take the blame, but don’t deserve all the credit. According to the Associated Press, Kansas may have won out because Perdue didn’t kick in enough financial incentives to woo the feds.

[Says Kathy Prescott of the group:] “I don’t think [the governor] wants people to believe that one of the reasons that Georgia lost was because he didn’t pony up enough money.”

Judging that these incentive packages rarely bring about any good, it may have been a good move by Perdue, who’s surely looking forward to a long legislative session where the $2.5-billion budget shortfall will be of great concern.

(Photo illustration courtesy of Republican Rebel)

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STAYING ALIVE: Troy Davis is alive this morning, thanks to a last-minute stay granted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices will reconvene Monday, and if they don’t decide to hear his case, he’s back in Georgia’s clutches.

CHECK IS IN THE BAIL: Congress is listening to growing outcries to limit Wall Street executives’ lavish salaries and perks as part of the bailout. Counters one trade lobbyist: “It is not appropriate for government to be setting the salaries of executives.” Not appropriate like, say, using taxpayer money to save a corporation from its own bad investments.

WARREN PEACE: Warren Buffet soothes the weary minds of investors by throwing in on Goldman Sachs.

FUELISH HUMANS: The 2008 Atlanta Gas Crisis! is still going strong, despite the EPA’s move to allow local stations to sell heavier-polluting fuel. The AJC interviews an Emory behavioral psychologist, who reminds us that we’re panicky nitwits.

GAS FIGHT! Society is always three meals, or one tank of gas, away from anarchy.

FLORIDA: Decides it will accept Clayton students to its colleges after all.

DEKALB PLANE CRASH: One person is killed when a plane headed from Jacksonville, Fla., to Michigan crashes in a residential neighborhood near PDK.

TYLER PERRY: The Atlanta movie mogul/maven, who was once homeless himself, donates enough food to feed 1,000 Atlanta families for two weeks, helping address the recent food-donation shortage in the city.

ZOONOTIC SUGGESTION: Advocates of relocating the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility to Athens contend it would foster increased scientific collaboration on treating diseases that start in animals and spread to humans, like avian flus.

BLACK MARKET: The announcement that UGA’s high-stakes showdown with No. 8 Alabama Saturday will be the blackout game has sparked the Athens economy with a black-clothes-buying frenzy.

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INVESTMENT BANKS: A thing of the past.

RED, WHITE AND SACRÉ BLEU: TIME magazine bears the sobering message that all this federal financial fiddling is making us kind of French.

BRIAN NICHOLS TRIAL: Scheduled to begin today.

PUMP SLUMP: Gas is hard to find in parts of the Southeast as pipelines are slow to rebound from Ike, but the current Georgia shortages should wane soon.

1400 PEACHTREE: You know what we need to solve this real-estate crisis? A new 70-story skyscraper.

HOT AND BOTHERED: A man and woman flee police in a van after being caught by police midcoitus, then crash the van and run.

HELL TO THE CHIEFS: The Falcons dismantled Kansas City Sunday for their second win of the season, while handing the Chiefs their 12th straight loss.

BLACKOUT: UGA holds onto No. 3 in both polls; coach Mark Richt announces the team will wear black jerseys for the third time against No. 8 Alabama this Saturday, when ESPN GameDay will be in Athens.

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OMG y’all! Sarah Palin’s cybersecurity was like, totally breached, and all her e-mails and photos of aerial wolf hunting were stolen. And just like everything bizarre in this world, it turns out there’s a Georgia connection. It’s in Athens, the land of drunks, an Arch, and a bunch of bulldogs on street corners!

The Associated Press reports that the Internet anonymity service used by the person who hacked Palin’s Yahoo account is based in the college town I know, love and that I miss dearly.

From the AP:

Investigators were waiting to speak with Gabriel Ramuglia of Athens, Ga., who operates an Internet anonymity service used by the hacker. Ramuglia told the AP on Thursday he was reviewing his own logs and promised to turn over any helpful information to authorities because the hacker violated rules against using the anonymity service for illegal activities.

“If you’re doing something illegal and causing me issues by doing this, I’m willing to cooperate,” Ramuglia said. “Obviously this is the most high profile situation I’ve dealt with.”

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OK, so maybe “wave” is a bit of an exaggeration. But there’s at least some anecdotal evidence that evacuees of Louisiana’s two most frightening hurricanes are stirring up trouble in Georgia.

Most recently, there were the alleged blue-jean-bandit copycats who struck in Buckhead after being displaced by Gustav. And earlier this week, a Katrina evacuee was sentenced to life in prison for a murder in Athens.

Hopefully, the crimes won’t eclipse the contributions and hardships of the evacuees who’ve worked to make a new life here.

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THE CENTER OF CONVENTION: The Democratic National Convention begins today, and the newly minted Obama-Biden ticket still has nerves to settle within the party.

TONGUE IN CHIC: Georgia Tech researchers are working to develop new technology that would allow disabled people to control computers, home appliances and wheelchairs using their tongues.

PEACE OUT: Peace Corps volunteers from Georgia are up 49 percent from last year.

COOL WATER: The Athens EPA lab’s new cooling system will save 1 million gallons of water a year by recycling condensation that would otherwise go to waste.

RYAN’S SHARE: Matt Ryan is named the Falcons’ starting quarterback, joining running back Michael Turner in the fledgling offensive core.

NEWS FLASH: A flash flood watch begins for much of metro Atlanta and North Georgia at 4 this afternoon and stays in effect until Tuesday evening.

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GOLD RUSH: American swimmer Michael Phelps wins his third gold medal of the 2008 Olympics, his ninth overall, which ties the world record for most career gold medals in Olympic history. He has a chance for two more golds Wednesday morning.

RUSSIA VS. GEORGIA: Russia announced today that it will stop attacking Georgia, but Georgian leaders say they’re still being attacked. An Atlantan and native of the country Georgia is hosting governmental websites from here during the siege, and says those sites are still being cyber-attacked by botnets on the U.S.-based servers. The Times of London lays out the historical context of the war.

WATER USE: In metro Atlanta and North Georgia drops 20 percent, which Environmental Protection Division Director Carol Couch says is a sign that conservation efforts and watering restrictions are working.

GUNS AT AIRPORT: Won’t fly, says a federal judge.

ESCALATING TENSION: In response to frequent “shoe entrapment,” Hartsfield-Jackson begins announcing, at five-minute intervals, the dangers of wearing soft shoes such as flip-flops or Crocs on escalators.

NBAF: Federal officials seem to be favoring a Mississippi site over Athens for the National Agro- and Bio-defense Facility, which will study foot-and-mouth disease and other highly infectious diseases, even though the Mississippi site scored the lowest numerical evaluation among all contenders.

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Overheard this morning in Aurora Coffee, Little Five Points: One lean guy wearing light, somewhat worn clothes and work boots passes my table in the back to the one just behind me. Another lean guy wearing light, somewhat worn clothes, a black jean jacket, and baseball cap and work boots is sitting there, charging his phone.

“Hey, man, are you traveling?”

“No, I’ve been here for a while.”

“I just got to town, man, and I’m trying to figure out where everything is.”

“Well, I don’t really live here anymore. I spend most of the year up in Alaska.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“There’s not really anything going on in Atlanta anymore. You might want to head over to Athens.”

“Athens? Where’s that?”

“It’s this little town about 45 minutes away. They got more of a punk scene — a lot more stuff going on. You just head on down to DeKalb Avenue and catch the CSX.”

“DeKalb Avenue, where’s that?”

“Just go out of here and take a right. And when you get to the tracks, there’ll be two MARTA tracks and then there’s a CSX track. Just go left, and follow it down to where it forks up there, and the one that goes left — that’ll take you to Athens.”

“Oh, hey, man, thanks a lot, man. That’s great.”

After the guy asking the questions got out of the bathroom, they conversed more. The guy asking the questions was from New Hampshire. The other guy had been charging his phone. He warned the questioner to keep an eye out for people who’d been working on the lines.

This is a world I did not know about before.

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The family of Cayle Bywater has started a blog to help find her. The 29-year-old Athens resident has been missing since Dec. 29.

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With all due respect, fellas – horseshit. The GlennTax is a direct, and probably gut-busting, shot to home rule and local control, because it takes the primary revenue stream for cities and counties and throws it in the trash. Instead, your county government is going to have to go to Atlanta, hat in hand, and beg the Stache (aka Speaker Richardson) for money every time you want to buy a fire engine, hire some new first grade teachers, or pick up the latest Jackie Collins pageturner for your local library.

-Publius at Athens Politics on the state tax overhaul proposed by Speaker Glenn Richardson. CL’s Scott Henry, who, unlike Richardson, actually has a mustache, wrote a story in our current issue about the proposed scam scheme.

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But, I think, sitting for three hours in her hair stylist’s chair listening to the (barbers)(hair dressers)(hair stylists) bitch about having to withhold sales taxes, is going to start weighing on the soccer moms of Georgia, who in turn are going to start having issues.

-Erick at Peach Pundit thinks passage of Richardson’s tax plan is threatened by the pervasive influence of nagging hair-stylists.

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I think it would be a bad idea to send your pet to this man for veteranary [sic] services.

-DecaturGuy at Atlanta Public Affairs on a Duluth veterinarian who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of public relations.

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Nightmoves — the new band of Adrian Finch, the violinist from Elf Power — is playing this Saturday night with psychedelic pop-rock band Summer Hymns. Here we have a sometimes termed “slowcore,” Elephant Six-led group opening for a band that is often compared to Neil Young and the Flaming Lips. This promises to be one of the chillest shows the 40 Watt’s seen in a while. Although Summer Hymns headlines this show, I’m putting my money on Nightmoves being the better act. Speaking of money, tickets are cheap if you want to make the drive to Athens.

Summer Hymns w/ Nightmoves.
June 9, 2007, at 40 Watt Club
Washington Street, Athens, Ga.
Cost: $5.00

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