Fresh Loaf

The site for Atlanta’s planned Civil Rights Cola Museum, um, we mean the Center for Civil and Human Rights, was unveiled Monday next door to the World of Coke in a ceremony long on corporate plugs and short on civil rights figures.

Broadcaster and activist Xernona Clayton was in the front row of observers, along with the widow of the late Ralph David Abernathy Jr. and such familiar businessmen as developer Herman Russell and life-insurance magnate Jesse Hill. But no John Lewis. No Joseph Lowery. No member of the King family.

Mayor Shirley Franklin says Lowery asked her to undertake a formal site review after Coke offered in 2006 to donate 1.2 acres alongside its soft-drink shrine. Last year, an advisory panel appointed by the mayor recommended the Coke site be chosen, but there was no public announcement of the final site selection before this week.

Although Auburn Avenue, in the heart of the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District, was an obvious alternative, no specific land there was ever identified.

“If you look at other possible sites,” Franklin says, “You don’t get the number of visitors as this centrally located place, which is in the middle of the activity center for downtown.”

Franklin estimated that, aided by its proximity to the World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium, the $125 million center could draw 800,000 visitors in its first year.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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TED KENNEDY: Helps kick off the Democratic National Convention with a rousing speech, despite his terminal brain cancer.

GUSTAV: Hurricane gains strength in advance of hitting Haiti. Tropical Storm Fay’s remnants continue to soak Atlanta today; the storm destroyed only about 8 percent of coastal Georgia’s sea turtle nests, though, which was less than feared.

FRED CRANE: The actor who played a beau to Scarlett O’Hara and spoke Gone With the Wind’s first line has died at the age of 90.

HOT MANTA: The Georgia Aquarium brings in a manta ray rescued from fishing nets in the Indian Ocean.

RUSTLE: A raccoon that’s been terrorizing a judge and others at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building downtown has been captured.

WONDER WAAL: Emory primate researcher Frans de Waal has demonstrated that generosity is rewarding to capuchin monkeys, who prefer “prosocial” behavior over pure self interest.

CLAYTON WITH BATED BREATH: SACS is expected to announce this week whether it will strip Clayton schools of their accreditation, since the Sept. 1 deadline falls on Labor Day.

STATE PARKS: Could be closed due to the statewide budget crisis.

QUILTERS NEVER WIN: The Gee’s Bend quilters from Alabama have resolved their lawsuit against an Atlanta art dealer whom they had accused of cheating them out of earnings.

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PETS AND DEBTS: The NYT reports on foreclosures and layoffs leading Georgians to part with their pets, which is overcrowding no-kill shelters.

CRESCENT BOON: In trying to draw more attention to Georgia’s life-sciences corridor between Atlanta and Athens, the state has dubbed the region the “Innovation Crescent.”

CLAYTON: Two candidates for the school board have prior arrest records — one was busted for selling cocaine when he was 22 and the other was charged with two misdemeanor counts of deposit-account fraud two years ago.

SURGE: U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that soldiers with injuries and medical conditions that should have prevented them from being sent to war were nonetheless deployed from forts Stewart, Benning and Drum to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of last year’s troop surge.

DYLAN: The Georgia Aquarium’s former celebrity sea turtle, who was rescued a decade ago on Jekyll Island as an infant, will be released back into the wild near Brunswick Monday.

COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: UGA loses to Fresno State in the rubber match.

TURNING OVER A NUDE LEAF: A Savannah man is released from jail, then rearrested less than a mile away walking naked down a busy road.

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HAWKS’ WOODSON TO RE-SIGN: Damn that hyphen!

HAPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: Ford sells its Hapeville assembly plant to Jacoby Development, which is going to build an “aerotropolis” there.

TOMATOES: Salmonella wave spreads to Georgia; Mexico’s tomato industry, which supplies 80 percent of U.S. imports, is in limbo.

WEEDY SEA DRAGONS: Reproduce at the Georgia Aquarium, only the third time that’s ever happened in a U.S. aquarium.

STREET SMARTS: Google Maps adds Atlanta to its Street View feature, so Atlantans can finally experience driving around town without being stuck in gridlock.

FIRE RISK HIGH: Conditions are once again ripe for wildfires in South Georgia.

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MYANMAR CYCLONE: Death toll exceeds 22,000.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Georgia’s the first state to start killing prisoners again, with William Earl Lynd scheduled to be lethally injected at 7 tonight.

GEORGIA AQUARIUM: Adding dolphins, as well as 1.3 million gallons of water for them.

NORREESE HAYNES: Clayton judge says Haynes can’t have his school board seat back and he sued the wrong group, since the school board doesn’t administer elections. Haynes says he’ll appeal and now sue the right group, the board of elections.

MORE IN CLAYTON: New corrective superintendent is making all school administrators reapply for their jobs.

FALCONS: Linebacker Michael Boley arrested in Dacula on charges he beat his wife.

KEPT ON TRUCKING: Disgruntled truck driver drives truck cab into lake.

ARTHUR TESLER: Trial underway for the only cop involved in Kathryn Johnston shooting to plead not guilty; lawyers say he was manipulated by two senior officers.

MAN FROM PLANES: Delta prez explains to surly Minnesota lawmakers that he’s going to be taking their Northwest HQ back to Atlanta.

DOT FIRINGS: WSB-TV open-records request finds reasons why Gena Abraham has fired 43 employees since taking over in December, ranging from theft, pulling a machete on another employee, bringing a gun to work and e-mailing porn.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women, men and fish everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

The top five will be revealed in the next print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands on Thursday, Nov. 8.

No. 8 — Taroko and Yushan

Bottled for our amusement

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Taiwan’s government will soon ban the export of whale sharks, the world’s largest fish.

“Thanks for nothing, jerks,” says Taroko. “And this helps me how?”

Taroko is upset because he, along with fellow whale shark Yushan, was sold by Taiwan to the Georgia Aquarium in June — after the export ban was announced but before it took effect.

The pair replaced the aquarium’s original whale shark duo, Ralph and Norton, both of whom died this year after less than two years in the aquarium’s captivity.

“Last year, everything was copacetic. I was freestylin’ in the Philippine Sea and inhaling fresh mackerel like a fat guy at Red Lobster,” Taroko says. “Now I do laps in a glass box waiting to die.”

“Hey, Bernie Marcus,” he says, addressing the Georgia Aquarium’s founder and benefactor, “what did I ever do to you?”

Yushan is no less frustrated at the turn his life has taken.

“It’s not healthy for us to be in captivity,” Yushan says. “My only hope is that the aquarium learned from the mistakes that killed Ralph and Norton.”

“Ask around. Aquariums just aren’t very healthy for large sea creatures like Yushan and me,” Taroko says. “Back in the day, I could dive 3,000 feet down into the ocean just for fun. If I tried that now, I’d bruise my head on a third grader from Lawrenceville.”

Both fish say they’re resigned to their fate. They know they’re never going to swim in the ocean again.

Their only request in their final months, they say, is for people to stop telling them how great it is to be in the Georgia Aquarium.

“Bernie Marcus compared the aquarium to the Ritz-Carlton,” Taroko says. “I’ve never stayed there, but I’m pretty sure the Ritz doesn’t use nets to find room guests.”

“They keep telling me how lucky I am that I live in a 6 million gallon aquarium,” Yushan interjects. “Hey, dickheads, I used to live in a 177 sextillion gallon aquarium. It’s called the Pacific Ocean.”

Visit Fresh Loaf on Tuesday morning for No. 7 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Gifts we haven’t yet seen at the Georgia Aquarium gift shop:

• Whale-shark-skin boots and purses
• Rub-a-Dub-in-a-Tub: Anti-bacterial, anti-whale-shark aquarium-cleansing kit
• Uncle Bernie’s Beluga Caviar
• Home Depot’s Do-It-Yourself Supersized Sushi Roller
• “Daddy, Why’s That Big Fishy Swimming Upside-down?” and Other Children’s Poems of Loss
• Michael Vick’s Fightin’ Fish Tipsheet
• How to Get Rid of Whale Sharks in Your Basement in 30 Days or Your Money Back
• Fresh lemons

Any other suggestions?

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It is fascinating to see the highly different takes on the death of Norton, the second whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium to die in the past five months.

The AJC’s take is based all on the question of whether whale sharks should be held in captivity. It takes the AJC 18 paragraphs to mention that the likely cause of death was the same that killed another whale shark at the aquarium:

Like Norton, Ralph was in the tank when the aquarium treated it with a pesticide to eliminate parasites. The aquarium has refused to say what chemical its workers used. Both fishes stopped eating sometime after the chemical had been applied; the aquarium started force-feeding them.

A necropsy on Ralph showed that the 22-foot-long fish had died of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdominal cavity’s lining.

He also had perforations in his stomach, possibly caused by the force-feedings. His stomach, veterinarians noted, also appeared to have thin walls.

However, in the New York Time’s article, the apparent connection was up front and center, in the third paragraph:

The exact cause of his illness is not yet known, said Ray Davis, the senior vice president for zoological operations.

The shark had been swimming and eating poorly for months, a change in his health that seemed to coincide with the use of a chemical pesticide to treat his tank for an infestation of parasitic leeches, Mr. Davis said.

Another young whale shark named Ralph, who was also exposed to the treatments, died in January after he stopped swimming and could not be revived.

Both papers interviewed Lori Marino, a biologist at Emory University who studies whale biology. But the Times got the money quote from her, which, ironically enough, bolsters the AJC’s main thesis:

“It’s appalling, of course … We all knew something like this was going to happen. I wonder how many more animals have to die before they realize that this is not a viable exhibit for these animals.”

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Even with its staff decimated and morale reportedly at a miserable low, the AJC proves in today’s edition that when it sets its mind to it, it can still do meaningful journalism. Today’s story on the death of Ralph the whale shark and the illness of Norton the whale shark by Mark Davis and Craig Simon is a fine piece of journalism. The money quote:

Until his death, Ralph the whale shark got regular force-feedings from his handlers at the Georgia Aquarium, a practice most aquariums with whale sharks avoid.

He lived in a tank whose waters were treated with a chemical that may have curbed his appetite, and which may be impeding the appetite of another shark in the display.

He came to America despite concerns that the director of Taiwan’s national aquarium says he voiced when he questioned the wisdom of moving a whale shark so far from its native waters. Georgia Aquarium officials dispute that the Taiwan official expressed such concerns.

It is a thought-provoking article and a black eye for the Georgia Aquarium, which appears to have adopted the policy of nondisclosure — it won’t release the autopsy on Ralph and won’t even reveal what chemical it used to treat the whale-shark tank. That’s the wrong approach to take and, frankly, gives the aquarium the appearance of guilt.

PR media experts will tell you that in times like this, companies should adopt the spirit of full disclosure, let the chips fall where they will and accept full responsibility for what went wrong.

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The details of Ralph’s death, disclosed a little over a week ago, provided a glimpse of a not-so-luxurious life. Ralph, who stopped eating after the tanks were chemically treated for parasites, had been force-fed for months …

– Atlanta-based New York Times reporter Shaila Dewan, from an April 8 essay titled “Can Man Improve on Nature’s Fishbowl?”

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