Fresh Loaf

Karl, sophomore: Lisa Borders. I like her transportation issues more than anything else. She seemed to be the only candidate who actually knew anything about transportation, and who wasn’t trying to do the John Oxendine plan where you just kind of pave through the city. Mary Norwood is pretty good, but she feels more like gentrification. And she comes in and drives a Buick.  That just stuck in my head. Lisa is the only one that comes off as being able to handle the job.

Ariel, senior: I’m leaning towards Kasim Reed. Crime is a real big issue right now, and he has some of the best ideas as far as hiring more police officers. As a Georgia State student, we’re in the middle of Atlanta. After 6 o’clock, all the stores close. It’s weird, because it’s still daylight but people don’t feel safe. I feel what he’s trying to do is put that police presence back into the city of Atlanta, which is real important for me as a student. I saw yesterday that he was talking about hiring 750 more police officers.

Jessica, senior: Mary Norwood, mostly because I like to vote more conservative. The most important issue to me is taxes, especially since I’m a new Atlanta resident. Not that I pay property taxes, but my water, sewer are taxed highly for a lot of reasons. I’d like to see, at least on a local level, someone I can relate to on some views, compared to Kasim and Lisa Borders, who are more liberal. Economically,  we need reform, and Atlanta is not doing very well managing its finances right now.

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A Gold Dome rule of thumb is that an erroneous premise should never stand in the way of an opportunity to grandstand, pander and basically make a clown of oneself. The ball started rolling when Rep. Calvin Hill mistakenly assumed GSU offers classes on oral sex and prostitution.

“I’m personally outraged that our taxpayer money is supporting professors, that this is what they’re offering as their services.”

— Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, as quoted in the AJC

Rep. Byrd

“Did you know the state universities offer special-interest classes and expertise on male prostitution, queer theory and oral sex? Yes!”

— Rep. Charlice Byrd, R-Woodstock, in a video she posted to YouTube

“I am sad that members of the GSU faculty had to … defend their vital research … because of ridiculous allegations.”

— Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates, in a Feb. 11 speech from the House well

“It’s been taken sideways by people who like the titillating words.”

— Rep. Calvin Hill, quoted in the AJC blaming the media for reporting on the issue

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post had the wrong district for Calvin Hill.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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By now you’ve surely seen the comments state Rep. Calvin Hill, R-ThisThatAndTheOther, made yesterday about how ENRAGED he was that taxpayer dollars were paying the salaries of Georgia State University profs considered scholars in the fields of oral sex, queer theory and male prostitution.

An enigmatic scribe at Pecanne Log reminds us of the hardships GSU has endured to become a group-sex friendly learning institution:

Georgia State has lagged behind other colleges in the state for decades in terms of student life due to its designation as a commuter school. The most flourishing and attractive part of any higher education institution’s campus life is, of course, its orgies. GSU has spent the last ten years playing an expensive catch-up in order to also be labeled an orgy-friendly research institution.

She goes on to carefully detail just how much the university has accomplished — occupying the Sodom and Gomorrah-esque Olympic Village, building group study rooms with viewing windows, etc. You can see why these women won our Best Local Blogger award, people!

Take note, Rep. Hill: This is bigger than budget shortfalls! Try and rob us of our oral sex experts and the erotic legacy GSU has struggled to build and you will see a protest on the statehouse steps unlike any you’ve ever seen before!

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The dominoes continue to fall along the Memorial Drive corridor. Just yesterday, Georgia State University threw down about $6.6 million for a 3.8-acre lot at 188 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to be used as a practice field for the school’s planned football team.

The land, which backs up to the MARTA line and sits next to that unsightly Corey smokestack, was formerly the home of The Warehouse, a homeless shelter operated by Blood and Fire Ministries. There was another, older brick warehouse on the land that has been slowly disappearing over the last year as construction crews have salvaged old timber and building materials.

The sale is but the latest change to an area that likely will be unrecognizable a few years from now. As I  noted in a 2006 article, the entire Memorial Drive corridor – including MLK Boulevard – from the Downtown Connector to Oakland Cemetery, has been zoned for redevelopment with townhouses and street-level boutiques.

Ironically, some of that development has already occurred, but it’s been slightly to the east, across from the cemetery, specifically The Jane loft complex and the Oakland Park condo tower. Both projects house restaurants and retail space, helping bring a neighborhood feel to a strip that had been mostly industrial. For better of worse, however, the increased property values have pushed out businesses like Lenny’s Bar, which managed to relocate on nearby DeKalb Avenue.

Over the summer, an anonymous donor helped the city of Atlanta buy up several vacant lots between Memorial and MLK, which have been cleared and landscaped with wood chips and small boulders. Eventually, the plan is for the entire strip running from the highway to the cemetery to become Capitol Gateway Park, a linear greenspace bounded on both sides by European-style townhomes.

For more info, check here.

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The departure of Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders from the Atlanta mayor’s race earlier this week has, by political strategists’ calculation, left behind a large window of opportunity for the right candidate.

Specifically, we mean someone backed by the Atlanta business community – anointed by the Chamber of Commerce, as it were. Borders, a protege of mega-developer Tom Cousins, had been that person, but now she’s out.

Therefore, the buzz of the moment has concentrated on a well-known and universally respected chief executive, a man of unique achievement who’s arguably done more than anyone since Ted Turner to restore the vibrancy of Atlanta’s downtown business district.

(more…)

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