Fresh Loaf

Mayor Shirley Franklin made her first public comments today in regards to the Sept. 10 raid at the Eagle.  She decided to forgo the traditional issuing of a press release, and instead haunted the aisles of the Home Depot on Ponce for a Southern Voice reporter to find her first.  It was reportedly that chance encounter or challenging reporters to a fight to the death.

Franklin on the reports of anti-gay slurs and excessive force used by APD officers during the raid:

If there are any allegations about misconduct it’s our intention to investigate them and take the appropriate action.  I believe that every person who lives or visits Atlanta should be treated fairly and justly.

(more…)

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On Friday, the state legislature let die a bill that would have allowed MARTA to spend money from its $65 million capital improvement fund to help plug its $20 million operating shortfall.

Because of the city-phobic legislature’s malicious inaction, MARTA will be forced to cut vital services. The transit system’s board is scheduled to meet today to discuss service cuts. Among the options being considered: shutting down MARTA on Fridays.

I’m in a spiteful mood today and would love it if MARTA targets its service cuts in ways that maximize their impact on voters and businesses who support the Redneckocrats who dominate the statehouse.

For example, Home Depot founder and sashimi collector Bernie Marcus backs the state Republican Party. Maybe MARTA should cease operating near Home Depot stores. Maybe MARTA could also run shuttle buses to Lowes. I’d also like it if APD resources assigned to the area around the Georgia Aquarium were reassigned to the West End or Sylvan Hills.

And I definitely want MARTA to shut all north side operations during sporting events and country music concerts. Let it serve as a reminder to north-side suburban voters that their support of city-hatin’ Republicans has consequences.

My examples may not be serious, but my overall point is very serious. If the Republican-dominated state legislature continues trying to destroy the city, the city should fight back.

Or secede.

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Last Thursday about 20 activists led by the group “Save Our Cypress Coalition” gathered outside of the corporate headquarters of Home Depot on Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta to boil crabs to protest Home Depot’s use of cypress tress in mulch that they produce. They claim that irreplaceable cypress forests in the southeast are being clear-cut to produce and sell garden mulch by Home Depot. “Clear cutting cypress forests to make mulch is like shredding the constitution to make post it notes,” said Dan Favre, campaign organizer for the Gulf Restoration Network.

The activists said that the crabs they brought to boil at the demonstration represented the Gulf environment that they were trying to protect. Several dozen live crabs were boiled to death and eaten to protest against the destruction of the crabs environment.

Boiling crabs to save them outside Home Depot

According to the demonstrators some of the cypress tress that Home Depot uses in their mulch take a hundred years to grow and could live for over 1000 years if they were not cut down and sold for garden mulch. The Coalition recommends Home Depot use other types of wood such as pine bark because it’s a byproduct of the lumber industry and requires no further environmental destruction to produce or pine straw because its renewable.

More boiling crabs to save the swamps photos at our Sideshow blog.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Fish-hoarder and Home Depot ex-CEO Bernie Marcus apparently wants Democrats to shop at Lowes.

Okay, maybe he didn’t quite put in those terms.

He did, however, say in an October conference call that pro-union Democratic policies would lead to the “demise of a civilization,” and that business owners who don’t support Republican senators should be shot — not exactly a welcoming message to the 67 million Americans who voted this month to put a Democratic U.S. Senator in the White House.

Author and Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank explains:

And hear the lamentations of the billionaires. “This is the demise of a civilization,” moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. “This is how a civilization disappears. I’m sitting here as an elder statesman, and I’m watching this happen, and I don’t believe it.”

Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the “low hanging fruit” and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation’s CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. “This is as important as anything that’s ever happened to these companies. And they’re not reacting, and they’re not fighting. The old time fighters are gone.”

But in the class war, as in the real deal, there are always ways of motivating the yellow. “If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.”

(I can do it. AJC Political Insider Jim Galloway helped.)

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OBAMA’S SECRET: The Democratic presidential nominee has picked a running mate. But he’s not gonna tell you who it is.

NO-SHOW REED: After hyping John McCain in anticipation of last night’s Atlanta fund-raiser (and after the GOP candidate allegedly told him ‘no thanks’), baby-faced former Christian Coalition prez Ralph Reed decides not to grace the event with his presence.

COUNCIL HEARTS TADS: Late last night, Atlanta City Council green-lighted controversial Tax Allocation District funding for the $125 million Center for Civil & Human Rights museum and the multi-billion-dollar Beltline transit-and-trails project. More than $200 million was approved — which marks the first infusion of government funds for the Beltline.

NO PRESSURE: The Georgia Bulldogs are the top-ranked college football team this year. It’s the first time the UGA team has started a season with the top ranking. Last year, the Dogs finished No. 2.

DESPERATE DEPOT: Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. expects profits to tumble 24 percent in this weakened housing market year. Still, the world’s largest home-improvement company reported unexpectedly high profits this quarter.

SICK VITAMINS: A Marietta man claims his daily vitamin caused his hair and fingernails to fall out. Apparently, he’s not the only one.

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Amount Coca-Cola Co. paid former CEO Neville Isdell in 2007: $31.9 million

Amount Coca-Cola paid current CEO Muhtar Kent in 2007: $8.7 million

Average salary of an account manager (sales) at Coca-Cola: $38,327

Amount Home Depot paid former CEO Robert Nardelli in 2006: $13.1 million

Value of Nardelli’s Home Depot severance package: $210 million

People Home Depot laid off from its Vinings headquarters in January: 500

Amount Southern Co. paid CEO David Ratcliffe in 2006: $7.8 million

Annual salary for “utility worker” position advertised on Southern Co.’s website: $24,696

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, PayScale, Executive PayWatch Database, CFO magazine, Fortune magazine, Athens Banner-Herald, New York Times

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Well, you can quit waiting. Forbes has just published its annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, and you aren’t on it. However, five other Atlantans did make the cut; none is a big surprise and all are predictably white.

First up, as always, is willowish octogenarian Anne Cox Chambers, whose inherited media empire includes the AJC, WSB radio and TV and scores of other newspapers and broadcasters, a cable TV company and auto sales. While her wealth remains steady — $12.6 billion — her rank on the list has slipped from a high of No. 12 a few years back to No. 24 this year, one spot above New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Following the death of the other Cox sister, Barbara Cox Anthony, in May, we’d wondered what would become of her money. The introduction of her son and Cox Co. Chairman and CEO James Kennedy, 59, to the Forbes list at No. 50 has effectively answered that question. He and his sister, Australian cattle rancher Blair Parry-Okeden, each now boast $6.3 billion.

Then come the Home Depot guys, Bernie Marcus, No. 239 with $2 billion, and Arthur Blank, No. 317 with $1.5 billion. And rounding out the top five at No. 380 with a paltry $1.3 billion is evangelical Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy.

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