Fresh Loaf

1. AJC plans to cut staff by 30 percent (As we later reported, nearly 90 editorial staffers will be bought out or laid off. That sucks.)

2. Atlanta to New Orleans rail line in danger … because of Alabama? (At least this story has a happy ending.)

3. Atlanta City Council OKs Decatur Belt deal— with a catch (Marietta Street residents protect their neighborhood from destruction, and the newest Beltline plan is a win-win)

4. Examining the Sweet 16: Nova v. Duke is can’t miss basketball (Needless to say, we rooted for the Tar Heels.)

5. Georgia slips in ’safest state’ rankings to no. 39 (The Peach State dropped seven spots, to be exact — the largest plummet in the country. Oops.)

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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The study is needed to tap federal funding for a high-speed rail line connecting Atlanta and New Orleans.

From the Birmingham News:

In a turnaround, Alabama has agreed to pay its dues in the Southern High-Speed Rail Commission.

The state owes $120,000 in commission dues for 2008 and 2009.

Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs Director Bill Johnson said the state stopped paying because his agency was not in the transportation business.

As the News reported last week, Georgia is not a member of the commission conducting the study. Can the state jump on board?

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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HURRICANES: The high seas continue to use the Southeastern U.S. as their chipping green, with three more storms en route. Hanna was downgraded to a tropical storm this morning but may become a hurricane again; Savannah and cities from the Outer Banks to Miami are preparing for impact. Meanwhile, Gustav dawdles over Texarkana after sparing New Orleans the feared devastation. Still, Mayor Ray Nagin says it won’t be safe to return until at least Wednesday.

RAIN BARRELS: Especially useful during hurricane season.

RNC: Resumes today in St. Paul, with President Bush delivering a via-satellite speech at 9:30 tonight. Police have arrested nearly 300 protesters, and have charged 130 with felonies.

GRAY’S ANATOMY: Gray’s Reef, located 40 miles off the Georgia coast, shows effects of human pollution but is generally healthier than researchers had feared.

LOVE IN THIS CUB: The newborn panda cub at Zoo Atlanta has been put in an incubator for closer monitoring based on the behavior of it and its mother, Lun Lun.

BRIAN FINNERAN: Knows he’s lucky to be back on the Falcons’ roster after being out since 2005 with back-to-back knee injuries.

THE CHROME STRETCH: Google readies Chrome, its new browser it hopes will compete with Internet Explorer 8.0.

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OIL SPILL: Covers 100 miles of the Mississippi River.

NORTHERN LIGHTS: Explained.

SUPER GRAND BUFFET: The Duluth restaurant’s 15 out of 100 on its health rating calls into question its super grandness.

PORT REFORM: Savannah overtook Charleston as the top Southeastern port in 2006 and has since widened the gap, but Chucktown’s catching back up.

ETOWAH INDIAN MOUNDS: Will be recovered with natural flora, replacing the grasses that have adapted to the area since European settlers moved in.

CAROL COUCH: Says Georgia, Alabama and Florida should go ahead and split the bill for a study on water management in the tristate area, rather than waiting for Congress to pick it up.

BOOKINGS KILL BOOKS: Lil Kim and Foxy Brown are in trouble with their publisher after their incarcerations kept them from writing books they had already been paid advances for.

HELLA PAD: Atlanta’s first helipad opens downtown.

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Almost lost in my shuffling through all the two-year-anniversary coverage of Hurricane Katrina was this interesting feature in New Orleans’ Times-Picayune about Glenn Allen, an evacuee minister who decided to stay in Atlanta and start up his own church in the area.

Of course there’s the usual examples of homesickness and the contrasting lifestyles in the two cities. Here’s one of my favorites:

To heighten the contrast, as New Orleans struggles to repopulate, Atlanta recently has passed the 5 million mark with its metro-area population. Much of the increase owes to the constant influx of transplants.

“No one is really from here,” Allen says.

The benefit that derives from that is the stimulation of diversity.

“You have all these different cultures — Latinos, Jamaicans, Nigerians,” he says.

But there is a downside as well: a diluted sense of place. At Thanksgiving last year, Allen and his wife, Carla, entertained 40 of their parishioners in their home — all people who were spending the holidays away from their families. At Christmas, there were even more.

And while he has plenty of genial new friends, he says it’s not the same.

“We’re surrounded by good people, but they’re all new people. I’m used to knowing someone for 20 or 30 years,” he says.

“It’s strange to be brand new. You don’t know who to trust; you don’t know what people’s true intentions are. It’s harder to read people when you’re out of your culture.”

Amen, brother.

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(Photo by David Lee Simmons)

A year ago this time, CL presented coverage of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, in which I contributed an essay about my move to Atlanta after spending six months in New Orleans after the storm. I also supplied some names of other folks who had moved here, mainly evacuees who stayed, including some friends of mine.

The status of my friends might be microcosmic of New Orleanians as a whole. Three of us have decided to stay in Atlanta, impressed by professional opportunities here. Three decided to return home, while another capitalized on a professional opportunity here to move onward to New York City. And yet another one is still torn between both New Orleans and Atlanta.

In some ways, we all have been, over the past two years, torn between remaining in the city to stay and fight the good fight, others knowing they need to move on with their lives or that living in New Orleans is just too tough an existence. I remember a phone conversation the other night with an old friend in New Orleans, one of those die-hard types who, like me, was gung-ho in coming back from the evacuation, ready to rebuild. His voice on the phone was shaky now. “I just don’t know if I can take it much longer,” he sighed. “The crime, the lack of progress … it’s just so frustrating.” And this from a guy who really was making a difference.

(more…)

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To say that I’m more than a little geeked about tonight’s Rebirth Brass Band show at Smith’s Olde Bar is an understatement. It’s not just a chance to get a much needed breath of New Orleans air and put a little boogie in my bones; it’s a chance to revisit a totally different kind of nostalgia.
You see, it was almost exactly nine months ago that, emboldened by a little box in my pocket and a few beers in my gut, I hopped up onstage and proposed to my girlfriend. Having only lived in Atlanta for about seven months, I couldn’t think of anything remotely or familiarly Atlanta-ly romantic to pop the question. I needed a setting. I needed a mood. I needed familiarity. I needed a little bit of New Orleans.
(more…)

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In some ways, Oliver Morgan was like many of the other evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. Floodwaters from the levee breach in the Industrial Canal engulfed his Lower Ninth Ward home, and so he and his wife, Sylvia, went to stay in Atlanta where two of his five children lived. To Atlantans, he may have been just another evacuee who decided to make the city his new home. They even bought a house.

To New Orleans, he was better-known for his lone but huge 1964 R&B hit, “Who Shot the La La,” a curious take on the then-recent death of another New Orleans R&B star, Lawrence “Prince La La” Nelson. (Nelson actually died of a drug overdose, not a gunshot wound, but the song turns the death into a mystery.) Morgan himself passed away July 31 at the age of 74.

Morgan never matched the success of “Who Shot the La La,” a jaunty, syncopated tune filled with loads of local references but with a melody so catchy it became a favorite during Mardi Gras. He also became a fixture at Jazz Fest, often parading around in the New Orleans “second line” style, waving an umbrella and leading the crowd in a line.

(more…)

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Although the news has been focused more on the lack of funds distribution, here’s an important tidbit for displaced New Orleanians in Atlanta looking to move back home: The deadline for the Road Home program is today, July 31.

Louisiana homeowners who owned and occupied their homes at the time of Hurricane Katrina or Rita and suffered damage as a result of one of the storms may be eligible to receive assistance through The Road Home program. Owners of single-units, double-units, condominiums, town homes and mobile homes are encouraged to apply.

Program officials stressed that this is a deadline to apply, not a deadline for the entire program. The Housing Assistance Centers will still be available to homeowners for initial appointments and advisory service appointments past the July 31 deadline.

Folks can apply at www.roadtola.org or call 888-ROAD-2-LA.

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