From Macon City Councilman, Peach Pundit main guy, and ‘69th Most Influential U.S. Conservative‘ Erick Erickson:
Just sent fake dog poop to Earl Pomeroy: http://bit.ly/3saIti You should too to protest him betraying his constituents. #TEAPARTY #TCOT #RSabout 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
The Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan is now the party of Beck, Palin and plastic poo. Congrats, Erick.
Is an endorsement really an endorsement if you give the nod to two candidates from the same party who are running for the same seat?
From GOP gubernatorial candidates Eric Johnson and John Oxendine’s Twitter doohickeys:
Whatever, Johnson posted it first! Eat that, Ox©!
Ample-chested blonds across the country grabbed their sledgehammers this week when it was announced that the CIA had purchased software to monitor “blog posts, Twitter tweets and chatter across the Internet.”
Visible Technologies’ platform helps brands to monitor the millions of posts and conversations on blogs, forums, YouTube, Twitter and other online forums. “There is a world full of countries with people who are in online chat rooms,” Tighe says. “They may talk about something important to national security issues, or maybe someone becomes concerned about what they hear in one of these rooms.”
In celebration of this purchase I would like to say hello to the CIA: 9/11, RaHoWa, Building 7, JFK, Area 51.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a new historical novel coming out and he’s eager to use it as an excuse to clog Twitter with 140-character missives from dead men.
On Saturday, the pol-turned-think tanker will conjure black magic and resurrect General George Washington, Private Jonathan Van Dorn and Hessian commander Colonel Johann Rallhas — key figures in the historic crossing of the Delaware River and Battle of Trenton. Once they’re dusted off and fed heavy sedatives to cope with what democracy’s become, Gingrich will hand them iPhones and force them to re-enact the events.
“In To Try Men’s Souls, Bill Forstchen and I try to bring Washington and the other historical figures to life, trying to imagine what their conversations were like and what they were feeling while crossing the Delaware in extreme cold and sleet,” said Newt Gingrich. “This “twitternactment” will be a new way for people to experience history “in the moment.”
Gingrich says you can witness these historic figures make typos and needlessly hashtag trending topics by following @genwashington76, @pvtvandornNJ and @colonelrall.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
On Ga 400 this morning, I saw a billboard promoting Cavalia, the Cirque Du Soleil-ish equestrian show currently occupying a giant tent at Atlantic Station.
The billboard consists of the Cavalia logo and a solitary quotation: “The greatest show I have ever seen.”
In smaller letters below those words are the attribution: “Larry King.”
For perspective, here’s a sampling of some of the veteran CNN host’s other recent likes and dislikes, as found on his Twitter feed:
“The remake of the Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 is a topnotch thriller. The best is years… Denzel Washington & John Travolta are superb.”
“last night’s show with Ashton was probably the most exciting we’ve done since the Nafta debate.”
“Danny [Gans] was one of the best entertainers I’d ever seen. he was a great impressionist, singer and comedian. did you ever see his show?”
“one of my new favorite foods is peanut butter.”
On Angels & Demons: “Mystery meets excitement with a real surprise ending –it was a true thriller!”
“They never get the credit they deserve, but jockeys are the best athletes in all of sports.”
“Just saw Woody Allen’s new movie “Whatver Works” It’s his greatest movie, even better than “Annie Hall” I can’t say good enough about it!”
“Not usually into these things, but MJs memorial exceeded my expectations. I loved when Brooke Shields quoted “Smile” then Jermaine sang it.”
“Had lunch w Nancy Reagan. She mentioned her recent visit to DC & said the Obamas were terrific to her. She’s 88 and looks sensational.”
“I love black licorice, but you can have red licorice.”
“Saw Mickey Rooney today at Spago. He’s 88 and still being Mickey. Laurence Olivier once called him the ‘greatest american actor’”
I don’t know why, but I don’t like short sleeve shirts.
There isn’t a better crime writer alive than Michael Connelly — I can’t wait to read his latest book “9 Dragons” — I got it today!
I loved “Law Abiding Citizen” — I don’t know what the critics were watching! It’s a cracker jack thriller from start to finish!
“Of all the muffins, corn is my favorite.”
… for up-to-the-minute reports on blocked roads and what parts of town to avoid. As well as photos of the flooded areas.
Here’s a link to an #atlflood thread. Here’s a link to an #atltraffic thread. For links to official closed roads, check out our previous post.
And when the storm passes, send some karma to SpaceyG and DriveAFasterCar (she of #atlgas fame) for helping kickstart these hashtags. (We’ve also set up a feed for the #atlflood updates on our news page, clatl.com/news).
After the jump, an idea of just how bad the roads really are.
Kyle Keyser, in front of City Hall
Kyle Keyser’s surprising announcement that he was running for mayor of Atlanta invigorated an already dramatic campaign race — but it came with a catch. In order to officially enter the race, Keyser had to raise the $4,425 filing fee to get on the ballot.
And he had to do it in 48 hours.
The following is an account of the emotional days leading up to the announcement and the critical hours that followed in which the unlikely upstart candidate used Facebook, Twitter, Freedom Rock and an iPhone app to rally a community and help him get in the game.
Friday, Aug. 28
6:30 p.m: Keyser speaks at a rally at Bessie Branham Park in Kirkwood, held in response to the shooting of a 55-year-old man who was mowing his lawn.
This is when things really started to kick in. There were probably 200 people and I got up to speak at the end, and I just looked out and saw all these eyes looking at me and I just felt this sadness in the community, like they’d been broken by this incident, and a little hurt more so than angry. I thought to myself, “This is eight months from the time I started [Atlantans Together Against Crime (ATAC)]. How many more rallies do there have to be? How many more people are going to be affected by this?” That’s when I started to strongly consider running.
Monday, Aug. 31
3:21 p.m.: Facebook update: “ain’t gonna do it.”
I was not going to run at this point. But I was still flirting with the idea; maybe I should do it.
6 p.m.: Keyser speaks at another Kirkwood rally, this one organized by ATAC, in front of Vinocity.
The Monday rally was what put me over. I sat on my pile of signs, cleaning up, and talked to people who attended the rally and lived in the neighborhood. I just felt compelled to do something. I examined the situation and looked at myself and was like, “What can I do to affect the most change?” It was really like a compulsion. I’m like, “I have to do something.”
Then I decided, “I’m gonna do it.”
Don’t read this expecting an answer because I don’t know. Obviously, websites and social networking have assumed a prominent position in politics since Howard Dean first used the Internets to build a coalition of Deaniacs and Daily Kos became a must-read blog for millions.
Speaking as a reporter, I find myself questioning a candidate’s commitment if he can’t be bothered to put up a website. But does Web savvy portend a winning campaign?
Take a look at the three leading candidates for Atlanta mayor. Recent polls say Mary Norwood is leading the pack, followed fairly closely by Lisa Borders, with Kasim Reed trailing. But when it comes to attracting supporters on Facebook, Reed is far and away the front-runner. He’s got 4,502 Facebook supporters, compared with 2,886 for Borders and a mere 881 for Norwood.
According to Emory University associate professor Michael Leo Owens, as quoted in the AJC, “This will be the Facebook election.” Does that mean Borders and Norwood should pack it in?
Last Wednesday, anti-crime advocate Kyle Keyser made the Atlanta mayoral race — which has seen its fair share of drama the last few weeks — much more interesting when he announced his candidacy.
One problem: Keyser didn’t have the $4,425 to get his name on the ballot. Another problem: the Little Five Points resident had only 48 hours to raise the cash. Either that or gather 2,300 signatures in the same amount of time.
So Keyser, the co-founder of the 10,000-member strong Atlantans Together Against Crime and who’s well-known among the city’s more social, younger crowd, asked for help from friends and strangers via Twitter, Facebook and DailyKos. It paid off. Here are the numbers.
This writer has noticed, and Silicon Alley Insider confirms, Twitter is down. Facebook also seems to be acting wacky this a.m.
If it stays down for three more hours, I may finish my Don’t Panic! column on time for a change!
Farah Fawcett’s passing last Thursday prompted a generation of now-middle aged males to recall their frustrated adolescent fantasies. Michael Jackson’s death, on Friday, nearly broke the internet. The equally untimely death of householder-appliance pitchman Billy Mays, who likely succumbed to heart disease, inspired entirely different sorts of reminiscences.
Mays already had almost 52,000 fans on Facebook, over 2,000 of whom have visited his page since then to pay their respects. (Condolences ranged from “NOW who will I buy useless shit from?” to “zorbies won’t absorb my tears…and Mighty Mend-it can’t fix my broken heart” to “why couldnt the sham-wow guy die.”) Mays’ death pushed Twitter into another day of overload, while on MySpace users were hawking Orange Glo as collector’s items.
Though while the outbursts of sentiment following Fawcett and Jackson’s untimely deaths were not at all surprising, the phrase “infomercial star” that all the obits are throwing around wouldn’t even exist without Mays. So how to account for the impact of “the OxiClean guy” on the cultural zeitgeist?
Rank of Atlanta rapper Soulja Boy Tell ’Em’s Twitter page on a list of “businesses” with the highest number of Twitter followers: 9
Rank of CNN: 1
Total number of Twitterers following Soulja Boy: 892,491
Total number of “tweets” the rapper — or his handlers — have posted on his Twitter site: 4,412
Estimated number of tweets worldwide that were related to the Iran protests, following the country’s June 12 election: 79,000
Estimated percentage of tweets that referenced Michael Jackson in the two hours following the king of pop’s death: 30
Total number of Twitter members worldwide: 37 million
Number of other major social-networking sites that have grown faster than Twitter over the past year: 0
Number of jobs that MySpace was forced to cut following stiff competition from Twitter and Facebook: 300
Sources: Twibs.com, twitter.com/souljaboytellem, WashingtonPost.com, ColumbusDispatch.com, Mashable.com, NYTimes.com
Mayor Shirley Franklin took an Atlanta City Councilmember to task last night for his noble efforts to reach residents through Twitter.
At last night’s Young Democrats of Atlanta fundraiser at Sweetwater Brewery, Franklin — the night’s honoree — addressed the crowd and took questions.
Attendees noticed the flames of Hades rise, however, as Franklin directed her hatred for new technology at Councilman Kwanza Hall, who was also at the event.
Hall, who represents a sizable chunk of intown Atlanta, is well-known for his Twitter habits.
Newt hearts Twitter
Newt’s bringing his unique brand of sanctimony to the Twit-o-sphere.
Via AJCer Jim Galloway’s Political Insider blog:
Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich just twittered the following to his closest 344,357 friends about five minutes ago, never mentioning U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by name:
“White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.” …
The aide said the “tweets” are genuine, which makes Gingrich the most prominent Republican yet to take a hard line against Obama’s nominee for the high court.
Newt Gingrich, defender of “white man racists” and traditional marriages. We Georgians should be proud.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Mayoral front-runners: Borders (left), Norwood (middle) and Reed (right)
As reported by the AJC, Atlanta’s mayoral candidates have taken to social networking sites such as Twitter, utilizing the art of mass-updating to keep in constant touch with supporters and potential voters. And where there’s a seemingly innovative new political outreach tool, there’s almost always a predictable new catchphrase for it:
“This will be the Facebook election,” said Emory University associate professor Michael Leo Owens.
Four candidates — [Council President Lisa] Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood, state Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) and [Glenn] Thomas, a former city employee — each have pages and videos on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Candidate Rod Mack, who works in logistics, has a MySpace page that plays the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
The campaigns do concede that, most often, it’s their staffs who are updating these accounts for them. Borders, for example, has three individuals from the firm Relate Media Group on staff to manage her social networking accounts.
Like everything else in politics, this is a competition — one that Reed and Borders would seem to have a head start on. Reed boasts more than 4,000 Facebook friends, while Borders has approximately 1,700. Each have more than 1,100 official supporters listed on their Facebook pages. On Twitter, Borders has more followers than any candidate: 749 as of last Sunday.
Using Twitter to summon police, fire and ambulance services during an emergency, as Atlanta city councilman Kwanza Hall recently did, is a BRILLIANT idea.
Not only will the city’s less affluent neighborhoods on the south and west sides get even less attention than they already do, but think of the entertainment.
Well, let’s see what’s on the ole Twitter, eh? Oh, what’s this? John Oxendine for Governor? Why, “The Ox” is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to lead the great state of Georgia! What did he do this weekend?
(Turns Twitter off, commences to weep)
Frank Mullen in 2005. (Photo by Jim Stawniak)
Sad news this afternoon — local Twitter users are posting tributes to the great Atlanta music photographer Frank Mullen. Tony Ware wrote a short feature about Mullen for CL in 2005.
I don’t have any details at the moment. When we do, we’ll post them here or on our music blog, Crib Notes.
Update: Chad Radford has a post on Crib Notes on Mullen’s passing.
Why did Republican über blogger Erick Erickson repeatedly call soon-to-retire U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester“?
In an interview yesterday with Macon Telegraph reporter and Lucid Idiocy blogger Travis Fain, Erickson explained his juvenile, slanderous outbursts thusly:
“I felt good at the time saying it.”
Erickson’s Twitter-friendly, 34-character sentence might as well be adopted as the official motto of the right-wing punditocracy and the G.O.P.
They’re a depressed and damaged lot; emotionally wounded by voters who keep rejecting their awful ideas and their awfuller candidates. And the smart ones, like Erick, know it’s probably going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Palin-Jindal ‘12, anyone? How about Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney? Exactly.
To cope with the rejection, they’re regressing to a child-like state and stroking their ids.
Serious people don’t take Republicans seriously anymore, so they might as well forget all their worries by saying and doing all the stupid shit they want. What difference does it make, man? As long as it feels good.
Republicans are the new hippies and hate is the new Haight.
EJ and a pretty lady
Proving himself to be a man of character — 136 of them, to be precise — state Sen. Eric Johnson, R-Savannah, announced his candidacy for governor moments ago by way of Twitter. Johnson had been running for guv lite, but those plans were upended when that job’s current occupant, Casey Cagle, abandoned his own campaign for governor a couple of weeks back.
Here’s Eric’s full text:
I have decided to run for Governor. Leadership is about trust. I hope to earn the trust of the people of Georgia. Keep me in your prayers.
He came in four under par and still managed to get in a religious reference. Nice.
Anyway, the senator’s news isn’t a big surprise. He’d put himself in a bit of an awkward place by resigning his position of Senate President Pro Tem before the beginning of the 2009 General Assembly, saying he wanted to devote his time to running for lieutenant governor.
From all appearances, the move backfired: Johnson’s visibility dropped and potential rivals found it easier to undercut his effectiveness. His school voucher bill — the vehicle on which he hoped to ride into the Governor’s Mansion — went nowhere.
Not exactly a blog, but it deserves a shout out. Staffers at UGA’s student-run newspaper the Red and Black worked overtime to provide coverage of Saturday’s shootings. Read their follow-ups here, here and here.
Ben at Terminal Station rips into state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s idea to consider privatizing MARTA.
Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered uses the words “Tyler Perry,” “Tupac Shakur,” and “comp time” all in the same blog post as he delves deeper into the firing of former DeKalb Police Chief Terrell Bolton.
Christa at Pecanne Log spots the hottest trend in spring fashions during historic economic collapses! Recycled ethernet cables! Yay!
Garrett Vonk fires back at Twitta-hatas.
Jason Pye, who says he’s never taken a puff, says decriminalizing marijuana should be on the table. Also: Legalizing marijuana is now more popular than the Republican Party.
Veteran TV journalist and Live Apartment Fire blogger Doug Richards today will pull the tarp off the magical news van to pull a one-day shift in the 11 Alive newsroom. Here’s exclusive video of him training for the adventure.
Travis Fain at Lucid Idiocy wonders if lawmakers have already been forgiven for failing to make progress on transportation funding this year.
Decatur Metro. Leon’s Full Service. And late-night drunken bocce. Discuss.
FlackAttack bids adieu at Tondee’s Tavern.
Other exciting links feel free to post them in the comments.
In her New York Times column today, Maureen Dowd asks Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams to defend their invention against the criticism that its merely a tool for self-absorbed yuppies to share mundane details of their lives with other self-absorbed yuppies.
Stone responds by listing examples of Twitter’s utility as an medium for serious, emergency communication.
Included on his short-list: Atlanta blogger Tessa Horehled’s #atlgas, which used Twitter to help Atlantan’s find gasoline during last year’s shortage.
BIZ: If people are passionate about your product, whether it’s because they’re hating or loving it, those are both good scenarios. People can use it to help each other during fuel shortages or revolts or earthquakes or wildfires. That’s the exciting part of it.
Earthquakes! Revolts! Wildfires! Tessa!
Yeah, it might not be raining this very moment, but across Atlanta, people are dealing with the aftershocks of recent storm activity. And it sucks.
Fighting the wind and rain this morning in downtown Atlanta.
Grady High School is among the more than 230,000 Georgia Power customers in metro Atlanta without power. Downtown Decatur’s electricity just returned. MARTA was out of service for several hours. And one person was killed when a tree fell. Here at CL the lights flickered on and off for most of the morning, causing great panic and confusion amongst the hardworking proletariat as we slave away at our information terminals.
And the AJC says more rain could be on the way:
Up to 2 inches of rain could fall across the area through the day Monday, with hail possible, forecasters said.
“There will likely be two rounds of thunderstorms,” the Weather Service said in a statement. “One this morning as a squall line moves through central Georgia and another this afternoon and tonight as the cold front approaches.”
The chance of rain continues into Tuesday, with dry weather forecast for the back half of the week.
Be careful on the roads and watch out if you’re working under or around trees.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
