Fresh Loaf

GEORGE CARLIN: Dies at 71.

SLOW AND STEADY: The Obama campaign gingerly courts the black vote in states where high black-voter turnout could make the difference, while trying to avoid giving the appearance of exploiting race.

2 FAST 2 USURIOUS: Atlanta Progressive News reports that Atlanta-based CompuCredit is being sued by the FDIC and FTA for $200 million on charges it deceived and took advantage of its customers.

UGA IN CWS: The final, best-of-three series begins tonight at 7.

GRAVY TRAIN: The recently Sonny-approved notion of commuter rail would be a boon for smallish towns along the proposed Atlanta-Griffin and Atlanta-Athens rail lines.

STATE OF THE ARTIFACT: Archaeological-artifact poaching is on the rise in Georgia, according to a DNR official.

THE BEE’S KNEES: This week is the national Pollinators Week, created to raise awareness of the ecologically critical, and quickly disappearing, insects that pollinate crops and flowers.

FUEL OF ROCK: More below-the-radar touring bands are canceling tours as gas prices make going on the road cost prohibitive.

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CLINTON: With hopes dwindling despite winning Puerto Rico, her campaign sends e-mails to staff summoning them to NYC Tuesday night and telling them their roles in the campaign are ending. The campaign is silent as to whether this means her campaign is ending.

ON THE HALF SREL: UGA’s nationally renowned Savannah River Ecology Lab soldiers on with fewer than half its scientists despite the Bush administration cutting its funding eightfold last year.

LOW WITH THE FLOW: Beginning Sunday, all houses sold in DeKalb must have low-flow toilets.

DIPLOMA KILL: Clayton’s corrective superintendent scraps seniors’ diplomas because they don’t have his name on them; printing company offers to waive reprinting fee due to error.

TAKEN FOR A RIDE: Athens’ homeless population, which was 462 as of January, is partly fueled by resource-strapped rural police departments driving their homeless residents there under the premise of better opportunities, Athens officials allege.

BONES TO PICK: The Augusta Chronicle profiles Dr. Rick Snow, the GBI’s first full-time forensic anthropologist, who has 62 sets of nameless remains to identify.

“MAKING NEWS”: TV Guide Network reality show about Savannah’s low-rated WJCL/Fox 28 local news station debuts Wednesday night at 8.

WACHOVIA CEO: Asked to retire by the board of directors. AccessNorthGa brightens my day with presumably unrelated keypads and police lights.

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CRITICS AT BAY: Florida Sen. Bill Nelson tours the Apalachicola Bay to survey the effects of retaining more water in Lake Lanier, and says he’ll push for a National Academy of Sciences study of how low flows affect the river ecosystem.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE FUNNEL: 2008 could be a record year for U.S. tornadoes, and while meteorologists aren’t sure why this year has been so tornadically prolific — including the twister that caused $40 million in damage in north metro Atlanta last week — the good news is that tornado season usually starts sputtering out in June.

BORDERS SKIRMISH: City Council President Lisa Borders writes a letter to her councilmates asking them to be nicer to the mayor.

HAWKS GM SEARCH: As is becoming typical of front-office searches in Atlanta pro sports, Cleveland’s Chris Grant withdraws himself from consideration after being offered the general manager job.

UGA EXPANDING IN GWINNETT: With the Brain Train struggling to gain traction, UGA just starts filling the gaps between Athens and Atlanta with itself.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL: Piedmont Park may soon install wells for water independence, pending a decision by the state Environmental Protection Division.

CAUGHT LEAD-HANDED: Two studies link children’s lead exposure 25 years ago and increased impulsive and criminal behavior in adulthood.

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MONEYMAKER SHAKEN: McCain, having just lost a major fundraiser, will turn to the Republican Party for funds to combat the Obama fundraising onslaught this fall. Clinton is expected to win Kentucky tomorrow, will likely be nullified by Obama winning Oregon.

CLAYTON: Students in accreditation-endangered schools can soon apply for corporate-funded scholarships to attend private schools, thanks to a new law.

YERKES: Researchers have successfully bred monkeys that have Huntington’s disease to study potential treatments for afflicted humans.

17-YEAR ITCH: Brood XIV cicadas that have been feeding underground on tree roots for the last 17 years are now emerging from Georgia to Pennsylvania to start mating.

MEDICAL TOURISM: Norcross startup testing the waters of flying patients to India or Thailand for discount medical procedures.

SLUDGE FUDGED? Lawsuit alleges UGA used false data in research that showed spreading sewage sludge on dairy pastures is safe for dairy cows.

PERRY THRUST: City of Perry is moving toward powering its mowers and off-road equipment with vegetable oil.

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MOTHER’S DAY TORNADOES: Twenty-three people are killed nationally by an estimated 47 twisters from Oklahoma and Missouri to Georgia, making this year the worst so far for tornadoes since 1999. At least one person dies in Georgia as six tornadoes hit through midstate.

EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: A Valdosta Daily Times reporter, who was one of five media monitors of the execution of William Earl Lynd last week, writes of the experience.

THOMAS GOWN AFFAIR: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gives UGA’s commencement speech over the weekend, recalling how Georgia was still too segregated for him to attend UGA in the ’60s.

SCHOLARBLIND: The AP profiles the valedictorian of this year’s Morehouse graduating class, who’s white.

CORN IN THE USA: By July, the entire Southeast gasoline pipeline will be using E10, which is at least 8 percent ethanol.

CAN’T ARGUE WITH RESULTS: Jonesboro High School’s mock trial team wins its second consecutive national championship.

SHADY ROVE: MC Turd Blossom has a new gig as FOX News “pundit.”

CROWS TERRIFIED: Northeast Georgia town trying to break Guinness World Record for “Most Scarecrows in One Location,” with 4,000 scarecrows by Sept. 1. No one so far has had the heart to tell Hoschton that this will not, in fact, make the town a “household word.”

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HAWKS POPULI: Philips Arena pulsates as the suddenly unstoppable Joe Johnson leads the surging Hawks over the heavily favored Celtics to tie the series at 2-2. They’re in Boston Wednesday and back here Friday.

TAYLOR BENNETT: Ga. Tech QB transfers to La. Tech. He’ll be playing for Vince Dooley’s son and La. Tech’s mascot is also the Bulldogs, so page-view-hungry websites come up with misleading-but-not-untrue headlines like this:

JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Doing his best to keep Obama out of the White House. CNN has this bio of the ravin’ reverend. ATLMalcontent is justifiably worried that Obama is showing a Kerryesque lack of anger over this.

JIMMY CARTER: On “The Daily Show” last night.

NEED FOR SEED: UGA anthropologists’ Southern Seed Legacy protects heirloom varieties of old and disappearing Southern crops such as the plum granny and the turkey craw bean.

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CAMPAIGN IN THE NECK: Clinton wins Pennsylvania by 10 points, likely meaning we get to delight in this campaign all summer.

SPECIAL K: Smoltz gets 3,000th strikeout, Braves lose.

CHAMBLEE SIX: Sextet of Chinese immigrants who subdued and hogtied an international fugitive in February are now giving away their $10,000 in reward money.

CIVIL UNIONS: Delta and Northwest pilots unions to resume negotiations about merging their workforces.

DAVID POLLACK: Retires from the NFL at age 25 due to the neck injury he suffered two years ago.

DOUBTING THOMAS: UGA President Michael Adams defends his choice of Clarence Thomas as the 2008 commencement speaker amid faculty complaints that the university’s sexual harassment problems this year make Thomas a bad choice.

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UNHAPPY AS A CLAM: Mussels, north Floridians will suffer from Corps of Engineers’ new water proposal, says a Florida congressman, while Lake Lanier Association president says the plan doesn’t go far enough.

LEGAL INJECTION: SCOTUS dismisses challenge to constitutionality of Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure, freeing up other states to kill their prisoners again. Two Georgia death-row inmates are now back on track to be executed.

SEPARATE BUT DIESEL: Ga. DOT explains the problems with bringing truck-only lanes to Atlanta, while the idea’s sponsor stubbornly soldiers on.

BURDEN OF PROF: Two still-unidentified Ga. Tech professors are being investigated for fraud and theft.

LEATHERHEADS: Georgia State is expected to announce today its plans to start a football team in 2010. AJC’s Tony Barnhart lists five things the Panthers must do to succeed. Around this time last year, Mark Bradley wrote why they won’t succeed.

LACROSSE-CULTURAL: Toli, the 500-year-old Native American predecessor of lacrosse, is big in Athens, where on Saturday UGA’s team will host the 21-time world-champion Conehatta Skunks, who are Choctaw.

THE PAYBACK: The Augusta Metro Spirit lists what will be available at James Brown’s estate sale in August.

PRO-STRIFE: Yale art student artificially inseminates herself “as often as possible,” takes drugs to induce miscarriages, collects the blood, and presents it along with videos of her miscarriages as her senior art project.

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ITP TORNADO: Downtown F-2’s damage rattles hospitality industry, street closings and debris cause isolated traffic problems downtown this morning.

OTP TORNADO: Two killed by separate F-3 northwest of the city. A photo from the home of Bonnie Turner, one of the casualties, was carried 129 miles by the storm, landing in Cornelia, just west of the South Carolina border.

LANIER: Up 3/4 of a foot from Friday.

WAYNE CLOUGH: Steps down as Tech’s president to lead troubled Smithsonian.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Medical College of Georgia neuroscientist studies memory formation.

DEANGELO HALL: Trade to Oakland seems likely.

HOW ABOUT: Them Dogs. SEC championship, NCAA berth bolster Felton’s job security.

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The Athens Banner-Herald’s Blake Aued writes of a Classic City event on Thursday where scientists, academics and writers gathered to discuss global warming’s effect on Georgia. Their take: Even if we act now, we’ll still see drastic changes to our state, including an encroaching coastline, permanent drought, and perhaps the most frightening vision of all … we’ll be more like Houston.

This quote by James Porter, an ecologist at the University of Georgia, really stood. He was speaking about how scientists feel a sense of urgency the more they learn about global warming.

“I’m a heck of a lot less worried about terrorism than I am about carbon dioxide,” he said.

For CL’s take on what Georgia might look like globally warmed, click here.

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UGA-GEORGIA TECH GAME: Coach Chan Gailey’s “Kill the Bulldogs with kindness” game plan didn’t work out.

(photo by Joeff Davis)

The rancor wasn’t as overt as in 1893, when a mob of knife-wielding, rock-throwing Georgia fans chased the victorious Georgia Tech football team back to its train, but the bitterness both sides have accumulated over the last 114 years was palpable during the UGA-Tech game Saturday at Midtown’s Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Though their team lost 31-17 to their intrastate rivals, Tech fans refused to go quietly. When throngs of Bulldogs’ fans left their seats at halftime to watch the Kentucky-Tennessee game on the small TVs in the stadium concourses, Jackets’ fans interjected with repeated renditions of “Rocky Top.” Several Tech partisans even reached up and switched off the TVs. When Tennessee’s eventual victory, which knocked UGA out of SEC championship contention, was announced over the PA, Tech fans cheered. (Many more cheered today upon hearing of head coach Chan Gailey’s departure. Gailey was fired two days after losing his sixth straight game to UGA.)

Incidentally, the supercompressed jockeying for TV-viewing angles in the concourse was lousy for the blocked-off concessioneers, but it was a boon for stadium frotteurs. “This is the most action I’ve had all year!” one smarmy fan announced to those crowded around him.

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A new study shows American colleges and universities are abjectly failing when it comes to teaching students about our country’s history.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institutes gave a 60-question, multiple-choice test to 14,000 students at 50 institutions of higher learning across the country — including the University of Georgia and the Georgia College and State University.

Nationally, students scored a big, fat “F” on their knowledge of history, answering an average of 54.2 percent of the questions correctly. At UGA, scores were above the national average, though not by much. UGA students had an average of 57.76 percent, while Georgia College students had a dismal 43.68 average.

(The test is online and you can take it yourself; I scored a passing grade of 70 percent.)

Of the colleges that participated, Harvard students had the highest average, 69.5 percent. UGA was 17th on the list; Georgia College ranked 43rd.

What does this show? Are we now at the point where we’re essentially teaching kids to pass standardized tests? Is history even relevant and meaningful to kids in the Internet Age? (more…)

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